BOD meeting on 8 September 2015

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?

One Unit Owner's Open Letter Challenge to Other Unit Owners

A LETTER TO ALL TAJ RESIDENTS

from Mark Morgenstern

    Good day, I am writing this open letter not as a BOD member, but as a Home Owner living at TAJ. I pay my monthly charges just like everyone else. I do not want to pay for items not needed. We have all been bombarded by E-MAILS, NOT SIGNED, (there must be a reason, for not signing them?) The owner of this Blog reads before releasing, and will only send out correctly signed letters, or e-mails!

Unsigned emails leads to no responsibility! You can e-mail half-truths, made-up stories ( The National Enquirer has been doing this for years, If you believe in Flying Sources, OKAY), false information, or just plan LIES.  You can keep sending as often as you want, print anything you can think of -- with so much muck who would know the difference between a half-truth, and a half-lie. People love to hear and listen colorful stories, and people that tell them lies that they want to hear. But an old saying is "Be careful what you wish for! It may turn out to be some- thing else, and then it is too late!!"

There has been a lot of talk and roar about a FORENSIC AUDIT!  E-mails flying “Some members of this BOD are afraid of an Forensic audit.” “The old Board stole money” “They are guilty of crimes & must pay” “They are afraid of an audit!” “They are blocking us for making this happen” Hang them at once”!  All great hype! Let us set the record straight!  NO ONE ON THE BOD HAS STOPPED ANY AUDIT; FORENSIC OR OTHERWISE. ANYONE SAYING OR PRINTING THE FACT IS A LIAR..ONE MORE TIME, A LIAR.

Anyone who attended the last BOD meeting saw that one board member brought this project to the floor. Having a FORENSIC AUDIT done at TAJ. He was asked many questions, for which, at that time he had no answers. The questions were: Does the accounting company have a license to do this type of FORENSICE AUDIT? Please remember TAJ is not the usual type of community. What years do we want audited? What would be the total dollars evolved? How would payments be made? What is this company’s background, & others? To be answered at a later BOD meeting. THIS PROJECT WAS NOT DENIED! WAS NOT TURNED DOWN! WAS NOT DISMISSED!  That is the truth, and ANYTHING ELSE IS A LIE. 

Now, I have a great idea. This project may cost $10,000--$20,000 -- maybe even close to $100,000 -- who knows. If there are so many Homeowners at TAJ that want to assess us all, then let them stand up and say so and put their MONEY ON THE LINE! Let these Homeowners sign a legal contract to the effect that if the end result of a FORENSIC AUDIT proves NOTHING WENT AMISS, and NO CRIME WAS COMMITTED, then they will pay the cost of the audit and those unit owners that did NOT sign on will not incur the cost of it. 

I think that the unit owners that are anonymously complaining about the past BOD should PUT THEIR MONEY WHERE THEIR MOUTH IS.

Open Letter to TAJ Unit Owners from BOD Member Mark Morgenstern

The following is a letter that came to be by email from Mark Morgenstern, a member of the TAJ Board of Directors, who asked that I post it online. I am happy to publish this letter, unedited, as it does not appear to contain any direct attacks on named individuals, and the author clearly takes ownership of his remarks.

Let me also state the obvious, just in case anyone might get confused: just because I post someone's letter on this blog does not mean that I necessarily agree with the opinions, factual claims, interpretation of events, or philosophy of the author of the letter.

*******************************

An open letter to all at TAJ from Mark Morgenstern          3/5/15

Good day, I will like to state a few facts. Within the past few months there have been many snide-remarks, rumors, false-hood, just plain lies, plus our-right Mail Fraud perpetrated, spread by mailing, e-mails throughout our community; no proof shown anywhere, just plain speculation!!!

Because of these issues, TAJ & its BOD has been put under a microscope and deeply examined by The Town of Plantation; The Building Dept of Plantation; Code-enforcement; The State of Florida; Dept of Professional Regulation; The Broward Ombudsman! The results turned out to be;… one needed letter to extend our Audit to the Community! Plus when we took the board, the audit was four- to-five years beyond; now it is two and before the year closed out; up to date. Did anyone do their research to see why we were so behind??? Because of all these issues & falsehoods more of your & mine Legal Dollars have spend; hours wasted that could have been spent to move forward. If you were at the last BOD meeting;  you heard one member bitterly complain about not being able to see old minutes they wanted and had to go to the Lawyers Office and was charged for getting these minutes. Number one; they were not charged; the building was charged. What the home owner wanted was the BOD minutes from 2005- to 2014, nine years! What she paid for was the printing; as normal. Number two; any results from reading all the minutes? I think not, or we would have heard from them! Every decision that was made at our BOD meetings was with one idea; what was the best for TAJ. Not for the Board, not for certain Buildings, as was done is in the Past;  But Do What Is The Best for TAJ!!!! ONLY!!!!

Now, a question is asked, why didn't the office print out Nine Years of minutes for them?  Many answers. One, there had been verbal threats made in the office by Home owners, there was major problems with Home owners going past the normal routine of Office Visits. Maybe the Office was responding to the many “Office Requests Forms” being PILED into the office, one on top of each other, each line, completely filled up. Never happened before; put now, something was going on. The office was being PUSHED.  There have been more than 7 full page requests from one home-owner with 9 to 10 line of information each;, from hand tool inventory to, complete roster of residents, wanted. Other homeowners followed suit. The Office was being buried under paper work……..Something was not right. May of these owners were new to our community; within the last 1-4 years!

The so called tried & failed Re-call of our new Budget……….many of these new owners did not understand or want to understand the simple rules we all live under. 

AT this upcoming election the DBPR was asked to oversee the procedure? All these new home-owners have never seen our election process. It is normal, with Lawyers present, very secure, & has never had a problem before. So why ask the DBPR to oversee? WHY, they don’t trust themselves. By the way, there were double signatures, (not-allowed), names just printed in, and a few extra wrinkles added. But they will be here! And they are welcomed; there is nothing to hide. O, I forgot something, who is going to PAY to have them here………We all are, what is an extra thousand $ of our money being spent!!!!! Didn’t we all want that!!!!

Many of us have seen the entire extra letter being sent to them. Not one but a whole slew of them!!! Only sent to certain people. Many sent with the return address as the” Townhouses At JACARANDA”.  WRONG!!!!.....They were never mailed by our Office staff or the BOD……Federal Mail Fraud? This is an open case still in process……………….Other issues, too many to go into…………WHY!!

Take a step back and look at all the facts………….All are true!......Within the upcoming election 9 candidates running, 3 are newcomers 1-4 years; One is an old board member, did not complete his time in office. Why would you remove the treasurer; (never been any legal, or money issues!), why you remove the people with the most knowledge within the two large Suits against the Contractors who caused these building problems?

We as a Board are very proud of our accomplishments; from the many disasters we were faced with on day one, & I will not beat up the past again, to what we will leave behind. Daily accounting, up to day, bills paid on time. Construction being done; permits being pulled and closed out! Working closely with the City and Dept of Building, in Plantation. There are still many problems over TAJ, and the City must see community that can work together, not be torn apart!!!!!!

Stop and think before X your ballot; it is your money, your community, do not give it away!!

THANK YOU…………Mark Morgenstern

Special Assessment Meeting, Well Done

I happened to stop in and listen to a portion of the Special Assessment (SA) meeting that was held on January 4th.  I was able to see the paperwork that the BOD had prepared for the owners, and to listen to the dialogue that they were having.  

Because I have attended many SA meetings I know how they often transpire.  It seems that unit owners are typically on edge and suspicious (and who can blame them) and that the BOD members are frequently under-prepared and defensive.

Pictured, left to right: John Lovell, Mark Morgenstern, Carol Hazan, and Paulette Watson.

I was very pleased to see that the BOD was very well prepared with paperwork that appeared professionally done (thanks to the management office).  They BOD members, themselves, were relaxed, respectful, and not overly defensive.  As a result, in spite of palpable tension, unit owners were also respectful.  A genuine dialogue took place between the two groups, and difficult decisions were made with both parties appropriately represented.  

My hats off to the BOD and the management staff for their hard work and dedication in this matter.  If this is a sample of how they conduct themselves in all matters, then we have a fine BOD (and management office), indeed.  I also congratulate the unit owners of building 34 for their respectful conduct in such a difficult situation. 

2009-2010 Board of Director Members

[Wendi Hill, picture removed upon request]

W2ndy H1ll and John Lovell

Carol Hazen and Paulette Watson


Phyllis Fabara and Ben Odebralski


Mark Morgenstern