September 2, 2020
Dear Members of the San Francisco Suites Association:
We have just received word from the Mayor of San Francisco that the City has been taken off the “Watch List” and will permit some indoor and outdoor businesses to reopen. According to the announcement, hotels and other lodgings can return to operations, under certain conditions, by the middle of September. I’ve spoken with General Manager Cynthia Reid, and we would like to reopen the Suites for regular guests on September 14th. The conditions set by the City closely match those the Board approved in June when anticipating an earlier reopening: restricted overall capacity, strict cleaning, and safety protocols, staggered suite availability, and other protective measures that all arriving guests will be informed of as requirements for staying at the Suites during this time.
In spite our nearly six-month closure, our second home has undergone some necessary repairs and refurbishment, much of which could not have happened easily if the facility had been open to guests. One major addition which you will soon notice when you do return to the Suites will be improved security at our entrances on Pine Street and Powell Street. The Board engaged our architect Kevin Hackett to design a beautifully ornate gate for the Pine entry and decorative grillwork for the Powell entry, both intended to improve the safety of our staff and guests at the same time enhancing the exterior appearance of our beloved building.
The Board has been working very hard on another project of less visibility but of equally significant impact on our Association: the revision (or “restatement” in legalese) of our Bylaws to make them more responsive to our situation as an independent timeshare and less burdened by the complicated, inconsistent, and often irrelevant guidelines and rules imposed upon us by the Davis-Stirling Act, which governs all HOAs in California. In conjunction with our attorney, we are finally able to send you a draft of the restated Bylaws for your consideration and approval. These new Bylaws retain almost all of the sound regulations of the former ones but have deleted the references to Davis-Stirling, and most importantly will allow us to return to the election rules we followed most successfully before the enactment of SB 323 last year – a law which has wreaked financial and procedural havoc on most HOAs in the State, especially timeshares.
As we are still subject to SB 323’s rules, the upcoming election to approve the restated Bylaws will perfectly illustrate for you the complexity of its onerous rules. The result is a distended timeline, the hiring of an independent contractor to oversee the election, numerous legal notices and consultations, and of course, tremendous expenses to be absorbed by our Association. However, the ultimate effect will be our eventual unbinding from Davis-Stirling and SB 323 so that we can conduct our affairs with consistency, efficiency, and fairness – as we have in the past.
Here is the timeline which we will be following: On September 8, 2020, our contractor for this election The Ballot Box will send out a notice of the upcoming election, and on October 8, 2020, The Ballot Box will mail the election packet which will include a copy of the restated Bylaws, a letter from our attorney explaining and justifying the changes in the Bylaws, voter rules, and a separate ballot for each share owned. The ballots must be returned to The Ballot Box by November 7, 2020, the day of the election when they will be counted by The Ballot Box.
I urge all of you to vote in this important election since a large membership response will confirm the rightness of these changes which the Board believes will improve the effectiveness of the Association’s governance.
Sincerely,
Geoffrey Bellah, President