Uneasy partnership

There was an uneasy partnership between Jim Bezemer and the Social Committee. Mr. Bezemer was Fine & Deo, the board and Channel's choice, not theirs.

Since he arrived in June 2010, the Social Committee bombarded him with e-mail and written requests asking for information and pushing him to start investigating Channel and the board members. He replied that he didn’t see any wrong doing.

The Social Committee wanted him to fire Fine and Deo, some of the contractors and Channel—especially Channel— and investigate what happened with their $6,000,000. 

Instead, Jim worked with the contractors and up to November of 2010 believed that there may have been a few bad business decisions but there was no large-scale fraud.

Yet the Social Committee recognised Jim's skills and knowledge. He was making visible improvements to the property. He cared.

Shadow board
When the administrator called for a shadow board to be elected, the five-person board came from the Social Committee.

The administrator worked with them showing how a board should make decisions and teaching them how they needed to work together.

A by-law was passed increasing the board from three to five members.

Wanting answers
The shadow board wanted answers. Why were contractors, who they suspected of being in cahoots with Channel still doing work for the corporation? They wanted Mr. Bezemer to dump Fine and Deo and find out where the money went and who was involved.

Jim gave them a breakdown on where Channel claimed the Reserve Funds were spent.

Revenue

Existing Reserve Fund	$00700,000
1st loan	3,000,000
2nd loan	2,500,000
Total	6,200,000

Disbursements

Garage Repairs	$3,300,000
Building envelope (Channel paid less than $1 million to have this work done.)	1,900,000
Consulting Engineers	330,000
Financing Fees	100,000
Carpet	323,000
Various Minor Repairs	200,000
Legal fees	50,000
Total	6,203,000

Special assessment
The $1,000,000 special assessment that the administrator needed matches closely with the $1,300,000 that they later proved was stolen.

Contractors


The Social Committee was upset that the administrator kept on some of the same contracting companies that Channel used. Mr. Bezemer received
an estimate of $3,000,000 to do the final repairs on the garage. When he got a second opinion from a different engineering company, the cost came in at $700,000. That is quite a difference.

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