I have been notified by our board president that the board has found a replacement for my position as SPW Treasurer. I will attend my last board meeting on September 3, 2009 and I will submit my resignation by then. I don't have an active roll in choosing this new board member so I do not know who this new person is. In my opinion, anyone who could volunteer his time for free to work on the board ought to be commended so I'm happy that someone is finally stepping up.
I'm still a homeowner at SPW and since I created SPW website, I would like to continue to maintain it. I will have a chat with the new Treasurer and if he is able, I will allow him coordinator access so that he could actively maintain SPW website in my place. I will do the same for all future SPW board members if they have the ability to take over.
I hope more homeowners could step up to serve on the board. Current board members cannot serve forever but we want to be sure bad board members cannot return, along with the previous management company & certain contractors as all they do is to chip away homeowners' money.
Randy Smith (Randall Management) is very good, gets the job done and can give the board good advice. I hope future boards could keep his management company as his monthly fee is lower than many others and could save us lots of money. His company does not charge hidden fees like other (namely Prime Site) who at times, charged us for thousands of dollars for "administrative fees".
Again, we reduced the maintenance fees by an average of $50 for each unit and still completed the rehabs (totaled $346,165) in less then 3 years. Now we're starting to save and should have a sizeable amount for the next major rehabs (I could foresee new roofs and foundations). Don't let anyone in future boards tell you that they need to borrow any amount of money from the bank to complete any rehabs. We had been there done that so "pay as you go" is the best way. We should also save save save for unexpected events such as hurricane, fire or flood. We could get SPW back in shape as quickly as possible, minimizing out of pocket costs for homeowners & get reimbursement later from our insurer or FEMA.
Finally, it has been a pleasure for me to serve on SPW Board of Directors for the past four and a half years. I had a chance to meet many former board members & nice neighbors and a few quite interesting characters. I'm very pleased with what the current board had achieved so far for SPW and I'm glad to be a part of it.
Take care everyone & please keep in touch.
James Nguyen
