My Proudest Accomplishment - New Skypoint Property Management

I have been so lucky to have served the Skypoint residents since May 2012.  What brought me to the Board and ultimately the Presidency was the mis-handling by the 2012 elected Board of Directors of the first property management selection.

The three elected Board members of 2012 (January to May - Former President, January to September - Former Vice President and Secretary) set on a mission to replace our management company, who at the time was Homeowners Advantage.  Homeowners Advantage was the management company from the day Skypoint opened, an arm of the Developer Novare/Skypoint LLC.

There was no disputing the fact that the management company needed to be changed.  It was the way in which the elected board members went about the process.  I was outraged by what was being done to Skypoint.  My campaign to expose this process began and ultimately led me to being asked to serve on the Board of Directors, by two of the remaining elected board members and the Retail/Commercial Directors.

What started as a crusade to expose the process and  reverse the original decision to go with a management company called AMG found me being voted as the new Skypoint Board President.  I made a promise to myself that we will select a new management company, but this time it will be done above board, and with fully transparency,  in open, public resident meetings.

Immediately I began talks with our property manager to learn from his twenty something years in city government and his extensive knowledge of the Request for Proposal (RFP) process.  If the Board of Directors was to select a new Property management company this was the most honest and thorough way to go, though very time consuming.

The RFP process began with the Board of Directors creating a Property Management Committee.  This committee was tasked with creating the specifications for the RFP.  Within weeks the committee had done its job and presented to the Board an RFP package that included strict pre-qualifications for any company that was thinking of submitting a proposal.  The Board adopted the committee's recommended RFP and directed the committee to advertise the RFP and to collect all proposals.

The RFP was advertised and also sent directly to over 50 companies.  In the end 14 proposals were received.  Three were immediately eliminated due to them not meeting the pre-qualifying criteria.  The committee then developed a standard scoring criteria that was distributed to the all committee members.  Each committee member independently scored each proposal and then convened for a meeting to average the scores. 

When the committee meeting ended there were six finalists that remained.  These finalists were then recommended to the Board for review.  Each Board member was given the same task as the property management committee members -  to independently score each proposal based on the developed scoring criteria.

A Special Board meeting was called and the individual scores were added to come up with an average for each company.  At the end of that meeting there were four companies that were invited to come to Skypoint for a Board administered open interview.

Once again the property management committee developed a standard question set to be asked of all companies.  There was also a standard scoring criteria that was developed for each Board member to keep in mind while scoring each company independently. These scores combined and averaged.

In the end this extensive and thorough process led to two companies being selected, one primary and one secondary.  The task that the Board then gave me was to negotiate the best possible contract with the primary winner and if need be to go to the secondary winner if the primary was not willing or able to meet our contract requirements.

Two additional special Board meetings were called to review the contract that was negotiated with The Continental Group.  It ended with Skypoint getting a very favorable contract with a class act company. 

If I am not elected to the Board next year I will always be proud of what I, along with the property management committee and the other Board members, have done for Skypoint residents with respect to our new management company.  The process was long, tedious, and frustrating at times, but I can honestly say, from the deepest depths of my heart  that this decision will be a source of pride for me long after I leave my position on the board. It was the right thing to do.