Finance & Legal minutes: 2017-09-27

Minutes:

Minutes of 9-27-17 Finance & Legal Meeting

Present: Debbi, Becky G., Becky H., Amy


1. Insurance - tabled – Rod had a conflict and was not able to attend.

2. Budget process – how can we support Becky G’s presentation at the
October 7 meeting?
a. Becky will be paying reimbursements soon and making sure accounts are
updated. Amy will send an email to Talk to remind committees to submit
their receipts ASAP.
b. Becky has grouped some things differently in Quickbooks based on
requests made during last year’s budget process, and will ask Dale to make
sure the spreadsheets are updated to reflect the same changes.
c. Becky will ask Mary to send out reminders about committees getting their
budget requests in.
d. Becky would like Mary to send the schedule of budget meetings to Talk
again.
e. Mary would like the budget process to proceed with discussions and
agreements about real costs before Becky presents information about the
surplus balance from 2016 because we can’t count on having a surplus every
year. The information about the surplus would be presented at the 11/20
budget meeting.
f. Sharon will ask Susan to send a reminder about the meeting date change.

3. Bookkeeping
a. Updates - none
b. Arrears – We’re watching two units that are close to the threshold.
Two other households are also behind, but not so close to the threshold.

4. Master Deed & Bylaws Changes – no news

5. Other Business
a. Pet issue
Instead of going directly after the specific pet issue, we want to pursue
the larger issue of what happens when a person or household is not
complying with a community agreement and that has a liability risk.
Examples:
• No grills are allowed on decks because this puts the entire building at
risk. What would we do if someone refused?
• Using the woodshop without training. If you were injured, our insurance
company would want to know how you were able to use that equipment without
training.
Debbi will contact Process to discuss.

b. Sign at entrance to Parkland Plaza. Touchstone has already
decided to go ahead with the sign. Sunward’s plenary was split and sent it
to their Board. It’s an open meeting and anyone can participate. Ken Winter
will let Debbi and Robin know what they decide. Then they’ll figure out the
exact wording.

c. Leak in Meg’s unit (#517). What follows is Becky’s report via
email:

*Last year her upstairs bathroom flooded clean water into her main floor
bathroom, destroying the ceiling and flooring.
*The water proceeded to flood her basement.
*When her workman for that flood removed the drywall, they found some
evidence of mildew which could have either been from Dave Butler’s tub
(which he knew leaked and Meg replaced when she moved in) or from a chronic
mild leak, hence the concern there was a problem in the pipes.
*For many reasons, Meg had not yet finished reconstructing the first-floor
bathroom. They’ve been using the 2nd floor one since 2016.
*On Monday, her 2nd bathroom developed a new problem of the toilet backing
up into the tub. She called Michigan Power Rodding and they came and
snaked it. Everything seemed fine.
*Last night, they noticed the 2nd floor tub draining slowly again, and the
toilet acting weird. She already had MPR scheduled to come back today.
*This morning, she discovered the basement had flooded again, likely from
the problem she found last night. Also again, it was clean water.
*I was at her house today, documenting everything, when MPR came. When they
put the main stack under pressure and started snaking, suddenly sewage
flooded into the basement, and nobody could figure out why. We all went
into crisis mode, and Kelly and Nicholas came to help, too.
*MPR’s initial thought was we had a major plumbing problem in the wall
pipes, and had us call a plumber (we got through to Mitch the Plumber first)
*While waiting for Mitch, the MPR guys were able to figure out why the
sewage leak happened. When Zion ripped stuff out of Meg’s 1st floor
bathroom in 2016, they did NOT cap the pipe where the sink was. When the
clog was snaked under pressure today, the water and much of everything
behind the clog came out that pipe, and then flooded down to the basement
through the hole in the floor around the sink pipe.
*We all asked many, many questions, and both the MPR guys and later with
Mitch when he arrived, think the current situation was caused first by the
clog, and then by the 1st floor pipe being uncapped.
*There is another type of test that could be done, which is using air or
smoke to pressurize the system and look for leaks, but they both said if
there were bad joint seals in the walls, Meg would have seen continual
water problems, not limited to water in her basement.
*At this point, none of us think Great Oak needs to do that test, but we
should keep it in mind if this building has another problem.

Great Oak’s responsibility at this point is to repair the drywall from the
2016 flood when Meg is ready to finish the work in the main floor bathroom
(the tub has to be replaced before we can get in there).

All the rest is between Meg, her insurance, and whatever they might decide
to do about a critical cap being left off. A top priority for her will be
getting everything capped in the first-floor bathroom!

We don’t know yet if there was any damage to the subfloor or additional
drywall damage. If so, GO is responsible. Becky G. will text Meg about
this.

6. Next meeting: Oct. 11


Cooler doc:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_dmnNJmHmrwwFIfnscnRbPK-_8_kmahfFsOTn_fEvTY/edit
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