View the official pdf version of the minutes

Willamette Towers Annual Owner’s Meeting

Meeting WEDNESDAY, February 24th, 2021, 7:00pm

Board Members: Lauren Dame, Mya Johns, Clyde Horn, Hal Dillon, Jesse Fittipaldi

BMC Personnel: Diane Sollinger

Owners: Roll and proxy count completed—Initial count of 61 proxies and 4 attending = 65= quorum.

Call to order 7:04 PM

Proof of Meeting Notice –

2/10/21: Postal mail sent to absentee owners, email sent to all owners, multiple later email solicitations of proxy completion and submission.

2020 Minutes Approval:

Last year the Association voted to have the Board approve the annual meeting minutes on the behalf of the owners so that an approved copy of the minutes could be sent to owners and posted on the WT website in a more timely manner.

Moved to allow the Board to do the same this year - Passed unanimously.

President’s Report:

Our main efforts this past year have focused on maintaining and improving the physical assets of Willamette Towers, and moving forward with projects started the previous year.

We may not have accomplished as much as we would have liked because the arrival of Covid-19 last March caused difficulties for everyone—difficulties in meeting with possible contractors, in doing walk-throughs of the building, as well as the Board spending a lot of time initially dealing with safety concerns and rules for the building.

Now that we have been living with Covid concerns for a year and have a better understanding of how to work together in spite of them, things are moving forward. The key projects this past year have included:

Security & Technology Committee reviewed safety concerns with community officer
Additional lighting was installed in the lower parking area
Perimeter lighting improvements made
Plumbing project involved reviews, bids
A wall on the second floor was opened up for plumbers to look at stack and make better
assessment
We spent several meetings working out building guidelines related to COVID-19, including
sanitation efforts, mask rules, dealing with disagreements among residents about how safety concerns should be addressed.
Dealt with some smoking issues, some noise issues
Down ramps to parking area were resurfaced
Began review/research on fire alarm replacements
Began consideration of internet options for the building

Financial Report:

The money that comes in from homeowner assessments and rent from our commercial tenants goes into two accounts:

The Operating Account is for day-to-day operating expenditures
The reserve fund is for major maintenance and repairs on the building and parking structure.

We currently have our reserve fund divided into two parts: one for the plumbing project and one for all other projects.

There is more information about the operating budget and the reserve fund on our website willamettetowers.com

Our operating budget for 2021 did not increase from 2020 budget, except for some small allowances for inflation on some line items.

We receive an Operating Statement from Bennett ManagementCompany each month.

The December 2020 Operating Statement details all expenditures for 2020. If you are interested in reviewing it, please let me know.

Committee Reports:

MMRC –

Proposed projects in the works:

EV charging station capability added to the garage.
Additional, more secure bike storage.
Plumbing project is moving along with Engineering drawings almost ready. Once drawings are accepted by the City, permits can be obtained and work commenced on the 06 sink riser as our test and POC for the rest of the risers.
Internet via fiber optic cable to replace the plain cable currently in place has been suggested but not enough responses to our poll on who is interested in having this in their unit has been returned so we don’t yet know the suggested monthly pricing. Fiber Gigabit internet connectivity is a real value added upgrade.

Security & Technology:

In 2020 we asked our EPD Community Service Officer to consult with us about safety and
security around out building. She gave us a list of items that included improving the lighting and trimming back bushes near entrances. We have done all that was suggested as well as upgraded the security camera in a critical area and added others to increase coverage. Then COVID required everyone to wear masks, which reduces the usefulness of the camera since it is very hard to identify vandals who are wearing masks. We can still review the videos to determine what happened, but any video we give to the EPD of the culprits seems unlikely to lead to arrests.
We have also replaced the old dim lighting in the lower garage level and are currently looking at expanding the number of lights that were initially installed to lessen the darker shadows that are caused by the brighter lights.
Bike theft and car prowls are still major security concerns. There are a limited number of things we all can do to minimize these problems. We are starting to review the idea of a secure room accessible from the outside that will allow for bike storage other than the exposed racks. There is also the possibility of a cyclone fence enclosure around the bike racks that locks. Each of these ideas will be reviewed by a committee of volunteers who will report to the MMRC or Security & Technology committees.
Car prowls are best handled by car owners locking their vehicles and never leaving anything in their vehicles that thieves may want, not even a phone charger cable. Available perimeter security options for the property are few due to city code about wall heights. Lighting is our best passive security measure.
Internally, the building security is only as good as we keep it. The “secure building” is only as secure as the access granted by the inhabitants to others and as good as the last person exiting’s efforts to close and lock the doors behind them.
Lighting has been upgraded to LEDs around all sides of the building and is much better than it was and will also cost us less to operate and maintain. All this added brightness and without blinding our neighbors. Many thanks to Tom for doing all the research for suitable lighting and then installing almost all of it. Stairwell lighting is also being upgraded by Dave a bit at a time as the old fixtures give out or money exists in the operations budget. The replacements are LEDs and are again brighter and will cost us less to operate.
The December fire alarm was diagnosed at the time as being caused by our aging systems. A patch to update the systems had been found by Tom prior to his departure and will be integrated under his supervision after we are certain of its effectiveness. The Fire alarm bells in the hallways were found to be much too quiet. Several people never knew that there was a fire alarm until someone else let them know. The new alarms will be much louder and will be installed after we are sure that they are adequate to our needs. Tom and Jesse are also involved in that part of the project.

Election of new Board Members [2– 2 year terms]

Only the 2 current member volunteered, all re-elected: Jesse Fittipaldi and Hal Dillon.

Old Business:

discussed in President’s, MMRC and Security Technology reports.

New Business:

Linda Seymour reported on great success of the kitchen scraps composting bin addition and mentioned that there is also an organization who wants our brown paper bags.