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CHR hits long-awaited milestone

By Staff | Sep 19, 2013

Community Housing & Resources (CHR) reaches a major milestone this week as the nonprofit closes on its 14th and final Limited Equity Ownership (LEO) property at 1491 Center Street.

“This is a milestone for us,” said CHR board president Richard Johnson. “And as a board we thank Ray Pavelka for all of his hard work on the LEOs and especially 1491. It’s the last of our first sale properties. Now we can go onto reselling.”

In fact one LEO property came vacant in August with the death of the owner. The LEO committee can now move ahead with locating and qualifying candidates for selling the unit.

In other activity at the board’s meeting Monday included the approval of the second draft of the Fiscal Year 2014 budget without the need to make more changes from the first draft.

Johnson announced to the board that board member, and chair of the landlord tenant committee Robin Moran, had submitted her resignation.

“She felt she needed to allocate her time and energies elsewhere,” Johnson said. “She thought she could not be as effective as she needed to be to remain on the board. I believe she is set to become president of Zonta next year. My efforts to keep her on board failed.”

The board voted to accept the resignation and now turns its attention to filling the vacancy for the remainder of Moran’s term.

During the financial report of treasurer Melissa Rice, it was noted that CHR’s transportation costs went over budget last month when its newly acquired surplus vehicle donated by the City of Sanibel was repaired and placed into service for its maintenance supervisor.

Rice also reported that three tenants have moved out of units while still owing rent and two other tenants had a rent balance due a the end of August.

“This will hurt us this month (September) in our accounts receivable,” said Rice, adding, “CHR is still operating in the black at this time.”

Now that every CHR unit has been inspected this year, buildings & ground committee chair Dorothy Donaldson suggested making inspections coincide with the yearly renewal and recertification of tenants instead of move-outs.

“We inspected every unit this year,” Donaldson said. “Some of them had not been done in three years. By making inspections happen just before recertification we know that it will be done at least once a year and we won’t get into this position again.”

CHR is dealing with major repairs and clean-up at one unit on Airport Way that was “a mess.” It has taken weeks to get the unit back into condition to rent again, which could be as soon as the end of September.

CHR has chosen the firm of San-Cap CPA, Inc. to file a claim against British Petroleum for damages from the oil spill with no legal fees regardless of the result of the claim.

The board also retained the Fort Myers CPA firm of Tuscan & Company as its financial auditor for a period of three years instead of the current yearly renewal. The board based the decision upon its satisfaction with the firm’s work and their familiarity with CHR’s operation. However, for any reason, the board can cancel the agreement in the second or third year.

Development committee chair Tim Garmager reported on the fundraising events planned for 2014. He urged fellow board members to bring forth any contacts they think of for sponsorships of the Mardi Gras in March and the golf tournament.

The golf outing, which had been targeted for November to facilitate the participation of the FGCU golf team and to separate it from Mardi Gras, has been postponed until spring.

“FGCU is not available at that time this fall,” said Garmager. “We will have to set a date in March or April, so it and Mardi Gras will go back to back once again.”

After the first tournament five months ago, it was FGCU that suggested moving it to the fall, but discussions with school administrators could not change the team’s availability during its current season schedule.