30-Mar-14 – Still recovering from news of $864,321 lost in over-budget spending, Marina Towers Condominium Association quickly patched another financial issue, replacing a treasurer who resigned after 12 years on the condo board.

They appointed Mark Ulaszek (left), who was MTCA’s treasurer in 2002 and 2003 but after choosing not to run for re-election, embarked on a stormy relationship with the condo board over the next ten years.

Ulaszek owns about ten units at Marina City and is moderator of an often-raucous online forum, where anonymous writers criticized the previous condo board for years, then were openly hostile to anyone critical of the current condo board. Marina City Online pulled its support, both promotional and technical, after Ulaszek allowed personal attacks over news coverage of a case in U.S. District Court involving an Illinois company of which the current MTCA president is a co-owner.

Ulaszek was appointed at the March 20 meeting of the condo board. He replaces Dr. Michel Louvain (right), a retired psychiatrist known for delivering his treasurer’s reports in a thick French accent.

In January, the condo association at Marina City was informed by a certified public accounting firm that $864,321 was spent on five projects between 2006 and 2013 above and beyond what was approved by the board. CondoCPA found that a total of $1,474,373 was spent on the projects while only $610,052 was approved.

The projects include remodeling on the 20th floors of both towers, extensive renovation of both residential lobbies, a “model floor” on the 53rd floor of the east tower, 896 doorplates that include a map of the stars and planets as they appeared on the day in 1960 that ground was broken at Marina City, and artistic lighting that was installed in the ceiling of all eight passenger elevators.

The board waited until early March to inform unit owners and residents of the exact amounts of the overruns but had warned for months that they would be steep.

Old property manager criticized for incomplete budget The expenditures contributed to the resignation of Marina City’s residential property manager, David Gantt (left), on March 4, 2013.

Shortly after being elected president of the condo board on May 6, Ellen Chessick told unit owners that on May 1, she was told by William O’Leary, the new property manager, that the reason a lobby renovation project was 25 to 40 percent over-budget was because many items needed for the new lobbies – such as seating, tables, rugs, and artwork – were not included in the budget or specifications given to contractors.

“It was not a complete budget because there were many items not included,” Chessick (right) wrote in her first newsletter to owners and residents, “and there were not proper specifications for the project.”

Chessick says O’Leary told her that Gantt was responsible for overseeing the lobby renovation project but “was not a construction project manager.”

Gantt, who was almost 70 years old when he resigned, has pointed out that O’Leary was in charge of the lobby project from just a few weeks after construction started.

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