Condo election speeches

The owners hear so much bullshit

“The story you tell is more important than the work you do.”
—Tarence Ray

When candidates run for condo elections, they are mainly unknown to their fellow owners. This is especially true if they are owners trying to get elected for the first time. Even the incumbents are unfamiliar to many of the owners.

This is the nature of condo politics. There is no independent media that checks on the candidates’ credentials and actual achievements, both on the Board and in their private lives.

There is no independent press attending the Board meetings and reporting on the director’s voting patterns or commenting on how the condo should be governed.

There are no interviews with the candidates, no debates and very little one-on-one discussions when candidates knock on doors—if they knock on doors. Perhaps the candidates will drop a leaflet at the owners’ doors: perhaps not.

The candidates are given the opportunity to have a short resume attached to the Notice of Meeting. They also get two or three minutes for them to give a speech to the assembled owners prior to the ballots being collected.

Their resumes and speeches gives the speakers a licence to embellish their business successes and if they are an incumbent, their accomplishments as a director.

I was at an AGM where one candidate stated that she has experience in customer service and another claimed to be a sales manager. (She worked at a Tim Hortons drive-thru and he was a used car salesman.) There is nothing wrong with these jobs but how their work experiences would help them direct a condomimum corporation is beyond me.

Bullshit baffles brains

"If we can agree on anything anymore, it’s that we live in a post-truth era.
Facts are no longer correct or incorrect; everything is potentially true unless it’s disagreeable, in which case it’s fake."
—Alan Burdick

At a Toronto condo’s AGM, an ex-director, who was running to be returned to the board, made the following statements during her speech:
• she was a chartered accountant for a number of years.
• she saved millions everywhere she went.
• the condo needs a chartered accountant on the board.
• I saved tens of thousands when I was on the board.

There was no opportunity to challenge these statements, even if you can prove it is mostly bullshit, because the Chair will not allow questions. Her short speech sounded good. How can mere facts get the best of a good story?

If she is right

If we accept what she stated in her election speech, now that she has been returned to the Board, all of the owners will be enjoying condo-fee reductions as the tens of thousands and the millions in savings will fill up the condo’s bank accounts.

In a pig’s eye.

Brandolini’s Law

The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
—Alberto Brandolini

In a speech lasting less than two minutes, this candidate’s claims to be an amazing financial whiz, complete with a track record that would impress Warren Buffet, makes it very difficult to effectively counter her bullshit. Yet, I’ll try.

The facts

“The facts are mean things”
—Bill Waller, Jr. former Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Mississippi

The ex-director may well have years of experience as a chartered accountant. That in itself is nowhere as important as she makes out.

To be an effective condo treasurer, all a director needs is a grade-six level in arithmetic, a few hours of familiarization with the monthly financial statements and a willingness to carefully go over the general ledger, the invoices and the unaudited finances once a month.

There is no way to confirm that the candidate saved millions wherever she went. A good business executive, a tax lawyer, a superb engineer or a competent purchasing agent may be able to support such a claim but a bean counter? I’d need proof.

She was on the Board when it let an interest bearing certificate in the condo’s Reserves go past its term and sit in the bank earning no interest for six months. Somehow that fact failed to make it into her speech.

“Tens of thousands I saved since I was on the board.” Bullshit.

Operating fund results

The director was elected to the Board in October 2014 and she was the Treasurer from 2015 to 2018.

Checking the records, it was discovered that during the first three years that she was Treasurer, the Board successfully drove an Operating surplus of $94,512 into an $8,327 deficit. A total of $102,839 was wasted trying to soften the high annual fee increases.

Checking the 2018 audited financial statements, it was found that the bleeding stopped due to:
• $45,421 drop in utility costs.
• $38,643 less spent on building expenses.
• $ 8,424 drop in maintenance expenses.
• $44,479 increase in Total income.

So for 2018, the condo had an Operating Surplus of $52,475, none of which was due to improved financial practices.

When she was on the Board, the condo fees went up an average of six percent.

Reserve Fund results

When this accountant was on her condo’s Board, major repairs were pushed out into the future which will result in millions of dollars in increased future costs and is already showed up in higher monthly maintenance costs.

Bullshit goes unchallenged

I sat in a room full of middle-class educated owners waiting for someone to point out that the boasts didn’t match reality but no one said a word.