Assigning blame in communities

Anyone who has spent time on a board of directors knows that the board or the management company is always to blame for anything that happens.  From a flooding rain to their neighbor with a wild dog if it goes wrong the leaders are thought to be at fault.

As a long time board president I was told that I:

• don’t care
• am selective with enforcement,
• negligent with maintenance
• etc.

I have to chuckle when these things are said because I am among a few people in the community that volunteer their time to the betterment of the community, so obviously I do care. 

What made me think about this post was a conversation I had with my son last night as he was in a heated argument with his mother.  I got the call as from mom as the argument was going on because he had gotten very disrespectful.  She was blaming me, he was blaming her and I was stuck in the middle blaming Verizon for selling me a cell phone.  Just kidding about the cell phone, but after about 30 minutes of calming down my son and explaining why he should not talk that way to the person who carried him for 9 months things seemed to be better all around.

It seems like an odd connection but dealing with misplaced blame everyday is just part of life as a leader.  The real message here should be accept blame when you are responsible, fluff it off as just part of life when God decides to dump 4 inches of rain in 1 hour on frozen ground and someone’s carpet gets wet.

Creating a sense of community

I was chatting with an old neighbor yesterday about working with online (virtual) communities when a light clicked on about creating a sense of community.  If we can create a sense of community in a virtual environment, why can’t we create a sense of community where there is real community which is a condominium community? 

If you lived in a planned community then you will know what I am about to write is 100% the case and that is we are quickly losing the sense of community.  People are going about their day to day lives and ignoring what is happening to their left and right. 

A planned community can have a host of benefits, including security, sharing, personal support, and networking.  Yet in today’s environment we probably can’t answer a single question about our neighbors other than possibly how many people live in the unit and what their gender is.  Chances are these same people are pouring their hearts out to strangers online in a social network.

So the question is can we merge the two environments and bring the sense of community back to our condominiums through our own social network?  I believe it is worth a try.

Are your neighbors creating a vintage car collection?

This is the title of my next article in “Common Interest” magazine.  A couple of recent incidents that happened in my complex helped me share this information with our members.  There is a delicate balance that has to be maintained when you are a member of the board of directors.  A balance between being a good neighbor and protecting everyone’s investment and quality of living.  In our complex parking is a place that really has an effect on everyone’s quality of living.  We have had residents fight harder for their parking spot than increases in monthly fees.  While other residents just thought it would be ok to take up parking spaces with an old vehicle they just could not part with.  Left unchecked the parking lot can quickly fill up with junk yard gems. 

Here are a couple of parking lot problems we face when trying to clear our lot of stored vehicles:

• The delay tactic – They have no intention of using the vehicle but have this need to hang on to the past.  They ask for time to keep the vehicle, delaying the inevitable.  Unfortunately in this instance it is at everyone else’s expense.  This the squirrel crowd, they keep gathering old things just in case.
• The two door shuffle – Once caught with a stored vehicle they keep it on the move for a while thinking you will just give up and go away.  That is until you let them know what the new storage fee is going to cost them every day.
• The Assist – When you get the person who completely ignores you, like the rules don’t apply to them.  They get a little help deciding the best course of action for their vintage vehicle from the local salvage yard.

Check out the February/March issue of Common Interest magazine for the complete story and visit our website at www.caict.org for more information about this publication.

Michael Zimmer is the President of The Meadows of Southington Condominium Association, Inc. Michael has served on the board of directors for this 166 unit complex in Southington for over 15 years and has held the position of President for the last 12 years.  He can be contacted via email at mjzimmer@bigplanet.com.  

Dealing with Live Christmas trees

Christmas is over and your residents need to dispose of their live Christmas trees. My association has 166 residents and about 1/3 of them use live trees each year, which in years past created a huge problem.  

We would find trees in hallways, behind buildings, in the woods and just as bad in the trash dumpsters. Renting a dumpster for old trees is very costly so we looked for an alternative. Our property manager suggested a solution which was to use our landscaper to dispose of the trees. Most larger landscapers have to deal with recycling trees and other landscaping foliage.  

Our current landscaper actually offers a service where they come and pick up all of the trees for a small fee per tree and haul them back to their facility where they use a chipper to recycle them.

When all you have to do is move your vehicle…

After 16 years of condominium living it still amazes me how many people have to be push started just to get them to move their vehicles after a winter storm. 

We are not asking them to do any work other than clear off the car and move it so the plows can come through.  Doesn’t sound like an unreasonable request? 

How many single family home owners would like to only have that one little responsibility after a snow storm?

What is even better is when they do finally move their vehicle at their convenience they leave the space full of snow and take one of the spaces which was cleared because their neighbor was responsible – that really sends the sparks flying…

I would love to hear feedback on this issue

Is social networking having an impact?

Over the last few months I have been doing hands on research to see what affect social networking can have on a candidate running for election.

I approached a friend, who decided to run for office for the first time and offered to manage her website and establish social networking sites.

Some positives for the experiment and negatives for the candidate:

• She was relatively unknown in city, small business women who had a few book keeping accounts and worked part time.
• She had never run for office before.
• She was running against another first timer, but his family was well known in the city.
• She was running as a Republican in what was predicted to be an election which would be dominated by the Democratic Party. The results are now history…

She already had a website so I:

• updated the format and added widgets to make it sticky (provide a reason for people to return)
• Added a poll to involve guests
• We placed recent updates on the main page to alert visitors of changes
• Included pictures of events

I also created a social networking site on Facebook and created a Twitter Account. The sites were updated at least three times a week to keep them fresh and current.

The results were amazing. Although she lost as a result of the state wide democratic sweep her district had one of the closest races for state representative. All three republican candidates lost the election to their democratic competition in her city. Here is how the results played out: District 22: 30 point spread, District 77: 11 point spread, District 79: 49 point spread. Yes you guessed it my candidate was in district 77 and the only candidate with a website and incorporating social networking tools.

My experiment demonstrated that when you add social networking tools to what you are doing there will be an impact on the results. It is easier for people to find, research, and stay connected with you and what you are doing.

What do they value?

How do you know when it is better to loose a couple of minutes and be courteous? Answer at the end of this post...

It simply amazes me the risks that people take in their lives and their assets. How little regard they have for the items of most value and what high regard they have for their items of least value. Here are two stories that support my point.

Story 1 - What were garages designed to hold?

A little over a year ago my condominium complex decided to build garages on the property in an effort to help increase values and utilize more of our property to generate revenue. At the time we received all sorts of feedback both positive and negative. Most of the negative feed back would simply make you want to say HUH?

The most notable comment against the structures was that the rules would include that the bay could not be used for storage. It made absolutely no sense to this person that we would not erect a garage that could be used for storage. After about 30 seconds of holding back my "What in gods name are you thinking comment?" I asked "Where do you plan to park your vehicle?" and he said "Outside in the lot" like it was so matter of fact I must be an idiot. I simply responded "Only in America do we park our $20,000 vehicle outside and fill our garage with junk. We are constructing garages not public storage and the last thing we wish to happen is to loose a number of vehicles because someones junk pile caught fire." I still shake my head when I recall this conversation.

Story 2 - Is it ok for me to live with my trash?

Last night I was called to assist one of our units with an issue they are having. They live in one of our ranch buildings which are flats with 6 living units with a common hallway. The problem is the people own a third floor unit clearly have a different view of how to live share space and they have been stacking trash in the hallway and from the smell outside their door it appears they must be stacking trash inside as well. This has resulted in one unit owner moving out and another not being able to effectively show their unit which is for sale. Again this neighbor has little regard for what has to be one of the largest investments they made or for what effect their unkempt habits will hold when and if they decide to sell this asset.

Educating our residents about the importance of valuing what they own and the importance of valuing what their neighbors own on our properties has to be our greatest battle. For some reason many of our residents do not understand that our complex functions as whole and not as individual complexes on the same piece of dirt.

Background on this post:

It has always amazed me how much risk people take with themselves and their vehicle. They race around to save five minutes, cutting off traffic and running red lights with the most important and expensive tool they own. Without this they probably can't easily get to work to pay their bills and worse the automobile has been shown to be the leading cause of death in this country. I was heading back home this afternoon and as my light turned green I watched as that one last car ran the red light crossing traffic so not to have to wait a couple of minutes for the next light change. The irony is his vehicle already had front end damage where he had appeared to have performed this time saving stunt one too many times before. This picture says it all...

I am guessing they were late.

Michael Zimmer is the President of The Meadows of Southington Condominium Association, Inc. Michael has served on the board of directors for this 166 unit complex in Southington for over 15 years and has held the position of President for the last 12 years. He can be contacted via email at mjzimmer@bigplanet.com.