Emailed to members 8.28.2017
Thanks to those who attended the Pier M annual meeting on July 21. We had a great time sipping some wine while electing Tanja Castor, Denise Gregg and Al Wilberding to our Board of Directors. We’ve been without a Board for several years, so it’s taken some sleuthing to learn some history of our pier as well as get an idea of the pier’s finances and current and future maintenance needs.
Here is what we’ve found out and our plan for going forward:
Short Term Maintenance
We have some short term maintenance issues and have engaged a contractor to screw down popped up boards/replace any rotted boards and secure bumper pads where needed. Weather permitting, we hope to have this work completed within the next few weeks. Your boat may remain in its slip while the work is being done. Note that any boards that are replaced need to “age” before they are stained, so you may see some unstained wood for a bit.
Long Term Maintenance
The community piers in the Point as a whole have not aged well and many other piers have had to undertake major repairs ranging from total rebuilds to replacing decking and floats, etc. We expect to have to replace all of the floats and bumper rails on the pier within the next few years. This will be very expensive -- we have received one ballpark, non-binding guesstimate of $1,300+ per slip -- and we need to plan accordingly.
Finances
We have sufficient funds for minor routine maintenance costs; however, we are not in the position to fund long term extensive maintenance costs for our aging pier. Our historic annual fee of $300 is not enough to meet projected maintenance costs. Most other piers charge $400-$500; several charge significantly more ($900). The 2017 fee for Pier M will remain $300; however, in 2018 we will raise the slip fee to $400 in order to proactively save for future upgrades.
Additionally, we plan to terminate our arrangement with Herman Management at the end of this year, which will provide an additional $1,600 annually towards cash/increased reserves. Some of the existing management activities will move from Herman to the board members such as managing repairs, finances, etc.
2017 Annual Fees
Herman Management recently sent a $300 invoice to each slip owner that has not already paid for his/her 2017 annual fees. Note: this annual fee has historically been billed by Pier M in July, but billing was deferred until the Board could meet after directors were elected at the July 21 annual meeting of members.
2018 Annual Fees
Hawthorne Management will start billing each slip owner the $400 annual fee, with the first bill (for 2018 fees) to be included on the Point Owner Association, Inc. bill that will be mailed in late December 2017.
Check Out Our New (We think it is Fantastic) Pier M Website!
We have created a website for Pier M. Check it out (and bookmark it) at https://pier-m.com. It includes basic information about the pier, planned maintenance, a “submit request” feature for reporting issues you observe on the pier as well as a directory of pier M owners. The password to access the directory is [contact support@pier-m for password]. If you would like your information to be available in the directory, please e-mail your street address, e-mail address and phone number to support@pier-m.com. Note that this directory is solely for use in Pier M business (e.g., a boat is sinking in a slip and you want to notify the owner, you found something left by a slip and want to contact the likely owner). No one is permitted to make any other use of the information.
Happy (and safe) boating!
Pier M Board of Directors,
Al, Denise and Tanja