Highlights from the 9/9 HOA board meeting

The official minutes from the HOA board meeting on 9/9/15 should be available on this blog in the next couple weeks or so. In advance of the official minutes, below are a few highlights from the meeting, attended in person by all four current board members, as well as Property Manager Matt Brown and Building Manager Karen DeGraw. Approximately 10 other Esplanade residents were also on hand.

Announcements:

Throughout the meeting, a few announcements were made:

• Matt Brown, the Esplanade's Property Manager who works for Condominium Management, was introduced to the group.
• Also introduced was new board member Kelly DeLaat-Maher, who has taken over for Rodger Morris as the commercial representative on the board. Kelly is a shareholder at Smith Alling, P.S., whose practice concentrates on real estate, business and construction matters.
• A official revision has been made to previous board meeting minutes to clarify information related to water leaks in the building last February. These revisions were necessary to clarify the situation for insurance purposes.

Treasurer's report:

• According to Property Manager Matt Brown, no new financial documents are available at this time. Matt requested to defer this report until the next meeting and the request was granted by the board.

Committee reports:

• Finance Committee: 
  Board member Dave Rodenbach expressed his desire to convene a Finance Committee meeting within the next few weeks. The board unanimously expressed interest in utilizing the Finance Committee for several upcoming purposes, including planning for the 2016 HOA budget, and examining the HOA's investments to explore possibilities for greater returns.

• Club Room Committee: 
  Building Manager Karen DeGraw reported that a new TV for the community room will be purchased this week, but will likely not be set up for at least another week. A total purchase and installation amount of $3,500 was approved by the board. There was some discussion on use of the existing TV, including installing it in the club room, or using it as a multi-camera-view security monitor in the Building Manager's office. No decisions were made on this, however.

• Social Committee: 
  New committee chair Sallie Zimmer listed a number of upcoming events that the Social Committee is working on:
• The "Taters and Ice Cream" social this Saturday evening (9/12). Forty residents have already signed up for the event (see informational flyer HERE). Although the RSVP deadline has passed, residents might try contacting Sallie if they are interested in attending.
• A Thanksgiving food drive
• A Christmas tree-trimming and potluck party in December, including an auction to raise funds for the Social Committee
• A Valentine's Day event in February

• Safety Committee: 
  Committee chair Pat Pound noted two upcoming building safety tests:
• Tuesday, September 15, 9 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., annual stairwell, elevator pressurization and smoke control testing. For a flyer describing this testing and the closing of the elevators and stairwells, click HERE.
• A fire drill is being scheduled for October - more information to come.

Old business:

• Update on "settlement funds": 
  At the August HOA board meeting, there was discussion of HOA funds that were obtained through a settlement with 1515 Dock Street a few years ago to compensate the HOA for leaks in the parking garage. As an update to that discussion, Board President Debra Goodrich reported that there is still $7,800 available in that fund. The board determined that those funds would be best moved to the HOA operating budget for general building repairs and improvements.

• Building repairs, cleaning, and improvements:
  Building manager Karen DeGraw presented a long list of projects on which she is currently working, and gave updates on many of the projects. These included:
• Rooftop compressor: The failed rooftop compressor has been replaced, at a cost that was approximately $30,000 less expensive than original estimates and also significantly less than the amount suggested by the HOA's reserve study.
• Temperatures in the hallways are believed to be stabilized, as a result of several (relatively) inexpensive fixes to HVAC elements. However, the colder months ahead may still bring temperature swings in the hallways. The situation is thought to be solved, but will continue to be monitored.
• Karen has been researching the warranty on the building's roof, as documentation on this is spotty. It is believed that the 20-year warranty is still in effect, and the roof has not experienced problems; Karen's research on this is precautionary.
• Karen has also been researching elevator companies to see if lower prices might be available for inspections and maintenance.
• At the request of the HOA, the City of Tacoma will soon install a 30-foot loading zone to replace the street parking on Dock Street, just north of the entrance to the Esplanade's circular drive. The loading zone is necessary to reduce the high number of delivery, moving, and service vehicles in the circular drive. (For more information about parking at the Esplanade, click HERE.) The loading zone will be in effect until 6 p.m. only. When residents are moving in or out, Karen still recommends a barricade permit.
• Next week there will be installation of screens on exhaust grates to keep leaves and debris from clogging drains on the grates. This will help prevent water leakage into the parking garage through the exhaust grates.
• Furniture left from the sales staff in the club room will be removed within a week or two.
• Miscellaneous painting in the building is ongoing, including touch-ups and all of the walls on floors 7, 8 and 9.
• A new, rotating carpet-cleaning schedule is being developed for the hallways. The aim is to clean one floor every week, so that each floor is cleaned every nine weeks. There was some discussion of ultimately replacing the carpet in front of the elevators on all floors with tile (similar to the tile in the lobby). The high-traffic areas in front of the elevators on each floor would stay much cleaner if they were tile instead of carpet.

New business:

• Changes to residential rules:
  Changes to the building's residential rules have been discussed at length in past months, and are now nearing completion. Property Manager Matt Brown is currently going through the changes. In the near future, the rule updates will be mailed to all owners and residents, and will go into effect 30 days after the mailing. (To see these rules as they currently exist, follow the "Esplanade Documents" link from the Esplanade News website, or simply click HERE.) As reported on this blog in July, changes to the residential rules may include:
• Establishing a minimum term for rental of units, possibly 6 months.
• A fine for homeowners who fail to notify the building manager and the property management company that they are renting out their units, possibly $250 for every month a unit is rented and notice is not given of its rental.
• More rigorous enforcement of move-in and move-out fees. A suggestion was made to enforce a $500 fee for each move-in or move-out, with $250 of that amount refundable if no damage is done to hallways, elevators, etc.
• Extension of hours available for moving and having construction work done in units - allow such activity from 8:00-5:00 on all days of the week, not just Monday-Friday.
• Create language regarding "courtesy notices" before fines are levied for violating residential rules. Residents may receive a courtesy notice on a first violation, and a fine on subsequent violations for certain offences.
• Continue to allow holiday decorations in residential hallways, but place a time limit on those decorations.
• Add "Presa Canario" to the list of "dangerous dog breeds" in the rules.

• Contracts for HOA audit and reserve study:The board gave approval for Condominium Management to contract on the HOA's behalf with two companies, one for the yearly HOA audit, and one for the continued inspections and updates related to the building's reserve study. The audit and reserve study updates are required by law - the board gave approval to Condominium Management to sign contracts for those services.

Resident questions:

• Parking:
  Two residents present at the meeting asked about parking in and around the building. Parking at the Esplanade is an extremely complicated issue that has been discussed ad nauseum for years. Many questions can be answered by reading the information HERE. New information that came out of tonight's conversation:
• Building residents can no longer purchase 24-hour monthly parking permits from Republic Parking for the upper garage. Presumably this is because as commercial units were sold recently, their deeded parking spaces are now for their exclusive use, and cannot be used by residents. By law, the spaces not reserved for the commercial units must be available to the general public.
• Some of the information on the Republic Parking signs in the upper garage is outdated. A request has been made for Republic Parking to update the signs.
• The resident-only discounted rate of $4 from 7 p.m. - 7 a.m. is still available all seven days per week. In order for residents to use this discount, a top-secret code must be entered into the kiosk. If the top-secret code were printed here, it would no longer be top-secret, would it? The code can be obtained from building manager Karen DeGraw.