I attended the first hour of the BOD meeting tonight. I will share the notes that I took. Also, I have posted the meeting Agenda and two open letters that were handed out at the meeting (see below).
Jennifer (office worker) and BOD members (left to right) Wendi, Cynthia, Carol, Mark, Harold, David, and Tracy were in attendance. Not in the picture, but very much present, was a law enforcement officer in a very sharp-looking uniform. He was a striking presence, and it was easy to see why he was there. In attendance were approximately 40 unit owners. More than one were obviously upset and determined to be heard, whether they were in order or not. Only one audience member was truly disruptive, but it was easy to see how it could rapidly get out of hand. I believe that the officer in the room had a calming effect.
The very first order of business was to dismiss Tracy Thomas from the BOD. From what I could hear, she was in violation of a rule that states that a BOD member cannot be more than 90 days (?) delinquent in the payment of certain fees, and possibly fines. She responded by saying that she had, this very day, paid $12,000.00 to bring her account up to date. She also had some other explanations that I could not clearly hear or understand. In the end, she accepted the dismissal and joined the audience.
Before she left the BOD table, Tracy asked that the BOD accept petitions that had reportedly been signed by a number of TAJ unit owners. Apparently one petition is to have a recall vote to remove Wendi from the BOD, and another one is to have Wendi terminated as the TAJ property manager. At some point in the meeting, the President DID formally accept those petitions for review.
Agenda items #3 and 4 were about financial matters. Harold Scott reported that initiating a Forensic Audit was pending the completion of regular Yearly audits. The 2012 Yearly audit was only recently completed. Carol reported that the 2013 Yearly audit is complete except for some information (two numbers?) yet to be obtained. It was stated that the Forensic audits would cost (a minimum of?) approximately $15,000.00.
The issue of audits roused spirited participation from concerned Unit Owners. It sounded like some audience members (unit owners) were concerned that the accounting was being done wrong (maybe even worse). It sounded like the BOD was trying to weigh the cost of the proposed audit(s) against the potential benefits.
Agenda item #7 was Lisbeth's proposal for a common sense procedure to send income and expense statements to unit owners at the completion of any project for which the unit owner was given a SPECIAL ASSESSMENT (SA) so that the unit owner could be aware of any possible credit in their favor due to over-payments of their SA. That credit could then be applied to the unit owners' monthly maintenance, was suggested. The BOD apparently adopted that suggestion as a rule (from what I could make out).
Jennifer set the dates of November 6th, 13th, and 20th for Finance Committee meetings at which the yearly budget will be outlined. She also reported the need for SA meetings for buildings 22, 23, 16 (as shown in the Agenda, below) and also buildings 1 & 3 (not listed on the Agenda).
The Agenda item of most interest to me was #6: "Priority Topic to Discuss and Set Date on Assessment of Two Million Dollar Loan to Repay Operating Funds $approx. $325k, Loan approved by Board of 2006-2006." That item was tabled, as the President asked that more information be known before any further action be taken.
The second most interesting Agenda item was #17: "Selection of New BOD to fill Abandoned Seat and Re-voting of BOD Officer(s)." Unfortunately, I left before this item was addressed. Can anyone report what happened?
