PRELIMINARY DRAFT 

This “Preliminary Draft” may differ in some particulars from the official minutes (PDF icon at upper right-hand corner of this page).

In Attendance

George Pauley, President; Lorraine Meyers, 1st Vice President; Sandra Goldberg, 2nd Vice President; William Fortuna, Secretary; Steve Hanna, Property Supervisor; Tim Patricio, Property Manager; Mavis Mather, Assistant Manager Business Operations; Jacquie Smith, Assistant Manager Security Operations

Absent

Laura Cossa, Treasurer

Call to Order at 7:53 pm

Four Board Members were present constituting a Quorum as defined by the Association’s Declarations and the Illinois Condominium Property Act.

ASCO Report (Lorraine Meyers)

No oral ASCO report was given; however, information will be posted on the bulletin boards.

Motions from Closed Session

A1.  Upon due motion by George Pauley and seconded by Lorraine Meyers, the Board voted unanimously to approve insurance fines.  A2.  Upon due motion by William Fortuna and seconded by Lorraine Meyers, the Board voted unanimously to approve $750.00 fines for two units.  A3.  Upon due motion by Sandra Goldberg and seconded by Lorraine Meyers, the Board voted unanimously to approve not fining a unit.  A4.  No Action. A5.  No Action. A6.  Upon due motion by George Pauley and seconded by Sandra Goldberg, the Board voted unanimously to approve a $200.00 fine.  A7.  Upon due motion by George Pauley and seconded by Lorraine Meyers, the Board voted unanimously to approve a $100.00 fine plus move charges.  B2.  Upon due motion by Lorraine Meyers and seconded by George Pauley, the Board voted unanimously to approve a $75.00 fine.  B3.   Upon due motion by George Pauley and seconded by William Fortuna, the Board voted unanimously to approve a $100.00 fine plus move charges.  B4.  Upon due motion by Sandra Goldberg and seconded by George Pauley, the Board voted unanimously to approve a $100.00 fine plus move charges.  B5.  Upon due motion by William Fortuna and seconded by Lorraine Meyers, the Board voted unanimously to approve a $100.00 fine plus move charges.  C.  Upon due motion by Sandra Goldberg and seconded by Lorraine Meyers, the Board voted unanimously to grant an owners request.  D.  Upon due motion by Lorraine Meyers and seconded by Sandra Goldberg, the Board voted to approve waiving one late fee.  George Pauley, Lorraine Meyers, and Sandra Goldberg voted in favor; William Fortuna abstained; the motion passed.  E. Upon due motion by George Pauley and seconded by William Fortuna, the Board voted to approve deny reimbursing an owner’s insurance deductible.  George Pauley, Lorraine Meyers, and William Fortuna voted in favor; Sandra Goldberg abstained; the motion passed.  F. No Action.

Minutes January 25, 2010 Special Meeting

Upon due motion by William Fortuna and seconded by George Pauley, the Board voted unanimously to approve the January 25, 2010 Special Meeting Minutes.

Minutes January 25, 2010 Board Meeting

Upon due motion by William Fortuna and seconded by George Pauley, the Board voted to approve the January 25, 2010 Board Minutes.  George Pauley and William Fortuna voted in favor; Sandra Goldberg voted against; Lorraine Meyers abstained; the motion passed.

Schedule for Green Week

Upon due motion by Lorraine Meyers and seconded by William Fortuna, the Board voted unanimously to approve proceeding with scheduling events and activities for hosting a green week in the building.

Ratify Trash Compactor Purchase

Upon due motion by Lorraine Meyers and seconded by William Fortuna, the Board voted unanimously to ratify the purchase of a new compactor from Deco in the amount of $9,100.00.

Otis Elevator Addendum

Upon due motion by Sandra Goldberg and seconded by William Fortuna, the Board voted to hire a consultant to review elevator maintenance bids.  Lorraine Meyers, Sandra Goldberg, and William Fortuna voted in favor; George Pauley voted against; the motion passed.

Plumbing Riser Survey

This item was tabled.

Front Drive Sign

No Action.

Construction Requests

Upon due motion by Sandra Goldberg and seconded by Lorraine Meyers, the Board voted unanimously to approve the remodeling of units 710 and 5208, as submitted by the owners, following the recommendations of the chief engineer as outlined in their written specifications and in accordance with the Rules and Regulations and remodeling guidelines of the Park Tower Condo Association.

Treasurers Report (Steve Hanna)

As of January 31, 2010 the total operating funds were $255,628.65.  The total of the MaxSafe Money Market was $589,441.41.  The total replacement reserve funds were $1,481,509.44.  The total of all cash and investments was $1,737,138.09.

Board Report (George Pauley)

One of the things coming up very soon is that we will be meeting to discuss is the window sealant project.  All of you who have been here on a regular basis know what that is involving and you know that it is millions of dollars.  The Board has looked at several options with that, and the bid packets have already been sent out and we are expecting them back shortly.  One of the things suggested in a meeting two or three months ago, was to investigate if we did the window sealant project in one year, instead of spreading over four years, whether we could save money.  At first a couple of us were not for that, but we did go ahead and have Tim investigate it.  As it turns out if we were to do this, we could save very significant sums of money by doing it in one year.  One of the easiest items to save on is the $15,000 a year City of Chicago licensing fees.  If you do it in one year it is $15,000 and if you do it in four years it is $60,000.  The contractors, since they are desperate for work right now, are willing to give us a price 10-15% reduction in cost if we do the work in one year.  When talking billions, 15% does add up.  The problem is that we cannot afford do all that we need to do by doing it in one year; so Sandra had suggested that we look into bank loans.  Tim did some work into this and found that banks would like to loan us more money than we could imagine approximately 12 to 15 billion dollars.  We did find out that if we were to take out a loan, do this project in one year and pay it off in three years, after we pay the interest and take in the savings, we would be saving about $100,000.  Of course this all depends on the interest rates, but as we go forward with this project, we might look at this option in more detail.  Saving $100,000 seems like a good deal.  I wanted to put this out there tonight so that if we move forward with this, when someone says that the Association is thinking of taking out a loan, it is not due to a dire financial situation, but might be an alternative to saving money.  We do have it budgeted that we do have the money there each year, but if you look at the total numbers, we could pay off a loan more quickly than we could pay the whole project over three or four years.  I just wanted to put this out there and let people know that we are thinking about this so that it does not come as a surprise later on during discussions.

Management Report (Tim Patricio)

The building insurance package is coming up for renewal, so be prepared, at the next Board Meeting I will invite the incumbent to come and present their renewal proposal.  I do expect that again this year we will be able to get some competitive proposals.  I know that you have heard in the past that it is very difficult in a non-sprinklered building to get competitive proposals from carriers, but I am pulling as many people as possible.  It looks like we will have three brokers all together and probably four or five different carriers who will bid the primary packages.

Window washing will be around the corner.  If you recall, I believe it was in the December Board Meeting, where the Board approved for me to go with the lowest bidder or try to get our incumbent down to match that low bid because we were happy with the incumbent.  The incumbent came within $38 per wash, I felt that it was materially close enough to stay with somebody that we were happy with.  They are waiting with baited breath for my phone call tomorrow, but unless the Board has an objection, or $38.00 per wash is close enough, I would like to stay with the incumbent.  I am happy with this vendor; we have had so much fewer call backs that this is definitely worth the small price difference.

The floor captains, we have eight volunteers for floor captains.  That means six and a half floors per person.  We could use one more volunteer to get that down to five floors.  So we are still looking for a couple more volunteers and will post another notice.  I am tentatively looking at having a meeting in late March or early April to get this started, but we were really hoping to get a couple more people.

If you have an opportunity, I wanted to invite the Board members, individually if you like, I would really like you to see a couple of the things that Steve has been doing downstairs in the shop area.  I will send you an email about that and try to invite you to go on a little surprise tour down there.  It is pretty impressive.  I was always very happy with Chuck, but any time you hire a new engineer at a building you want to see what they will do and what they will bring with them that is new.  You always loose some things, but you also gain.  Some of the changes that he has put in place are very impressive.  It doesn’t do it justice for me to just talk about how wonderful the engineer that I hired is, I really would like you to see it.  I wanted to invite you to join me, at your leisure to visit the shop area and see some of the things that he has done in the past several months.

For the month of January there were 28 chargeable work orders totaling $951 in income and 138 none chargeable work orders.  The health club income totaled $11,580 with a current total of 309 memberships.  There were 37 late fees totaling $1,850.  There were two sales in January, a 1-bedroom for $167,000 and another 1-bedroom for $147,000.  This brings the year to date total to 18 sales with a yearly average sale of $155,101.  There were 6 leases for a year to date total of 92 with a monthly average of $1,000.  There are currently 20 placed in forced insurance.

Garage Report (Jacquie Smith)

There is no valet wait list for the garage, parking is immediately available.  The waitlist for 1-P self parking is 61 people.  The waitlist for 2-P self parking is 72 people.  The waitlist for tandem parking is 5 people.

Adjournment

Upon due motion by Lorraine Meyers and seconded by Sandra Goldberg, the meeting adjourned at 9:45 pm.

Signed (as seen on pdf, clickable at upper right corner of these minutes)

George Pauley, President

William Fortuna, Secretary