PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

By Dave Peterson, Board President

Insurance. In my last month’s column, I described the pickle we are in regarding insurance. The association insures 58 buildings (mostly townhome buildings, but also some common buildings), plus some liability items, and the collapse of the insurance industry in California has left us short on the building coverage. Initially, we were able to bind just $25M in building coverage. The issue is “capacity”. Companies do not have the capacity to insure our total value of $109M. We tasked our broker to scour the industry, and they were able to secure another $40M, which we approved at the October 18th board meeting. We are still searching for the remainder. The premium cost far exceeds our budget assumption of a 35% increase this year, so the excess is going out as an emergency special assessment to townhome owners. This is a major bummer, and none of us did anything to earn this problem.

Special Assessments. As mentioned above, the board approved an emergency special assessment for townhome owners to fund the excess insurance cost.

The special assessment vote for Cove 2 was again extended to try to get to a quorum.

We will count votes on the special assessment to fund year 3 of the CMT at the November 15 Board Meeting. I hope it passes.

Bulkheads. The construction contract for the Cove 3C bulkhead has been signed, and steel has been ordered. Construction will proceed through the winter.

We received the draft engineering report on the St. Moritz and Bavarian Isles bulkhead assessment and met with the engineer to get clarification on some items. The bulkheads on these 2 isles are owned by the individual homeowners, but it becomes an association concern if failure is imminent and would cause damage of a health and safety magnitude to neighboring properties. It is now looking like most of the St. Moritz bulkhead is not a critical concern of the association, and the final report will clarify that. There may be sections where we will want to reach out to some homeowners and advise action, however.

The Bavarian Isle bulkhead is in worse shape because the buried steel tieback cables are badly corroded and some have failed. We’ll await the final report to determine whether there are portions that require action by the association, or whether we advise specific homeowners to act, or what. We should be getting the report in November, and then we can make a plan.

The Islanders 1 bulkhead was brought to the board’s attention at the October meeting. It is a 50-year-old timber crib retaining wall, and it has failed in several locations. The board approved some emergency temporary shoring, and requested staff to secure bids for the permanent replacement or fix.

Bear Boxes. Bears are breaking into homes all over SLT. They are now breaking windows and entering. This is getting expensive and intrusive and scary. Bear boxes are helping. They are expensive, but less so than a break-in.

Fee and Fine Schedule. At the October meeting, the board approved sending a modified fee and fine schedule out for 28 day member review. We’re proposing some significant changes, especially to the fine schedule to address chronic problems. Please review this and give us your comments ASAP.

Winter Preparations. The fall was short, and winter is coming. It’s already freezing at night. You should turn off and drain your irrigation system, secure outdoor furniture, get boats out of the water, and prepare to start clearing snow. This year, please plan to keep snow away from your water shutoff valve, electric meter, gas meter, and your closest fire hydrant. Access to those things is a “right now” issue in an emergency, and time wasted shoveling could mean a lot of damage to your house. And a buried gas meter is an explosion risk. Explosions are bad.