Highlights from the Town Hall Meeting on Selection of New Property Management Company

Board Members present: Sharon Bobb, Pat Batey, Clifford Cohen, Peg Downey, Jim Jones, John McNerney, Steven Schattman

BACKGROUND:

On November 30, 2015, the Elizabeth Condominium Board of Directors held a town hall meeting to discuss the selection of a new property management company. This was the result of months of work including development of a request for proposal, answering questions from owners and from applying property management companies, development of evaluation criteria, evaluation of submitted proposals, town hall meeting on the subject prior to this one, interviews of prospective property management companies, checking references and other methods of vetting the prospective companies.

In a unanimous decision by the Board, Gates Hudson Community Management was selected on November 17, 2015. Owners were notified on November 25, once a contracted was signed.

WHAT THIS MEANS

We have hired a new property management company to oversee the business of the ECA. This includes preserving our assets; maintaining and enhancing our property values; providing fluid communication between owners, residents, management, and the ECA Board; and providing professional assistance in the management, governance and financial matters.

The entire in-house management team will work directly for the ECA including the general manager, assistant manager and chief engineer as well as other staff currently on board. The new Chief Engineer will live on-site.

Legum & Norman will remain on staff until February 1, 2016. Meanwhile Gates Hudson Community Management will be working behind the scenes on transition tasks, including transfer of all personal and financial data, setting up bank accounts and much more. The new management company will assist in the hiring of our in-house management team and if these staff members are not on board by February 1, 2016, Gates Hudson Community Management will provide temporary employees.

The Gates Hudson Community Management executive team assigned to oversee ECA business is Lynn M. Kiley Executive Vice-President of Operations, Carty Massey, Chief Financial Officer, and Larry Hirschman, Vice-President of Operations. Their biographies can be seen the November 2015 Special Edition of The Elizabeth Condo Newsletter edited by Jackie Lapidus. Our community manager Larry Hirschman, who lives in Bethesda, will only be overseeing only one other building.

The contract is for one year with renewal possible for four times at one year contracts. There is a 60 day cancellation clause (the same arrangement made originally when ECA hired Legum & Norman).

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS FROM THE TOWN HALL MEETING

Q:  Will new coupon books be issued?

A:   This will be part of the transition effort. Pay attention to paper mail correspondence to stay on top of communications from our new property management company.

Q:  What happens to staff associated with our concierge services, pool management, and cleaning staff?

A:   These are all separate contracts and the staff for these services will remain in place.

Q:   Will Gates Hudson Community Management being using BuildingLink?

A:   Yes, our new management company uses BuildingLink in other properties that they manage and will help us enhance our own use here at the Elizabeth. Residents should continue to use BuildingLink to request maintenance services. There is also possibility that some residents who speak other languages may be able to receive communications in their language. This feature of BuildingLink is something we have not yet explored here at the Elizabeth.

Q:   Why wasn’t the decision to hire Gates Hudson Community Management done at a public meeting of the ECA Board?

A:   The decision involved matters involving contract negotiation, high-level personnel matters and proprietary information from other property management companies not selected so it is not possible to hold this kind of public discussion. Moreover, a former Board member who was on the Board that selected Legum & Norman said that the process they used was much less transparent and matters were debated and decisions made in Executive Session.  Furthermore, the situation at that time was entirely different, in that the Elizabeth were not changing management companies, but considering going from being self-managed to contracting out its property management responsibilities.  Two former ECA Board members stated that they thought the sitting board had been very transparent and commended them for holding other town hall meeting, regularly communicating the status of the activity, and going out for proposals for property management companies.

Q:   Will the ECA be using Gates Hudson Community Management’s sister company which offers a variety of services including engineering services, handyman services, and much more?

A:   ECA will continue to send out Request for Proposals as needed. Whether we use the Gates Hudson Community Management’s sister company remains to be seen. Gates Hudson Community Management is not pushing this option but has just let us know that it is available and offers certain discounts and timely services to the Association as well as to our residents.

Q:   What other buildings do Gates Hudson Community Management manage?

A:   The Gallery at White Flint in North Bethesda, the Victoria at Rockville Town Center, and Essex House in Washington, DC are three nearby buildings they manage. Sharon Bobb and Pat Batey visited The Gallery at White Flint and the Essex as well as some others managed by other companies to see how well they were managed and were satisfactorily impressed with Gates Hudson Community Management.

Q:   Why can’t we keep some of the Legum & Norman staff?

A:   The L&N parent company Associa does not allow waiver of the employee non-compete clause. This means L&N employees do not have the option of leaving L&N to work for the ECA.

Q:   Why couldn’t we keep Legum & Norman until the end of their contract?

A:   The ECA Board is elected to act in the best interest of the ECA members to protect and enhance their investments. The contract with Gates Hudson Community Management was signed on November 25, and notice had to be given by the end of the month in order to have a February 1 start date.  Pricing offered was only good until December 1. 

Terry Lee, Wanda Powell, and Keith Huey are employees of L&N and as such will remain their employees even after the contract is terminated.  It is the responsibility of L&N to place them elsewhere at the expiration of the contract. This also might mean that current L&N staff could be moved sooner than the February 1 transition date.

Q:  Will this new combination of outside property management company and inside staff cost the ECA more money?

A:   The Association is already saving a significant amount of money insofar as both the management fee and payroll processing costs are concerned. The actual savings depends on what salaries we pay our new in-house management team.

Closing remarks praised the Board for reading all the property management proposals and acting as a team to make this difficult decision as well as for the Request for Proposal team who spent many long months of work that made it easier for the Board to proceed.

Highlights from Town Hall Meeting on Smoke-Free Housing

Highlights from Town Hall Meeting on Smoke-Free Housing
November 10, 2015

The Smoking Exploratory Committee invited William Tilburg, JD, Deputy Director of the Legal Resource Center for Public Health at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law to speak about Smoke-Free Housing: Legal Issues and Implications.

Mr. Tilburg came right to the point—condominiums depending on their articles and bylaws are within their rights to impose an entirely smoke-free environment.

This means in the best case scenario:
—The condo association has a bylaw prohibiting smoking within the individual units (if so desired) and/or on balconies (if so desired). Maryland state law already prohibits smoking in common areas like hallways and lobbies.
—A smoke-free environment can be established through house rules but this is not the best method since it would be much easier to overturn the rules. The Elizabeth has a bylaw that addresses noxious odors but this is not sufficient.
—In a law suit, a condo has these conditions to back up imposing a smoke-free environment: second-hand smoke is a recognized health hazard and smoking is a leading cause of fires.

In the last year, there are already two condo associations within Maryland that have imposed a totally smoke-free environment. One has grandfathered several unit owners to avoid prolonged lawsuits. The estimated time for establishing a smoke-free environment is about one year.

And for the record, there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that guarantees the right to smoke. Prohibition of smoking is not covered under the laws governing privacy.

This Town Hall meeting was attended by approximately 35 people. Mr. Tilburg said he would be happy to return for any further educational purposes. The essentials including his talk and a Q&A ran about one hour. Kudos to the Smoking Exploratory Committee for an informative well run meeting.

Summary of ECA Board Meeting November 27, 2015

Board Present: Sharon Bobb, Patricia Batey, Clifford Cohen, Peg Downey, Jim Jones, John McNerney, Steven Schattman

Others Present: ECA General Manager Terry Lee; Legum & Norman Regional Manager James Santos; Jeremy Tucker, Lerch Early and Brewer

Highlights of the meeting:

Duct cleaning in individual apartments will take 3-5 days to complete once it is scheduled. Management is working on obtaining discounted prices for unit owners who wish to have AmeriClean clean the ducts in their individual units.  Management will make that information available shortly.  Unit owners wishing to take advantage of the discounted price will be invoiced separately.

Access problem to resident garage door was caused by a burned out laser reader. The part responsible for the door being blocked had to be ordered, which is why the door was blocked for so many days.

Out-of-order Garage elevator— a part is on order. The Board asked if is this covered in the contract ECA has with Otis. General Manager Terry Lee said probably the labor is covered but not the part.

Two motions unanimously passed. One motion was to change to LED lights [in the garage and associated stairwells) for a cost of $15,000.  The energy savings would result in a payback of that cost in two years or less.  The other motion was to remove sections of domestic hot water pipes in tiers that have had pinhole leaks or tiers with pipes that showed erosion in 2012.  Highly eroded pipes are susceptible to pinhole leaks. The sections removed will be sent out for testing to determine the extent of erosion and to guide us in effective treatment.  14 samples from the East and West towers will be tested.

Committee Reports

Conversation with Board October 24 addressed issues with pool use and pool temperature. This is resulting in a survey on pool usage and why some folks don't use the pool.

Design Committee has an upcoming meeting November 2.

Budget is reviewing ways of presenting the budget and finance matters to make it easier for people to understand— perhaps pie charts.

Ad hoc smoking committee is having a presentation by an attorney with U MD Law Center on Nov 10 in the West Lobby to discuss legal issues associated with smoking in a high-rise building. Also, survey questionnaire has been distributed and results will be analyzed and tabulated in a few weeks and provided to all residents.

RFP Committee—work nearly done.

Special report that Compared the Elizabeth to other condos in Friendship Heights—Barbara Pollack went over her report since there were some questions about the process and emphasis.

Thanks to attending neighbors for helping me prepare this summary of highlights.

Notes from the ECA Town Hall Meeting on ePIPE, October 6, 2015

Board Members present: Sharon Bobb, Pat Batey, Peg Downey, Jim Jones, John McNerney

http://www.restoremypipes.com

As an alternative to re-piping (tearing out walls to replace failed domestic water pipes) in the Elizabeth, a vendor named ePIPE gave a presentation to a large number of ECA members.

ePIPE benefits include:

—Patented epoxy that lines old pipes to close pinhole leaks.

—No walls need to be torn out unless the pipe is beyond repair.

—Relatively low cost because construction costs are diminished since walls, ceilings, and floors are not torn out. Price is 20 to 50% cheaper than re-piping.

—Epoxy lining dries in two hours and water goes back on the same day in most cases.

—The process is quiet unlike re-piping.

—ePIPE process restores water flow. (This happens in the pipe-cleaning phase of the process.)

—Rust is removed from the pipe that causes water to turn brown. ECA may not have this problem.

—Accreditations by NSF (The Public Health and Safety Organization) http://www.nsf.org/regulatory/regulator-nsf-certification

  and IAMPMO (http://pld.iapmo.org/file_info.asp?file_no=0004058)

http://www.iapmo.org/pages/getcertified.aspx

—Process is done in short runs and in a building like the Elizabeth, it is done tier by tier.

—Environmentally safe and causes no change in water quality (does not cause water to taste strange). The epoxy is solvent free.

—Comes with a 10-year warranty while new pipe comes with a one-year warranty.

ePIPE caveats:

—Bathroom and kitchen renovations may require consultation with ePIPE representative. Sweating of pipes is not permitted because high temperatures will damage the epoxy lining. Every valve is tagged warning that this pipe may not be soldered.

—Better to do ePIPE process before pinhole leaks become pervasive.

More information: http://www.restoremypipes.com

Neighboring condominiums that have used ePIPE and report satisfaction with the service:

—The Carlton

—Somerset 1

Major Competitor:

CuraFlo from Arizona. Does not offer two-hour curing.

10/4/15 Town Hall Meeting on Property Management RFP Process

Board Members present: Sharon Bobb, Pat Batey, John McNerney

Folake Fabunmi, a member of the RFP Committee currently reviewing proposals from property management companies, presented an overview of the RFP process. Then questions and comments were invited from Association members. Here are some of the highlights.

Communications between the residents, owners (onsite and off), Board, and management company was commented on and emphasized in a variety of ways. Association members are interested in timely responses to their inquiries (whether done through email, BuildingLink, and/or phone calls) from a management company and some, though not all, were interested in more use of BuildingLink, our web-based service. Most agreed that communications should be done in a variety of ways to ensure that everyone can expect to receive timely information. This would include paper, email, BuildingLink, elevator notices, etc. In particular, the management company should follow up on issues reported to front desk and have clear procedures to encourage office/front desk coordination.

Financial Management was a matter of big concern. Such concerns voiced included:

—Integrating the financials with the maintenance budget and improvement plan (MR&R capital improvement plan); communicating on budget matters more clearly, especially dealing with condo fees.

—Presenting financial information in as simple a way possible so that everyone can understand.

—Budgeting and accounting for capital expenditures and appropriately tracking variances need to be emphasized.

—Understanding how to manage and update a capital management plan, such as the one the Elizabeth is currently undergoing.

—Understanding the management company’s responsibility in the procurement processes done on behalf of the Association, especially when the management company has made a vendor recommendation.

—Acquiring a robust database for daily updated and integrated information to provide custom reports as needed.

Human Resources. A number of questions were raised, particularly around the issue of keeping our current property management company. Some people advocated for keeping the Legum & Norman to maintain continuity with the employees.

—Can we keep some of the current employees if Legum & Norman is not selected as the ECA property management company?

—Can we give some points to Legum & Norman given their work on the capital improvement projects that the Elizabeth has completed?

—What are the trade offs between having a general manager who works directly for the ECA versus one who works for the property management company? The focus should be on competence.

—Can we start doing annual evaluations of property management personnel who work for the ECA?

Other areas of concern for our next property management team:

— Record Keeping.  There should be a clear record of current residents and owners in the building.

—Rentals. Ability of the management company to work proactively with the Board in an advisory capacity, especially around the topic of limiting the number of rentals in the building.

—Teamwork among management, Board and residents.

For the record, in the six years that Legum & Norman has been our management company, they have never been evaluated. While L&N has been in our employ, they have been given salary increase without annual performance evaluations.