2019 Annual Meeting of the WTC Condominium Association

[John Reinemann]

Hello. The annual meeting of the West Towne Condominium Association (WTCA) has been set for Sunday afternoon, November 10 (November Tenth) at 5:00 PM.

The meeting will be held in the gatehouse, 505 D'Onofrio Drive.

All owners are being notified of this meeting. Non-owner residents for whom we have an email address are also being notified.

John Reinemann of Innhouse LLC, our management company, will be in attendance at the meeting.

An agenda will be emailed soon, as will a proposed budget for 2020.

If you have items to suggest for the agenda, please send them to us at this email address.

BOARD MEMBER ELECTION

Item of possible action at the meeting: Board member election.

If a quorum of members is attained at the meeting, one member of the board will be elected at the meeting.

The WTCA Board has three members. Association documents (Article 3 of the bylaws) state that our board members' terms are staggered, with one board member's term expiring each year.

In 2018, the board member whose term is expiring is Diana Hause.

(There are three board members: Josh Gardner, Diane Hause, and Ellen Evans. Ellen Evans received a new term at the annual meeting in 2018; Josh Gardner in 2017; and Diana Hause in 2016.)

If you are a unit owner who would like to run for the WTCA Board, please come prepared to nominate yourself for the role. The term is three years.

A board election will occur only if there is a quorum at the meeting.

If no quorum is attained at the meeting, Diana Hause will continue to serve on the board as indicated by the association bylaws.

ATTAINING QUORUM AT THE MEETING

Under our bylaws (Article 2.2), a quorum (the number of association members (owner) needed to do business, is a majority of the members. We have 80 units; a quorum would be 41 units.

Owners who own more than one unit, are counted towards quorum once for each unit that they own.

Proxies prepared by unit owners can allow persons other than owners to county towards quorum and vote on business; the bylaws address how proxies must be prepared and how they work. (Bylaws, Article 2.2)

Other matters pertaining to quorum and the operation of the association are found in our condo documents.

Our condo documents are available on our website. Go to http://www.westtownecondominiums.com/AU.html and click on the link for "BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT WEST TOWNE CONDOMINIUMS." Once in that section you see a link to "Condo documents (Declaration, bylaws, and rules in one document)" which includes the condo declaration, the bylaws, and the rules of the condo association.

Questions may be directed to this email address, which is wtca50...@gmail.com

 

We hope to see you on Sunday, November 10 (November tenth).

WTCA Board

[WTCA Board Email]

Hello again.

Our 2020 budget has been prepared in draft form. Please take a look. It is attached.

A reminder that our meeting is scheduled for this Sunday, November 10 at 5.00 PM in the gatehouse, 505 D'Onofrio Drive.

A reminder as well that we have been in touch with you over email and on our Google Group page for several months about the vast amount of deferred maintenance at West Towne Condos and about our efforts to catch up with it.

We had an informational meeting this past August at which we shared that we planned the 2020 budget with the idea of doing both a special assessment in 2020 AND a dues increase. (We initially suggested a $5,000 assessment and no dues increase. The input we received in August was very clear that many owners preferred a smaller assessment and a modest increase to dues. We acted on that consensus.)

The proposed 2020 budget includes a dues increase from $175 per unit, per month, to $200 per unit, per month. This would become effective with dues paid for January 2020.

We also plan on a $3,000 special assessment in 2020. We plan right now that the assessment could be paid monthly if owners prefer. A $3,000 assessment can be paid off with $250 payments per month. Unit owners can pay monthly, or can discuss financing with their financial institutions. We know that at least one lender in Madison offers interest-only home-equity loans for assessments like this.

Finally, please note the comments below about the possibility of an election for one member of the condominium association board.

Our entire board is planning to attend the meeting, as is our manager (who is a contractor with the association). 

We look forward to seeing many of you on Sunday. 

WTC Board

[WTCA Board Email]

Hello again. It's well past time for us to summarize the 2019 annual meeting of the association and remind everyone of the dues increase and special assessment planned for 2020 at West Towne Condominiums.

Our meeting was held as scheduled on Sunday, November 10 at 5.00 PM in the gatehouse, 505 D'Onofrio Drive. We did not attain a quorum of unit owners, so no election for the association board was held. The current board will continue to serve in 2020.

The board also approved the budget for 2020 which was distributed (and emailed to all) prior to the meeting and again at the meeting. The final budget is attached and it (like this summary) is also posted on our Google Groups forum site at https://groups.google.com/forum/?fbclid=IwAR2cCOkzH0a-7lpaYxJruCwvw-ue1qrj7HHAcZ87vrPuVobIU8nSOW0LXLw#!forum/west-towne-condos 

Key points:

The 2020 budget continues the large amount of important repair work we have been doing beginning  late 2018 to our roofs and exterior walls. In 2019 we spent $91,000 on repairs to our exterior walls and in removing the chimneys that service the fireplaces in units that have had leaks where the chimney chases (the outer walls of the chimney columns) meet the roofs.

The 2020 budget includes a dues increase from $175 per unit, per month, to $200 per unit, per month. This would become effective with dues paid for January 2020. (We will adjust the online payment portal to reflect the change. If you use a bill paying service, please notify the service of the need to increase your monthly check.)

We also plan a $3,000 special assessment in 2020. We plan right now that the assessment could be paid monthly if owners prefer. A $3,000 assessment can be paid off with $250 payments per month for the twelve months of 2020. 

- The board is asking that owners pay at least one-half of the assessment, i.e. $1,500, by June 1, 2020 in order that we may have funds to make continued repairs during the summer construction season.

- Unit owners can pay monthly, or can discuss financing with their financial institutions. We know that at least one lender in Madison offers interest-only home-equity loans for assessments like this.

Other matters discussed at the annual meeting included snow removal, building security, and the renting and resale of units at West Towne Condos.

Finally, please know that we have forwarded our domain www.westtownecondominiums.com to a page on Facebook, and that page contains a link to our Google Groups forum where we have posted several documents including our condo documents, new-owner information, rental policies, and other items.

WTC Board

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West Towne Condominium Assn 

608-535-1195
www.westtownecondominiums.com