No rush to complete big projects

On March 7, I attended the first meeting of the Special Projects committee, informally known as the "40-year certification" committee. (See meeting video here.) The big news from the meeting is that the city has not asked us to begin our 40-year certification, a county-mandated process that calls for safety-related inspections and improvements to buildings that have reached the 40-year mark. That's good news, because it means there is no need for a special assessment anytime soon to carry out the more than $3 million in building repairs and improvements outlined in the 2-inch-think engineer's report the Board of Directors commissioned last year. The bad news is that we didn't have to spend the $22,000 it cost to produce that report. Somehow, the fact that the report wasn't necessary until we receive a 40-year citation letter from the city, and that such a letter had never been sent, was not clearly communicated either intentionally or unintentionally, and the Board unfortunately jumped the gun and spent money we didn't need to. Clay Parker, a Sunny Isles building official who was invited to speak about the certification process (and who was actually one of the carpenters working on the construction of International Village back in 1971), said we probably won't hear from the city until October of this year at the earliest. The question is whether by that time the report, which is based on a July 2012 inspection, will be considered too outdated to rely on, thereby forcing us to spend another $20,000 or so to commission another one.

This is another example of how we need to be more prudent in spending unit-owners' hard-earned money, but let's not make matters worse by rushing to complete these big projects for no other reason than to justify the unwise expenditure of money on this report.

This issue will be discussed at our next Board of Directors meeting on Monday, March 18 at 7 p.m. at the clubhouse. I urge you all to attend and make your voices heard, especially if you aren't ready for another huge special assessment.