Bayside Commons - Blog

New top-level unit coming onto the market!

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 03:54:00 +0000

https://www.redfin.com/CA/Albany/535-Pierce-St-94706/unit-1302/home/1591935

About this home

Step into the tranquility of this immaculate top-floor condo, boasting a serene ambiance, ample space, and a fresh coat of paint. With high ceilings and an abundance of natural light, this stunning unit creates an inviting atmosphere throughout. The tastefully upgraded kitchen features modern touches, while the newer bathrooms and tiled floors add a touch of sophistication. Enjoy the convenience of a dedicated laundry room, offering both practicality and ease. For those seeking a breath of fresh air, a small and secluded private terrace awaits, providing the perfect spot to unwind. This condo offers resort-style living with access to a community pool, spa, clubhouse, and gym. Your dedicated parking space in a secure gated garage ensures both convenience and peace of mind. Located for optimal convenience, you'll find easy access to Interstate 80, proximity to BART, Pacific East Mall, El Cerrito Plaza, UC Berkeley, and AC Transit bus stops. Step inside and be captivated by the great room concept, where an open kitchen, dining area, and living space seamlessly flow together, creating an ideal setting for both relaxation and entertainment.

LINKS:

https://www.redfin.com/CA/Albany/535-Pierce-St-94706/unit-1302/home/1591935

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/535-Pierce-St-APT-1302-Albany-CA-94706/24853890_zpid/

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/535-Pierce-St-Apt-1302_Albany_CA_94706_M15260-22022?from=srp-list-card

#albany #baysidecommons #redfin #realtor.com #albanyca #condoforsale

URGENT: Opinions on CIMS Management?

Mon, 30 Aug 2021 04:45:00 +0000

CIMS Management, our current management firm enlisted to manage our community are about to take over our finances in a few days per their agreement with the community. Our Board of Directors needs to hear about any experiences you have with the manager and the company as soon as possible.

If we have an issue with them or any reservations, time is of the essence to stop the changeover and ask the board to do their job of protecting our interest.

Amir, an owner/resident who has long been engaged with looking out for our community is helping to compile the community's collective experiences with CIMS to make sure all residents' voices are heard in this important and urgent matter.

Please reach out to him directly at the email address below, to express any experiences, good or bad, that you have had that you think are important for consideration before the board makes a large commitment on our behalf to CIMS. For example if you have emails you sent to the manager or management and did not get any response or very late response, we need to know.

Amir

baysidehomeowners@gmail.com

--

Come join the next Board Meeting on Tues. March 30th

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 05:54:00 +0000

** and please reach out in the comments or by email if you are a community member who needs the zoom link and password.

Welcome our new Board of Directors!

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 05:24:00 +0000

Wednesday night began an exciting new and promising chapter for Bayside!

After several delays, the requested recall meeting finally took place and our community spoke loud and clear in a landslide 128 to 28 vote to recall the expired former Board. The winners were the following recommended candidates:

Kirk Fong

Hung-Yuan Hsieh (Heather)

Maryam B Nili

Michael Reyes

Sam Hassan Zarnegar

Thank you and Congratulations! We are looking forward to bright future for the community with this super talented, sincere and responsible team of our neighbors at the helm.

VOTE NOW! Board Recall and Election rescheduled, rescheduled again and again

Sun, 17 Jan 2021 07:05:00 +0000

Why are community members requesting to replace the Board of Directors?

Sun, 17 Jan 2021 06:30:00 +0000

For those who have not been following the various individual and collective issues that have been happening in our community with regards to the Bayside Commons Board of Directors and the General Manager that they hired (and have abetted) this post is for you. Today we share the letter from the Concerned Homeowners Group, a growing list of residents at 535 Pierce (owners and renters) that are seeking answers to why the Board has ignored and/or violated our CCRs and ByLaws to the detriment of our community.

Dear Concerned Homeowners Group,
We have come a long way to enforce our rights in having a say in managing the affairs of our community. Although we have received many of the Association’s documents, most unfortunately have not been released, including almost all of contracts.
Our call to stop signing new construction and other contracts (except for necessary maintenance) and allow a moratorium on ‘big ticket items’ of our capital expenditures is being ignored.
Limiting the homeowners’ discussion time and what may be discussed, cutting homeowners off during the open forum, disabling the Zoom chat to control homeowner’s communication, and not allowing many to participate in the meetings or discussions continues as an ongoing problem.
Board cut the time for members who wanted to get on the ballot by 19 days, and violated the 30 days’ notice required by law for homeowners to nominate themselves Civil Code 5115(a), because it did not fit their newly adopted election rule!!! The Board’s rule never supersedes the State law.
They only changed their plan on using the former manager to be our election inspector, after they received our demand letter from our attorney.

Considering the above mentioned, we need to observe the election closely.
We have several options at this point, and we as homeowners owe it to ourselves to explore them and decide. We could do this individually, or we could do it collectively; the choice is yours. We all should respect and appreciate each other’s limitations, in terms of time, funds, and priorities. Still, it should be noted that the collective action would be always received better than an individual.

Before we proceed, we need a few reminders:
1- The manager, and any other employee of the Association is working at the pleasure of the Board. The Board can delegate certain managerial responsibilities to the manager, but not the liabilities and obligations as for as the law is concerned.

2-The Board is formed by five homeowners, who volunteer themselves to serve on the Board. After they take their seat on the Board, the law expects them to faithfully serve for the good of the community without any consideration for themselves, and they must disclose any benefit to them by the association. This is called fiduciary responsibility, and is an important component to ensure the community is fairly served.

3- They always must follow the valid laws, be it the BSC governing laws (CC&Rs, Bylaw, Rules& regulations) or local, state and federal laws. When in conflict, local, state and federal laws are to be followed.

4- CC&Rs and Bylaw have never been amended since the nineties. The draft amendments for these documents were made in 2017. It was never ratified. According to the original documents:

The term of office is one year;

The annual meeting is mandated to be held once a year;

The fiscal year ends December 31th;

There is no mention of the annual meeting in June;

Current Board members:
Roy Torkington was a member of the Board and President from 2015 - 2018 and was re-elected to the Board in June, 2019. He has occupied a Board seat beyond his term since June, 2020.

Silvia Piedrasanta was a Board member in 2017, got on the Board again by acclamation (not elected) in June, 2018. Silvia Piedrasnata has remained on the Board beyond her appointment since June, 2019.

Troy Hynson got on the Board by acclamation in June 2018, as well. His stay as a Board member past 2019, has been beyond his one year appointment as well.

Hugh Caley was a Board member in 2017 and was appointed to the Board by the Board in December 2019. Hugh’s appointment to the Board was never valid because Troy and Silvia Board-appointed Hugh after their time period had expired and the Board itself lacked quorum at that time.
Due to the above facts, the appointment of Sandra Miller to the Board in March 2020 was invalid.
The members of the Board in 2017 conducted the elections of 2018, and 2019 according to the drafted bylaw, and not to the original legally valid bylaw. It is true that this practice started before the 2017, but in 2017 this issue must have been brought to the attention of the Board that attempted to amend it.

The Board members as of 2018 election: Roy Torkington, Silvia Piedrasanta, Hugh Caley and Tina Gee
The Board members as of 2019 election: Roy Torkington, Silvia Piedrasanta, Hugh Caley

Tina Gee, Roy Torkington, Silvia Piedrasanta, Hugh Caley knowingly failed to inform the membership about these issues, and referred to the invalid draft bylaw in their communications with homeowners. Because of the failure to follow the Board requirement of yearly elections, in addition to their allowed term, the entire Board has been acting without proper authority.

The hiring of Ms. Leon didn’t meet required Board’s quorum to be valid, and renewal of her contract was invalid because there was no legitimate authority for the Board, and even if it were, it should have been with prior notice to the membership. She absolutely has no legal ground to stay in her position. The Board is negligent in its fiduciary duty, in not enforcing our laws by:

Renewing manager’s contract without the knowledge and permission of the membership;

Allowing the violation of California Business and Professional code 11504 by Ms. Leon. This code requires the managers to submit their certification to the Board, conflict of interest documents, and some disclosures.

Allowing out of budget spending by the manager

Signing contracts in secret and not disclosing any documents

Failing to submit a valid budget report

Discrimination, harassment, and defamation of homeowners

Using maintenance and office services selectively as “favor” for some.

We do not have accept this disregard for the law, and we can take one or more of the following actions simultaneously depending on the type of violation.

Mediate and sue to enforce the CC&Rs and the Bylaw. We could also file against individual Board members as well. The prevailing party would receive their fees after a court case was tried.

Contact police for suspicions of fraud on the part of Board or the manager

If you suspect criminal activity, such as fraud, theft or embezzlement by the HOA's Board of directors, individual officers, or the manager please file a report with the police or sheriff's department. After investigating the crime, they may send the case to the county district attorney's office for prosecution, if appropriate. The decision whether or not to file criminal charges will then be made by the district attorney.

Contact Contractors State License Board (CSLB) [https://www.cslb.ca.gov/]

This agency requires contractors to be licensed and maintains a database of current licensees. It has a separate section for consumers –homeowners, for example – doing research to find out if contractors hired by an association are licensed and whether any complaints or lawsuits have been filed against them.

The Attorney General office would take complaint about violation of certain corporation codes. Below are the violations that are applicable to our case. To see the complete list please view on the Attorney General's website.

Office of attorney general:
https://oag.ca.gov/consumers/general/homeowner_assn
The complaint form from attorney general office:https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/contact/business_corpform.pdf
Corporation Code Violations
Corp. Code, Section 7510(b) Failure to hold a regular meeting of the members.
Corp. Code, Section 7511 Failure to provide notice of a meeting to members.
Corp. Code, Section 7511(a) Failure to provide timely notice of meeting to members.
Corp. Code, Section 7512 Transacting business not otherwise authorized in the bylaws at a meeting of members with less than a quorum.

Corp. Code, Sections 7513 Failure to provide members with properly conformed written ballot or proxy as authorized in bylaws.
Corp. Code, Section 7520 Failure of mutual benefit corporation to provide for reasonable means of nominating and electing persons as directors.
Corp. Code, Section 8215 Falsification of or tampering with association reports or records.
Corp. Code, Section 8320 Failure to keep books and records, minutes of proceedings, or list of members.
Corp. Code, Section 8330(1) Failure to allow inspection and copying of names and addresses of members upon written request.
Corp. Code, Section 8333 Failure to allow inspection of books and records. To submit a complaint, please do the following:

Fill out and send the complaint form. Your complaint must state which of the Corporations Code section(s) in the table above that you think the HOA has violated.
Please attach copies of supporting documents. Do not send original documents because we cannot return them to you.

Please include a copy of your written request(s) to the HOA as well as the HOA response letter(s).

For more information, you can contact and learn more about the Bayside Concerned Homeowners Group.
baysidehomeowners@gmail.com

Urgent Message About This Budget

Sat, 10 Oct 2020 02:16:00 +0000

Dear Bayside friends & homeowners:

Below are some of the main reasons that this year budget report is invalid & unenforceable:

1-It has missed the deadline required by law (in our case it was October 1^st. most received it on 6^th and 7^th for some people): Owners are entitled to know at the beginning of the fiscal year what their association’s assessments will be. The board has a fiduciary obligation to determine what the assessments will be for that fiscal year and has a right to use the remedy provided in the Civil Code if expenses are greater than anticipated. Otherwise, the legislature would not have imposed a sanction for a board’s failure to timely distribute the new fiscal year’s budget, and a board could simply send out whatever they have and finalize the budget later.

§5300(b)(5) provides that an association’s annual pro forma operating budget is to be distributed 30 to 90 days prior to the beginning of the association’s fiscal year. If the association does not timely distribute its budget, then it does not have the right to increase regular assessments, at least not without approval of the homeowners (as described below in reference to §5605(b). This language makes it clear that it was the legislature’s intent that the budget be distributed once (and prior to the beginning of the association’s fiscal year), and that homeowners are entitled to know at the time the budget is distributed what the rate of assessments will be.

2- It implies the possibility of a mid-year increase,

To allow a board the ability to increase regular assessments mid-year does not allow the association’s homeowners to budget their personal finances properly and allows the board to approve and distribute a budget that is not a fixed and accurate accounting of the association’s projected costs for the fiscal year. The Civil Code does not specifically provide that an association has the right to increase assessments mid-year (without owner approval) just because it did not increase regular assessments by 20% when the budget was distributed prior to the beginning of the association’s fiscal year.

3- It contains the CC&Rs changes that was never approved by the membership

For example, rules for pets

Another issue with this budget is its illegal reduction of our reserves to the tune of 121,000 dollars equal to about 43 dollars per unit per month. Even if we did not increase the reserves and kept it at last year level, we would have seen a 68 dollars per month increase in our monthly fee instead of 25 dollars.

This budget as presented, has a built-in 6000 Dollars special assessment to cover the reduction of our reserves which will kick in a few months from now. This means we will have to pay over 13,200 dollars for next year’s fees. This is the mid-year increase of bullet point 2 above.

I have made it easy for you busy homeowner to see the problem areas by taking the reserve pages and highlighted them for you. Please look over these 3 pages and send an email to baysidehomeowners@gmail.com with your questions or concerns or need for clarification.

This budget paints a bleak picture of our future financials which will cause an immediate drop in our unit market value not to mention the enormous fees we have to pay. If you have such extra cash sitting around, ignore this warning. If not, please join our group of Bayside Concerned Homeowners to collectively stop this damaging chain of decision making that has resulted in this debacle.

The law is on our side. We can and should reject this budget before losing our right to do so. Please leave your comments and you can read about your rights as homeowners on the some of the other articles posted on this website.

Thank you

DOCUMENTS & ANALYSIS:

>> Please see this Budget Analysis Completed by a longtime Bayside Commons owner and community member

PDF

Word DOC

>> Please see this 2019 vs. 2020 year over year comparison regarding the upcoming special assessment

PDF

Upcoming Town Hall Meetings 10.14.2020 and 10.15.2020

Sat, 10 Oct 2020 00:37:00 +0000

As reported in the Newsletter, there will be two Town Hall Meetings this week. Both will be Zoom meetings starting at 6:30 PM.

Wednesday's meeting is about security and crime, and how we can help prevent criminal activity in the community.

Thursday's meeting is a follow up with Cedar Construction Management to learn about the common area component investigation that is underway.

Please contact Nohemi at gm@baysidecommons.org well in advance if you would like to join and you are encouraged to send her your questions.

Annual Budget Report Due 10.01.2020

Fri, 02 Oct 2020 03:22:00 +0000

Dear Neighbors,
The Annual Budget Report was due from the HOA to all owners today. Has anyone received it yet?
Please share if you have in the comments, thanks

Message from Friends of Albany Hill

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 15:46:00 +0000

Greetings as we move into a new Season

Soon it will be time to begin our monitoring of the Monarch Migration on Albany Hill. We are seeing some visitors this month, although not certain if they are summer residents or migration scouts. At the end of October, Bay Area coordinator, Mia Monroe will be hosting a Zoom refresher session with the goals of noting arrival of migration, response to storm events, nectar use, mating, and dispersal. We will post the Zoom event should you want to join.

Hillary Sardinas of the Park, Recreation,and Open Space Commission is seeking ideas for Interpretive Signage on Albany Hill. If you have knowledge of interesting tidbits or have ideas of what you would like to know about the hill, please email: hillary.sardinas@gmail.com She will be presenting topics requested to the Commission in October or November.

Enjoy the hill, hiking, birding,meditating, relaxing, and wear your masks on the narrow trails.

About the Friends of Albany Hill

The Friends of Albany Hill works to preserve the special nature and open space in Albany, home to many native species of wildflowers, ferns, shrubs, and trees. We also support the Monarch Butterfly Migration located on the hill during the winter months. Contact us to get involved in gatherings on the hill.

more >> https://friendsofalbanyhill.org

Address:

906 Madison Street

Albany, Ca 94706