Answers to Yash Aggarawal' questions

Hello everyone

I have been writing for the last two years about what wrongs have been happening in Costambar. The illegalities of the board of directors and actions they have taken contrary to the by laws and statutes because I was sure that most cared.

Before the last election the previous board met with then election committee to inform them of the changes that the board had put forward for election bylaws and the residents had voted in its favor, once on March 5 2007 and again on Dec. 10 2007. (The minuets of these two meetings are available at APC office and I have them also) The old election committee chose to ignore the will of the majority. An illegal election was held. Majority voted without asking any questions.

Since then the search has gone all the way to Santo Domingo to obtain and present all the evidence the new election committee has asked in regards to changes to the election bylaws that was voted in favor by majority on March 5 2007 and again Dec 10 2007, I have hopes that this time they will abide by the will of majority whom YOU are the readers.

At the night of the election 2008 it was reviled that Jose Polanco was not a valid candidate for not having paid fees for his lot on the corner of Garguca and Los Mangos as long as he had owned it, and did not start to pay until 3 weeks after the election, but he still owes for all the previous years, the election committee chose to ignore this. Most of you voted for him and asked no questions.

The board played musical chair and allowed elected 1st vice president Mr. Don Docker to change sit with Mrs. Ann Walsh the elected secretary, without following the correct rules and regulation. The election committee did not take any action. None of you asked any questions.

The board chose Ingrid to be a board member and never followed the correct procedures to confirm her because they knew that she would not be approved for the thousands upon thousands of pesos fees she owed and the destructive public actions she had taken in the past against APC. I wrote about this, the board ignored it and the election committee did not take any action. No one asked questions.

When it was announced that Mr. Aggarwal had joined the board, I put out the information that he owes thousands of pesos in fees for the previous years which made him an illegal member; the election committee did not take any action. No one asked questions.

Mr. Aggarwal in an e mail to the group wrote that my information was inaccurate, called me ignorant and threatened to sue me. Once I posted the list what he actually had paid in previous years on the group e mail and the Costambar web site, he realized I have all the past records, threats vanished.

He put out some in his opinion very though questions to entrap and discredit me and the previous board, but again it back fired on him.

On Oct. 8th 2009 I put 5 questions that residents of Costambar have the right to have answers, to Mr. Aggarwal. So far he has dodged answering them, claimed he did not want to be bugged down. All he had to do as a responsible and caring citizen of this community he claims and tries to pass him self to be, was to go to APC office and settle his account.

No one asked him to answer the questions.

He helped to write the unfair and one sided budget last year. The board held its general meeting in the dark; literally blindly most of you approved the so called budget. The result was a very large group of people that have stopped paying their fees.

Now if any board member that owes fees from past year, is candidate for a position on the board of director of APC, then everyone else that has paid some fee, what ever amount, at some point has the right to run and vote. Which means the election rules and regulations document page 2 section4-b where it stats, “board members have to be fully paid up”, becomes obsolete.

At the end I have come to the sad realization, the fault is not of some board members that have put themselves above the law, feel to have the right to abuse the laws, and pass them selves as devoted members of this community. But the fault rests with the residents of Costambar whom for many years have diligently paid their maintenance fees in full, made countless donations and carried the load for other none payers and partial payers , yet have shown no interest in its day to day running of the project , taken no action for the board’s total disrespect of the bylaws and statutes and done nothing for carelessness and utter disregard the board has shown for trust that has been bestowed on them to manage the finances .

So in February 2010 you all go ahead and again hold an illegal election, elect illegal members to this fiasco called board of directors and continue with this mendacity and hypocrisy while Costambar is sinking deeper everyday in to becoming a ghetto .

Aida Sosa

This letter has been translated in Spanish, Italian and German, with all the relevant attachments and will be distributed to all residents and business owners in Costambar.

Hello everyone.
The questions Mr. Aggarwal had asked of me were answered by Anette and I as quickly as it was possible.

In those answers, Mr. Aggarwal was asked a question; I have waited over a month for the same courtesy.

I will ask the question again and there are 4 more questions the community has the right to have answers.



Question-1

Mr. Aggarwal, how did you calculate your fees to pay for a small home for years? Was there a formula or was it ad hoc?

(This fact can not be disputed, all records are available at APC office.)



There are three board members that owe thousands of pesos for their past due fees. (The By-Law explicitly asks for all board members to be paid up)

Question-2

What steps the board has taken to correct this important violation?



According to the election By-Laws, when a person has been accepted by the board to become a board member, the board should call an extraordinary general meeting with in 6 months to confirm the new member. Other wise all the decisions and votes regarding different issues the illegal member has had, are null and void.



Question -3

Why the election rule has not been fallowed? Has that member been excused of her position?





A while ago we were told by Mr. Aggarwal the first case against none payers will be in court in Sept.2009.



Question- 4

What is the static of case or cases?



Question -5

What accomplishments this board has had in the past 21 months and how these accomplishments have benefited Costambar?





Aida Sosa

Mr. Yash Aggarwals questions. Anette's answers



I know that the questions were directed to Aida Sosa, but because I was directly involved with these issues for several years I believe I have some answers to Yash Aggarwals questions.



A. Issue of "Camino Pietonal" or a walkway to the beach for outsiders.



Questions:

Did the previous Board do a feasibilty study. If yes, what were the major findings.

What was the estimated cost.

How much was spent by the previous Board.

What were the reasons that it was not finished.



ANSWER:



The people in charge of the project Walking Path were mainly Sandra Asilis, Liana Swerdlin and Jose Polanco.

Sandra Asilis was the person in charge of the study and the estimated costs and she might give you more information about this.

The previous board did not spend any APC money on that project. Sandra Asilis and other residents had arranged some Golf Events and obtained some benefits through this. She raised more than 100,000.00 pesos.

The money was initially supposed to be used for asphalting streets, but Sandra (and this group I suppose) decided to use the money for the path.

They spent the money on material like tosca and an iron gate. Initially the gate was supposed to be placed at the beginning of the path, considering that the path is on land belonging to Costambar, but the people, who has invaded the land right at the beginning of the path (and build 5 huts) gave them a very hard time and therefore they decided to place the gate at the end of Calle Colon.

Liana Swerdlin donated money for that project and I paid for 2 workers and several bags of cement in order to put some big palm trunks at the beginning of the path in order to avoid at least cars for coming into Costambar.

A lady from Cafemba hired a machine to destroy this work, because they claimed free access to the path and the beach.

The project was NEVER given up by the previous board. As a matter of fact Jose Polanco promised Liana to continue with this project.

So we might ask the President Mr. Jose Polanco to give us some update about this project please, because he is supposed to be the person who knows why the actual board didn’t finish the project.







B. Issue of Putting Financial Statements online.



Questions:

Did the previous Board consider putting financial statements on line or send them by e-mail. If, yes what difficulties prevented them from doing so?



ANSWER:



Yes, we considered putting financial statements on our web page.

The web page at that time was created by Dierk Pfeiffer. When he left the country we were left without a person to take care of it.

I tried to work with the web page, but I had problems, because I had no idea of how to manage such things.

I managed to post several News Letters and general information, but the program didn’t accept the form we used for Financial Statements. I was actually working on it, when the board changed.

At that time we did not have a mailing list as we have now.

During all the time I was the Treasurer for APC I made a complete financial statement with remarks and commentaries EVERY MONTH. This Statement was ALWAYS forwarded to all the members of the board by e mail and every member had the possibility to forward the statement to any of you, who might have wished to receive it. Personally I was NEVER asked for any.

Furthermore I always placed a Statement every 3 month on the information boards next to Sole Mio and at the entrance to the office.

The financial statement is not supposed to be a secret and everybody has the right to ask questions.



C. Issue of Collecting Dues



Questions:



When inducing non-payers to pay their fair share, did Mrs. Sosa and/or Mr. Luigi make deals with the non-payers by substantially reducing the amount of their monthly dues. If yes, was a procedure used to determine what the reduction would be or was it ad hoc.



When calculating the percentage of property owners paying their dues how did the previous Board account for those not-paying their full dues. This information is crucial in making statistical calculations and comparing them from one year to another.



Were there any Board members not paying the assessed monthly dues or in arrears when Mrs. Sosa served on the Board. And if yes, what action did the Board take against the offenders.



ANSWER:



Personally I was always against deals, but I also understood that APC couldn’t afford to say no to any amount of money.

Yes, Luiggi made deals with some property owners, because without making deals, these people wouldn’t have paid at all.

But you were one of the property owners, who benefited from the deals!

For a period of time you refused to pay for more than a small house = 1200 pesos.

So how did you calculate the amount you determined as your special rate?

Furthermore you stood up in a meeting saying that YOU would not accept deals and in the future you would put law suits against the people.

Rules are supposed to be for everybody!



The people not paying their full dues were calculated as paying residents. Without calculating empty lots and abandoned properties Luiggi counted that approximately 70 – 75 % was paying full or partially.

At a point we counted 385 paying persons and we were actually so far, that we didn’t know where to go for more money. We only had the impossible missions and abandoned properties left to ask for money.



Yes we had one board member, who did not pay his full dues!

I approached Jose Polanco in at least 2 occasions asking him to pay his full fee, but he didn’t want to. Actually it created a less nice atmosphere between us to say at least.

At the last election meeting I voiced my concerns about this, because a resident, who is not up to date with his dues, cannot be elected. Nevertheless you elected this man as your president and nobody cared at all what I was talking about.

Jose Polanco showed some document about approximately 5000 sq.meter land that doesn’t belong to him personally, but to a company (that do belongs to him I believe). But he also owns two more lots (in his name) that he didn’t pay for.

But nobody cared about this “little” incident..







D. Issue of Property Owner Records



In taking some of the non-paying property owners to court I discovered that APC's records of the names and or the addresses of several property owners were simply wrong. The implication of this finding was that APC's records needed to be checked for accuracy and the current Board began a process of updating the records.



Question:



Was the previous Board aware of these defects, and if yes what steps did they take to correct them.



ANSWER:



Off course the previous board was aware of defects in the records and we constantly tried to update the information. Things change quite often in Costambar and the people, who are selling or buying, are not always running into the office to give APC that information.

People are changing addresses abroad without telling APC and even though you update the whole database today you will finds new mistakes again in a few months.

There are several properties in Costambar also with “no name” = we actually didn’t know who those properties belonged to and personally I didn’t have time to go to the authorities to check it. (We actually had quite a lot to do and not many volunteers among the rest of the residents)



In the accounting program Quick Books you will see that every name has a “folder”. Here you have space to write all kind of information like addresses, phone numbers and a lot more. It was Bethanias job to ask everybody for the right information. I also made a form with all kind of questions and placed them in a plastic folder. Bethania started to walk the streets to contact the owners for the right information.

That was started shortly before the elections and I suppose that nobody followed up on that issue.



I hope I have managed to answer your questions. I am sure that Aida and maybe Liana too might be helpful with more information if there is anything to add.



Kind Regards

Anette Krogh Nielsen

Below are the questions Mr. Yash Aggarawal had asked me to answer. below are my answers .
A.Issue of "Camino Pietonal" or a walkway to the beach for outsiders.
Questions:
Did the previous Board do a feasibilty study. If yes, what were the major findings.
What was the estimated cost.
How much was spent by the previous Board.
What were the reasons that it was not finished.

A-1 Sandra Asilis did all the work, she will be able to give you all the answers.
A-2 The same, Sandra or APC office would have the numbers.
A-3As I had posted the information sheet that Sandra had provided. In total 112,878.82 pesos from two golf tournaments plus Al and Liana's donation , 128,694.00 pesos spent APC office should have all these figures.
A-4The work was almost finished, needed some fine tuning, the turismo had given its ok for the size of the gate. Jose Polanco promised Liana that he will see to it that it will be finished. So you need to ask the new board why the work did not continue.???
Once Liana is back she will be able to add more information.
B. Issue of Putting Financial Statements online.
Questions:
Did the previous Board consider putting financial statements on line or send them by e-mail. If, yes what difficulties prevented them from doing so?
Anette is going to Answer this question.
C. Issue of Collecting Dues
Questions:
When inducing non-payers to pay their fair share, did Mrs. Sosa and/or Mr. Luigi make deals with the non-payers by substantially reducing the amount of their monthly dues. If yes, was a procedure used to determine what the reduction would be or was it ad hoc.

I personally have not made a deal with anyone in regards to reducing residents’ fees, because that was not my position. I was in charge of controlling the maintenance workers. Luigi did, unless we have an iron clad condominium agreement or the kind of agreement that Stars Hill has, we can not force people to pay. Therefore we need to talk to people as Luigi did ..He each year from Oct. to April was able to collect thousand of pesos in late pay and convince none payers. He did offer his help again but was turned down. Mr. Moran our treasurer at the first general meeting after the election said “we do not need Luigi we will force people to pay through law suits”. Luigi and I took the 8 sections of Costambar, I got the list of the residents of each sections as much was possible. We started to hold meetings in two sections of Costambar to talk to the residents of that area to find out what their primary concerns were and the reason some do not pay and how we could come to some understanding? Again all was happening just before election. There was no secret formula, just talking to people and tried to get as much as possible from individual. After all some thing is better than none. Opposite of what this board did. At fist it was all or nothing and people like Mr. Flach that went to the office to pay his 12 checks for the year and the checks were returned .I personally drove Betania around so she could talk and collect what she could. The time that she stayed in the office she spoke to every none payers or partial payers to pay their maintenance fee accurately.

Mr. Aggarwal you should know that your self ,she had spoken to you quite many times. Maybe you can tell us what did you base your numbers in order to pay the reduced amount fees for years?didyou use a procedure to determine what the reduction would be or was it ad hoc??

Q. When calculating the percentage of property owners paying their dues how did the previous Board account for those not-paying their full dues. This information is crucial in making statistical calculations and comparing them from one year to another.
Anette is going to answer this question.

Q-Were there any Board members not paying the assessed monthly dues or in arrears when Mrs. Sosa served on the Board. And if yes, what action did the Board take against the offenders.
The only board member that I am aware of not paying fee for his land, when I was a member was Jose Polanco. This came to light at the end of the year just before election he was told, he refused.
Anette prepared an statement to read at the night of the election but she was shout down . (this is not the land he owns with some other people .this property he owns at the corner of Gargoca and Los Mangos).He did not start to pay until 26th Feb 2008, 22 days after the night of the election.
To today he still owes all the past years that it is due. The other person that worked as a volunteer on Liana’s board was Rudy, he was to pay 1200.00 pesos per month but could only pay 1000.00 pesos. He offered to help with security. With the experience he had in that field we welcomed him. He works for compra venta security department and is in charge of hiring and training security guards for that establishment. Rudy was instrumental in finding our night security supervisor sleeping in his car at 2.00 am and consequently dismissing the supervisor. He also was the person who implemented the program with previous board for each security personal to have a back ground check police report in order to work for Costambar. He offered to be a volunteer for the new board, he was labeled unsuitable and his help was not accepted.

Mr. Aggarwal there are three members of the present board have a very large pass due fee that needs to be paid up. What measures have the present board has taken in correcting this issue????

D. Issue of Property Owner Records
In taking some of the non-paying property owners to court I discovered that APC's records of the names and or the addresses of several property owners were simply wrong. The implication of this finding was that APC's records needed to be checked for accuracy and the current Board began a process of updating the records.
Question:
Was the previous Board aware of these defects, and if yes what steps did they take to correct them.
Luigi on his daily walk always had the list with him and would try to up date the list .Also I drove Betania home to home, apartment to apartment to get the list updated because we wanted the gate to have a complete list of owners and renters, their address and telephone numbers. So when the walking path opened up the main gate would only allow people in, that were visiting the residents. Beach goers would have to use the walking path and their cars would not be allowed in. Again time was short and board changed .There are some empty land owners names are just impossible to find . With Raf’s suggestion I have designed a form and have made 400.00 copies that it will be in the APC office. Every time a homeowner comes in can fill the form which Betania then can update the list. The forms will be in the APC office this week.

The fact of the matter is that I am sure the previous board did everything to its best ability with few board members that it had.
Let us review what the previous board did
NEVER TURNED A VOLUNTEER AWAY.
1- Raised money and finished over 250 meters of wall.
2- Put up an iron gate to the main door , at night it can be closed after 11 pm so the cars entering and leaving Costambar can be checked much better
3-Closed Colina gate and directed all the trucks to enter Costambar from the main gate so we have a better idea what enters and leaves Costambar and by closing Colina gate the residents have more quite in that area. Also we saved by eliminating a security guard. 11 hours 5 days a week and half day Saturday
4- stopped delivery trucks from entering costambar after 6 pm weekdays and after1 pm on Sat. which now it is no more.
5- Installed and created the green door program.
6- With the help from Luigi raised over 880,000.00 pesos for project Duarte and promised the donors that it will be asphalted in conjunction with University Ave, or the money will be returned. Now that money is gone , a work half done, promise not kept and most of the donors have stopped paying their maintenance fees and a Duarte road with pot holes.
7- Was instrumental getting out many Haitians that had started to live in Costambar , over 30 that were living in an area near Amalias home. . Now if you ever are awake at 6am, stand in front of the main gate you will see how many Haitians leave Costambar to go to work.
8- Costambar was never so clean and beaches walk able. The last part of the beach 17 truck loads of garbage removed and maintained 3 times a week. Now it is a garbage dump.
9- Liana, security supervisor at that time and I went to see General Ten and with his help put an immediate stop to establishments that are not enclosed to hold karaoke in Costambar. Now, we have Karaoke music blasting until 4am and no one cares.
10- Liana even reached out to Mr. Vallarino to bring about some kind of understanding between long time estranged neighbors,
11- Stopped horses from entering Costambar.
12- Stoped the buses from entering Costambar
13- Wrote the Costambar regulations.
The previous board was welcoming, a board that let everyone that wanted to help in. The volunteers were not labeled and sent away like the present board has done.
In the summer of 2007 beach vendors invited APC to join them in a meeting. Liana. Jose and I went to this meeting. It was orchestrated by Ingrid whom for all the years that has lived in Costambar has never paid a peso for maintenance, done everything in her power to denounce APC, has turned beach vendors against APC. In that meeting everyone attacked Liana verbally, three of us had to leave. Now the same Ingrid has been chosen to be a board member without being asked to pay her past maintenance fees, which are in thousands of pesos. GREAT.
In reality you have not asked this questions because you are interested in our experience and help. Because if you were, Anette would have been invited to the budget meetings last summer to help to write a budget that was workable for 2009. As she had done in the past. She did the budget for 2008 at the end of 2007, it was estimated at 4,058,384.07 and the actual 2008 budget spent was 4,017.000/00 , how much closer could she have been? ??
Compared to the budget this board presented at the end of 2008 7,500.000.00 pesos and in 8 months has collected only 2.970, 000.00 pesos..

You have tried by asking these questions to distract the readers from the main issues that APC is broke, and that the unfair fee increase has driven many away. Other wise why would some board members be so up set when asked for numbers? If the financial statement that has been sent to the group and posted in the forum is correct and we only have 100,000.00 pesos in the bank, you need not to spend your time asking questions but to be out there raising funds, because 30th of Aug. you have a 200,000.00 pesos payroll to cover.
Aida