Good evening. Welcome to the 31st annual meeting of the Lauren Condominium. It is absolutely wonderful to see so many of you attending this evening. May I introduce the board: Elizabeth VanderPutten, secretary; Dwight Clark, first vice president; Barrett Witkin, second vice president; John Filice, treasurer; and I’m Roger Hirschland, president. I believe I can report that the building and our finances are in good shape. 

As all of you who are residents know, we have an entirely new look – in the hallways and in the elevators, as well as in the basement foyer. And the office for our desk clerks, which has such high visibility, is about to get a major, really attractive facelift. Comments I have heard time and again about the new look are overwhelmingly positive. We worked long and hard to ensure that everything was chosen and implemented correctly. We even posted the designer’s rendition in the lobby so you’d know what to expect. Some elements are new: On the advice of our decorator, we lowered the hallway lamps and increased their number so each unit would have a light outside the door. The purpose was to make the building look more like a home than a hotel. You may be glad to know that moving the lamps—which entailed a lot of rewiring and cutting of the walls—cost us only $17,000, or about seven percent of the entire project. We also had the areas around the elevators built out a couple of inches to give them more elegance. The whole project was done at less than half—closer to a third—of most of the estimates we received. Our contractor, Greg Carlsen, was a stellar performer, closely supervising his large teams of hardworking skilled laborers. And we have owner Erin Erlenborn to thank for kicking off this massive, long project as chair of the decoration committee, whose membership was open to all owners. 

The landscaping has been spruced up, as it were, after the ravages of two feet of snow. We have Elizabeth, John, and Cacho Salinas to thank for choosing and planting the low-maintenance bushes to replace those damaged by the drifts.

Less visible but no less important to our comfort and pocketbook was the installation of three new hot-water heaters and a new, much smaller, and infinitely more efficient boiler on the roof level. Our hot water supply should be much more reliable – especially if the next board chooses to install a fourth hot-water heater, which our engineer has recommended to us. And our fuel bills should be noticeably lower for heat and hot water.

Our treasurer, John Filice, will give you details, but our finances – our income, expenses, and investments – are on a sound footing. One area that must be watched especially carefully is the dedicated HVAC fund – the heat, ventilation, and air-conditioning – which we are putting aside for eventual replacement of the entire system building wide. Largely because of low interest rates, we are not quite where we planned to be in setting aside funds for the estimated $2 million job, so the next board will have to consider budgeting condo fees accordingly so that we will never be hit with a special assessment down the road.

We have new electronic equipment on the roof that allows you to continue to use the building TV antenna, despite the fact that signals were changed from analog to digital. We considered changing the laundry room entirely to card operation (versus coins), but concluded that the expense of doing so was not worth the advantages we would have gained. We have addressed smoking issues on an individual basis, but continue to strongly urge all owners who rent to include nonsmoking clauses in your leases. And should we have another winter like the last, rest assured that we will have a snow-blower on hand.

There is one new look that we had not anticipated, and that’s the new bricks on the N Street façade. It should be repaired by Saturday. The next board will have to deal with the issue of how far our remedial repairs will extend—just that tier, two tiers, or the whole building. We await further advice from Dave Fyffe, our expert at Seal Engineering.

We are blessed with a loyal maintenance and desk staff, which I think was amply illustrated by the Herculean efforts of folks to get here and to stay here to keep the building safe and monitored during and after the blizzards. Ruta walked two hours through the snow to make it in; and Hiskias remained on duty for almost 36 hours straight. And, I might add that we are extremely fortunate to have our longtime, loyal front-desk clerk Thomas Burless back with us on weekend evenings after a lengthy and near fatal medical emergency in late autumn. His calm presence is most welcome again.

It is very healthy, in my opinion, that we have such terrific attendance this year at our annual meeting. Some of you may wonder what on earth this group of five before you does every month chatting in a two-hour meeting, or what individual members of the board do for the condo between meetings. I’d like to give you a brief view into that arcane world.

When the board gets together each month, we review the financial report from our financial management company, which shows whether we’re on target with our expenses and income, and whether our investments are wisely tended. We check on the status of common-area projects, and consider new ideas, such as a flashing light on the end of the driveway to warn pedestrians, which owner Thomas Zawalich suggested; or the floor numbers on the elevator doorway surrounds, suggested by Sally Bloom-Feshbach. We hear from the manager on all matter of projects, policies, problems, and solutions. We conduct the meeting according to Roberts Rules of Order, deciding by acclamation if we’re unanimous, or by vote, if we differ on an issue. In executive session, we consider personnel issues, as well as addressing the problem of any owner who may be in arrears for his or her condo fees. We monitor prompt payments of condo fees extremely closely, in fairness to the vast majority of you who stay up to date in your payments. You’ll be glad to know that almost to a person, owners are up to date. As a board, we recognize that we are stewards of your investment – our homes – and we base all our decisions on the best economic, logical, and aesthetic choices we can make.

The board also stands behind our manager, Walter Krolman, in making sure condominium rules and regulations are enforced. This is to ensure that we have a safe, quiet, clean environment devoid of physical or legal risks and liabilities. We’re strict on rules that involve safety, cleanliness, appearance, fiscal responsibility, and liability, but we make exceptions and bend when none of those factors predominates. For example, you can see in the garage that we allow practical exceptions when it benefits those who own or rent spaces.

Your treasurer works with the manager, with our financial management company, and with Ted Hart of Smith Barney [pause] to monitor our finances, including our rotating investments. The president functions as the liaison between the board and the manager on a daily basis. The secretary writes up the minutes of the monthly meetings, and our webmaster posts not only the minutes, but many relevant documents and pertinent news on our remarkably informative website. I’d like to acknowledge owner Brian Larkin, our esteemed webmaster who invests a great deal of time and talent in maintaining our site.

Whenever we have questions about legal matters, we go right to our counsel, Joe Douglass, who knows our condo and our rules, as well as the law, like the back of his hand and provides clear, sensible advice at every turn.

I’d also like to express my personal view about the fact that we have competition for the next board. I’d like to note that we’re all neighbors, living either down the hall or above or below each other. And after this evening, we will still be neighbors. We must all work together as congenially as possible to keep our building the premium place it is to live. If the new board is constituted differently from the present one, I commit myself and trust in my colleagues here to lend whatever support and expertise may be helpful to ensure a smooth transition. There are, after all, a myriad things to watch, consider, and act upon during the year. It’s important that each board is as well informed as possible about the challenges and pitfalls that it faces for the new condo year.

Thank you.