I want to comment on Marlem Quintero’s statements at last week’s Meet the Candidates Zoom meeting:
Marlem took credit for the Catania settlement, with no credit to the Board!
Actually, the final resolution was a result of Mr. Milewicz losing the Catania Board election, allowing their new Board to realize the financial predicament they were in.
Furthermore, the settlement burdened our community with an undefined cost for the porte-cochère (awning). Further, because of inaction or ineptitude, seven months after the settlement Recreation had to sign an Addendum to the settlement agreement that removed the required owners’ approval and inserted penalty clauses if deadlines are not met. This topic was raised at a number of Board meetings, and each time the topic was shelved because of lack of clear answers and revolt by the owners.
If, as stated, it was urgent to build an awning to protect the Catania main entrance door from rain damage, one would think that this project would have been well underway and would not have exceeded the one-year deadline.
Marlem said the vendor contributed $32K for the renovation and $30K for the furniture
The restaurant was closed for over five months due to a desire to replace the previous vendor and eliminate the subsidy. It became clear from the onset that little planning was done. As a result, patrons of the restaurant were penalized while the board was seeking a new vendor for the restaurant and a new contractor for renovation.
The contract for the new vendor is not on Condo Control in spite of numerous requests. Assertion that the vendor paid $32k for the renovation and $30k for furniture could not be confirmed. Thousands of dollars were paid just for expediting the installation of a new air conditioner in a closed restaurant.
Further, work with costs exceeding the authorization level of the recreation president commenced without formal board approval.
Marlem stated that the EXP35 cost for fob cards would cost a million dollars.
The original contract for this service was for half that amount. The adoption of finger and facial recognition, a significant and controversial privacy issue, was never discussed and approved by the owners. There was never a proper board meeting adopting such resolution. The only board approval was for a contract with Bluenex that included biometrics hardware.
The Bluenex contract for $265k was exceeded by a significant amount. Again, Recreation had to be reminded of what they should know: they needed formal board approval for exceeding the contracted amount.
Marlem stated that by implementing credit card support for parking weekly income increased from $900 a week in 2022 to $2,000 a week in 2023.
This is not a correct statement. 2022 weekly revenue averaged over $1,700.
I conclude on the following important note:
There was a cash build up in the Recreation association of approximately $500,000 dollars when Catania first decided to withhold their monthly maintenance payments. This, as well as borrowing from the $120,000 reserve account and Recreation savings initiated in the first half of 2023, were used to continue normal operations by Recreation during the two-plus years of litigation.
Of the $1.74 million settlement paid by Catania, nearly $700,000 went towards legal costs. None of the remaining $1 million plus was set aside. It was all spent: half went towards finishing the storefront and tiling, and the other half went to discretionary projects such as biometrics and renovation of the social hall and restaurant. It is not clear if at year end 2023 there was enough cash to replenish the legal reserve and satisfy Recreation liabilities. Recreation was alerted by the Finance committee about the tight cash flow situation, but they continued on their spending spree.