Week in Review, April 20, 2012

Week Ending April 20, 2012

It's been a busy week at MySkypoint.   Here is a breakdown of what happened and what we are keeping track of for you. 

• Request to management for copies of the proposals that other management companies submitted along with AMG so that we could directly compare the costs and advantages of each.  That review is still ongoing as there is a lot of information to go through.  In case you didn't know at the last board meeting the President, Mr. Diaz, Todd Williams, Vp, and Joel Burt voted to replace Homeowners Advantage, our current (since Skypoint opened) management company with a very small company named AMG (Affordable Management Group, of Tampa)
• Homeowners Advantage will only be replaced after a written notice of deficiency is filed with them and they do not cure each item within 30 days.  
• As of today NO notice has been sent to Homeowners Advantage of any deficiency
• Mr. Israel Diaz approached Homeowners Advantage some time ago to request that they look into purchasing AMG. 
• AMG is owned by Skypoint resident Jay aka Jason Fink who rents a unit on the 5th floor.  
• AMG currently has an unpaid unemployment tax lien outstanding
• AMG owner Jay aka Jason Fink is good friends with Joel Burt, our Secretary
• Homeowners Advantage has confirmed that they are in the beginning of exploratory talks with AMG to see if they would be a strategic asset to purchase
• Mr. Diaz's cleaning service, SkyMaid, LLC does common area and for hire cleaning at the Ventana, AMG/Jay Fink's biggest property. 
• There is implied pressure for Homeowners advantage to purchase AMG due to the vote that hangs over Homeowners Advantage to have a company named to replace them even before any deficiency has been identified. 
• All the complaints by Mr. Joel Burt, Todd Williams, And Mr. Israel Diaz about Homeowners Advantage seem suspect since Mr. Diaz initiated the request to purchase "AMG , and if AMG is merged into Homeowners Advantage how would that satisfy all of Israel's , Todd's , and Joel's concerns when in the end Homeowners advantage would be the surviving company? 
• Although unproven and alleged only I suspect that this is a favor that was pre-planned for AMG and Mr. Jay aka Jason Fink to rescue the company from hard times.  That is my opinion and unproven.
• Why go through voting to replace Homeowners advantage when in the end AMG may simply be absorbed into Homeowners advantage and for us at Skypoint, there would be NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL.
• THIS IS A BIG DEAL and we are on this for the obvious illegal activity that would have had to take place to make this happen.  That proof is yet to come and as yet there is only very suspicious actions to go on. 
• I've heard this week about why AMG is better than Homeowners Advantage because they are local.  Until recently due to board member conflict, we have had Robert Neale, who worked Monday through Friday in the management office AND owned a unit in the building.  In addition Donna Baran was a full time local employee of management , you all remember her from her weekly updates.  Her office was also behind the glass wall.  In addition Greg Mark, was on site from the home office in Atlanta for 2/3 of every week.  I have no idea how that bad information propagated at truth.  Homeowners advantage is based in Atlanta, but we had 2 full time on site managers, Greg, a floating manager, and let us not forget Bruce who I have seen at midnight when an emergency required him to be on site.  In this case going local would be the worst thing we could do.  Homeowners Advantage yes yes yes was and is a division of novare, the builder of Skypoint but that also gives them a unique perspective on our building.  Skypoint was more or less the prototype for many similar building that were built using similar plans.  homeowners Advantage is uniquely placed to take advantage of that pool of knowledge. 
• Announced the addition of Blog Talk Radio a live streaming show with guests that will be of interest to Skypoint.  I chose them because of the ability to also archive the audio of the past Board meeting and then stream them and syndicate them on itunes for greater availability.  Right now look for the Blog Talk Radio Box next to the i-neighbors site where at the bottom of the box you can stream board meetings of your choice!
• I have requests in to the following guests to interview live on the show where you can call in and ask your own questions
• President of the Board, Mr. Israel Diaz
• Board Memeber and owner of the Retail and commercial parking at Skypoint, Ms. Laurice Hachem
• A general request was sent to all the board members. 
• The president of Homeowners Advantage , Rich Hagan
• BuildingLink, thanks to the efforts of Greg Mark, of homeowners Advantage added a staff page that is evolving.  There are pictures of our new concierges there with a short bio, so if you are trying to learn our new concierge staff names go to Building Link, and under my building, look for staff.  Thanks Greg Mark for your efforts. 
• Broken lower garage gates and meg-shift repairs
• On April 19th the very first member posted concern was posted about the shape of the lower access arms at the street level leading up to the 2nd floor. 
• It was theorized as to how the arms were getting broken which turned out to be all true, and then there was discussion about what cameras are there and how aggressive we have been at recovering damages from the responsible party.  
• The camera system has been recently upgraded but
• Bruce has formulated a new arm from PVC, at a very very low cost.  That is why it is being used instead of say a wood or plastic arm.  
• Whenever there is damage that affects other more expensive items we have the ability to go after the culprit with the video.  
• With minor damage the cost of litigation is more than the cost of the repair. 
• I added that the commercial parking is not owner by Novare. It was sold about a year ago to a private party that contemplated removing the lower gate.  
• Several members objected to removal of the lower gate in fear of pedestrian danger.  A possibly solution would be speed bumps on the way down and at the bottom of the ramp, but this didn't seem to be popular. 
• I surveyed the area today in great detail, and there is only one mirror on the east wall, and non on the west wall.  There are NO mirrors at the exit onto Tampa St. for the short term lot.  I think this is a hazard to pedestrians, and I will follow up with the board and management. (Red indicated follow up will be accomplished and reported on later)
• Another member mentioned the bar code errors that are happening, meaning they are not opening the gates without a few passes. Management was consulted as well as concierge sources for the following information:
• An audit is nearly complete making sure that there are not too many codes out there that shouldn't be out there. 
• One reason for gate not opening is either the system is 
• bogged down with too many transactions
• The bar code is dirty
• the bar code is of the old type
• It is suggested that a new type clear bar code be traded out to solve the problem with the gates not opening. 
• Posted pictures of the railroad CSX and road work on Polk
• Posted on my blog here the CSX complaint process for the loud horns at early hours of the evening.  please go to my blog and file a complaint. They will only act if they get a certain percentage of complaints. We all know how miserable the train can be.  It's been 60 years since regular residents have lived downtown, especially the amount that live here just in our building and Element.  We need to ALL complain to stop the heavy handed engineer that things no one lives in downtown Tampa! Please take a moment to do this!
• Posted a report on the Zack Street construction on Zack Street..  It is an ambitious plan call the Promenade of the Arts that eventually be a 1/2 mile long promenade from Curtix Hixon to the Fire Museum that will feature local art and a tree lined, wide promenade.  This is a BIG DEAL for us.  It's a pain right now while they are constructing it, but trust me it will be worth it.  On my blog there is also a pdf of the final plans.   It's going to be very nice
• On april 19th. I began to tie together the public sites (facebook, twitter, etc) with the private site so that everyone knows that there are many sources available with information about Skypoint and Downtown.  These sites plus the member site is not just for bad news.  By all means please add construction notes, rumors of new businesses, anything that is great news to us at Skypoint. 
• On April 19th Homeowners Advantage allowed me to post an ad for i-neighbors (www.myskypoint.info).  Immediately people started joining and noticing the efforts of over one month of constant work and adding of information, not just me, but other fellow neighbors.  I put the container together, now it's your job to fill it with information.  Everyone is a reporter.  Discuss whatever you want, and I can't speak for others, but I promise to investigate every concern until we either change what is causing the problem or find a way to solve it another way. We are all in this together.  The greater our numbers the greater our influence.  No one is any less important in here than anyone else!
•  Also on April 19th I began standing on the city right of way near the garage giving out flyers to make residents aware that we are here.  IT was a great success.  
• We will be doing a direct mailing to every unit in the building to drive our membership to 50 by the end of April. 
• Building Link only has just over 160 and it's been open since November!
• Please pass along a recommendation to join to your Skypoint neighbors. 
• Improvements are in the works and YOUR input is VITAL to the expansion.  We are so far from where it is envisioned.  Help us help you and tell what you want to see, access, do, etc. 
• Further integration of additional sources into our members page for greater reference.

Remember there is a Board Meeting coming up on April 25th at 7pm in the Management office conference room.  PLEASE plan to attend.  I know they can seem boring but there is so much happening in these board meetings our numbers will show that we will stand for nothing that is not in the best interests of Skypoint, the association, and all it's members. 

Thank you for reading and Welcome on board! 

Jeff Zampitella