SELAMAT HARI RAYA

Guys, here's wishing every Malaysian HAPPY HOLIDAYS and to all Muslims, we celebrate with you the end of another Holy Month, celebrating your patience and determination in conquering hunger and the call of your religion.

Whilst we celebrate, may I humbly ask that we all remember our fellow Malaysians in custody due to misuse of authority in our country. Our prayers must be with all of them and their families.

Peace to all!

And incidentally, in CHINA (MACAU) we also have holidays on Wednesday and Thursday, celebrating the NATIONAL DAY Celebrations of the Peoples Republic of China.

Let;s celebrate together!

More on Security - Pros and Cons

It is about time that someone did initiate a networking system amongst the JMCs. The security problems that BP is facing is somewhat similar to what Armanee Damansara Damai (ADD) is facing. At ADD, we are using a security company called East West Security Services. We have 21 guards during the night and 22 guards during the day. Basically, the guards have 4 locations to man.1. Guardhouse at main entrance2. Clubhouse3. Block A4. Block B5. Block CThis excludes the podium and general compound. We have door and barrier gate access systems and CCTV. When we took vacant possession, we applied for the Residents Card but until now, it has not taken effect. Coming to your questions :- Access Card SystemIt is quite costly even to maintain. Storms usually paralyse the system - lightning strike and water exposure. You will not only have to deal with this but to also also train the guards. At ADD, the guards have a habit of manually operating the boom gates and door access. Yes, we have 2 guards, day and night, based at the respective residential blocks. No matter how many times I have tried to explain to them that they must now operate the system manually, they just never listen. Yes, it is a good system but it has to be properly planned and executed. Do not save on the protection system; lightning arrestors and surge protectors. We learnt a very expensive mistake ! Our boom gate access card system is presently on a monthly rental basis. CCTVCCTV's are a great security tool but again, are expensive to maintain. This is again a system that is sensitive to the weather. CCTV's are only good if you have a responsible guard to man the system. At ADD, our system is from the dinosaur ages - using VHS (now using hard disc) and another system is non-recordable. Our monitors are B&W. I learnt from friends that you need to be careful when selecting systems because many are light sensitive. In the night, your recordings are nothing more than patches of blured images. Access Card to ResidencesPerfect. This is what we were looking into. Again, there are pros and cons. Security is enhanced but each time a resident has a visitor, the resident will be inconvenienced because he/she will actually have to collect the visitor from the lobby. That's unless you have an intercom system with a "bypass" switch that you can activate from your unit. One-Way Door Access at Emergency ExitsIn my personal opinion, this is something dangerous in the event of a fire. If residents are caught in the emergency exits between floors, they too will not be able to access the "safe" floors - Not just burglars ! These are just some light opinions that I thought I'd share with all of you. Looking forward to more input. Regards,Valery

ON SECURITY - Pros and Cons

Hi everyone First, please let me do the introduction and then the purpose of this e-mail. I am Jock Chew, an elected member of Bayu Puteri (BP) Apartments JMC located in PJ Tropicana. I have met some of you while have been in touch with the rest via phone or emails previously. CM Chong is from ShangVilla condo, Kelana JayaRobert Foong, Anthony Goh & SC Lim are from Pelangi Damansara AptsValery is from Armanee Damansara Damai CondoWC Wong is from Sri Pinang CondoHY Lin is from Sri Intan 2 CondoS Venkat is from Bunga RayaAnthony is from Kenanga Condo, PuchongChua is from Akasia Apts, Puchong Before that, I must apologise as I have not sought your permission to reveal your email addresses. The purpose of this e-mail is to establish a contact with representatives of other high rise buildings to form a network of supports and sharing of information and experiences.
It is hoped that by so doing, all of us are enriched and be able to bring about positive changes to our respective JMB or MC. In this e-mail, I would like to discuss and hopefully you could also share with the rest, your own experiences on the issue on SECURITY. Presently, BP has retained the security firm, BERTAM Security Services, but is looking for a better alternative. Bertam has a mix of local and foreign guards but the security officers are local. Due to relatively low paying at between RM4.50 - 5.00/hr, these guards are more used for guarding than security. Because of occassional complaints on breakins, vandalism, car thefts, the guards are often blamed rather than the lack of over-sight by the property manager. In addition, rather than improving supervision or getting more quality and well paying guards, BP is proposing to: - introduce an electronic touch card system as resident ID cards for all residents - install more CCTVs at lift lobbies, inside lifts and other strategic area- install access control via pass cards into all tower lifts- install one way access door locks at emergency staircase exits These proposals are being opposed by some residents as premature, impractical or "putting the cart before the horse". My questions to you are: 1. Do you have a resident ID card system? If so, what type? Who manages it? How effective? Costs, etc? 2. Do you in favour of more CCTVs and more security gadgets? What are the downsides? 3. How are you currently managing security issues in your own buildings? You may share your views with all the rest of us. JOCK CHEW

Something INTERESTING and USEFUL..read on

The following is an excerpt from email correspondence with CAHC.....these are common issues that may be useful for all...please feel free to add your comments....

These JMC decisions portend to potentially serious lapses of good governance, transparency and accountability. 1. Closed Door Meeting For the first time, this 6th JMC meeting was declared as closed to non-JMC owners. The reason to keep out non-JMC members was not given prior to the meeting which was deliberately postponed by a week to emphasise the need for a closed meeeting. Under ACT 663 First Schedule [Subsection 11(4)] Committee may invite others to meetings - JMC can conduct closed door meetings - this may not be healthy but they reserve the right and if they exercise it we can't simply imply they have something to hide unless we have evidence. Transparency can be interpreted in many ways. Allowing you to attend does not mean transparency. Disclosing all Notice of meetings, agenda, attendees and minutes of meeting is transparency! Anyway if you are invited to JMC meetings you are not allowed to speak unless the chairman allows you and you definitely cannot vote on a decision! There should be greater transparency and care given by JMC when choosing to declare their deliberations within CLOSED DOOR meetings in the future. 2. No Meeting Agenda Although not the first time, the meeting was specifically informed that there was no agenda for the meeting despite some JMC members who had earlier sent in their items for inclusion as the agenda. However, the chair did have an agenda of his own which was used as the meeting progressed. In other words, agendas are being used to promote certain ideas or personal goals at the exclusion of others. All meetings must have Notice of Meeting which must contain date, time, venue and agenda of meeting. Any meetings conducted without a clear documented agenda is not a properly convened meeting. JMC members can refuse to attend the meeting hence the lack of quorum shall render the meeting void. Attendees can choose to walk out of the meeting if they found out the meeting has strayed from its original agenda or it is not addressing the agenda of the meeting and demand that the secretary minute the breach or violation. Without proper quorum the meeting cannot continue. The Chairman cannot on its own volition introduce agenda as the meeting proceeds. The JMC members can ask the Chairman to cease whatever he is doing and demand he adheres to the agenda stated in the notice of meeting. If he remains recalcitrant the JMC members can demand the secretary to minute it and then walk out the meeting! 3. Adoptions of Past Minutes of Meetings Minutes for meetings Nos. 4 & 5 were presented for adoption despite serious flaws regarding their accuracies discovered a month before. After a lengthy debate stretching for almost an hour, the meeting finally decided to send back the minutes to the secretary for re-drafting. At the time of writing, the re-drafted versions are still unavailable. If there are discrepancies in the recording of the minutes of meeting, the JMC committee members during the meeting can highlight or bring to the notice of the JMC members the errors and correct the error via a proposer and a seconder. The Secretary must record the proceedings. There is no need to send the recorded minutes for redrafting by the secretary as it could be done immediately during the meeting where correction can be done in situ!The corrected minutes will then tabled in the next meeting. All JMC members can record the corrections and make sure the minutes are recorded accordingly. 4. Disciplinary Action Against A JMC Member The meeting took an unusual step to censor the member for fowarding an email, which was relevant to the larger interests of owners, to the forum, by way of a proposed warning letter. This was done without prior notice and without a written set of internal disciplinary guidelines to back up such a decision. In addition, in a completely unrelated move, the adjudged member was further to have his portfolio on EXPENSES & COLLECTIONS unceremoniously and arbitrarily taken away and thus further isolating him as an effective voice in providing the necessary checks and balance within JMC. That is why we have always stressed that the JMCs come up with a SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) and House Rules for the JMB to govern the JMC members in conduct, discipline and decision making. If no SOP is in existence the adjudge member can file in a complaint with the COB or even instigate legal action against the JMB. Was he even given a show cause letter for that matter? Was he given a chance to explain his case before a properly convened enquiry panel or board? Were there also properly spelt out penalties for offences mentioned? An if so who were the parties to that decision? Who gave the JMC members the right to remove him from his current portfolio? Was a meeting properly convened with the agenda clearly spelt out to remove him? 5. Purchases During the meeting, two proposed purchases were pushed through for endorsement without giving JMC prior opportunity to fully review all aspects of the proposals prior to the meeting, so as to clearly ascertain and satisfy themselves the cost vs benefits of the excercise. These are: 1. A chip-based photo-embossed resident access card system2. Phase One - CCTVs system No details as regards to the specifications, invited bidders, evaluation criteria, etc, have been made available to us to date despite 2 reminders. More worrying is the fact that no one quite knows what Phase Two is and how much it is going to cost! us !!! The combined proposals are estimated at more than RM30,000.00. The intended purchases have raised very serious questions begging for urgent answers, surrounding such issues as: 1. What are the under-lying justifications? 2. How would these proposals benefit the residents in a tangible way? 3. Were there a comprehensively written concept proposal presented to JMC AND the owners to seek their views and acceptance? 4. Who are the bidders? Are they qualified in their areas of expertise? 5. What are the evaluation criteria? 6. Is there a pre-approved budget agreed to by JMC? Or worse, are they based on an "open", no limit budget?! 7. Does JMC or the person(s) approving the purachses have the financial authority to commit JMB without first consulting the owners? 8. If not, has there being any written or built-in checks and balance mechanism in place to guard against: - ill-conceived purchases (which is later proven as unworkable) - financial inpropriety, etc In the event of having over-looked or ignored the inherent defects, deliberate or otherwise, to the basic proposal concept, do the owners have the right to seek - recourse to person(s) who made such purchases such as seeking compensation? See my comments on Q4 on SOPs and House Rules. As i have said if there were SOPs where 'checks and balances' are in placed than the JMC need not always have to consult the JMB OR residents. Our questions revert to whether the JMC has the authority to decide on the purchase to the tune or RM30,000. If SOPs says all expenditure less than RM40,000 for example then they are exempt from consulting the JMB or residents. BUT they still have to go through proper process of getting a minimum of 3 tenders (recommended by COB) for the project. The tenders must be explicit, well documented, name of company and shareholders, specifications, contracts etc. After a decision has been taken by the JMC, they will have to document their reasons for accepting that particular tender. Any member of the JMC who may have any vested interest must recuse himself from the decision making. All documents pertaining to the approval must be properly filed and minuted for the perusal of the JMB and COB. Failing to do all this invites future lawsuits from any complainant in the JMB if poper procedure are not complied and practiced.. Lastly, all minutes must be signed by the decision makers of the JMC; JMC members who object to the tender may choose not to sign the minutes of approval OR meeting thus abstaining them from future lawsuits. So all these places the JMC members to perform their duties with utmost care.If the RM30,000 is above the amount stated in the SOPs then JMC cannot make a decision on the tender. They will have to convene an EGM under section 10(2) C to put to the members to decide on the acceptance of the tenders. Actually i would recommend all major decisions to be taken by members during an EGM and this would completely absolved the JMC from future lawsuits instituted by its members. However, i believe most JMCs prefer not to consult its members during an EGM because

We are with you!

Puncak Nusa Kelana folk up in arms over mall plan
By TAN KARR WEI


RESIDENTS of Puncak Nusa Kelana in Ara Damansara, Petaling Jaya, are going all out to save the lake in the area.

About 30 residents showed up at the lake to object to the development of a strip mall at the site.


Coming down: Pumping equipment has already been set up to drain the lake. The condominium can be seen in the background.

“We noticed that they had set up equipment to drain the water from the lake about a week ago but there was no notice put up regarding the development,” Puncak Nusa Kelana Owners and Residents Association (PNKORA) chairman Sudesh Ratnarajah said.

He said even though the lake was not a natural lake, residents were concerned that the draining would affect the soil around it and compromise the safety of their homes.

“We have not been given the traffic and social impact assessment reports.

“There is a school near the lake and it is not viable to have a strip mall there,” Sudesh said.


Help us out: Residents protesting the development at the man-made lake.

Many residents also said the traffic congestion was getting from bad to worse in the area and another commercial development would add to their woes, especially with the issue of the Taman Megah Mas tunnels still unresolved.

According to Kota Damansara assemblyman Dr Nasir Hashim, he had chaired a monthly meeting with the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) on Sept 19 and has requested for another meeting between all the parties concerned, including the developers and residents.

“We’re hoping to have the meeting by next week to clear the air,” he said.


Signature campaign: Sudesh said a signature campaign would be organised to save the lake.
Residents were unhappy with a previous meeting with the developers because their concerns were not addressed and the development would still take place despite their protests.

Sudesh said residents would start a signature campaign against the development.

Residents were peeved that MBPJ councillor Mohd Halil Haji Harun, who was in charge of their area, was not present despite having been informed of the event.

Puncak Dana Sdn Bhd had earlier explained to the residents that the area was not originally a lake and that approval was received in 1998 to build an 18-storey commercial building that was scaled down to a four-storey community shopping centre.

Subang MP Sivarasa Rasiah was also present at the protest.

Pelangi Utama Condo residents in a dilemma

Anyone else with similar problems?

By OH ING YEEN
IMAGINE waking up in the morning to find a parking summons on your car’s windshield and this happens three or four times in a month, almost once a week.
That is what some residents and tenants of Pelangi Utama Condominium in Petaling Jaya have been experiencing lately.
Parking woes: Due to limited parking space, some of the Pelangi condo residents have no choice but to park along the road.
Damon Khaw moved in to the condo in July but has already received three summonses in August.
“My condo is not facing the road so I don’t know when the officers will come to issue summonses. One was even issued at 10.30pm on the eve of Merdeka,” he said.
“It sets us back about RM400 per month, which is almost 10% of our income.
“This has a big impact on our lives, especially with the high cost of almost everything since the petrol price increase,” he said.
Khaw and his wife each own a car but they were only allocated one parking lot.
“I bought the condo unit through a sub-sale. Thus, I would have to go through the first owner to apply for another parking lot,” he said.
“To apply for another parking lot will cost RM150 per month and it is subject to a drawing of lots since there are only 10 units left,” he said.
Khaw said he had raised this issue at the joint management body (JMB) committee meetings.
Aside from the summonses, safety is also one of his concerns.
“Sometimes, we park at the nearby shops and walk to the condo. I’m worried for my wife’s safety when she comes back from work late,” he said.
“It is also troublesome as we are not able to renew our road tax due to the summonses,” he said.
Pricey burden: Khaw holding up one of the summonses he received last month
Khaw hopes that the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) can allocate proper parking spaces for the condo residents.
His neighbour, who wanted to be only known as Epey, said other residents also faced the same problem.
“There should be some parking space for rent. I am so fed up that I want to move out. Why do we have to face this problem?” she asked.
Student Johnson Chua finds it difficult to fork out RM150 per month for a parking lot.
“I have moved in for less than a year and so far, I have received three summonses,” he said.
“I take turns with my housemate to park at the allocated parking lot.
“Sometimes, I park at the nearby shops but the space there is limited,” Chua said.
“It’s troublesome for me to travel all the way to pay my summonses, especially since I’m not local,” said the 20-year-old student from Malacca.
“I hope that the MBPJ will allocate a certain period of time, such as from night to dawn, for us to park for free,” Chua said.

Assessment cut for highrise units next year

Finally Some Good News?

By TAN KARR WEI
CONDOMINIUMS and highrise unit owners in Petaling Jaya will see a reduction in assessment rates next year.
Mayor Datuk Mohamad Roslan Sakiman announced that in the draft Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) 2009 budget, assessment rates for flats, apartments and condominiums would be reduced from 8% to 6% (except those in Sri Damansara, Mayang Mas and Megah Mas, which remains at 5%).
Rates for service apartments would be reduced from 8.8% to 6.6%
Absorbed: Representatives from residents associations and Rukun Tetangga at the MBPJ 2009 Budget briefing.
Assessment rates for low-cost flats will remain at 5% while assessment for other properties will not be increased.
About 60 representatives from residents associations (RA) and Rukun Tetangga (RT) attended a briefing on the 2009 budget at the MBPJ headquarters in Jalan Yong Shook Lin.
The income deficit would be offset by an estimated RM6.48mil from rental of billboard sites.
A representative from Section 8 RT said there should be funds allocated for activities carried out by RTs and RAs.
Taman Mayang RT chairman Chan Chow Wang said the RM5mil increase to RM52mil in allocation for Alam Flora services was not justified.
“The service provided is not satisfactory. I raised the issue five years ago about the garbage trucks. When the trash is compacted, dirty water leaks from the trucks and dirty our roads,” said Chan.
The RM52mil makes up more than 20% of MBPJ’s total expenditure.
Petaling Jaya Selangor Residents Association (APAC) chairman Liew Wei Beng was upset that the various representatives could not obtain a copy of the draft budget before they attended the meeting.
“We need time to go through the draft to analyse it instead of rushing through it during the briefing,” said Liew.
He also said the numbers for the 2008 budget was an estimation and the actual amount spent up so far was not given and so it was difficult to compare the numbers with the 2009 budget.
“How would we know if there’s a surplus or deficit in the 2008 budget?” asked Liew.
One of the objectives of the budget was to make PJ a knowledge city and RM3.495mil has been allocated for items like Internet connection, computer equipment rental, handheld equipment rental and computer maintenance.
However, one RA representative commented that since the handheld equipment were for enforcement officers and the computers for councillors, it did not contribute to that objective.
Bukit Gasing assemblyman Edward Lee said the presentation of the budget could be improved.
“The council’s accounts for the previous years should also be given so that we will know if the budget provided for those years were sufficient and the budget for 2009 should reflect that,” said Lee, who was formerly the pro tem chairman of the All Petaling Jaya Pro-Action Committee, as APAC was then known.
He also noted that the budget did not address another pressing problem in the city — flooding.
“Flooding is a big problem in PJ and nothing much has been done to alleviate it. It is disheartening to know that there is a decrease in funds for drainage system and drain maintenance,” said Lee.