President's Message - October 2003

Norman Salisbury
President

Dear Fellow owners and residents:

I want to take a moment to inform you of some recent incidents that demonstrate the great performance of our security staff. As many of you are aware, for the past several months our parking garage has been the target of some vehicle break-ins and petty thefts. One vehicle was stolen and shortly thereafter recovered at the Gateway garage undamaged. The police indicated that this was a problem in many garages in the area.

Consequently, our staff has been on high alert and in the last 2 weeks detained and caused the arrest of two individuals that were wanted by the authorities. Last Sunday night, the individual causing the problems in our garage was detained by our security guards for trespassing and was subsequently arrested by SLDP. He had in his possession a dozen or more access cards to downtown garage facilities including our own and more than 50 car keys - many of which were master keys for Jeep and Honda. The arresting police officer, also a part time security guard at Gateway, indicated they had been trying to catch this guy for months and even had a nickname for him, "the downtown garage phantom."

Our manager detained for arrest another individual who was wanted by a number of financial institutions for check fraud. He had attempted to pass a bad check here for his move-in fees. Needless to say he will never be allowed to live at American Towers. The real estate agents in our community were a big help in alerting our staff to watch out for this individual.

I bring these incidents to your attention to let you know our staff is doing a great job. Please remember, we have imposed upon them two difficult and conflicting tasks, that of providing both security and convenience. They have shown us that they are capable of both and are doing it well. We are very proud of them.

Our air conditioning project is proceeding on schedule. At the Board Meeting held on September 25, your Board of Trustees approved a loan from Bank One in the amount of $750,000 (contingent upon a legal review). Our attorney has since approved the documentation and the loan will be closed this week. The loan provides for a four month draw period where funds will be drawn as needed during construction. After which, the loan will be amortized over seven years to pay it off. While the entire project will likely be over $1 million, we anticipate that this loan amount will be sufficient due to the many owners who have indicated that they wish to pay their assessment in a lump sum up front thereby reducing our need to borrow funds. Our consulting engineer, John Frank, reports he expects to have the engineering plans completed this month and our project can be put out to bid next month.

All owners can expect to receive additional information in the near future regarding the increase in the Common Assessment to pay for the project. While the start date of the assessment is still unclear, it will be in the next few months as construction gets underway.

Again, speaking for your Board of Trustees, we sincerely appreciate your patience and support as we move forward to improve and enhance our community.

Sincerely,