President's Message - January 2007

Norman Salisbury
President

Dear Fellow Owners and Residents:

Our fire alarm system continues to perform well. However, I would like to remind all residents to, Please Do NOT call Security when you hear a fire alarm! When Security receives an alarm, they have many tasks to perform including determining the source of the alarm. They must keep the phone lines free for emergency use. It is NOT helpful when many residents call to ask if they should evacuate. Security will not have an answer to this question until the source of the alarm is identified which could take several minutes. As soon as Security knows the source of the alarm, an announcement will be made. Security cannot give you any information before they have it and they will announce it as soon as they know it. This will keep the phone lines free for use and will greatly help Security if the resident who caused the alarm can freely and quickly call regarding its source and nature. This brings up one more reminder: If you cause a fire alarm by burning food or by some other means, Call Security immediately so that the correct emergency action can be taken.

Recently, many owners have been remodeling their Units. Many more may be planning a remodel. Enclosed in this newsletter is a copy of the Rules and Regulations concerning contractors and remodeling. Please be sure that you follow these rules, contact the office before you start your remodel and have your contractors meet with our Building Engineer to coordinate activities. Please keep Billy informed of changes to your plans, parts or contractors.

As you are aware, early this winter, our heating system had some problems in properly circulating sufficient hot water to all condos. Although the problem was difficult to identify, once identified, it was easily and permanently corrected. Additionally, in an unrelated problem, one of our boilers was firing improperly causing large emissions of fumes and carbon monoxide from our exhaust stack. While this has since been corrected, the necessary parts had to be custom made out-of-state as these and other parts are no longer available for our 25 year old boilers. At present, both of our heating boilers are performing very well. Under normal circumstances only one of the two boilers is required to provide us with sufficient heat. During this cold spell, we have been running both boilers but they have yet to come very close to reaching full capacity. Our Building Committee will be looking at the costs and benefits of replacing our aging boilers with newer high efficiency models.

Recently, our Building Committee has been cleaning and organizing our bicycle storage areas by removing bicycles that remain either unregistered or untagged. These are presently in storage. If you believe you have a bicycle stored either in our bicycle room or in the bike racks, please check to ensure that it is still there. If it is missing, it can still be retrieved, registered, tagged and stored. At some point we will be donating or disposing of the remaining unclaimed bicycles.

Finally, please remember to return your shopping carts to the parking levels for others to use. Please don't leave them in the elevator lobbies or in the elevators. And Please, don't leave your trash in the trash room. Drop it down the trash chute or take it to the dumpsters on P2 near the elevators. Your neighbors and our housekeeping should not be required to do these simple tasks for you.

Thank you again for your support. We are confident that the weather will warm again as Spring approaches and life will be wonderful. Until then, our aging boilers are keeping us all more than warm enough inside our homes.

Sincerely,