Dear Neighbor:
To begin, I encourage all of you to subscribe to this blog and encourage your neighbors to do so as well. And in the interests of transparency, a concept unbeknownst to the Board, please note that I will be advised by WordPress of the email of anyone who does subscribe, so you will not be anonymous to me (although you will be to the general public). But I would never share the subscriber list with anyone (especially our vindictive Board). WordPress will also set up a WordPress account for you with a goofy name after you confirm your email but you don’t need to do anything with that.
Now let’s take a closer look at the agenda for next week’s Board meeting.
- Delinquencies. Finally, a move to foreclose on our biggest delinquent. But any news on the other delinquent accounts, which total over $70,000? Of course not. And the Board wouldn’t even have gone after Blackman unless I and a few other owners kept hounding them on it. And what is this insanity that in January they’re retroactively approving an email vote they held back in September? I’ve never seen that kind of delay before. Not to mention that any “Delinquency Analysis” should be shared with the community as we paid for it. And if the Board continues to pretend that they are concerned about privacy, then redact the names/unit numbers; it’s not rocket science. Funny, however, that they never seem concerned about my privacy.
- Consultant Is Here To Stay, Apparently Indefinitely. Apparently the Board has agreed to keep the consultant on indefinitely “for the transition.” Now why is that? That’s the damn Board’s job, to oversee a transition. Not to mention that if the consultant is supervising it, then why are we keeping Chris indefinitely as well? Apparently the consultant will help set up a schedule for the new GM, walk him around, etc. Unbelievable. Why don’t we just keep the consultant and lose the Board? Chris has been an unmitigated disaster, and the sooner he leaves the better. There’s a reason he was passed over for GM twice, folks. Last, it will be amusing to see how they fit three people in the office while we still have Chris and the secretarial assistant; who gets to sit at the conference table?
- Sewer Update – Playing Us For Fools. As you know, Sewer ’24 happened back in April of that year – virtually two years ago already! And yet, the Manager’s Report will have this about sewers and other pending matters:
Preventative Maintenance Sewer Inspection – “camera inspection of lower units and soft jetting [of sewer lines].” Status: ongoing. Start Date: 9/23/2024. Action items: “This proposal has been received and Comsource is reviewing it.” Now think about that. This project started in September of 2024 and it’s still ongoing? And why is Comsource reviewing it (does Chris have an engineering degree?), rather than our Board or our outside consulting engineer? Also, if you look at last month’s Board packet you will see the exact same language, so the idea that the Board is doing anything with this is complete bullshit. (Because the recent sewer overflow in the C unit of my building wasn’t enough warning, although based upon past pronouncements if asked Marc Bertinelli is likely to tell you something along the lines of it was probably someone putting an armadillo shell down the kitchen sink.) Not incidentally, I wonder how much that latest sewer overflow incident is costing our insurance or, more likely, the Association which will pay without putting in a claim? I guess we’ll see about that or, in shorthand, ciotat.
Utility Doors – this has been going on since September 2022. There are no words for the incompetence of the last few Boards and Comsource when it comes to this matter. Frankly, Scarlet, I couldn’t give a damn about the utility doors, but I guarantee I would have had this issue resolved by now. To listen at every Board meeting to the Board and Chris whine about permit uncertainties and fire-retardant requirements and whether the doors have to have brass or chrome handles is, once again, complete bullshit and reflects their overall incompetence. Having handled constituent service for a Congressman for many years in my prior life I would advise these clowns to get in touch with the Ward 3 councilman and get this issue resolved quickly (unlike the mudhole tree square on New Mexico outside the main gate which took them how many years to repair?).
Lighting Update – apparently there has been a problem with the lights in the retaining wall in front of 3235 and a fix would “involve extensive work with the grounds and/or the retaining wall.” Geez, it’s not like they have done any landscaping in the front of my row for years, although Susan Lapetina has walked around there with the gardener. That being said, the start date is shown as March 2025 but we are still awaiting a proposal from Associa On-Call to complete the work. Seriously, Comsource, your own contractors, with whom have a very special arrangement, haven’t sent you a proposal in the last ten months?
Upper Terrace – simply a joke. Apparently we have spent 300k so far, with an apparently limitless horizon that may reach $1 million, and there’ s no way we have the money for this. Not to mention that the Board keeps pretending such a comprehensive project, which might now include the pool deck (and a cryogenic spa room on the upper deck?) won’t require the pool to be closed for any real amount of time. Yeah, good luck with that plan.
Cabanas – not in the report but from my own recent experience as a cabana owner. As you know from your January Pepco bill (or will soon find out), the price of electricity has skyrocketed. But the cabanas are a special case. My bill went from the average $35/month to $160 this week. Why, you might ask? Because, according to my conversation with Pepco yesterday, they haven’t read the cabana meters for the past year (shades of why we recently had to pay $18,000 or whatever it was for electricity for the pool) so they just decided to issue a retroactive/updated estimate of what I used for the past year. Related to that, all of those meters are scheduled to be replaced (although seeing as how the pool deck is locked for most of the year one wonders how they will read the new meters anyway, and I don’t think the radio waves travel that far). Along these lines, keep in mind that the Association owns a half-dozen cabanas (I’m not sure of the exact number and of course they were all combined into one huge cabana anyway) and so I wonder what their January bill will be. Just imagine that when the pool meter fiasco happened if the Board or Chris got off their collective butts and looked at the other meters in the pool equipment room? It’s pure incompetence and laziness, and we know the office staff hasn’t done regular walk-arounds for over a year anyway.
Audit – Susan Lapetina recently huffed and puffed and issued such a strong demand to Comsource about the missing audit, yet apparently if it was provided to the Board it was never shared with the community.
For those who have time on their hands, you might want to attend a lecture at my alma mater, Georgetown, given by our own Ross Harrison on February 12: “Book Talk: Decoding Iran’s Foreign Policy With Ross Harrison.” https://events.georgetown.edu/isd/event/37010-book-talk-decoding-irans-foreign-policy-with-ross You need to register at the link to attend. Of course we might be at war with Iran by then, launching our missiles from Greenland.
That’s it for the moment. Stay tuned.
