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I promised this article two weeks ago. The blog has been busy. I've had informative articles presented by some of our residents. I took a short break from writing so that you could hear from other residents. Soon it will be time to vote by proxy or ballot at the annual meeting. Hopefully, the articles have helped you determine who you will vote for. Here is one more to think about.
During the resident comment section of the October WPA board meeting the president of one of the condo associations spoke. Please listen to the tape at The Wedgefield Times. I was present for the meeting and so I'm going to summarize what I heard. I will leave the name of the resident who spoke out of the article. I'll relate what I understood as I listened to the best of my ability. In all cases if you have questions listen to the tape.
The condo president stated that one of her residents had sent his quarterly condo regime payment to the WPA in July, by mistake. She further noted that this resident had paid his 2012 WPA assessment on time, earlier this year. She stated that the error payment to the WPA landed at the management company. Despite the fact that the resident had sent the payment to the wrong address, the payment was made out to the appropriate condo regime. The management company cashed and credited the check that had been made out to another entity and deposited it. The president of the condo regime tracked down the error, notified the WPA in July, and asked that the money be returned to the regime. Time went by and normally the regime would have charged a $20 late fee to the condo resident. From what I heard the condo president did not feel that the condo resident should be billed the $20. The regime would not have been without the quarterly payment if errors hadn't occurred due to the management company. In fact, the regime president argued that the management company should never have cashed a check made out to the regime, and the problem was compounded by the fact that the management company should also have noted that the resident had already paid their 2012 WPA assessment. The condo president wrote a letter to the WPA and requested they, or the management company, pay the $20 late fee. She thought it was fair since she didn't believe they should have cashed a check obviously made out to the regime, and complicated further by a three month lack of action. Treasurer Cline, wrote her a letter denying her request. Cline stated that she had written the letter and no one would be paying the $20 late fee - not the WPA, nor the management company.
I felt the regime president had a point. First, the WPA receiving a condo regime payment has happened before. The condo residents pay their regimes, and they pay the same WPA assessment that non condo owners pay. Errors had occurred on both the condo resident side and the WPA/management company. This could have been rectified quickly. Not so in this case. Three months is a long time. Additionally, this condo president sat through a lengthy October WPA meeting. A HUGH amount of time had been spent by the WPA board trying to legitimize giving 24 families, new residents, a $20 gift card to Walmart. Please see "A Quick Report On The October 16th Board Meeting" at this blog.
I don't know what the budgets and income are for these condo regimes. From what I witnessed this president was just protecting her sub association. She stated a few times that her request was based on principle. I understood "on principle", but the same WPA board that was going to throw $20 gift certificates at new residents who they had failed to serve in any kind of a timely fashion, would not award this condo regime $20 in late fees for their untimely action towards the condo regime.
Maybe someone on that WPA board could have gotten the regime payment back to the regime in a timely fashion if our board wasn't busy:
*fixing the 2 lot/4 lot problem at the county offices - doing a residents work when they should have stayed out of it,
*making new rules on how to answer residents, they haven't answered since Feb.,
*establishing a new committee to determine how to answer residents - wait they failed to do that,
*running to the attorney for secret canal option opinions and then failing to get the opinion in writing so we all could review it - first hand,
*collecting signatures on volunteer Confidentiality Agreements, whose foundations were false, the board has broken numerous times, and now the board is having extreme difficulty securing volunteers for most committees,
*fixating on how to improve the golf course, when we don't own it,
*promising a canal lot owner survey they just can't get around to,
*berating fellow board members who ask questions,
*ETC., ETC., ETC.
Residents, three of these board members are running for re-election - Anderson, DeMarchi, Walton (John). We have 3 board seats open. We have a fourth candidate - Wijthoff. Vote for Wijthoff and begin to clean house. NOTE: Wijthoff has not requested endorsement from The Wedgefield Examiner, and he has not been asked to review or approve this article.
