SaveTheHill.org

Many Updates, and Primary Election Tuesday by Kevin Wine, Apr 17, 2024, 11:21 PM, reply, branch, edit

First, a reminder that Today, Tuesday June 4th, is primary election day!! It is always a challenge to get voters interested in the primary elections, but they are very important, and especially in this town. Even if you are understandably disgusted with politics in general, the stakes seem to just be getting higher and higher with each passing election so it is as important as ever to chime in. The politicians may say they want voters engaged, but they really don't - the more you stay home and stay quiet, the better it is for them. Not participating actually plays directly into their hand. Voting speaks louder than not voting.

If you are unaffiliated, you can declare a party at the polling place on election day and vote in the primary of your choice. You can always return to unaffiliated status after the primary (there is a form to complete and send to the county election office). In the general election in November you can always vote for whoever you want regardless of party affiliation - that has always been the case. In terms of local polities, Piscataway is pretty much a one-party town, so all the action happens in the primary election - not the general. That is why it is important to participate in the primary!

Society Hill Election Surprise
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So much has been happening since the election on April 16th that I am hopelessly behind on so many things, including the election results email. If you don't already know, the results were:

Kevin Wine - 97 votes
Anthony Blanco - 89 votes
Farhad Ahmad - 69 votes
Shafeek Shaik - 62 votes
Patricia Mincarelli - 47 votes
Mary Thomas- 40 votes
Jotin Kehair - 29 votes
Charlene Sales - 21 votes

The results were a bit of a surprise to many people, including me. Both Anthony and I won seats, and by a considerable margin. And this was in spite of no candidate profiles in the election mailing, no return postage, another "Kevin bashing" candidate's night, and active campaigning (some negative - those comments eventually find their way back to me) by most candidates. Before getting in to the analysis, I want to thank those that supported Anthony and I and still have faith in the way things used to be. I still get many comments from owners who notice the contrast between where we were pre-2018 and where we are now.

It looks like two factors were at play in this election - first, almost all of Tong/Linda's voting block did not vote. Tong/Linda used to have a stack of 50 to 60 proxies every year for the prior 4 years, which allowed them to control the outcome of the elections. With them out of the picture, only about 10 of those 50 to 60 owners actually voted in this election. I find this very curious - either Tong twisted a lot of people's arms, or maybe a lot of people voted without knowing it. Second, there were a lot of candidates in this election (9 initially, then 8 after a disqualification) which is always nice to see, so the "anyone but Kevin" voters had a lot of choices which might have diluted their vote. It is also interesting to note that some of the other voting blocks might not be quite as big as some would like to think.

In retrospect, I regret not running in the 2022 election. We probably would have won - and some board decisions would probably have turned out differently. We sat that out, for a number of reasons, including my expectation that the court would enforce the petitions calling for a special election to remove trustees, but in the end the court did not agree with me so that special election never happened.

The Dump Truck Saga
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Now that I am back on the inside, I am catching up on what the Board has been doing since Tong finally managed to get me voted out in December 2021. Even while I was on the Board from 2018 to 2021, Tong pretty much "froze me out" so I wasn't able to get much information. For over 5 years, I essentially had no say in the Board decisions. The Association was run by a combination of the management company and the Board President, neither of whom had any maintenance, grounds, buildings, construction, design, machinery, or personnel experience. The result was numerous poor, illogical, or sub-optimal Board decisions. I have seen this situation so many times in other settings, where the people that end up in charge do not really understand the business. Nine times out of 10 this is a death sentence for the operation - I have come across very few people who didn't "come up through the ranks" that have the ability to consistently ask the right questions to find what they need to know to make the optimal management decisions, simultaneously see the small and big picture, adapt to change, and formulate a vision for the future.

The first case-study from the last 5 years is the dump truck. In the winter of 2022, the Board decided to junk our old dump truck and look for a new one. Tong got friendly with another owner who helped find a new truck that I'm sure was a perfect fit for what the Board leadership thought we needed. Mind you that Tong never operated a plow/salt truck, or even drove a dump truck for that matter, and as far as I can tell, neither did the owner that helped find the new truck. So $58,000 later, we had a 2012 Ford F550 "mason" dump truck, 72,000 miles, with a custom mounted salt spreader and snow plow. They purchased the extended warranty.

Everything worked fine until January of 2024, when the snow plow hit a snag in the road which damaged the plow frame. It turns out they bought a truck with a plow that had no skid-shoes, and no "trip protection"! So there you go - an immediate consequence of people making the truck purchase decision that never operated a plow before. The impact broke a weld on the plow frame, and the truck had to be driven off-site to a welding shop to be repaired. We used to have a welder, but the Board decided the welder was a "piece of junk" and threw it away. On the way back from the welding shop, the dump truck decided to shut off in the middle of the highway and not restart. It had to be towed to a truck repair shop, which was the shop connected with the dealer from which the truck was purchased - a logical decision, as one would assume they would honor the warranty since the dealer was the one who sold the extended warranty. What could possibly go wrong?

That was January - fast-forward to May - over 4 months later. Where is the dump truck?? It's still at the repair shop. In spite of multiple updates from the shop, the truck is still not repaired - not even touched. In fact, the warranty company is still assessing the claim, or so we were told. So I start contacting the warranty company - I register for an on-line account, find the warranty contract and guess what? No claim has been filed. I call them to confirm - yup, no claim. So you mean that truck has been sitting there for 4 and a half months, and the shop hasn't even filed the claim!!?? Yup. OK well then let's file the claim. Nope - turns out that particular shop is not certified by the warranty company to perform the work! So you mean the truck has been sitting for 4 and a half months at a repair shop that is not even authorized to repair the truck, who has been leading us to believe the problem is with the warranty company? Yup.

So that was the end of them - we had the truck towed on May 24th to a different shop, much closer to us, and who is certified to perform warranty work on the truck. We also went over last week to remove the salt that was still in the truck for the last 4 and a half months, outside, in the rain, eating its way through the salt spreader and the truck body. Are we near the end of the story? Hopefully, but not quite. After 10 minutes of googling, I come to find out that the engine used in the 2012 F550 trucks - the Ford Power Stroke 6.7 - is well known for a slew of design flaws and mechanical failures. So there you go again - the people making the truck purchasing decision probably didn't think to google "Ford F550 engine problems". Or maybe they thought the warranty would save them. Maybe - maybe - the warranty will get the engine repaired/replaced, but that isn't going to fix any of the fundamental design flaws in that engine. I would rather have a problem free engine and no warranty, rather than a warranty on an engine that is going to have one problem after another.

This is just one of several examples of future problems and expenses the Board has inadvertently created over the last 5 years. I will give them some credit for at least letting me handle this and other such problems - the previous leadership would not have let me do that.

The Front-End Loader
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Before I started looking at the dump truck problems, I was working on the loader. I noticed it had been sitting in the same spot under the basket ball hoop in the clubhouse parking lot for 3 months. After some investigation, I found out that it had been diagnosed with a broken turbo-charger, and that a repair proposal had been sent to the Board for about $15,000 to make several repairs and perform maintenance. After seeing the proposal cost, the Board decided to do nothing while it considered other options, including rental of a replacement loader. This was months before I was back on the Board.

When I was involved pre-2018, these were repairs that me and the crew performed in-house, and for a lot less cost. It is interesting to see the out-sourced repair costs, because otherwise the Board will never understand or appreciate the in-house savings. It turned out that we were able to repair the turbo-charger problem a few weeks ago for less than $2000. I found an OEM turbo from a vendor in Germany, and got the rest of the parts from the local dealer, and after 3 days of work and with the help of some crew, we replaced the turbo, changed the engine oil, oil filter, fuel filters, and engine drive belt. The loader is back in operation, after 3 months idle. It still has some other issues which need attention - but the major problem is fixed - and the crew has been able to catch up on several tasks that needed a working machine. Unfortunately, the repair was completed after most of the mulching was already done using the "Gator" to haul the mulch in hundreds of 1/3 cubic yard loads.

While no where near as crazy as the dump truck story, this is still another example of the Board not knowing what they are doing. They tried to save money by never replacing my function since 2018. While they struggled and were trying to do something, they just weren't familiar enough with the technical details to make the optimal decision. In the end did they really save any money? Was I saving us $60k/year by doing the repairs in-house? Probably in some years, when a lot of things were breaking. Would I have spent $58k on a new plow truck with a useless plow? And an engine with known issues? No. I would have spent $10k fixing the truck we already had. Would I spend $35k+/year on a pool contractor? No. Would I spend another $72k/year for an outside lawn contractor? No - that's enough money for two more seasonal workers, and they would be free for a 2 or 3 days a week and could do other things. Would I spend $30k to $50k/year on sprinkler repairs? No - that's almost enough to hire another employee just for sprinklers - and with time left over to do other things between repairs. So does all this add up to $60k/year in less cost? Yes - and there are/were other benefits as well.

While the Board indulges in various "experiments" in alternative ways of providing services, we are wasting a lot of time and resources re-discovering what we already know. This is why you get people with experience - so you don't have to re-learn everything from scratch every time you have another person that wants to run the show. We just spent 5+ years training up various wanna-be "facilities managers" and so far the results are mixed, at best. This is too big of an operation, with too many intricacies, to be winging-it. For 5+ years there was no one on that Board, and no one on the crew, that really understood all the aspects of the operation. And as an association we have suffered for that - so many things are broken, destroyed, lost, disorganized, discarded. It's a mess - it will take a few years just to undo all the damage and neglect and get back to square zero. What you can see from the outside - the general impression that things don't look quite right - is just an outward symptom of the internal decay.

Escrow Account
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The proposed bylaw amendment for the Escrow Account "theft" was not rejected, so the Board has successfully confiscated the ~$230k in escrow funds. I still think this is illegal - owners that bought a long time ago had much less money in escrow than owners that bought recently. All owners are supposed to pay the same fees - and this is a clear violation of that bylaw. I don't have time to litigate this right now, but it's on my list, depending on what the future brings.

Hampshire Court Paving
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At the May Board meeting, the Board approved several motions related to paving and Hampshire Court:

$268,000 for milling and re-surfacing of Hampshire.
$125,000 to replace about half the curbing on Hampshire.
$30,000 for ADA ramps on all sidewalks connected to Hampshire Ct.
$18,000 to rebuild 9 catch basins on Hampshire Ct.
$25,000 for road crack repairs elsewhere in the complex.
$20,000 to repair cracks on both tennis courts.
$6,000 for engineering design work for ADA ramps.

This ends up totaling to about half a million dollars. So I guess we are not broke after all. Hampshire Court is a mess, and has been on the paving list for years. I was not opposed to this. I was opposed to several of the "extras" that crept into this project and that added another $232,000. I voted no, but I knew it would pass anyway.

Dryer Vent Mandate
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Did you get your dryer vent cleaned in 2023? If yes, are you sitting down? Away from other people, and sharp objects? You will have to get it cleaned again this year.

Yup. In spite of the original mandate requiring cleaning every 2 years, what the Board really meant to say was "every even-numbered year". So 2023 doesn't count. You get to do it again in 2024. This is just an "administrative convenience" for the Board, to make it easier for them to keep track of when the inspection/cleaning is due. Their position is that if you disrespected the Board in 2022 and did the cleaning in 2023, your "punishment" is that you have to do it again in 2024. On top of that, the Board has refused to accommodate units with no dryer, ductless dryers, and dryers that are infrequently or never used. They continue to refuse to add language specifying qualifications for the dryer vent inspector, or specifications of what exactly they are supposed to inspect and how they should inspect it.

While I am still not opposed to the concept, I still contend this is an illegal over-reach by the Board. The dryer vents are your property - it says in the master-deed - and now the association is exerting control over the maintenance of your property. There is no difference between this and mandating that your water heater must be inspected every year by a water heater inspector, and your washing machine hoses must be inspected, and your circuit breaker panel, and your furnace, and your toaster. The Board doesn't seem to appreciate the sheer overhead of having all 545 owners calling a contractor out 545 times, and issuing 545 certificate, and sending them to the management, and management saving and tracking 545 certificates. If the average cleaning is $100, that's another $54,500 of "maintenance fees" we are being charged. For much less than that, the Board could buy some inspection equipment and send the crew around throughout the year to inspect all the vents in each building. This would be cheaper, far more efficient, and much more logical.

What troubles me most about this mandate is the attitude. Clearly the Board doesn't want to entertain alternative solutions. They have their plan, and as unrealistic as it may be, they are going to bulldoze ahead with it regardless, as-is. On top of that, they are going to change the rules mid-stream, and punish anyone (which is hundreds of owners) for disrespecting/ignoring their original demands in 2022. On top of that, this is all being decided behind your back via email, outside the context of an open meeting. It will be "ratified" at the July open meeting, but at that point most of the discussion will have already taken place. However, I will make it a point to bring up the issues in the open meeting so there may be some discussion and maybe/hopefully the outcome will be different in that setting.

Other May Motions
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Much more money was spent at the May meeting, in addition to the Hampshire Ct. paving:

$62k for a power-washing contractor to finally wash the buildings. This would be enough money to hire another full-time staff for an entire year - does it take one worker an entire year to wash all the buildings? Doubt it.

$200k+ to do another 4 roofs this year.

$20k of engineering work to replace the retaining wall around the pool area. Plus I'm sure there will be another $200k to actually do the work - but first the design has to be done.

$8k for engineering work on EV charger specifications for individual owners.

$29k for just the priority irrigation system repairs. This is in addition to the base contract, and I'm sure there will be many more issues and repairs this summer.

$35k for community EV chargers at Clubhouse, with a $5k cost-share agreement discount and $27k PSEG rebate, but still a net cost of at least $3k, plus a recurring yearly cost of $1400. But there is some profit sharing, so there may be some net profit depending on usage.

$6400 on clubhouse floor - long overdue and looks much better... but same material as before, so will probably wear down the same way.

Building 2 Update
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Last Friday there was a walk-though of Building 2. All 12 units on the right side are still un-occupied. Most of the less-damaged units are almost ready - I would estimate another week or so. It looks like they were trying to finish the exterior breezeways before anyone moves back in. The three heavily damaged units still need a few more weeks. I bet some of those owners are not too happy about being out of their units for this long. I didn't follow the building 2 story that closely because I wasn't on the Board until recently, so I don't have all the information and don't want to say too much. However, if it was me I would probably have prioritized the external repairs so the 9 other unit owners with the less-damaged units could have moved back in much sooner. The three gutted units being under construction for several months is understandable, but the others? Anyway, it is finally almost done.

While this fire was big issue for the impacted owners, there is an even bigger issue for the Association as a whole - the insurance. For a number of reasons, including this fire, the master policy insurance premium doubled from $300k/year to $600k/year. That is nearly half of our yearly operating budget going toward insurance premiums. This is a serious problem. The Board has gone all-in on their dryer vent crusade (which was not the cause of this fire, but was the 2016 fire), but is ignoring the bigger issue of all the other possible causes of burning down a building, and the other ways of reducing the fire risk, educating residents, detecting fires, and responding to fires. We have also had kitchen fires, candle fires, attic fans on fire, barbecue grill fires, and electric panel fires. Nor is there any discussion of how to deal with the winter slip-and-fall risk, which has also been the source of some recent and large insurance claims. This should all be an urgent priority.

By the way, I have had a few owners contacting me over the last couple of months with insurance related questions. There was an information sheet released by our insurance broker which answered some of the questions:

https://www.savethehill.org/Legal/2024-6-3_HO6Coverage.pdf

The main question is about the "loss assessment" coverage that you should have on your HO6 policy. The answer is that you need to have coverage for whatever improvements you made to your unit, plus another $50k to cover the association's master policy deductible. Do not worry about the $250k deductible on fire - you will not be able to find an HO6 policy with $250k of coverage. If you burn your house down, the $250k deductible will have to be paid by the Association, which of course will end up getting paid by all of us. However, if you have HO6 coverage, you will be able to file a claim for your portion of the $250k fire deductible (about $450).

There was also a few owners that mentioned to me they were having trouble getting a mortgage as a result of the high insurance deductibles. I recently discovered that this is a misunderstanding on the part of the bank, and can be straightened out by having the bank talk to the insurance broker.

I could go on for another 10 pages on all the things you should know about, including the way many of the Board decisions are being made behind the scenes, but this email is already waaaayyyy too long, so I will have to cut it here.

Kevin