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Having your Say


YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS ARE INVITED

PLEASE EMAIL THEM TO

webmaster@baypointebradenton.com
or
derek.foxwell@mistral.co.uk


A NEW BEGINING


We have changed the format of the ‘HAVING YOUR SAY’ section of our website so that we can increase the communication level between Owners and Residents and your Board in the hope that many of the criticisms we receive, some justified some not, can be addressed and resonded to by your Board.


In future when your comments are received by the webmaster they will initially be forwarded to the Secretary of the Board who will then solicit a formal Board response and then send that response, along with your comment to the webmaster for publishing on the website.

We would ask that you allow your name as sender of a message to be published as we would like to develop a more open approach to both problems and solutions but if you require your name to be withheld it will not be published on the site.



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YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT AND YOUR COMMENTS ARE APPRECIATED


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Posted 6th January 2012

Has a Owner at Bay Pointe @ Cortez I'm am so very pleased to say how very happy I am about how prefect the pool was, during my last stay down in Bradenton over the New Year's weekend.

What a wonderful way to spend a day swimming in the beginning of January.What a nice experience for me and all the other owners and guests that were at the pool that day. It was a beautiful perfect day and the pool temp was just about 78-80 degree just right for me.

Bay Pointe is looking very well.

Thank You.

Response:

On behalf of the Board I thnk you for your positive comments which indicated that your Board's policy of ensuring Bay Pointe is a great place to live is being appreciated.

Board President

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Message from ptjannlyte1@aol.com
Posted 14th January 2012

I would like to address a few issues. The first....why are the minutes from the last 2 meetings not posted on the website? The second being I still do not agree with the new budget....in this economic downturn we need to adopt an austerity budget...grounds maintenance and lawn services can be cut by taking outside bids, do our own trash removal, etc....a $4000 pay raise for a part-time employee is way out of line...give that person, at most a 3 % raise. I would love that kind if rise in my social security. My third issue is I simply cannot afford to pay these kinds of dues. I am on a fixed income and you want it all at once every quarter...I want to pay monthly with NO penalty. This association is going to go bankrupt if we do not adopt a much lower budget and then where will we home owners be? I feel that our board is doing us a disservice by not lowering this budget. I would like to see this letter posted on the website along with any other comments homeowners may have...none have ever been posted. Thank you. You may use my e-mail ..ptjannlyte1@aol.com


Boards Response

Thank you for your message expressing your concerns which we would like to deal with in an itemised manner.

Minutes: The last two meetings have been the Annual Meeting and the Special Meeting. Minutes are not posted to the web until approved and Annual Meeting Minutes are not approved until the following Annual Meeting. The ‘Special Meeting’ was not in fact a meeting because the legally required quorum did not exist therefore there are no Minutes.

On the 26th January we will hold a Special Meeting, assuming we can achieve the quorum requirements of 60 in person or by limited proxy, and this will be followed by a Board of Directors Meeting at which the minutes of the previous BOD meeting will be approved and then published

I trust you will be attending the meeting but if not and in view of your comments can we assume your proxy will be received??

Budget. The preparation and approval of the budget is the duty of the Board of Directors and they have approved it. Owners only have the opportunity to vote on the level of reserve funding which is the subject topic of the forthcoming Special Meeting. In preparing the budget the Board, assisted by the Management Company, get prices for almost every item and/or review the actual spends year to date, we do not just pluck them out of the air. In the case of landscaping/lawn service our existing landscape company are almost 30% cheaper than the alternative prices we received. We have considered your suggestion of taking our own trash to the compactor on more than one occasion but the majority of owners prefer the trash service we operate and at circa $1 per unit per collection we believe it represents very good value and affords other peripheral benefits to the Association

The point you raise about the part time employee we agree is misleading because we do not employ anyone directly, we work with contractors. The difficulty here is that the Sentry accounting system codes result in us placing an item on the line you question but I can assure you it is not an employee it is the general maintenance contractor. The percentage increase of the maintenance contractor is erroneous as the trash collection figure was shown separate in the 2011 budget but is included in 2012, which in real terms represents a nominal reduction rather than the increase you perceive.

Your comments about your ability to pay are noted but all Owners are faced with these problems and we as a Board are not insensitive to them. We have our hands tied in many ways in regard to the budget we set, for example we have to have insurance, we have to maintain the common elements and limited common elements etc etc. Our fees incidentally, on an independent survey we had conducted on over 40 other associations in the area, are the lowest.

Comments you make about the Association going bankrupt were indeed valid at the end of 2010, as we entered 2011 with a deficit even after spending all our reserve funds to support the previous Board’s gross underfunding. Strong financial management in 2011 brought us back from the brink and your current Board will continue to exercise the controls that have been implemented. Our documents, which are supported by Statute, require fees to be paid quarterly, require us to impose late payment fees and also charge interest. We can change some of these requirements, it is a detailed and protracted procedure and it requires 2/3rd of Owners to support every change, at the moment we cannot even achieve a 50% vote to reduce the Reserves so you see the problems a Board must face, it is called 'Owner Apathy', but in your case you are at least attempting to be proactive and we thank you and hope this posting helps brings the problems into the open.

We look forward to you joining us at the meeting but if you are unable to attend please ensure you, and any of your fellow Owners, support the Board’s efforts to lower your Assessment Fees by ensuring that you return your proxy.

Board President
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