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; Laura Cossa, 1st Vice President; Carlos Vargas, 2nd Vice President; Betty Terry-Lundy, Secretary; David Nicosia, Treasurer; Tim Patricio, Property Manager; Mavis Mather, Assistant Manager Business Operations

Call to Order at 7:57 pm

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

Budget and Finance Committee (Paul Groeninger)

As you can see, we have already had four meetings to review the annual budget.  My notes from the fourth meeting are eleven pages long.  I am not going to read any of it.  There are two action items that we would like the Board to consider; and we would like for them to add at least one of them to tonight’s agenda.  Our next meeting which was scheduled for tomorrow night has been cancelled because I have not had a chance to catch up.  Our next meeting is Tuesday the 16th.  The meeting for the Committee will start at 6PM, and the open to the homeowners will start at 6:30PM.

There are two items, recommendations from the Committee for the Board to consider.  I know this is short notice, but the reason we are asking is because it could impact income for the balance of the year and encourage residents to make use of a facility that is a little underused.  The Committee is recommending that the Board approve a special promotion fee for the bike room.  The special promotion fee we came up with was $25 for anyone who signs up between now and March 1st.  We are trying to encourage people to use the room and hope that people will take advantage of this special offer and then agree to store it for the year.  March 1st the fee would revert back to the normal structure of $50.00 for the year.  This is the item that we would like the Board to put on the agenda and consider for this evening.  The second item is that we would like the Board to consider, before the end of the fiscal year, is that a freezer be purchased for the party room.

I can tell you right now that the items that the Board will need to consider before we finalize the budget are currently 27 items and you will have them in my minutes when I finish them.  We still have some more meetings so this could be added to.  I would like you to have a chance to look at these before you meet with the Finance Committee.  There is a correction, and I know that there will be an issue, but the proposed meeting with the Board says Wednesdays, but I know that there is a problem meeting any day but Monday.  I had proposed two Mondays, Monday November the 29th and Monday December 6th to meet with the Board and review the updates to the budget.  After Board discussion, the first meeting will be on Tuesday the 23rd at 7:00PM, and the second meeting will be Monday November 29th at 7:00PM.

Board Report (George Pauley)

I moved the Board Report to the beginning of the meeting tonight so that there might still be some people here.  I wanted to start out with what had already been mentioned, to thank William and David for planning the movie nights.  I want to encourage everybody to attend; it is free to enter but $0.25 for popcorn.  William and David donated a movie popcorn machine, so I would like to thank you again for that.

The next item I would like to report on is that I opened up a can of worms.  When I was looking at the proposed budget this year, I saw that we were paying $14,500 a year to rent Scooby, our bed bug dog, for two half days a month.  In other words, a lot of money for a very limited amount of use of the dog who basically inspects all the units once a year on this schedule.  So I said to Tim, for $14,500 a year, can’t we buy our own bed bug dog?  So Tim went and looked and investigated, and it costs about $10,000-12,000 to buy a bed bug dog.  That is where it got messy.  Then I found out through our Attorney that we can’t have a bed bug dog on premises because our declaration prohibits pets.  I said that this wasn’t a pet; it was an employee of the building.  None the less, it is against the declaration.  Scooby himself, just coming into the building violates our declaration, but our Attorney said that it would never hold up in court, if someone took us to task, even though it is against our declaration.  So we have this whole thing now where we can’t have a dog on the premises, but then that opened up another can.  A Board about four years ago grandfathered in a couple hundred cats.  Well, all of those cats are still illegal because the Board didn’t have, nor do we have, the authority to grandfather those cats in.  Now we found out that there are a couple hundred cats violating the declaration on top of the fact that we would like to get a bed bug dog to live in the building that would be available much more often.  We are looking at various options.  Tim is going to go out and bid, before the next meeting, to see if we can improve upon what we have.  We are also looking at what options we legally have to have a dog on the premises or if it is possible.  The other piece is that, when I volunteered Tim to go off to some other state and spend a few weeks getting trained with the dog, he said no.  When I asked if the dog could live at his house, because he lives in a building that has dogs, he didn’t volunteer.  In any event, we have a big mess here in terms of what I thought was a good idea to save money, and get us much more service, but we are going to look into what we can do about that.  We are also going to figure out what we can try and do about all these cats that people were told are now legal when they registered them and its not true.  We as a Board have a mess.

Motions from Closed Session

Upon due motion by Laura Cossa and seconded by Betty Terry-Lundy, the Board voted to approve the decisions made in closed session.  Laura Cossa, Carlos Vargas, Betty Terry-Lundy, and David Nicosia voted in favor; George Pauley abstained; the motion passed.

Minutes October 11, 2010 Board Meeting

Upon due motion by Betty Terry-Lundy and seconded by Carlos Vargas, the Board voted unanimously to approve the October 11, 2010 Board Minutes, as submitted by Mavis Mather, Assistant Manager.

Tax Appeal Invoice

Upon due motion by Betty Terry-Lundy and seconded by Carlos Vargas, the Board voted unanimously to approve paying the tax appeal invoice from Terrance Kennedy in the amount of $18,530 to be paid by Park Tower Condo without charging this amount back to the owners.

HVAC Set Point Policy

Upon due motion by David Nicosia and seconded by Carlos Vargas, the Board voted unanimously to ratify the approval of a HVAC set point policy consistent with the recommendations from the HVAC consultants that: on a sunny day: below 52º heating, above 56º cooling, and coasting in between; on a cloudy day (or at night): below 54º heating, above 58º cooling, and coasting in between; and it should be recognized that the employees will need to make some reasonable judgments and adjustments based on internal feedback, wind conditions, precipitation, or other extraordinary weather conditions.

Life Safety Project Change Order

Upon due motion by Laura Cossa and seconded by George Pauley, the Board voted unanimously to decline the proposed change order to the life safety system contract with Intelligent System Services, to install an additional two speakers per floor at an additional cost of $18,688.00.

Exterior Sealant Project Change Order

Upon due motion by Laura Cossa and seconded by George Pauley, the Board voted unanimously to ratify the approval of a change order to the exterior sealant replacement contract with JLJ Contracting, to remove existing paint on 170 panels, apply a new base coat and finish coat to the panels, at a cost of $26,995.00.

Board Liaisons

Upon due motion by David Nicosia and seconded by Betty Terry-Lundy, the Board voted unanimously to appoint Carlos Vargas as liaison to the Garage Committee, David Nicosia as liaison to the Home Improvement Committee, and Laura Cossa as liaison to the Rules and Regulations Committee.

2011/12 Proposed Budget Meeting Dates

No Action.

Market Signage

Upon due motion by Laura Cossa and seconded by George Pauley, the Board voted to approve the market and mall business sign proposed by the Ad-Hoc Committee in the amount of $23,500.  George Pauley, Laura Cossa, Betty Terry-Lundy, and David Nicosia voted in favor; Carlos Vargas abstained; the motion passed.

Bridgeview Bank Signatories

Upon due motion by Carlos Vargas and seconded by George Pauley, the Board voted unanimously to appoint Laura Cossa and David Nicosia as signatories on the Employee Holiday Fund and the Park Tower Social Fund accounts at Bridgeview Bank, and to remove all other signatories not presently on the Board of Directors.

Construction Requests

Upon due motion by George Pauley and seconded by Carlos Vargas, the Board voted unanimously to approve the remodeling of units 2101, and 2208, 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.

Bike Room Special

Upon due motion by Betty Terry-Lundy and seconded by David Nicosia the Board voted unanimously to approved a special rate for the bike room usage between the months of November 2010 and March 2011 for $25.00.

Treasurers Report (David Nicosia)

As of September 30, 2010 the total operating cash was $163,999.25.  The total of all operating cash and investments was $190,367.25. The total of all replacement reserve funds was $2,096,151.13.  The total of all cash and investments was $2,286,518.38.

Management Report (Tim Patricio)

Just a couple items of business.  First of all, the window washing will begin next week.  Obviously if the swing stages are still on a couple of tiers they will not focus on those tiers first, but if they need to return, they will.  The goal was to have the windows washed before Thanksgiving.  Weather permitting they will begin on Monday.

The party room blinds are tentatively scheduled for installation on Friday.  I apologize for those organizing the movie night event that we could not get it scheduled sooner, but for the next movie night you will have new blinds in here.

We are canceling the rescheduled meeting with Harry Osterman.  Based on feedback from the Board we will postpone that until after the holidays.  This will be after the new year, closer to the election.  Hopefully there will be more interest at that time.

We should be receiving a schedule for the replacement of the Health Club room floor within the next few weeks.  I don’t have dates for it yet, we were hoping that it would be done before the Thanksgiving holiday, but I should have a status update this week on that.

Finally, Steve Hanna sends his apologies; he became ill today and was unable to join us.

In September there were 58 chargeable work orders totaling $2,210 and 125 non-chargeable work orders.  There was $8,052 in health club income with a net increase of 4 memberships bringing the health club membership total to 304 at the end of September.  There were 4 sales in September, bringing the year to date number of sales to 13 with an average sale of $137,242.  There were 10 leases for the month bringing the yearly total to 63 averaging $1,007.  The September sales were a studio for $79,900, a larger 1-bedroom for $129,900, a smaller 1-bedroom for $125,000, and a combined studio and 2-bedroom unit for $285,000.   There were 29 late fees in September for $1,450.  18 residents registered for the online new bill pay system and 12 payments were received.  There are currently 51,826 therms of gas in storage averaging $0.49 per therm.

Adjournment

Upon due motion by Betty Terry-Lundy and seconded by David Nicosia, the meeting adjourned at 9:05 pm.

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

George Pauley, President

Betty Terry-Lundy, Secretary