An owner offers a very expensive gift and the board rejects the gift

An owner in the building had his partner die recently and he had spent his last days in his apartment in the PS. He lived on a floor that had a round table at the end  of the floor framed by the windows overlooking Washington Road. Also on the floor was a desk between the elevator doors. Each piece of furniture had a plant on it. The donor found the same pieces of furniture at Kofski’s and it was available. The people of the 4th floor loved have the hallways decorated with furniture and especially the donor.

So the owner decided in memory of his partner’s death he would purchase tables and desks for each floor and gift it to the building. He proposed the idea to the head of the board and he said he would present it to the board. It was presented to the Jan board meeting and they voted to not accept the gift. The next day the one table and one desk was removed from the fourth floor.

This building is always crying we do not have money to do all the things the owners have suggested and then they reject about a $5000 gift. This also took 2 months for the board to discuss and the donor has not even been notified that his gift has been rejected. Our floors look like institutional hallways. All the buildings I have been in in PB have lovely pieces of furniture in their hallways.

Maybe it is better to access the owners once again for hallway furniture in the future?

Note: I think they partly rejected the furniture as they thought it was a few inches too wide for the hallway.

Construction Noise During “Season”

Since I arrived there has been construction noise above me. Frank, our building manager , had so many complaints that he was able to stop it for Christmas and New Years. The condo has no rules about construction during high season or any law about the length of said construction. So after New Years the noise continued.

I wrote a letter ( found below) to the board and hoped that they might act on this quickly so we do not have to have this noise for the balance of the season. I was unable to go to the January meeting when my letter was read but the board did not choose to act about this problem.

The board wants this building to rank in the same category as say the Rapallo or PB buildings but having no rules about noise during the season sort of takes us out of that category alone.

I also never received an answer to my letter!

 

 

To: Frank Lagalante

And To:  All members of the condo board during the Jan 15^th meeting

January 4, 2012

Change of Rules Regarding Building Construction Noise

I am sorry that I cannot be at your January meeting but Frank has promised me that he will put my letter into his managers report at the Jan 15^th meeting.

When Michael Roefaro was elected to be the head of the board he asked me to put a committee together to work on updating the rules of the building. I started but for various reasons, the committee changed hands to another resident of the building and it has never been changed and issued to owners. That was 2 years ago.

One pressing rule change that should be put into effect asap concerns noisy construction in residents apartments. I came down to my condo at the end of November and since then I have every day heard the construction in 1202. Frank was able to stop the noise during the immediate holidays, thankfully, but it has started again and unfortunately no one knows when it will be completed. I advocate that there should be no noisy construction during season, Thanksgiving to Easter. Most buildings that we consider ourselves to be in the same league with have this rule.

The second part of this change in the rules should be a permit executed by the building manager to how long a construction project will take during the non season months Frank can gage the appropriate length of the project and issue a permit for that time period. If the construction runs longer than the permit allows the building has the right not to renew the permit or extend it for a few additional days.

In my case and everyone that lives in the area of the 2’s and 1 apartments, we had to listen to 1202’s noise and  unit 901 also was going through some noisy construction after they moved in.  I cannot be the only person bothered by this noise. I saw my neighbor in 903 storm into the office annoyed by the construction noises. Noise  travels in this building.

I hope you can address this issue in a timely matter, as this is my second year in the  building with construction noise, last year it was the outside of the building.

Thank you for your consideration,

 

 

 

 

Commentary on Meetings Minutes

I have asked many times to have the minutes from meetings (I have posted in the previous post 3 months of minutes) emailed to me as I am a seasonal owner but unless I ask the office they are never sent. I also realize that these printed minutes, that are only posted near the mailboxes, are washed by the secretary of the board. If there were any heated comments or questions asked or said they would not be in these meetings. In this present day when you can dial an 800 number and have any owner listen to a condo meeting our board does not offer this or is it even in their future thinking.

They think they are going to build a website and they might use that for minutes and perhaps discussions but they do not know how expensive it is to mount a proper website that works for their needs.

This is just my opinion but I feel since I pay the same monthly fees as someone that collects their mail I should have the same opportunity to know what is happening to my home and investment.