April 21, 2010 Coffee with the Directors

Pledge of Allegiance

From the Comment Box
Lot 384 asked if workers could pick up all the phone books left on the steps of owners who have left for the summer.
Lot 106 made a request to have another lot cut their Palm leaves and spray for clover in the common areas. President said no to the palm leaf cutting.
SC 70 said the Sand Dollar quilters wanted to thank Director Pelletier for his efforts to repaint the Arts and Crafts room.
Lot R praised the Hospitality Manager Julio for the Easter Feast. Owner said everything was great.
Lot 558 had a complaint about the commercial dump area.
Lot 119 had a complaint about the cable TV and Swing Bridge.
SC 51 was a repeat of LOT R

Board Comments
Director Gagan said he feels prices on materials are going up and suggested that the Board consider to lock in any Major improvement bids that have a materials cost involved.

Comments from the audience
Lot 288 asked since Easter was great, how about Thanksgiving. Our general manager said that's already being talked about. She also asked if the road repair was ever officially approved by the Board and if so, was the company doing the job the same one we had second thoughts about originally? Treas. Steffensen said 11/21/09 was the approval date and yes it is the same company. The GM said he investigated the work that this company previously did and found it was more than satisfactory.
Dir. Pelletier announced a fund raiser raffle for a golf cart to end the second week in Jan. 2011. Tickets (500) are $25 ea. or five for $100. All monies go towards the improvement of the golf course. He said to also remember the Memorial Garden as a great way to remember a loved one, pets not included.

WORKSHOP
Dir. Bergsma said by next week's meeting he will attempt to broadcast the meeting over the internet.
Dir. Guerra asked about last Sunday’s swing bridge problem and when the Marquee will be moved. The answers were nothing was reported and the move will be in June.
Dir. Pelletier said an outside washroom will be constructed at the Pro Shop where the ice machine is located. This is supposed to paid for out of the $22,000 set aside for our new maintenance office. There is a proposal for a chair lift for the Activity Center that will be paid for by a Village Owner.
VP Halbach said there was a $3384 profit in the first month for the restaurant.
P. Burke brought up her idea of having lawn weed control available to owners for a fee. I guess you can call it a weed fee. This subject went on for what seemed like thirty minutes and ending with the President saying we could just look at this weed problem as a By-Law nuisance and make all owners take care of their weeds.
Treas. Steffensen went through her wording changes she wish to have for rules/deposits in using the gazebo and owners lounge. An owner commented that the deposits dtdn't seem to do much if anything to keep the owners lounge clean. Treas. Steffensen also wanted some changes in the rental contracts like charging owners who change a current contract that makes the rental department having to move the renter to a new location. This discussion went on for another twenty minutes of mostly globally gook. An owner brought up her problems she had with the Rental Dept. like when her place was rented while they were staying in it and the renter walk right in on them. She also said the rental office was screwing her when they rented her place and didn't pay them. There was a different owner who confirmed such. The President wanted further info about this from the owner.

Short Recess
The new district manager for Aramark Dan Ackley was introduced.
The discussion of the rental contract continued for the next five minutes. This was just a bunch of back and forth with our Board President talking the most.
The Secretary said the new pool wrist bands are now a hot pink and yellow. This led to a twenty minute discussion from directors Guerra and Montalvo who expressed their concerns of what appears to be an extreme difference between wristband enforcement when only 100 wristbands were sold in winter as opposed to 3000 in the summer. This ended with different Directors blaming Security.
Jennie McBride, Sue Smith, and Karen Fritz were congratulated for their work in painting and cleaning the Pro Shop.
Lot 96-97 complained about her sprinkler wires and Armando said he would take care of it.

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APRIL SUGGESTIONS OR COMMENTS

We would love your comment or suggestion that will improve our Village. They may be viewed by those visiting. We will renew the display each month. Anonymous are welcomed. So throw one in the box.

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Review of the 2009 Aramark Annual Report

Our Village Grill lost $76,888 in 2009. It's been advertised that we had 75% of the restaurant remodeled and that apparently didn't need any approval by our Board .
The only references in the Minutes about this refashion were a director’s wish of doing some improvements with a guess estimate and a comment a month later about getting some figures together to present to the Board. Now we find it done with no apparent approval or known costs. Why is that?
The 2010 Budget has projected that our restaurant will lose $67,000 this year. Is this amenity going in the right direction?

Last year our Golf Course lost $97,038, almost doubling the amount it had lost four years ago. The Board said the reason was rising water costs. That may be true but it seems to contradict Aramark’s Water report which shows only a 9% increase or $25,535 more in water costs since 2006. This was not water for just the golf course but the entire Village.
The 2010 budget thinks the golf course will lose $87,192 this year. Is this amenity going in the right direction?

The Laundry was a $4,846 loser. This is a minor loss compared to the above, but this cleaning facility did make a profit of $2,228 in 2005 and a $1,518 profit in 2006. The Board then decided to outsource this amenity instead of buying new appliances. The Village promptly lost $4786 in 2007 and our Board blamed a three month sewer fiasco. In 2008 it lost $5,640 and the Board blamed Hurricane Dolly. No one can deny that the sewer and hurricane had an impact on revenues, but what’s the excuse for losing $4,846 in 2009?
The 2010 budget has projected the Laundry will lose $5600 this year. Are we now saying with this amenity that losing money is now not an exception but a rule. Is our outsourced partner suffering these same losses? Is this amenity going in the right direction?

Our Rental Office showed a profit of $13,489 last year. Celebrations broke out for being in the black for the first time. During the January Board meeting a Villager asked why the Rental Office was showing such an improvement and our illustrious President couldn’t wait to tell everyone it was due to booking more rentals along with the Board's implementation of suggestions they received from a study done after Hurricane Dolly.
Has everyone forgotten that early in 2009 our Board said they added a 2008 Hurricane Dolly $38,712 loss revenue insurance check to the 2009 Rental bottom line. Take away that check and our Rental Office was a $25,223 loser, only $709 better than the previous year when Hurricane Dolly ruined the rental revenues.
The 2010 budget expects the Rental Office to lose $31,800 this year. Does one even have to ask if this amenity is going in the right direction? What do you think?

The report said Securitas saved our Village $3,000 this year and cost $13,131 less than what our Village was paying for the unlicensed gatekeepers in 2007.
Several Directors who still reside on our Board had vehemently argued Securitas, a LICENSED security company, was going to cost our Village thousands more if rehired.
In this report it also showed that our Village had paid $222,346 for Security in 2007. A footnote was attached saying this figure included a management allocation fee of $7,242, a $6,466 final billing fee from terminated Securitas, and a reference that the amount paid to Aramark as part of a new agreement (in originally replacing Securitas) was $174,250. The obvious question here is what did our Board spend an extra $34,388 on?
The 2010 Budget said Securitas will charge our Village $4,368 less this year. Is Security going in the right direction? I'll answer that. YOU BETCHA!

Villagers pay dearly for Aramark and we are told their management professionals are well trained in finding ways at saving our Village money. Our 2008 Board with all of its controversy found a way to lower our Security and Cable costs while contracting for a much better product. It can be done.
Many feel the current Board with our new General Manager are more than capable of saving some of this $195,000 the 2010 budget says we are suppose to lose in our rental office, laundry, restaurant, and golf course. What do you think?

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