Avatar Account & Other Info

E-mails went out quite some time ago with links to set up a personal Avatar Properties account but it appears a lot of people didn’t receive them. E-mails will be going out again this coming week. Please watch for them! This means checking your spam/junk folder periodically in case they land there. Having an account will allow access to all sorts of useful documentation and information but the e-mail link is needed to set it up.

Also, the Board asks that everyone please pick up their packages in a timely fashion, especially large ones. Packages left in the mailroom for more than two weeks will be considered abandoned and be returned to sender via the original shipping service. This applies to all three buildings; signs to that effect should be appearing in the mailroom shortly. In these days of online shopping, the mailroom simply does not have the capacity to allow for long term storage of people’s packages.

The annual meeting is coming up on Wednesday, June 23, at 6:00 P.M., on the roof deck of the Leo Roy Garage (rain date is the 29th). In the run-up to this year’s meeting, volunteers will be manning an informational table in the Canal Place lobby during the following times:

  • Saturday, June 5th, 10:00am–noon
  • Thursday, June 10th, 4:30pm–6:30pm
  • Saturday, June 19th, noon–2:00pm

Board members and volunteers will be there to answer questions about the two amendments that are up for a vote at this year’s meeting, and to aid owners in filling out proxies and advance ballots. There are also two seats on the Board of Trustees up for election this year and this is a the perfect opportunity to ask questions about serving on the Board.

In the interests of making communication easier in the wide-open space of the roof deck, if anyone has a battery-powered sound system they’d like to loan for use at the annual meeting, please let me or a board member know. Thanks!

8 thoughts on “Avatar Account & Other Info”

  1. If you can’t get a sound system, just use a zoom meeting that folks can sign into with their phones. This will also allow people who can’t be there to attend the zoom.

    1. We did have some discussion at last night’s Board meeting about Zooming simultaneously so people could hear the meeting via their cell and headphones if we didn’t have general amplification but not everyone has a smart phone. So it’s definitely a good idea and under consideration but doesn’t totally solve the problem.

    1. My assumption would be that electronic attendance is not sufficient to reach a quorum, simply because our condo docs predate any sort of electronic communication or gatherings. But signing proxies in advance giving your vote to someone else DOES allow for a quorum and if we work out some sort of zoom option you could communicate to the person with your proxy how to vote by text or whatever if you hadn’t told them in advance. But I’m just guessing here—I’ll need to look into it. I’m a little confused myself because we have two Board seats and two amendments up for a vote which is more complicated than any annual meeting vote in the 12 years I’ve been here.

  2. I’m curious what folks are thinking about the no smoking amendment. I think it makes some sense for cigarettes which can be legally consumed outside, but I worry that a broader ban will capture legal substances that cannot be legally consumed in public spaces. Wouldn’t that sort of be like banning drinking in our units? While it wouldn’t impact me personally, I do worry about the long term impact on the value of the units, especially as younger buyers move into the neighborhood.

    1. Speaking unofficially, but having read the amendment and having a pretty good idea how things work around here, I view the amendment as a tool rather than an absolute. No one has any interest in policing what people do in their units, and if someone wants to be careful about using effective filters and isolating the air flow in their unit from the rest of the building, they can smoke whatever substance they want in moderation and no one is really going to care. The amendment comes into play when excessive smoke from someone’s activities is repeatedly affecting the quality of life and the health of other building occupants. Should that happen, the new policies would give the management better tools to address the situation. A lot of people in the building have never had a problem with secondhand smoke coming into their unit, but for some residents their neighbors’ behavior is a regular source of foul odors and even breathing issues.

      Overall, I believe no-smoking policies raise the value of units rather than lower them, in spite of the restrictions.

    2. While not a smoker, I personally don’t like the idea of anything that reaches into the personal and private space of our units more than is necessary. I am more concerned with personal liberty than property values.

      By the way, I still don’t see an email with the Avatar portal info.

      1. When I first heard about the idea of a non-smoking amendment I thought the same thing. After years of going to Board meetings and hearing from residents who are unable to enjoy their own homes because of excessive smoke entering from nearby units, I’ve changed my mind. In my opinion, there needs to be some sort of rule specific to the problem of people’s smoking encroaching on the rest of the building, and the amendment makes it very clear that enforcement is at the discretion of the Board. I personally can think of no scenario where any Board now or in the future would ever want to get into enforcement unless someone’s smoking was carrying outside their unit and creating an ongoing problem for others—the Board has plenty to do already without going there.

        The Avatar e-mail should be going out this coming week.

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