30-Apr-13 – All seven “Clean Slate” candidates have won election to the 15-member Marina Towers Condominium Association board of directors. It is a historic election at Marina City, where more than 900 people live – the most new condo board members in more than ten years.

About 60 people packed into a meeting room on the 20th floor of Marina City’s east tower Monday evening for MTCA’s annual meeting. 14 candidates – including seven who were running as a group with MTCA president Donna Leonard – spoke before ballots were counted.

Official results will be released on Tuesday. At a celebration Monday night at Dick’s Last Resort, unit owners who attended the annual meeting say they were told more than 60 percent of ownership voted in the election, which would be about twice as many as in any recent election.

The next time the MTCA board of directors meets, current secretary Ellen Chessick and current treasurer Dr. Michel Louvain, along with new board members Nicol Chervenak, Laura Holman, Nik Rokop, Pranav Seth, and Brett Young will join eight incumbents who were elected to two-year terms in 2012: Robert Abell, Dr. Albert Colley Jr., Richard Godfrey, Maureen Leonard, Donald O’Malley, Michael Ruggeri, Marc Straits, and James Ward.

(Below, left to right) Holman, Seth, Young, Rokop, Chessick, and Chervenak.

Donna Leonard, who had been on the condo board since 2002 and its president since 2004, lost her seat on the board along with Peter Desch, Phyllis Hartford, and Gautier Laude. Leonard’s daughter, Maureen, will remain on the board at least until the end of her term in 2014.

Among the issues the new condo board will face is a financial investigation into renovation projects that may have cost significantly more than amounts for which they were budgeted. The controversy resulted in the resignation on March 4 of residential property manager David Gantt.

Many unit owners have described a condo board that was growing increasingly inharmonious. There were fewer committee meetings, they say, to allow owners to get involved with condo association projects. Communication was dropping off between MTCA and residents, sometimes taking the form of lengthy letters from the association’s attorney, challenging criticism of the condo association.

But for many it was the board’s handling of a $258,599 lobby renovation project that changed their minds. In late December 2012, about 250 unit owners at Marina City signed a petition for a special meeting of the condo association to discuss the allegedly over-budget and under-appreciated project. MTCA, however, rejected the petition, saying there were not enough signatures.

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(Top photo) Statue of Robert Morris, George Washington, and Haym Solomon on Wacker Drive near Marina City.