Saturday 2 April 2016

From Print To Electronic Format



Based on several factors and developments that have affected our building during the last few months, a decision was reached to stop the publication of the The 215 Forum © in the print form, and a switch was made to channel the views of unit owners who reside in building 215 in an electronic form.

Though it tries to articulate the grievances, opinions, suggestions of a group of owners who formed an alliance, this new blogging site remains widely open to any unit owner in building 215, and strongly encourages any resident of 215 including the 5 Board Directors (regardless of his/her membership in The Alliance) to voice from this electronic platform any concern they may have. Needless to say that the issue/s must represent a collective concern such as, but not limited to, safety, skyrocketing unsustainable monthly maintenance fees, bad or good services provided by the management team etc… 

What are the key principles/values that we advocate? As an alliance/movement we strongly believe that one of the cardinal mistakes an individual or a group of decision makers can make is to ignore or deny the fact that human beings are fallible. In other words we reject the claim that decisions made in a group setting are infallible. We reject also the principle that since its completion our building was ruled by successive Boards in a Top-Down form of governance, and it should remain so. We strongly believe that healthy, evidence-based criticism can introduce lots of positive changes, and pave the way for a higher standard of transparency and better management of the $2.000.000 million dollars currently targeted by The Board to cover the needs of the building during the fiscal year of 2015/2016. 

We advocate the principle that wisdom is recognizing that you don’t know everything, and ineluctably accept the possibility that your biases can force you to exclude more efficient options. We strongly support the argument that The Board instead of exclusively listening to the “Experts” of the “Condo Industry” should listen also to unit owners, because “Where no counsel is, the people fall, but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.” (Proverbs XI:14)

We encourage the active and direct involvement of unit owners in The Annual General Meetings (AGM), and after several years of intense effort to promote physical attendance, instead of using proxy forms, we still can’t understand how apathy can successfully prevent more than 50% of unit owners from showing a rudimentary interest in protecting the most valuable asset we have as property owners-our home.

This blog site will introduce regularly issues, concerns affecting the building. But we will focus also on articles (legal, condominium industry news…) published in the Canadian media about the experience of other Condo owners in the country at large, after all the more knowledge we have the better equipped we will be to protect our homes. One crucial fact, that every unit owner in the building should focus on while reading articles published in the Canadian media, is that the views expressed in the article represent the opinion of the author who wrote the article, and does not necessarily enjoy the support of the Owners Alliance.

In the near future, we will outline the basic rules all unit owners must follow while blogging on this site, because under currently existing laws and regulations, freedom of expression in a democracy does not mean you are free to make unfounded accusations, and remain beyond the reach of the law. YES, you are entitled to have an opinion about the performance of The Board or the management team, and NO democracy does not entitle you to hurl unfounded accusations, and unless you respect certain limitations imposed by the laws of the realm, you can face lots of legal troubles especially when your unfounded allegations damage the reputation of an identifiable party.

As a blogger adhere to the following strict rules:
Do not invent stories. Before reaching this blog site to express a grievance, contact in writing the management team, use a civilized language and make a sincere effort to reach a mutually acceptable resolution. Document properly the position of the person who addressed or refused to address your concern. Then, inform us about the difficulties that paved the way for your disappointment. Concentrate on events, ideas, and suggestions that failed to resolve your problem, but do not defame the reputation of the person in a position of authority simply because he/she failed to meet certain expectations.
More details will be published in the near future about the principles of exercising freedom of expression without damaging in the process the reputation of others.


Admin The 215 Forum © April 02, 2016