[Yea! The "Felix" sign in the Fitness Center isn't there now (Thursday afternoon, 16 July 2009)! I hope it stays gone. I view the disappearance of that sign as good riddance! I'll leave this post up for now in case the sign comes back, and for general amusement. Sincerely, Paul Rasmussen, unit 305]
Why do I ask if Felix lives here? I ask because there is a sign in the Fitness Center that looks like it might have been written by Felix.
Felix, you may recall, was a character in the Neil Simon play “The Odd Couple.” Felix wanted to live in an extremely ordered and tidy living space. Felix was like the college housemate who put a sign over the kitchen sink admonishing the rest of us to wash our dirty dishes.
I have a little of Felix in me. When I use the Fitness Center, I use my time resting between sets to put all the equipment in its rightful place. I adjust all the blinds the same, to let in maximum indirect sunlight and look orderly. I not only put all the weights in their proper place, but I position them all the same, so it is easy to read the weight labels and so that they look neat and orderly as well. When I have finished using the weight machines, I leave them in a commonly-used configuration and wipe what I have touched with the disinfectant paper towels.
BUT I WOULD NOT DREAM OF PUTTING UP SIGNS OR TAKING ANY ACTION TO TRY TO IMPOSE MY PARTICULAR SENSE OF ORDERLINESS ON OTHER RESIDENTS WHO USE THE FITNESS CENTER. “Felix” apparently doesn’t have this reservation, seemingly trying to impose his sense of orderliness and tidiness on the rest of us who use the Fitness Center.
“Felix’s” sign in the Fitness Center reads as follows:
“MARKET STREET RESDIENTS
PLEASE PUT AWAY ALL EQUIPMENT AFTER EACH USE (WEIGHTS/MACHINES)
AND PLEASE DO NOT DROP WEIGHTS ON THE FLOOR THE VIBRATION GOES UP THE WALL AND DISTURBS RESIDENTS ABOVE THE FITNESS ROOM.
THANK YOU”
Just as depicted here, the actual sign contains the non-word "RESDIENTS" near the beginning, is in all upper case letters, and includes the run-together sentences.
I request that our Market Street at Town Center Condominium Unit Owners Association Board of Directors direct management to take down “Felix’s” sign. Then, if our Board believes “Felix’s” admonitions might be useful, our Board should put the item on the agenda for a future meeting, giving all interested unit owners a chance to comment regarding whether our Board should add “Felix’s” admonitions to the official Fitness Center rules a previous Board enacted.
For more information related to “Felix’s” sign in the Fitness Center, please see my post at http://mstc-uoa.blogspot.com/2009/06/creeping-de-facto-rules-and-regulations.html
If you own a unit in our Market Street at Town Center Condominium and wish to comment on this or any Unit Owner Association issue, I strongly urge you to do so in my forum at http://mstcuoa.proboards.com/. I really would like to see some comments from other unit owners posted there. Also, I encourage you to email me at rasmussen305@gmail.com
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Wrong Declaration Posted
[As of 18 August 2009, the correct Declaration--the Declaration that is recorded in the land records at the deed book and page cited in the original post below--is posted on the official website. That is good! For now, I'll leave this post up, largely because the weblinks are still useful. Sincerely, Paul Rasmussen, unit 305]
Our Market Street at Town Center Condominium Unit Owners Association recently posted a wrong Declaration on its official website. The posted document, which was superseded by later revisions, has no official standing whatsoever and is binding on no one. Our Association should instead post a facsimile of the “Declaration of Market Street at Town Center Condominium” that is recorded in County of Fairfax land records beginning at page 1991 of deed book 16608 and, because it is recorded, is thus legally binding on us Unit Owners.
An example of a difference I have noticed between the official recorded Declaration and the wrong version the Association posted is with regard to the Commercial Unit. The recorded Declaration envisions one Commercial Unit, whereas the posted version envisions multiple Commercial Units. Consequently, the (wrong) posted version speaks of “Individual Commercial Limited Common Elements” whereas the official recorded version does not. But the main point is that we Unit Owners can’t rely on the currently posted version because we don’t know where all it may differ from the official, legally-binding, recorded Declaration.
You can view the wrong version [correct version as of 18 Aug 09] of the Declaration currently posted on the Association website at http://www.marketstreetattowncenter.com/docs/CMC.pdf. You will notice that the wrong Declaration version the Association posted shows dates in fine print in the lower left corner of each page, and that the latest date shown in that fine print in that wrong version is 12/24/02. In contrast, the official recorded Declaration includes the later dates 10/23/03, 11/10/03 and 7/15/04 as well as the notation "v4clean.doc" in the fine print in the lower left corner of each page. And, of course, the recorded Declaration shows the deed book number and page number at the top of each page of the Declaration.
While it isn’t good that management posted a wrong version, it is good that our Association has at least made a good effort to post the Declaration on its website. The Declaration is the most fundamental of the condominium instruments that apply to us as Unit Owners, and its presence on the Association website is long overdue. Now we will anxiously await the appearance of the official recorded version of the “Declaration of Market Street at Town Center Condominium” on the Association website.
In the foregoing paragraph and in other posts on this blog, I have used the term "condominium instruments." As defined in § 55-79.41 of the Virginia Condominium Act, "condominium instruments" is a collective term referring to the declaration, bylaws, and plats and plans, recorded pursuant to the provisions of that Act.
You can view the Virginia Condominium Act at http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+TOC55000000004000020000000
You can view information regarding our Declaration in my post at http://mstc-uoa.blogspot.com/2008/01/governing-documents-our-declaration.html
If you own a unit in our Market Street at Town Center Condominium and wish to comment on this or any Unit Owner Association issue, I strongly urge you to do so in my forum at http://mstcuoa.proboards.com/. I really would like to see some comments from other unit owners posted there. Also, I encourage you to email me at rasmussen305@gmail.com
In conclusion, I urge our Board of Directors to direct the posting on our Association website of a facsimile of the “Declaration of Market Street at Town Center Condominium” that is recorded in County of Fairfax land records beginning at page 1991 of deed book 16608.
Our Market Street at Town Center Condominium Unit Owners Association recently posted a wrong Declaration on its official website. The posted document, which was superseded by later revisions, has no official standing whatsoever and is binding on no one. Our Association should instead post a facsimile of the “Declaration of Market Street at Town Center Condominium” that is recorded in County of Fairfax land records beginning at page 1991 of deed book 16608 and, because it is recorded, is thus legally binding on us Unit Owners.
An example of a difference I have noticed between the official recorded Declaration and the wrong version the Association posted is with regard to the Commercial Unit. The recorded Declaration envisions one Commercial Unit, whereas the posted version envisions multiple Commercial Units. Consequently, the (wrong) posted version speaks of “Individual Commercial Limited Common Elements” whereas the official recorded version does not. But the main point is that we Unit Owners can’t rely on the currently posted version because we don’t know where all it may differ from the official, legally-binding, recorded Declaration.
You can view the wrong version [correct version as of 18 Aug 09] of the Declaration currently posted on the Association website at http://www.marketstreetattowncenter.com/docs/CMC.pdf. You will notice that the wrong Declaration version the Association posted shows dates in fine print in the lower left corner of each page, and that the latest date shown in that fine print in that wrong version is 12/24/02. In contrast, the official recorded Declaration includes the later dates 10/23/03, 11/10/03 and 7/15/04 as well as the notation "v4clean.doc" in the fine print in the lower left corner of each page. And, of course, the recorded Declaration shows the deed book number and page number at the top of each page of the Declaration.
While it isn’t good that management posted a wrong version, it is good that our Association has at least made a good effort to post the Declaration on its website. The Declaration is the most fundamental of the condominium instruments that apply to us as Unit Owners, and its presence on the Association website is long overdue. Now we will anxiously await the appearance of the official recorded version of the “Declaration of Market Street at Town Center Condominium” on the Association website.
In the foregoing paragraph and in other posts on this blog, I have used the term "condominium instruments." As defined in § 55-79.41 of the Virginia Condominium Act, "condominium instruments" is a collective term referring to the declaration, bylaws, and plats and plans, recorded pursuant to the provisions of that Act.
You can view the Virginia Condominium Act at http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+TOC55000000004000020000000
You can view information regarding our Declaration in my post at http://mstc-uoa.blogspot.com/2008/01/governing-documents-our-declaration.html
If you own a unit in our Market Street at Town Center Condominium and wish to comment on this or any Unit Owner Association issue, I strongly urge you to do so in my forum at http://mstcuoa.proboards.com/. I really would like to see some comments from other unit owners posted there. Also, I encourage you to email me at rasmussen305@gmail.com
In conclusion, I urge our Board of Directors to direct the posting on our Association website of a facsimile of the “Declaration of Market Street at Town Center Condominium” that is recorded in County of Fairfax land records beginning at page 1991 of deed book 16608.
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