Super Mini-Board

The first mini-board was formed in response to a mini-problem: the plumbing was going and the board needed to identify a go-to plumber that residents could call if (really when) their pipes leaked. This mini-board consisted of Emery, Aggie, and Liseli, all people who had no interest in plumbing or understanding of pipes and water. One renter, Benjamin, had been thrown on the panel the pad the numbers and was tasked with doing all the work. They had a small operating budget, which went to buying doughnuts for their meetings and padding their incomes, but no plumber was ever located. Nobody had ever asked for any financial records, so when the building was audited and the records were finally requested, each member drafted up several fake plumbing receipts, all of which named Benjamin as the plumber, and that was that.

A second mini-board was formed to deal with the rodent situation, which was only getting worse as construction dragged on across the street. Nobody volunteered for that mini-board so the only person on it was the person who suggested it, Lucy. Thanks to her stellar negotiating skills, it had a very large operating budget and no oversight. When the audit came up, Lucy also seemed to have no receipts, but her apartment was an island of rodent-free living. She drafted up a receipt for a fake exterminator named Giuseppe that had, on paper, treated the entire building. Paradoxically Giuseppe was a real person, the person behind all the construction and therefore responsible for the rodent presence in the first place. Luckily, the auditors did not an interest in irony.

A third mini-board was formed as a protest move to challenge the leadership of Phil Hertz on the regular board. It contained Morty and, on paper Emery too. Luckily this mini-board had never met, so when it was asked for it’s receipts the only thing that got thrown in was a dry cleaning bill, which was summarily tossed aside by the auditors.

After the audit, in order to deal with the mini-boards’ lack of financial oversight, Mr. Hertz and Mr. Lamb from next door decided to form a super board that would be responsible for managing the mini-boards. To do this successfully, the super-board ultimately became the board that could dole out funds to residents, and was co-chaired by the board presidents. Informally called “finance” by residents, the super-board was now the go-to body for dealing with everything from block parties to personal Christmas parties to parking tickets. It was the law, or at least it could pay off the law.

The number of mini-boards began to skyrocket as soon as rumors of the weak-willed nature of the super-board leadership got around. There were now mini-boards for Alcohol, Chips, Beer (often clashed with the Alcohol board), Paint Supplies, Bike Racks, and Exercise Machines. These mini-boards made regular presentations to the super-board about their need for funds, which become so overwhelming that an assessment was levied on the shareholders and the regular board, elected by the shareholders, was powerless to stop it.

After the assessment, a mini-board was formed called Stop Future Assessments and another called No More Mini-Boards. In response, a Mini-Boards Are Great mini-board was started by Jefferson, whose champagne-swigging parties were benefitting greatly from the funds he had been requesting through his personal mini-board, Jefferson’s Party Bureau. Quelly from 19 had joined the Mini-Boards Are Great mini-board as a way to meet Jefferson, and soon Liseli began to attend their meetings to keep an eye on the situation and ensure that Jefferson was not seeing Quelly behind her back (though he was also not seeing her behind Quelly’s back either).

Residents had to come down on one side or another of the mini-boards issue, and soon political parties with newsletters and fundraising calls had formed. Esther had donated $10 to Mo More Mini-Boards, which created some tension between her and Morty, a staunch Stop Future Assessments supporter. The two mini-boards had similar aims but clashed regularly over political strategy.

It was when Lucy pointed out that the political mini-boards were not alleviating the problem and instead were taking even more money out of resident’s pockets that Stop Future Assessments and No More Mini-Boards decided to come together. The continued to ask for money but reasoned that at least there would only be one party representing the anti-assessment vote.

It took everybody by surprise when an auditor came around and asked the now powerless regular board of 19 for receipts. By the next day, word had spread that there was to be no talk of mini-boards until the audit was over and that the super-board was temporarily suspended until 17 and 19 could separate their finances sufficiently enough to please the auditor.

No More Assessments/Mini-Boards was temporarily disbanded and all evidence of it, the flyers, postage meter, and typewriter, was put into a closet in the basement. Jefferson also ceased to operate Mini-Boards Are Great, and Liseli was sorry to see her excuse to meet with him go, though she was happy to know she would not have to see the backstabbing Quelly anymore.

The first regular board meeting post-super-board was awkward to say the least. After a few painful minutes of sitting around, Emery finally raised the question that was on everybody’s mind.

“What do we do here again?”