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Garage Waiting Lists: Accountability Accomplished
After two years of buzzing, we're pleased to announce that the questions surrounding the Garage Waiting List irregularities seem to have been adequately addressed.
The investigation began when SPBuzz documented what seemed to be random differences in various versions of the Garage Waiting Lists, and spoke with various Shareholders whose numbers were passed over. At a meeting to discuss these "irregularities", Carlos Rosado reported that six or seven garage spots had been allocated during a certain period, but at the same time was only able to account for four people from the waiting list who had obtained these spots. The questions regarding these unaccounted-for spots were never answered, and the questions only compounded as subsequent lists that were published corrected some errors and introduced others. Most recently, a new waiting lists as well as a list of Shareholders with spots was published. Based on this, yet another irregularity was observed — one shareholder who had appeared on list after list, making slow progress with the rest of us, was suddenly, and without explanation removed from the waiting list and shown to have a space. Despite repeated requests, no explanation was forthcoming from anyone on the Board.
Shortly after the election, I was invited to a meeting with Carlos Rosado. Eric Mandelbaum also attended the meeting. With regard to the most recent question, Mr. Rosado explained that a Shareholder who obtained a spot in 2002 registered another Shareholder's car in that space. Mr. Rosado presented an original dated document to document that the space was indeed allocated in 2002 to one Shareholder, and that the accompanying car registration belonged to another. Mr. Rosado was not clear about the circumstances under which this occurred; it is possible that the second Shareholder was living with the first Shareholder at the time, and it is possible that there was an error (either accidental or intentional). In any case, all parties involved are Shareholders, and the Directors are content not to dig further into this issue.
It is not possible to go through every error that characterized every version of the list, and my questions pertained to the process that was used to investigate possible problems and to prevent future problems. Mr. Mandelbaum was clear in saying that he analyzed hundreds of irregularities in all the available past lists, and did not find evidence of wrongdoing. Furthermore, he emphasized that it is a "new day", that lists will be maintained using robust and transparent process, and that the process will become only more robust and more transparent over time.
For what it is worth, we some new questions have arisen pertaining to the parking circumstances of several directors. Details will be published as they become available.