Property Committee is a busy committee with lots of hands-on tasks and responsibilities. We are fortunate to have a great crew of handymen, alert tenants who call us when they see something that needs the committee’s attention, volunteers who sign up for projects, and a list of local contractors with whom we’ve developed good relationships. We also maintain positive connections with our neighbors. Still, we need additional committee members willing to attend meetings, meet contractors at the Meeting House as needed, prioritize work projects and our committee’s budget, help to represent Meeting  as landlords, and work to fulfill our committee’s charges as noted above. We would welcome more volunteer help for work days, to sign up to clean the Meeting House, and to mow and help with the upkeep at Bush Creek Cemetery. We’re in search of a Housekeeping Coordinator. And, this just in from Nick, we’re also on the lookout for a donation of a used (or new!) lawnmower for work at Bush Creek.

Property Committee will be presenting its 2014 annual report at our next Meeting for Business in September, but, in the meantime, here are some highlights of what we’ve been up to since October 2013:

Among the many charges of the property committee is the oversight of Meeting House maintenance, remodeling and/or repair projects. This past year, we have installed a new gate between our back parking lot and the Meeting property, replaced light fixtures inside and outside the Meeting House, facilitated our annual Fall and Spring work days, renovated the bathroom in our third-floor apartment, replaced broken shutters, performed maintenance on our roof, scheduled annual maintenance of our boiler, cleaned our Meeting Room floor, and worked with the ad hoc communications committee to purchase a new front yard sign for the Meeting.

Randy Williams, Bob Hanson, and Nick Funkhouser are our Meeting handymen and we call on them regularly whenever there is a light fixture out, a toilet not working, a shingle off the roof, a branch down, or anything else amiss. They size up the situation and let us know if it’s something they can fix, and when we need to pass the job off to a contractor.

As part of our charge to maintain safety and security systems in the Meeting house, and to ensure compliance with city and state safety codes, we see that our fire alarm system is tested and maintained annually, and this year we updated our contact and alarm information with our local fire department. We also meet with the fire marshal when he calls for his annual inspection.

Property Committee oversees our yard and grounds maintenance, lawn mowing, and snow removal. We contract out our lawn mowing and snow removal (and there was a lot of snow in 2014!) to one of our tenants and a local contractor.  Our annual work days include full afternoons of weeding, mulching, clearing brush (with several trips to the landfill), repairs, and general tidying up of our outside space. Two separate storms took down branches on the south side and the north side of our property this year, and we contracted a tree service to remove those.

We share our Meeting House with occasional and one-time users, as well as long-term tenants. Betsy Tobin is our Calendar Coordinator, and is our point-of-contact for the many groups who approach Meeting to use our space.

We have three rental units in the Meeting House, which makes Meeting a landlord to three tenants, one residential and two commercial. This is an important responsibility for the Meeting as we maintain these spaces, collect rents, fill vacancies as needed, and work to adhere to our leases and keep our tenants happy. Lisa Fowler is our Tenant Liaison and she is in 24/7 contact with tenants as needed. We have just recently learned that the tenants of our second-floor smaller office will not be renewing their lease on November 1, so we will be looking for new tenants for that space.

One interesting charge that comes under our committee and that many people may be unaware of is the upkeep of the Bush Creek Cemetery on behalf of Baltimore Yearly Meeting. This is an old Quaker cemetery near Monrovia with headstones dating back to at least 1815. Nick Funkhouser has been organizing and supervising this work since about 1991, and he rounds up volunteers at least twice a year to mow, weedwack, and chainsaw through any brush, tall grass, and downed trees that need attention.

Finally, our committee oversees the cleaning of the Meeting House so that it is a comfortable space for visiting groups, our tenants, and our Meeting community. The position of Housekeeping Coordinator falls under our committee, with its own budget, and this person keeps track of volunteer sign-ups to clean, engages a professional cleaning service as needed, and stocks our cleaning supplies. Gail Whitehead was our Housekeeping Coordinator until this last June, and Nominating Committee is presently looking for someone to take on this position.

We have worked with Trustees this year on issues concerning a rewrite of our leases and a possible upgrade of our fire alarm system, with the ad hoc communications committee on our phone landline and the design of our new Meeting sign, and with the Stewardship and Finance committee concerning our rental rates. We are participating with Meeting in the discernment of how to help local homeless families and whether our Meeting House might be used as a temporary homeless shelter.

We have four members on our committee, with one member due to rotate off next year, and we meet on the third Tuesday evening of the month at 6:30 at the Meeting House.

If you notice something that needs repair, if you have questions about what we do, or, better yet, if you are interested in helping in the work of this committee, please contact me.

Deborah McCoy

Clerk, Property Committee