The AGM

I wish I'd brought a video recorder to this meeting of our homeowner's association in Paris.

The syndic, the company that we pay to manage our building, is housed on a lovely street in an ancient building. But they had two fires last year so when I walked in, it still smelled like smoke.

Most people arrive late, sometimes by more than an hour. We tried to be late, but it's not in our nature, so we ended up arriving on time. Unfortunately, this meant that we got crammed into a corner near the front, Terry next to a stone wall that crumbled all over his clothes during the meeting. By the time the meeting was in full swing, people were sitting in the hallway and even in the next room. Instead of speaking, these late-comers all felt the need to shout simultaneously.

Terry was in the corner, I was next to him, we were seated in metal folding chairs. Very small, like the French. Terry kept exceeding his spatial limits, pressing his leg into mine for added room. Fighting back, so as not to encroach on the man's space next to me, I kept getting a cramp in my leg. Too much tennis the day before. So, it was an uncomfortable setting.

Paperwork prepared for this meeting included about 20 different bids, in no particular order and a re-cap, French accounting style, of the year's expenses and revenues. Maps, pictures and letters were enclosed in the package. All handouts are recto-verso, so there is a lot of paper shuffling, searching and pointing.

Even though it is standard practice to get three bids for every job, most items had only one bid. This alone, kills the project until the next AGM (May 2010), the urgency of things is apparent. But, the building's been around for 200 years, so I guess one more year doesn't make much difference.

The meeting jumped around from topic to topic and everyone was rifling through their papers constantly, pointing and arguing about different points. My head was swiveling right to left with increasing speed, trying to follow one conversation or another, just trying to keep up.

Everyone had his/her own agenda. Some people don't want to spend any money, some want everything fixed right away. For example, all the people with apartments on the top floor under the roof, think that the roof should be replaced immediately, before it starts leaking. This would probably cost each of us about Euro 10K, so those of us on a lower floor (they're outnumbered about 5 to 1), think that this can wait a year or two. Side issues to this include more studies to see if there's really a problem with the roof and if there's more work that needs to be done under the roof.

Important issues got only a slight discussion (like why has it taken almost two years to re-do our stairway, a job that should take two months) and small issues agonized over. At one point, a woman I'd never seen before made a long plea to have a key placed in a box near the elevator in case anyone ever gets stuck in the elevator and no one comes to help the stranded person. Her argument was that the person stuck in the elevator might be handicapped and not be able to get help. The only man in the building that is handicapped finally replied that he was the only handicapped person in the building and he was against it. We moved on quickly.

We also tried, on the spot, to determine the cost of real estate in Paris. This was in order to put a price on a purchase of a common corridor. After a lot of arguing, a price was fixed, I have no idea if it has any correlation to today's prices.

There were several instances where everyone was talking, waving paperwork and pointing at once. Then, the president of the homeowner's association would scream, "Silence" and it would still take several minutes for everyone to calm down. At the end, a woman who had a complaint was allowed to scream at the syndic for awhile. She is about 85 years old and couldn't do a very good job, so her daughter took over and yelled a little bit more, then the meeting was closed and we all went happily home.