2014-1016 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summon* \linutes: Regular City Commission Sleeting October 16, 2014 Cite of Sunny Isles Beach. Florida the Winston Towers 200 Building. Unfortunately, we have very serious problems with the way, our Manager and Executive Board have been managing our Building. When he is talking about serious problems he is talking about life threatening problems that existed in their building and still exists in their building. He will focus on one problem even though there were many more life threatening problems. The one he is going to relate to is a situation about three vears ago because our building was never maintained the way the other buildings in the complex are maintained and so it just kept deteriorating. They decided to patch up the buildings, the condos that needed original work on the terraces. in doing that; they created such a dangerous situation and it was life threatening. When we came into our condominium from New Jersey, and when he looked outside at the terrace that was worked on. he noticed that the balconies were swinging and it was hung up by a thin string of rope, and it was rubbing against the structure of the balcony. Fortunately it was found and our terrace didn't fall down. He contacted the Executive Board and showed them the situation and we had to immediately get one of our maintenance men to tie up the balconies to make sure they were securely fastened and controlled. Mr. Freed said another situation %vas just last year when his wife walked out onto the terrace. and we live on the north side and get an extreme wind, and when she walked out on the terrace. she actually flew across the terrace where the wind was actually carrying her. She did not hit the balcony railings hard enough because she could have fell. There was another situation where there was a tenant of ours who had a granddaughter who was in a wheelchair and loved to come out and sit on the terrace. The tenant complained that the structure of the railings and the concrete was so loose that you could merely touch it and who knows what might have happened. All of those terraces were not kept properly. while the Contractor and the Engineers guaranteed that it would be structurally sound for four (4) years, that is not true. We continually had to fix the balcony and kept living in a dangerous situation. When they were doing that, he went to an Executive Board meeting and explained the problems they were having with the maintenance of our terraces, and he read an article to them emphasizing what happened to another building with a similar situation and unfortunately someone fell and died. When he read the article to the Manager and the Executive Board. the Manager stated that the article was from New York and it has nothing to do with anything in Florida. We have been living a very dangerous situation but thankfully nothing has happened up to now. This same thing could have happened to us. In summary, any common N4anager or Board would have realized the dangerous structures that we are living under rather than to have to wait three (3) years until we got a 40 -Year Permit to get the contract started with the inspection, they should have had the common sense to say we should start now but they decided to just patch it up and leave our balconies in serious condition. Since the new contractor came in. recently we took the railings off, and therefore cannot show the Commission the danger of what had occurred. He felt that the Manager and the Executive Board took all the monev and threw it away when the proper thing should have been done. He made the article available to the Commission to read. The lack of proper management and a proper Executive Board really caused us to live in very serious situations. \flavor Edelcup said the problem with so much of this is, that Executive Board and your Management team are appointed or elected by all the residents of the building and they are your elected people that are representing you and unfortunately too many residents don't take the time and effort to elect competent people for their Board or their Management team. Given that situation. he volunteers for the Citv that anv time you feel that von are in an 25