Date: June 25, 2010
To: All Members, Seascape Sur Estates
From: Bill Gifford, Treasurer, Seascape Sur Board of Directors Subject: Why a Sitting Board Member Supports a Recall of the Board
Many of you have been asking that I respond to information that is being disseminated through recent letters from several Board Members. I respect the right that they have to voice their opinions but I would like to answer your requests by getting straight to the facts.
Let's stick to the facts: Seascape Sur is 38 years young.
Lush landscaping to some is overgrown to others but we still have the best complex on the bluff mainly because of the landscape. This is why recent drastic changes by a very small group of people are of such importance to Seascape Sur owners, both financially to the reserve fund and resale value.
Yes, other complexes have had large assessments. Las Brisas to the North had huge seawall expenses. Surf Song contracted the most expensive builders they could find to completely rebuild their complex. Seascape Chateau to the South has done zero maintenance for over 20 years. They did not have the foresight of the Seascape Sur builders. Bob Ellis is continually attending to the maintenance of our buildings, so we have no need for special assessments as long as we keep up the maintenance under Bob's tutelage.
We currently have over $900,000 in the reserve fund because you the homeowners put it there after a $5,000 assessment in 2005 and it was not related to any action of the present Board. The reserves were built up during the tenure of Linda Simmons, a previous Board president. Under Linda Simmons the homeowners were called upon to sacrifice $5,000 or $940,000 in total ($5,000 x 188) to rebuild our reserves as a prudent action in the event of an unforeseen need. This Board has taken many imprudent actions that put our reserves fund at risk. Speaking as a Board Member, I cannot prevent this from happening without your help. On too many occasions I have seen my fellow Board Members exceed their authority by either interfering or attempting to assume the daily duties of the manager. This is no way to run a corporation.
The recent assessment of $2,500 was a specific assessment to pay for the electrical panel replacement project. The nearly $500,000 the homeowners paid was initiated prior to the project scope or costs being determined. Halfway through the assessment, there were several homeowners who came before the Board and asked to have the assessment halted until the Board had defined the project and determined the cost, they were denied. It is not true that we approached the electrical panel project the way a prudent Board should have. We asked you to pay $2,500 a unit without knowing what our cost would be. Also we did not fight SDG&E on their $1,000,000 scope of
work and win. We decided to seek formal bids for the electrical panels. In conjunction with SDG&E a scope of work prepared by Rowan Electric was comprised and put out to bid to other companies. The scope of work was inappropriate as it included many components such as new Cox Cable installation and many more upgrades that had nothing to do with replacing the electrical panels; this gave us a false figure of $750,000 - $2,000,000 work estimate. Actual replacement, not an upgrade was estimated early on at about $210,000 by more than one contractor. Bottom line, we as a Board was constantly reminded that SDG&E was the governing authority. Due to the insistence of Casino Electric that SDG&E did not have the authority to dictate upgrades to Seascape Stir this information convinced us to choose Casino Electric to replace our electric panels at approximately $250.000 a fair and competitive price by using a reduced scope of services. We did not save $500,000 we just reduced the scope of work.
Our dedicated and loyal employees are the main reason that most of the assessment money or at least the main portion of it is still in the reserve fund. The reason is that most of the maintenance has been done by our in house crew instead of calling in expensive contractors. Certain large projects of course should be placed up for bid so as not to over burden our maintenance crew but, the proper balance has saved us tens of thousands of dollars over the last 4 - 5 years.
In the past year we have taken many other hasty actions that were consider unwise and not well thought out. The most prominent recent example is the firing of Seascape Sur's landscape crew after many years of dedicated service. We took this action under the pretense of saving money, however the savings come from a crew who works far fewer hours than our three employees did and it shows. In making this quick decision we never considered other alternatives. If we were trying to save money, we could have reduced the number of hours our past in-house gardeners worked that would have put us on par with our new gardening staff. Not only was this unfair to these employees, and not only does it cause us to suffer in appearance as well, it's an example of these types of poorly considered decisions this Board has made.
Other examples of imprudent actions taken by the Board are;
· Their disregard of our governing documents.
· Entering into contracts without proper and legal notification, and without full and legal notice to all Board members. These actions are in direct violation of our C.C. 84R's and Bylaws. This random and unprofessional way of doing business has put us at risk for legal actions against us, depletion of our resources and loss of control.
· Declaring everything an emergency to avoid competitive bidding which in all likelihood is resulting in the association paying more than it needs to.
· Continually promoting favored vendors, which also, increases the likelihood of over paying.
I'm also concerned that this board is allowing special privileges and authority to a small group of
homeowners. For example; some of these homeowners have spouses that serve as members or
advisors on both the landscape and finance committees. In my opinion, this is a clear and dangerous conflict of interest. It severely restricts accountability, and places us at the mercy of blind trust, more often than not this leads to financial disaster. It also leads to a Board and committees that
demonstrate little consideration and certainly no representation for the remaining approximately 180 homeowners they are supposed to serve.
On a personal level, the first time I served on the Seascape Sur Board was 2006-2007. My latest term has been the last year and a half. It has been a major contrast sitting on the Board then and now. Aside from the unprofessional business practices and speaking for myself, I have been embarrassed and ashamed of the way we have treated the homeowners who have taken the time to come to meetings and ask reasonable questions, voice reasonable concerns or make reasonable requests, they are confronted with rudeness and hostility. The attack by a sitting Board Member on a group of homeowners that, in 2008 and 2009, the Board regularly recognized in meetings as the Landscape Committee was entirely uncalled for.
Recalling this Board now, including me, is a very hard and unfortunate choice I felt I had to make. always hoped that we would start acting like a Board for the benefit of the community. The reality is it has gotten progressively worse, and that is why it is time for a new Board. If this Board is recalled, there are better suited homeowners, including former Board members, who are willing to run for the Board. Also, a recall of the entire Board is our only chance to clean the slate and let the present Board Members who may feel they deserve to run again and serve the community explain why.
If you would like future information, I am available by cellular phone, home phone, or email.
Cellular Phone - (213) 718-8700 if not available, please leave a message with a return phone number.
Home Phone - (858) 259-9381 if not available, please leave a message with a return phone number.
Email Address - bigtomato@cox.net
Blog Address - http://seascapesur-election.blogspot.com
Thank you for your time
Bill Gifford
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