Our Village

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From Kay Sullivan Lot 630B

I am addressing this letter to the entire Long Island Village Board.

As Chairman of the 2015 Election Committee I would


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Dear LIVOA members,
Do you know how your swing bridge fees are calculated? The LIVOA takes the percentage of assessed values of all lots in the LIVOA and multiplies that by the swing bridge budget of $601,200. They then divide that figure by the total of 1,024 lots so that everyone pays the same bridge fee of $46.33 per month.

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Wednesday’s Coffee Meeting was pretty interesting. This is the first of a three part short article series about that meeting called “THE GOOD, THE BAD, and THE UGLY”.

PART ONE, “THE GOOD”

Treasurer Steffensen said there would be no increase in condominium fees for 2015. This was due to an exceptional effort by Treasurer Steffensen and the owners on the Finance Committee.
The particulars on how this was achieved will be explained at tomorrow’s December 12, 2014 Special Meeting.

This forum will be a Board workshop on the Finance Committee’s 2015 recommendations and will have limited owner participation so I would recommend that owners should attend this and bring their ideas on how we as a village can improve revenues and reduce costs.

It was said a new long term 5 year plan will also be introduced. There will be a follow-up on tomorrow’s meeting that will be added to this article and the BAD and UGLY articles will follow individually next week.

PART 2 "THE GOOD"
Supposedly starting December 15^th owners were able to use credit cards towards their condo fees at a 3% convenience fee.   In December’s Meeting we had for the first time the Executive Meeting disclosed each personnel item and contract issue to be discussed prior to its session as required by the Condominium Act Section 82, but it is not clear if Minutes were taken.

"THE BAD"

All but three on the Board approved pay raises to each and every hourly and salary Aramark employee while the thinking on the Swing Bridge employee’s pay increase seems to be the opposite.

"AND THE UGLY"

It appears there’s been seven times an owner has asked the Board for action at removing a supposedly dangerous wall structure that was built without a building permit. He described several hazardous events because this structure is at the road’s edge, including his own wife’s personal injury. The President’s excuse was the attorney has unsuccessfully been able to deliver a letter to that owner. The President also said the Board would bring the issue up at a Workshop that followed this Coffee meeting. That didn’t happen.

Only after the Board was asked to review the Executive Minutes for the verification that they didn't violate certain Executive Meeting protocols did we learn that LIV’s attorney supposedly advise our Board President not to record or keep Executive Minutes. This would seem to be in direct conflict with Article V, Section 7 of the Bylaws and increase the view of some that these Executive Sessions are nothing more than secret and unlawful meetings.

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The Minutes show from 2001 to present-day that owners of Long Island Village have coughed-up over 38 million hard earned dollars to operate and maintain their Park. Most of this money was contributed through condominium fees. In the year 2000 Villagers were contributing $1.8 million whereas today they find giving $3.1 million in condominium fee contributions are now not enough. Yes, even after five annual condo fee increases of $307,200 in 2001, $184,320 in 2004, $245,760 in 2007, $245,760 in 2010, and $245,760 in 2012, Villagers hear a sixth $245,760 increase is now on the table because their unprecedented $3.1 million is not enough cash to pay the 2015 bills.
At a testy November Meeting, Treasurer Steffensen outlined this 2015 monetary problem with the recommendation a condo fee increase is the fix. The Treasurer cited three spending categories as the specific causes for these financial woes and those will be appraised individually with appropriate pushback on anything ambiguous or outright incorrect?
Major Improvement Fund is one spending category that was purportedly “trimmed to the max” but still saddled with a $127,950 repair list. The list includes upgrading three water meters (cost $42,000), two lift station repair completions (cost $26,000), repair Activity Center roof (cost $50,000), repair pro shop roof leaks, patch canal H sea wall cap, and complete letter lots drainage ditch (cost $9,950?).
Pushback When focusing on the MIF by itself, we see every year our Board painfully prioritizes and schedules improvements like those mentioned above and every year our condo fees provide the MIF somewhere around $13,000 a month ($156,000+ annually).
So is it wrong to say the Major Improvement Fund will be doing just fine in 2015 so long as the repair needs don’t exceed $150,000? 
As to this MIF repair list, does anyone other than Director Waller think $42,000 is a high figure for three water meters?
How can the Board seriously use a $50,000 roof repair guesstimate? Don’t owners deserve valid figures from several roof contractor bids, especially when figures like these are being used to help validate a condo fee increase and the fact that the Minutes show this Activity Center roof was part of a repaired/replaced expenditure just six short years ago thanks to Hurricane Dolly?
Infrastructure Fund, the second spending category supposedly stricken by what was described as a “chunk of repairs” costing $148,000.
Pushback This is nebulous at best. No list, just a chunk of whatever? It can’t be the Welcome Center parking lot, road patching, Activity Center east windows, or lift stations #1and #4 because they’ve all been completed and paid for.
These chunks can’t be the non-priority or cancelled items like the pool area solar panels, (3) street lights, or the letter lot fence?
We see owners are currently being assessed for the swing bridge repair, no chunks there. Owners were told the Infrastructure Fund has $44,000 more than it needs to pay for the Rec. Hall parking lot, so no chunks here either. Owners were told they would be assessed for the dredging and the infrastructure fund would help where it could? Chunk-less!!!!
Yes we do have a new fire hydrant plumbing problem, but that shouldn’t have hit the chunk list yet because nobody has a clue to its exact cost.
So what are these “chunks of repairs”? There’s a definite need for clarity here.
“More or Less Fixed Increases” amounting to $138,345 is the last category. This seems to involve areas of the 2015 payroll and operating expenses. Included are the swing bridge (4%-$21,505 wage increase, no reason given), cable (5%-$8,259.88 annual contract max increase), legal fees (Doubled-$25,000, appeals, attorney failures), flood insurance (25%-$6,378.75, FEMA allowed premium increases), common area insurance (15%-$17,403.68, wind and liability increases), security (9.2%-$20,030.40, Obamacare), Aramark salary and wages (2.5%-$24,776.13, it’s that time), and Aramark management fee/other (2.3%-$20,094.00 per quarter, LIV increased revenues).
Pushback Though this category may be where our true woes exist, when does a “margin of revenue” solely justify giving Aramark $80,376 more in management fees per year? What really does this margin of revenue increase even mean? Is it that Aramark will have to print larger amounts on their checks to pay the Village’s bills?
This Board needs to answer the question Director Waller recently asked, what is Aramark giving LIV for management fees costing $184,000 a year? 
This 2.5% employee wage hike is in dire need of some solid explanations also, because saying “it’s just that time” to me is unacceptable. We see our employees working less due to the fewer days the restaurant is open, eliminating them from bartending at special events, and the weekly chicken nights have now becoming every other week.
Is there a good reason why we should ignore why virtually every business in the private sector has frozen or cut their employee wages and hours since 2009? When was the last comparison involving LIV’s manager salaries and LIV’s hourly workers to their Valley counterparts? 
When was the last time we’ve had real in-depth review where management could cut hours, wages, or positions? After all, in 1996 Aramark found no problem with cutting six employees to cover their $72,000 management fee so as to get a foothold in LIV.
Speaking of Aramark, when was the last time our Board seriously explored a life without them? Entertaining two quotes from supposed Aramark competitors in 2010 was ludicrous because most owners knew the majority on the board had already decided to keep Aramark. 
The Board seriously needs to immediately cut this 2015 financial increase by half with not accepting these management fee and wage increases. Then work on the insurance agent to provide intelligent alternatives to minimizes this $24,000 insurance increase which then might make the 2015 problems become somewhat manageable or at the very least, sensible.
Our Board needs to approach this thing more as a spending problem instead of a revenue problem. In the last 14 years owners have spent $11.5 million more from five revenue increases, isn’t time to look at a spending decrease?
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