Last Updated on November 3, 2023
During the past month, your Residents’ Council members were involved multiple times with the Administration in encouraging you, the residents, to complete the Holleran survey. It was a pleasure for us to meet so many of you at your door as we did a joint Senior Staff/Council “Door to Door” walkaround – 1400 apartments in two hours – and to hear so many say that you had either already completed the Survey or planned to do it very soon. A special thanks then to those of you that did complete the survey and commented on what you found to be good and/or what needs to be improved in Charlestown. It is these comments (or verbatims as Admin calls them) that the Board and the Administration will now use to develop their action improvement plans for the coming year.
Now we are in the middle of saying THANK YOU to the staff as we make our decisions to reward their efforts through the Staff Appreciation Fund. Every dollar that we share with them is very much appreciated. This campaign does end on November 10th, so please make your contribution by then.
As much of the community knows, we have been experiencing a series of floods (or water intrusions) during the last couple of years that have affected quite a few residents. These events evoke a series of emotions including anger, stress, sadness, panic, shock, inconvenience, and many more. To state the obvious, some of the water intrusions have been caused by us such as overflowing sinks, clogged toilets, and the like. But the larger incidents have been caused by breaks in what are called the loop lines that cycle water to/from our heating/air conditioning units, and these have often affected a substantial number of apartments. As it turns out, most of the incidents have been caused by contractors. A few have been caused by employee error. The Administration is working hard to come up with solutions–first for their prevention, second to reduce the scope of impact when a line break occurs, and third to improve their remediation efforts with greater efficiency, timeliness and compassion. Your Residents’ Council, through its Maintenance and Engineering committee, is treating this as one of its highest priorities to partner with Admin in their efforts. It should be noted that Don Grove and Leslie Johnson, and their senior staff, spend appreciable time updating us about this serious issue in their Monday Admin updates, at Town Halls, at our Residents’ Council meetings, in the Sunburst, and through other channels. I would urge every one of us to tune in to these updates. More focused and dedicated communications are being discussed. IF you do encounter a flooding event, the first thing to do is to contact Security via a phone call OR by pressing your pendant.
Outside of Charlestown, many of us are interested in knowing when Maiden Choice Lane will be repaved. Recently Pat Young, our Baltimore County representative, hosted a meeting at one of our local schools at which the Baltimore County Public Works department and BGE spoke to us at length about their collaborative efforts to complete the job of upgrading the gas lines in the neighborhood and then repaving Maiden Choice. The bottom line is that BGE is finalizing their design work this quarter and is hoping to do that work during the first quarter of 2024. Approximately a month after BGE has completed the project, then BC Public Works will do the repaving. Much of this of course is contingent on encountering unforeseen circumstances that may be found underground and the weather. Bottom line – the completion date is clearly TBD, but the hope is that it will be completed by the end of 2024.
November is the month of Thanksgiving. We pause to give thanks… to our staff, to our Veterans and to all those who have, in one way or another, made our lives easier.
Final comment – the November Residents’ Council meeting will be on MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6TH, not the usual first Tuesday of the month.
Submitted by John Remias, President