Board member resignation and more

We’ve had quite a busy week at International Village. First, the latest news: Board member Sharon Treppicione last night announced her resignation from the Board of Directors. I want to take this opportunity to thank Sharon for her service and to wish her good luck in her future endeavors. I have been informed that a special Board meeting will be called to discuss how to handle the vacancy. According to our property manager, we have the option of either appointing someone to fill the vacancy by majority vote of the Board or scheduling an election by the unit owners. I personally prefer letting the unit owners decide. The more democratic we can be, the better. Board President Marvin Tow is proposing we hold the meeting this Thursday, April 25 at 10:30 a.m., when most unit owners are at work. If you agree with me that the meeting should be held in the evening when it's convenient for working people to attend, please let him know how you feel by emailing him at ivmarvin@mac.com, and be sure to copy Board members Collette Goslin at colletteg@comcast.net, Marc Richman at mwrmd@yahoo.com and Frances Mesirow at fmkmbm@yahoo.com.

Now to recap last week’s Board meeting (video here). First, a small victory for free speech: After being omitted from the posted meeting notice, the “Good and Welfare” portion of the meeting, where individual owners have the opportunity to speak about any issue, was restored to the agenda, although it was placed at the end of the meeting. I would have preferred keeping it at the beginning of the meeting as has been the tradition for many years, but something is better than nothing.

We also had some good news about our roofs. As many of you know, the $22,000 engineering report that the Board commissioned last year recommends replacing the roofs of four of our residential buildings, plus the clubhouse roof, at a cost of over $1.4 million. After several unit owners and I insisted that we look for the existing contracts for those roofs, our property manager found several roof contracts including one for the Marseilles building. The bad news is that the warranty on that roof expired this February, about six months after the engineering report recommended its replacement at a cost of $321,000. The good news is that the roofing company is willing to extend the warranty for $5,000. Nonetheless, Jerry Mirrow and I have asked our property manager to use the engineering report as proof that the old warranty should cover any repairs and/or replacement since it shows that the problems existed before February.

In a related matter, our property manager has prepared a maintenance schedule to address many of the issues raised in the engineering report. This also is good news because handling these projects in-house will save us a lot of money versus hiring a contractor.

And in another money-saving action, the Board unanimously agreed to reverse last month’s decision to install a $3,500 button-operated handicap-accessible door in the rear of the Marseilles building. As I said in a previous post, after last month’s vote I did some research that showed that condo associations are not responsible for the cost of handicap accessibility modifications. Our Board attorney (who had previously advised us that the Americans with Disabilities Act required the door's installation) agreed to look into the matter, and after confirming my findings he recommended we rescind our previous vote. While I definitely feel for the handicapped, as Directors we have a fiduciary responsibility to be careful stewards of unit owners' money, and considering we have 11 residential buildings with two rear doors each, this reversal has potentially saved us over $77,000. At the same time, I believe we should make every effort to refer the owner to the proper agencies for assistance with this expense.

Finally, I was appointed chairman of two new committees: the Village Beautification Committee, to spruce up buildings and common areas using volunteer time and resources; and the Social Activities Committee, to help revitalize the Village by organizing more events, parties, etc. Both committees will be meeting soon to begin planning. I look forward to helping guide those efforts. Stay tuned.