The Donnybrook

Ever so often we have a good old fashioned, finger pointing, sista girl neck swerving shouting match at our monthly association meetings.

Getting a bunch of women of color together with strong and varying opinions is at best a risky proposition.

This meeting proved to be no exception.

I usually can hold the bile down when I have to be in the same room as Caustic. I mean, Christ if we only had to deal with people that we liked, we’d never go to work. I’m an adult; I can deal with a few hours of self absorbed bullshit.

Things went generally well until two topics came up: Raising assessments and the filing a claim with our insurance company.

Personally speaking I can’t even begin to financially absorb a hike in the assessments during this calendar year. It’s difficult enough for me to pay my monthly assessment as well as the special assessment for the back porches. A significant increase---even $50 dollars is significant---would not be welcome.

And I made my feelings known to the assembly.

Our treasurer made a valid point about a budget shortfall that the previous board (of which I was a member) overlooked. While the important issue was that we be able to continue to aggressively pay down our porch loan, we do have to address this shortfall.

The most obvious way is to raise assessments but I countered we shouldn’t be having that much of a shortfall as we now should have every unit in the association paying their monthly assessments.

Then our treasurer dropped the bomb----three of our four foreclosed upon units hadn’t been paying for quite a few months.

With the subtle finger pointing at the old board for the shortfall and just now finding out about the foreclosed upon units not paying; I started to get pissed off.

I could feel my temper starting to get the better of me.

Being on a condo association board is a great deal of work. Those of you who have been reading this blog from the beginning know how much time I put into the management of our home.

And I’m just a member---I don’t have any “official” duties.

Nonetheless if you take on the responsibility of a board member position then get ready to live it until you either resign or your term is up.

It’s a business, shit can’t wait until you’re ready to crack open the work and get to it---things must be taken care of in a timely manner.

That kind of inattentiveness is what got us in our screwed up situation in the first place.

I happen to do a majority of my work Monday through Friday, during normal business hours. Since that’s when most of the world works, that’s when I stand my best chance of reaching people and getting things done.

If I have to sacrifice a lunch hour, then so be it.

There was no excuse that we as an association was just now finding out those units weren’t paying their assessments.

You could have poached an egg of my forehead I was so pissed.

Yelling and carrying on about the timeliness of this announcement wasn’t going to solve the problem so I calmed myself down and went over what needed to be done to bring those outstanding monies into our coffers.

All was well until another one of my neighbors asked about filing a claim with our insurance company.

Then the room went up for grabs.