This Is our Village

Thursday, November 17, 2011

WILL SALISBURY I PLEASE EXPLAIN

Hi all
The flyer seen above appeared unsolicited on my doorknob, as President of UCO, I must confess that I do not understand it's purpose!
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The Agenda suggests that attendees will receive "Association Legal Updates".
UCO has provided Association Legal Updates for many years, UCO has done this by bringing in Attorneys from Becker & Poliakoff, and other firms. UCO has also had the Condominium Ombudsman speak to town hall meetings. Between these two sources and others, we have provided timely advice and updates to thousands of our unit owners, and we will continue to do so.
So, what will The Salisbury I guest speaker have to say in this regard?
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The Agenda also states that attendees will receive "Association Insurance Updates" Wow!, it turns out that our UCO-Association Bi-Lateral Agreement, which you may link to in the Sidebar, and which most of our Associations have signed and all of our Associations have benefited from since 1999, provides that UCO shall place policies of Insurance by way of competitive bidding, which UCO did - and will do again, and which resulted in a reduction in our premiums of Two Million dollars! Oh yes, since the current Administration took office, we have presented Town Hall meetings with Complete Association Insurance Updates
So, what will The Salisbury I guest speaker have to say in this regard?
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The final Agenda item is "Century Village Newspaper Update"
Ok! Our UCO Bylaws, which also may be accessed by a link in the sidebar states that UCO shall publish a newspaper, called the UCO Reporter, which UCO has done consistently since 1982.
So, what will The Salisbury I Association have to say in this regard?
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Please, will someone from Salisbury I answer these questions on this BLOG?
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Finally, is this luncheon about Village unity, or if not, what is it about??

Dave Israel
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8 comments:

  1. Thank-you David Israel. I wonder if the board of Salisbury I approved of this outlandish meeting?
    I, too keep getting e-mails and a letter from this group. I'm disgusted, to say the least!

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  2. Hi Dave. You certainly have improved the overall operations here at C.V. I have owned here almost seven years and it has never been better.

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  3. This luncheon seems to be totally out of line. UCO works very hard for the good of the residents of Century Village. We do not need people to ignore the processes in place and confuse things. If these people have something to say, they should come to UCO and propose their ideas. Currently UCO is passing on more information about the workings of the office than ever in its history. I do not believe that WPRF should allow the use of the party room for this kind of a meeting. It is counter productive.

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  4. From what I understand, UCO did not work so hard for us in the insurance line before Toni Salometo replaced Dam Gladstone as head of the UCO insurance Committee.

    As I recall, it was the warnings by Jean Dowling and Sue Cohen after consulting with Alex Hartman, of Alan James Insurance, that first put us onto the fact we were paying multiplied THOUSANDS more than we needed to pay for insurance on our buildings. Thousands that our many associations are very thankful to have available today.

    THEN Toni's committee found out the same thing, interviewed a dozen insurance agencies and narrowed the choice down to three, which included our former agency, Plastridge, and excluded Alan James, which understandably was pretty painful for Alex Hartman.

    Now maybe Toni's committee would have come to the same conclusions they did without our first having been alerted to what had been going on with Plastridge by Jean and Sue and Alex Hartman. All I know is what I recall about the sequence of events as I've described them.

    I attended a presentation by Alex Hartman in mid-2010 and was impressed. Many of our associations, including ours (Sheffield N), signed on with Brown & Brown, UCO's final choice, because we understood they were a larger agency than Alan James and had been in business many more years. (Not that the Alan James people didn't have years of experience as individuals--they did--but the COMPANY had been only recently formed.)

    The upshot of this is that I feel sympathetic, not opposed, to Mr. Hartman, and plan to attend the meeting this coming Monday. I believe he did the Village a very big favor last year.

    Whether, after attending, I will recommend our association switch to Alan James is another matter. There is still the matter of their being a recently-formed company, and I would not feel right about "jumping ship" unless there were something EGREGIOUSLY wrong with staying with the Insurance Company's choice this year--as there was during those years with Plastridge.

    That's how I see it. I don't pretend to know everything, and friends can have valid differences of opinion.

    As for meeting in the Party Room, I don't know enough to have an opinion on this.

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  5. Why does everyone assume that those who are not prepared to be led by the nose by UCO are automatically traitors? Had residents been better informed in the past many appalling mistakes could have been avoided , so why is anyone from ‘outside’ perceived as a treat? An informed community can make informed choices so why is UCO obsessed with keeping these outsiders out? Are they delusional and genuinely believe they are better judges of character then everyone else? Have those that complain forgotten who they have been associating themselves with recently? I haven’t!!! So perhaps before casting aspersions they should look to themselves.

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  6. Hi Dave
    How can you say you didn't know about the meeting Monday, when I told you on Wednesday night when we had dinner together? Has UCO accepted the responsibility for thinking for all of the buildings? Do they think we are really incapable of making decisions for ourselves? My building officers gather information and then try to make informed decisions. You have designated Becker and P as the only attorneys that we seem to be allowed to contact. The insurance committee has only allowed three insurance companies to bid for our policy. Why not send RFP's to all and eliminate those who do not meet the criteria? Has UCO assumed the authority of "Big Brother"? There are some of us out here who like to make our decisions with as much information on topics as we can gather. CENSORSHIP IS A NASTY WORD AND CONCEPT! The last time I looked, Century Village was still a part of the United States where we are guaranteed freedom of speech, assembly and press.
    Molly they did go to UCO and were rebuffed. This is not fair, just as keeping Waldman from presenting was unfair. Alex Hartman went in to help when our insurance was twice what we should have been paying to help explain the policies and give us advice on what coverage we needed and then he was not allowed to bid either the year he helped or this year. Also do you remember why I let Waldmen use my house for his presentations. It was because no one would allow him to use a room at the clubhouse or anywhere else. Do you want to only hear one side of each issue. I have always respected you as a person who listened to each side.
    To snuff out knowledge is to create a Village of robots!

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  7. I plan to attend the meeting on Monday because it is always helpful to hear from professionals. After I hear their presentation I can then make an informed decision.

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  8. My understanding is that Alex Hartman gave 2 presentations to the Bid Committee at UCO and was considered lacking to give us the best coverage at a good price. Why is he being brought back? Is this a divide and conquer tactic? We really don't need this.

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