From the President
by Eric Andresen
During my tenure as your president, I hope to continue the professional integrity of our organization. SFAA is always striving for improvements— some may not always seem apparent. How can we do better?
First, we make some necessary changes so the SFAA staff has the time they need to answer your questions and reply to your communications in a more competent and reliable manner. To begin this process, we will increase our staff so there are more “staff hours” devoted to serving our membership. I find that watching our staff in action is incredible. To an outsider, things may look chaotic, yet they accomplish so much each and every day. If you are not part of the process, this may not seem very obvious. For those of us who understand the demands of our organization, we can’t help but wonder how they get it all done by the end of the day.
At the same time, our organization is trying to find more suitable and accessible office space. There’s no question that the current location is difficult for many of you to access, thus making our organization seem somewhat unreachable. Initially, 1232 Market Street was intended to be a temporary location. However, despite current news reports about the availability of space, there are not many suitable vacancies within a couple of blocks of City Hall. Our search continues and your patience is greatly appreciated.
We also want to improve communication between our organization’s leadership and members of the SFAA staff. By doing so, we hope that many more of your questions will be answered immediately by our staff without the need to take a message, make an inquiry and then return phone calls, emails and faxes. The more accessible and accurate our information, the more efficient we can be in providing assistance to our members in a timely and responsive fashion.
As I indicated in my April article, we want to make the experience of attending the monthly membership meetings far more informative so that you feel your time is well spent. Part of our problem is that the SFAA leadership and staff get locked into covering administrative and related issues at these meetings, leaving little time for membership-specific information. Another problem is our own difficulty in backing off from our frenetic pace to represent you and instead recognize the need to bring you up to speed in “layman’s” terms. All too often we gloss over information because we are so overwhelmed and involved in the issue that we forget many of you don’t have a clue about what we are discussing. This job in particular is primarily my responsibility, for in leading each meeting I hope to successfully make information more available and more understandable for each of you.
Now, let’s all cross our fingers and look for the guidance to make all this happen. Perhaps these changes won’t happen overnight, but hopefully by the end of the year you will realize the benefits. Your reasonable and well-thought-out suggestions are always welcome. Don’t be afraid to speak up!
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or the SF Apartment Magazine. Eric Andresen owns West Coast Property Management and West Coast Property Maintenance Companies, is the past-president of the Professional Property Management Association of San Francisco and was the author of the original Residential Tenancy Agreement. Eric also serves on the Executive Board of the California Apartment Association and many other leading industry organizations. He can be reached at 415-885-6970. © Copyright 2002