It is said that you may please some
of the people all the time, all of the people some of the time, but not all the
people all the time. This became very
evident to me when I lived inside a co-op housing complex that itself was
inside a strata townhouse complex. There
were two governing bodies with many, many bylaws. The following story came from my experience
working as the Assistant Property Manager of the strata complex. I hope you find it as wryly funny as I did.
One
Man’s Solution
Once a month, on the fourth Monday,
our townhouse complex has its regularly scheduled Strata Council Meeting. This always takes place in our own Activity
Centre at 7:00 p.m., after most people have already had a long day. We have seven elected Council Members who
have decided that Meetings should be open and above-board, and not at all
secretive. All owners are invited to
show an interest and attend these Meetings.
Thank
goodness they don’t. We have about one
thousand residents spread through 305 townhouses and we couldn’t possibly
schedule a Meeting long enough for everybody to have their say. It’s my job to record the minutes of these
Meetings.
In
September our Meeting received a delegation of residents from Cornwall Court,
which is the longest cul-de-sac in the complex.
The fourth item on our agenda is “Good & Welfare”, which means any
resident can bring forth any topic of concern.
I faithfully note all complaints in the minutes so issues raised by concerned
residents can be recorded for posterity.
This delegation from Cornwall Court arrived with a petition in hand.
“The
next item on our Agenda is ‘Good and Welfare’.
Does anyone from the floor wish to raise any concerns?” our Chairman,
Henry, asked.
“Yes,
we do. We have a petition here to
request speed bumps be installed on Cornwall Court. It’s signed by 32 residents on that street
and we are all fed up with people speeding down that road and around the
cul-de-sac. We have small children,
sometimes outside playing or riding their bikes, and we want something done for
their safety,” one angry resident informed Council.
“May
we have your name and unit number for the minutes, please? And may we see the petition?” Henry asked.
“I’m
Scott Penner from Unit #286, and here’s the petition. We have complained to Joe at the Office about
the speeding several times, but management doesn’t seem to be able to do
anything about this. They can only fine
someone if I rat on a neighbour and give them the Unit number. I really think speed bumps would be the
better solution. That way all vehicles
would have to slow down,” Mr. Penner informed Council.
Henry
briefly glanced at the petition and then looked askingly at the other Council
Members. “Would someone on Council like
to make a motion that we install three speed bumps on Cornwall Court?”
Paul
made the motion and Ruth seconded it, and it was carried. Henry always moves very quickly through “Good
and Welfare”. The delegation left and we
were free to continue the Meeting without interruption from the floor.
Looking
at Joe, our manager who worked on-site in our own office, Henry asked him,
“Will you have the speed bumps installed?
Other areas in here have them, so we can’t really say no. Wish it was that easy pleasing everyone
else.”
The next
day Joe called several paving companies for quotes on installation of speed
bumps and received prices that varied greatly.
Always pinching pennies, Joe accepted the lowest quote and arranged for
the speed bumps to be installed the following day. Two days after the petition was received, the
job was completed.
“How’s
that for getting things done?” Joe asked me, very pleased with himself.
Council
and management were all pleased until the next Council Meeting. October’s minutes read like this:
MINUTES – Oct./91
4.
GOOD & WELFARE:
Unit #290 – complained of new speed bumps on Cornwall Court. Resident can’t get his wheelchair over them
as they are too high.
Unit #294 – complained of new speed bumps. Children have to walk to end of the road
before they can ride in parent’s car, which bottoms out over the speed bumps
when passengers in car.
Unit #300 – Council Member complains speed bumps are too high and she
can’t drive her sports car down to her Unit without damaging her bumpers or
muffler and tailpipe.
Unit #270 – elderly resident complains we never had his permission to
install speed bumps and they are too high for him to ride his bicycle
over. He is consequently deprived of
pleasurable exercise.
Tom’s Towing stated they would no longer patrol Cornwall Court for
illegally parked vehicles as the speed bumps are too high and cause too much
wear and tear on tow trucks and escalate the possibility of damage being done
to vehicles being towed.
Council requested that Joe investigate having the speed bumps reduced in
height
Joe had that done. The paving company that installed the speed
bumps was able to shave about six inches off the top of them. That seemed to solve the problem until the
next meeting where the minutes read:
MINUTES – Nov./91
4.
GOOD & WELFARE:
Unit #286 – Scott Penner complained that snow removal
was not being done on Cornwall Court this winter. It was done regularly last winter, but not
this year. Mr. Penner demanded an
explanation.
Joe informed Council and Mr. Penner that the snow plow
will not go where there are any speed bumps because they damage equipment, and
the location of speed bumps cannot be ascertained by the snow plow when they
are covered by snow and consequently cannot be avoided. Speed bumps were non-existent on Cornwall
Court the previous winter, but pose a problem this year. However, Joe said that lack of snow removal
will definitely help in deterring speeders as Mr. Penner had previously
requested.
____________________________
By Lisa A. Hatton
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