2nd loan by-law 

The year started off well enough. Work was proceeding on both the garage and the balconies.

AGM
The Annual General Meeting was held on 26 March 2008 and it went very smoothly.

Report from the engineer
The corporation's consulting engineer, Mr. Martin Gerskup, presented a report on the ongoing construction projects in the building. He noted that the garage repairs have required extensive work, done in three stages in order to allow for continued use of parts of the garage during construction.

Mr. Gerskup noted that the final stage of the garage repair is the waterproofing, which is a long-term investment that will ensure the corporation does not need to do extensive repair on the garage again for many years.

Mr. Gerskup noted that the balcony slabs and brick facing on the building are also being repaired or replaced. The quality of repairs is very good, however the progress has been slow because there is a limit on the number of swing stages that can be hung on the building at one time and the repair had to cease during the winter months.

Questions for the engineer
Question: When is the third phase of the garage repair?
Response: Mr. Gerskup noted that the third phase would begin to take place in April 2008 and take two or three months.
Question: How far along are the balcony repairs?
Response: Mr. Gerskup noted that the balcony repair is about two-thirds of the way finished.
Question: Will the windows be painted?
Response: Mr. Gerskup noted that the window frames are steel and the original paint has worn away. The repainting is underway and it will extend the life of the windows.
Question: Will the window repair deal with the leakage inside?
Response: Mr. Gerskup noted that the repair to the balconies and windows will counter most of the leakage inside the units.

The repairs to the balconies, the brickwork on the building envelope, the garage and the balconies was coming along well, the workmanship was good and there was no sign of problems. All well and good.

Elections
There was an election for two of the three board positions. The two incumbents Mr. Duale and Mr. Baloutch ran unopposed.

By-law #14
The first sign that more money was required to finish the two major projects shows up in the 23 May 2008 board meeting minutes where the manager and the board decided to call a Special Owners Meeting to pass a second loan by-law for $2,500,000.

Item 6.0 of that meeting's minutes states that the board set the date for the next board meeting for 27 June 2008. 

The By-law #14 document that was registered states that the by-law was passed as a resolution at a 05 June 208 board meeting. There is no evidence that there ever was a board meeting on 05 June 2008.

Special Owners Meeting
The Special Owners Meeting to pass the loan by-law was held on 25 June 2008. Security guards were present to protect the three board members and Channel's Manzoor Khan and Pawan Gupta. The minutes do not show that a lawyer was present from the corporation's law firm.

There is some confusion on what happened at that meeting. There was loud and boisterous questions, yelling and accusations made towards the board and the property managers.

According to the incomplete minutes of the meeting—minutes that do not specify the purpose of the meeting, do not state who was the chair and do not state what the the owners were voting on but do state that the proxies and ballots were counted by the owners of Units # 701 and # 711.

However, according to the recollection of some of the owners who were present at the meeting, the two property managers and the three directors took the ballot box into the board room, locked the door and would not allow any owners in to observe the counting of the ballots and proxies.

When the corporation leadership came out of the room, Manzoor Khan announced that the by-law had passed.

The official results were:

In favour Against
Ballots
65
7
Proxies
75
6
Total 140 13

There are some questions about By-law #14 that include:
1.
Unlike the other two owners meetings, it appears that there was no corporate lawyer in attendance.
2.
The minutes state that approximately 40 owners were in attendance. Yet the same minutes state that 72 ballots were cast. That is a big difference.
3.
The owners who were present state that at least 90% of the owners at the meeting were opposed to the loan by-law and that it was impossible that only seven owners present voted against the loan.
4.
The minutes say that the owners of units #701 & #711 were the scrutineers. However, no owners were allowed in the manager's office where the counting was done.
5.
The owners have evidence that at least two proxies that they have—and most likely far more—were fraudulent. Two proxies had the same unit number and another proxy was forged, allegedly by one of the board members.
6.
The minutes of this meeting have a different look and feel than any of the other corporation minutes that are on record. There is too much missing details and it appears to me that the minutes may have had sections removed and or edited. (The minutes of the other two owner meetings were seven and eight pages long; this one has only three pages.)

Terminated security services
At the 27 June 2008, board meeting, the manager recommended that the board terminate the security services at the end of July and the board complied.

2009 budget
At the July board meeting, the manager presented the 2009 budget that called for a $100,000 operating deficit. This budget was approved by the board.

The minutes conclude by saying that the board and management discussed all issues and satisfactory concluded that the corporation is moving forward in the right direction. (A $100,000 deficit budget was just approved and they think they are moving in the right direction?—editor)

President resigns
Shortly after Bylaw #14 was registered (Bobbi) resigned as president, (he remained on the board) sold his unit and bought a house. In November 2008, Mr. Said Duale was appointed president.

In order to cut costs, the board decided to layoff the cleaner.

At the same board meeting, Channel presented a Code of Ethics for the directors to sign.

Social committee
As a result of By-law #14 almost doubling the cost of the debt being carried by the owners, a few owners started to organize in order to replace the three directors.

The two annual budgets that Channel prepared called for huge increases in fees. However, after a year and a half of having Channel manage the property, the owners were suspecting that amount of work, and the quality of that work, was not proportional to the amount of money they were paying.

In October 2008, an owner distributed a letter among the owners stating that he suspected that money had been mismanaged and possible stolen by Manzoor Khan, the directors and the contractors.

The board instructed the corporation's lawyer to send a legal notice to the owner who was spreading propaganda and adverse comments about Channel and the directors.

Eventually a group of owners formed the Social Committee, an organization that was attempting to gain sufficient support among the owners to requisition a meeting to replace the directors.

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