President's Message - June 2005

Norman Salisbury
President

Dear Fellow Owners:

Our Building Committee informed us at the last Board Meeting that our new air conditioning system is now fully tested and commissioned. Over the last few months, there has also been a fair amount of debugging and fine tuning and we are informed that it now runs fully automatic with only occasional tweaking by the staff. This summer will be our first full year of operation. It performed great last summer, but it was operating while still under construction.

As you readily observe, the contractor wasted no time in getting started on the plaza waterproofing and restoration. It is well underway and the American Towers portion should be completed by September, if it stops raining long enough. This project is very important because there is strong evidence that water seeping from the plaza into our electrical systems was the cause of our recent fire.

Some have expressed concern that one of the cables to the South Tower center elevator broke. Is our elevator equipment and are the cables inspected on a regular basis? Yes. Each elevator car has five cables with an additional governor cable. Each of the cables can bear a load ten times that of one elevator car. In addition to the overabundance of safety in the cabling systems on the cars, there is an additional braking system that immediately stops the car in the event of failures in other equipment. This particular cable broke inside of it’s anchor shoe and the weakness was not readily observable before the break. There was no other damage and no one was harmed. The car did not fall but came to a stop and was out of service until our service contractor arrived. Our elevator contractor, Otis Elevators, replaced all six cables and immediately inspected all of the other cables on each car to determine if other replacements are necessary. Breakdowns in our elevators are very inconvenient, but they are not unsafe or hazardous to us.

I would like to take a moment to again simply remind residents to please be respectful of our property and amenities. We have had several recent incidents of abuse and misconduct. An item was thrown from a window in the South Tower and broke the slanted glass panes below causing thousands of dollars in damage. Although no one was injured, the incident was extremely hazardous to those in the offices below. Please take care of our property and amenities. Do not litter and if you see litter please pick it up and place it in a nearby trash receptacle. Shower before entering the pool or spas and do not place soap or shampoo in the hot tubs to make neat looking suds. Your Board of Trustees is very serious about keeping the garage clean. Please do your part by keeping your parking stall clean and by not storing items outside of your locker.

American Towers is a wonderful community. Please help us keep it that way. Your Board of Trustees sincerely appreciates your cooperation and patience as we continue to make great progress in all of these important areas of concern.

Sincerely,