News and Notices:

---

What's New:

The next meeting of the Austin Court Condo Association Board will be the Annual Meeting, on Wednesday,

                                          January 13th, 2010, beginning at 7:00 PM.

                            The meeting will be held in Unit # 64 (John Sheff's unit)

                                                  All Unit Owners are welcome.

---

Unless otherwise necessary, the Condo Board now meets quarterly, on the 2nd Wednesday of every 3rd month. The schedule for 2009 is:

                Wednesday, January 14, 2009 (Annual Meeting)
                Wednesday, April 8, 2009 (changed to April 15)
                Wednesday, July 8, 2009
                Wednesday, October 14, 2009 (Discussion of Budget for 2010).

---

A new Board for 2009 was elected at the Annual Meeting of January 14th. In addition to Gary Drescher, Jennie Panico, and John Sheff, Shabeeb Rabbany and Ilie Talpasanu are now Trustees; welcome, Shabeeb and Ilie! Denise Bredt and Voncile White have stepped down, but we remain grateful for their many years dedication, service, and generosity. Thank you, Denise and Voncile!

Furthermore, new Officers of the Association were selected. Gary Drescher will serve as President, Jennie Panico as Treasurer, and John Sheff as Secretary. 

Contact information is available on the Trustees page:  Trustees.

Elevator Update (as of June 6, 2007):

Elevator Update:

To the unit owners at Austin Court:

For more than a year, our building’s elevator has had bouts of frequent breakdowns. In November of 2006, we paid $10,000 to replace the elevator’s door-operator components. Unfortunately, following that maintenance, the elevator began to fail even more often, soon incurring more than $5,000 of additional costs for repeated service calls. 

In January 2007, we hired the elevator engineering firm Syska Hennessy Group to examine our elevator and make recommendations. Their conclusion is that the 40-year-old elevator system is worn out and obsolete, and is in need of a major renovation. The door-operator replacement was a good first step, but a relatively small one. The projected cost for the remaining recommended overhaul would be $220,000, and the elevator would need to be out of service for a few months during the renovation. (The engineers’ full report is available online at Elevator Report.) 

Recently, the frequency of elevator breakdowns has diminished, so we may have a temporary reprieve from the renovation. However, we wish to alert all owners that the renovation will likely be needed before long—probably within the next few years, and and perhaps almost immediately if the frequent, expensive breakdowns resume. 

Of course, we would not undertake such a major project without further study and a vote by all unit owners. The purpose of this letter is not to announce a decision (which has not yet been made), but just to give advance warning so owners can prepare for the expected expense and inconvenience.

Sincerely,

- The Austin Court Trustees