Sensible Financial Priorities?
One thing you can nearly always be sure of, after any meeting of the Board of Directors, I’m liable to have something to say, just as I do now.
During last night’s meeting, President Morgan, as part of his President’s Message, identified what he and/or the new Board decided would be the next three repair and maintenance projects that would call for the spending of Association funds.
The first item mentioned was the northeast walkway to the pool.
No funding amount was identified.
The second item mentioned was fixing the baseboards in the office and library.
No funding amount was identified.
The third item mentioned was the demolition and removal of the shuffleboard court complex.
And since we already knew the funding amount for the third item, that’s what most caught my attention.
Some time ago, an individual fell while walking across the decrepit shuffleboard courts. (Why that person didn’t use the sidewalk or the lawn is beyond me.) Anyway, that individual filed a lawsuit for personal injury damages. I believe the last information provided by the Association President was that the matter was “going away”, but I don’t recall any updates in the last 2-3 months.
Now, if you remember, during a Special Meeting of the Membership this past November, we were all asked to vote on a motion regarding these same shuffleboard courts, since they pose such a serious safety issue to those people choosing to not pay attention to the risk.
One voting option was to resurface the courts at a cost of approximately $25,000, while the second option was to remove the court complex altogether at a cost of some $15,000. The vote resulted in an approval (119 to 20) by the Membership to demolish and remove the entire court complex.
But interestingly enough, there was no third option given to the Membership, such as temporarily enclosing the area with some sort of safety or construction-type fencing. Some felt this was a far more prudent approach and spoke up as such, since money was so tight at this time, but the Board of Directors unanimously self-imposed both a Special Assessment and a Maintenance Fee increase just minutes later. (I suspect the 20 non-supporting votes were actually protest votes objecting to the fact Association Members were only given two options to choose from.)
It seemed to me (as well a number of others in attendance at the November meeting) that installing temporary safety fencing until such time as our finances were in better shape was the more sensible approach. The Board disagreed, primarily due to input (it seemed) from their very own on-call “legal expert”, the still-out-of-town Charlie Matteson. Mr. Matteson implied that our insurance company would view that kind of solution as only the bare minimum response. Hmmm, … if it’s the bare minimum response, doesn’t that mean it’s also an acceptable response and temporary solution?
Weird, … construction companies use that kind of fencing in far more dangerous situations than ours and their insurance carriers seem to have no problem.
Anyway, my point is this, … the $15,000 expenditure seemed to be very poorly timed, and in my opinion, very poorly advised by the 2025 Board of Directors. After all, it was only days ago President Morgan published in his monthly TamaSix article that the Association’s everyday operating account had recently been as low as $797.00. If that’s truly the case (though I’m not totally convinced it’s accurate), and since it was also announced last night that the Association’s treasury has only received about 25% of the anticipated Special Assessment funding, why the heck is there such a big rush to spend $15,000 right now?
I may not be the brightest bulb around, but really Board of Directors, on the surface that makes no sense at all. Spend the $300-$500 for some safety barrier fencing and bide your time for the next phase.
RFH
opinion(s) of this writer and does not necessarily represent the thoughts,
feelings or opinions of the Mainlands Section 6 Civic Association’s
current Board of Directors, either individually, or as a whole.