Management Minutes, January 21, 2025

Agenda
-Welcome new and returning members! 
-Assigning roles/Admin. Procedures 
-Coleman&Co. 
-Maintenance update 
-Insurance update 
-Bookkeeping report 
-CH mtg room progress
-Fundraising update 

In attendance:
Kerry Terrazas (KT)
Cheryl Keil (CK)
Jorge San Pedro (JSP)
Michael Abrahamson (MA)
Ben Trueman (BT)
Coleman Riedesel (CR)

Assigning roles/Admin procedures:
Ben elected President, Jorge elected Treasurer, Michael elected Secretary

Coleman & Co:
CK: Cheryl updated management on issues with unit 17 (Vinnie and Eliza) and discussed the possibility of Coleman taking on a maintenance role for the community, as general contractor. 

CR: Has contacts for electrical, plumbing, and his partner likely has contacts for HVAC. Sees he and his partner doing most of the work themselves. They don’t have experience with mold and restoration, so would likely call someone in for issues like that.

CK: Asked about the diagnosis steps for units 1 & 2.

CR: “Demo and discovery” steps are something they would take on themselves. Coleman expects to do this work himself around the community. Concerned about the winter weather and causing drafts.

CK: Issue with unit 17 seems to be a water issue, specifically with windows. 

CR: The advantage of having a resident taking this on is knowledge of the construction of these specific buildings. On his unit they removed drywall to understand the construction details when they moved in. 

BT: Historically, the challenge has been finding the source of water problems. Past actions have been quick fixes rather than knowing the source for certain and fixing the issue once and for all.

CR: Will charge $80 and hour, plus materials and removal of material. There would be contracts and bills, before any work happens so everyone can see what’s going on.

CK: In rare moments when you need to bring someone else in for specific tasks, would you be the one hiring electricians or plumbers.

CR: GC would typically handle the hiring and paying of subcontractors. 

Wouldn’t try to “gatekeep” any parts of the process. Hopes there wouldn’t be a sense of a conflict of interest being a community member and the GC for maintenance.

CK: Sees no issue with this, and views it as having a vested interest in doing things right the first time.

KT: What about license and insurance?

CR: We would be licensed and insured. It’s currently in process. But before any work would be done, we would be licensed and insured.

BT: We’re at the point where we want to throw some money at this and make some real progress. 

CR: We could get started in early February with a walk through and go from there.

BT: For roofs we like Roof Doctor, but for doors or other specialties do you have contacts?

CR: For windows and doors, I’m comfortable doing it myself. If necessary, I’d want to have contacts I can 

CK: We’ve ended up using Roof Doctor for things that aren’t roofs per se. 

CR: Roof caps are probably outside my purview because they’re custom cut with an expensive tool.

It could make sense to do repairs on two units in parallel if the issues are similar

CK: The issue with 17 is on the back large window in the living room, a large crack that has formed that has felt moist.

BT: We should have a moisture meter as a community for things like that. 

CK and Coleman plan to tour the affected units on the morning of Monday, February 3.

Maintenance update:
CK: CH dryer ducts have not been cleaned recently.

JSP: Can do a demonstration using the tool to clean them.

CK: Given usage of the dryers, we’re supposed to be doing this annually, but we’re doing it less than annually. 

JSP: I would expect this project would take about an hour. We should set up a schedule with the people who actually use the units.

JSP: One of the vents is missing a vent screen that would prevent pests from getting in as well as collecting some of the lint 

CK: Given insurance increases and the threat of more insurers not insuring HOAs anymore, we need to be vigilant to prevent fires and other risks. We need to clean the CH, but also need to make sure unit owners are doing what they need to do to reduce the risk of fire. That type of policy will not be popular, but it needs to be done. Suggests that we broaden the maintenance committee’s purview to include safety issues. 

BT: Are you thinking we’d have work parties to clean dryer vents, or that we would set up a reporting mechanism to make sure things like this are done?

JSP: Have we ever had a fire or calamity from the dryer vents? 

CK: No, but some new residents have reported clogged vents. Well-managed apartment buildings have organized maintenance tasks systematically for fire prevention and maintenance. In this climate of insurance rates rising, supply and demand are not on our side. If we have to go find another policy, any further claims showing negligence may result in us being deemed uninsurable or result in sky-high rates. We should take preventive action on things we have control over.

KT: The common theme around here is how do we verify? Smoke alarms are an issue as well.

JSP: Some of our smoke alarms are just too high to reach safely.

BT: We have ladders that can reach, but it’s scary to reach them. My general opinion is that if maintenance committee feels like that is something they can take on, great. But overall we’re doing pretty well keeping up with things.

JSP: It also matters how long your dryer vents are, and those in the CH are super long. 

BT: I think we also need to know who the mortgage holders are, we should have copies of everybody’s insurance, and have keys. But we need to pick our battles.

CK: In terms of picking our battles, keys are one thing, but smoke detectors potentially affect the whole community. 

BT: For verification, we should encourage and support but we can’t fully verify. We can do our due diligence. 

CK: Will be proposing change to “Maintenance and Safety” committee.

KT: Does the existing “Safety and Security” committee know about this change? They spearheaded the AED acquisition. You should just coordinate and invite Joe, who runs that committee, to join.

Insurance update:
BT: Will need to follow up with insurers, but American Family is no longer an option come November. We may switch to Travelers. Beehive Insurance and Randi continue to look for options for us. It would be nice to have money for a workshop or class on community or conflict resolution, which are really helpful. Lower insurance rates would enable that.

CK: You expect Travelers to come is lower than what we have? 

BT: Yes. I’ll keep following up as I have time.

Bookkeeping update:
JSP: Bookkeeper won’t be able to come to the next ACM meeting. I’m hoping we can set up a visit soon. Wednesday, February 12 is probably the next option. This would be a “get to know you” type of visit for the community. 

We have a bill from Capital One of $4161 due on February 16. 

We had talked about moving some of the money from our operating account into our money market account. If we get it above $100k, we’ll get a better rate on the account. 

KT: What we do in terms of maintenance on units 1, 2 and 17, would that come from reserves?

BT: To be determined, depending upon the amount. Hopefully we can pay for it over time. 

KT: We need to pay for CoHousing.org membership for the new year.

BT: Need to send a reminder about HOA fees going up next month.

JSP: I’ll send out this email. All but two units are on autopay, and the others are always on time.

BT: Pay or Play billing is underway and will be started this week. I had some conversations with our bookkeeper about setting it up and handing it over to me to handle months to month. The current process is to enter something every hour, even if you’re rolling over hours from past months. 

Meeting room update:
KT: Meeting room restoration has been a success so far, and is ahead of schedule.

JSP: Robin ordered two kinds of new lights that we will install. 

KT: this weekend is going to be priming, right?

JSP: Yes.

Fundraising update:
KT: $250 raised from Marketplace sales. Two movies this week: a social justice themed movie and a kids movie.

Cohousing board will be here 3/13 to 3/16. Whole CH will be unavailable during that time. There is a zoom with that board and there will be an update at next meeting.

Rummage sale is on 4/5.

BT: The community values are the subject of the Sunday ACM. They were written 25 years ago, mostly by people who aren’t here anymore. Then the next subject could be governance structure, and then after that could be the proposal process. Contact a member of ACM planning if you have other ideas.