5-May-14 – Unit owners at Marina City continued their purge of directors from a 37-year-old condominium board.

Eight new directors were elected at the annual meeting of Marina Towers Condominium Association on April 28. Of the 15 current directors, only three have served on the MTCA board prior to 2013.

Only about one-third of Marina City’s estimated 690 unit owners voted, down from about two-thirds voting in a historic election in 2013 in which all seven candidates running together as a slate won two-year terms. Six new directors and one incumbent beat an opposing slate that included four incumbents, among them the president of the condo board who had served on the board for eleven years. The group called themselves the “Clean Slate” even though two of the seven candidates were incumbents.

(Above) Elevator lobby of Marina City’s west tower on March 16, 2013. (Click on image to view larger version.)

In the past year, the condo board has lost seven directors through retirement, choosing not to run for re-election, or losing in the most recent election. They comprise…

• Robert Abell, an architect who helped design the “model floor” on the east tower’s 53rd floor and new residential lobbies constructed in 2013.
• Dr. Albert Colley Jr., a retired educator and administrator.
• Richard Godfrey, who from 1975 to 1983 was the mayor of Normal, Illinois, a city 130 miles southwest of Chicago that in 1980 had a population of 35,672.
• Maureen Leonard, an elementary school teacher whose parents were both president of Marina Towers Condominium Association at different times. John Leonard, a real estate lawyer and former precinct captain, was president from 1989 to 1991 and vice president from 1992 to 1999. Donna Leonard was president from 2004 to 2013.
• Donald O’Malley, director of labor relations for the City of Chicago.
• Michael Ruggeri, a retired history professor considered an expert on the ancient Americas. Ruggeri taught American, Mesoamerican, Mexican, and Latin American history for 33 years at City Colleges of Chicago. He is currently on the board of the Chicago Archaeological Society, which works to preserve archaeological sites and artifacts.
• James Ward, a member of the board of trustees of the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund.

New board members include business owners, medical researcher

Dr. Brian Murphy becomes the first assistant professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy at University of Illinois at Chicago to serve on Marina City’s condo board. Pharmacognosy is the study of medicines derived from natural sources. The 14 publications Murphy has authored or co-authored include four on the biology of the Madagascar rainforest.

With a Ph.D. in chemistry from Virginia Tech, Murphy (left) specializes in marine biology. He supervises a UIC lab of nine researchers who collect and study bacteria with the goal of finding new antibiotics to cure human diseases. Of particular interest to the lab is a form of tuberculosis that killed about two million people in 2008 alone.

Re-elected to another two-year term was Marc Straits, an interior designer who was a style and design consultant to The Oprah Winfrey Show.

In 2012, Straits resigned as co-chair of a design committee studying a project to remodel Marina City’s residential lobbies, complaining of a lack of professionals qualified to oversee the controversial project and what he said was insufficient oversight of the remodeling budget.

Dr. Michel Louvain	Brian Muir	Marc Straits	Mark Ulaszek

Mark Ulaszek, a financial analyst appointed by the condo board on March 20 to serve as treasurer and complete the term of retired psychiatrist Dr. Michel Louvain, was elected to a two-year term of his own. Ulaszek was MTCA’s treasurer in 2002 and 2003.

Also elected to two-year terms were Michael Dosen, former owner of a staffing firm, Mark Dresser, an interior designer, Jerry Graupman, an engineer who has lived at Marina City for 11 years, Brian Muir, a real estate broker with an office at Marina City, and Shelby Rogers, a financial advisor.

Software engineer Senthil Natarajan won but received the least votes of the winning candidates and was elected to a one-year term.

Among the issues Marina City’s condo board faces is $864,321 that was spent on five projects between 2006 and 2013 beyond what was approved by a previous board.

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