Co-op City Times 02/23/13

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Co-op City’s official newspaper serving the world’s largest cooperative community. © Copyright 2013 Co-op City Times

Vol. 48 No. 8

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Riverbay to address store owners concerns on city tax bills BY JIM ROBERTS all collect the total property tax that each store would owe based on the size Merchants who operate the stores of their store. Leases vary on the terms in Co-op City’s commercial real estate about how much property tax a store spaces have been invited to a meeting owner pays and each lease is approved with Riverbay officials this week to by resolution of the Board of Directors express any concerns about commerwhen it is signed. cial property taxes imposed by the Because not all the property taxes are City of New York. billed to the merchants, shareholders Some store owners in Co-op City’s pay the balance of the commercial propthree commercial shopping centers have seen their commercial property tax bills erty tax bill that is owed to New York rise significantly this year because of City. This year, merchants are being the increase in commercial property tax (Continued on page 4) that New York City is collecting from Riverbay Corporation this year. Riverbay pays New York City the commercial real estate tax when the city bills Riverbay, and then Riverbay, in turn, sends out bills to the commercial tenants. The overall commercial property tax bill for the current fiscal year from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013 totals Store owners from the Co-op City shopping centers in the $2.83 million. Bartow, Einstein and Dreiser malls are invited to discuss However, the store the increases in New York City commercial property leases that merchants are taxes at a meeting with Riverbay officials this week. Photo by Bill Stuttig given by Riverbay do not

Bus and subway fares and bridges tolls going up next Sunday, March 3rd BY BILL STUTTIG Beginning next Monday, March 3rd, it will cost more for Co-op City residents and all of New York City to get from point A to point B as the fare on local and express buses, as well as the subways, increase. While the unwanted fare increases hit all of New York City and the Tri-State region hard as economic recovery slowly continues in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, Co-op City seems particular vulnerable as most residents need to pay two fares in order to reach their jobs in Manhattan and elsewhere or take the express bus which is also subject to steep fare increases as of next Monday. The MTA Board voted on December 18th to increase local bus and subway fares, as well as express bus fares, commuter train fares, and MTA bridge tolls which include both the nearby Throgs Neck and Whitestone Bridges. Next Sunday, March 3rd, the base fare for a local bus or subway ride will rise to $2.50 from the current base fare of $2.25. Express buses, which thousands of Co-op

City residents use to get to their jobs in Manhattan each day, will be rising from $5.50 to $6. The 7-day express bus, plus MetroCard will now cost $55. And even drivers who use the Throgs Neck, Whitestone, or RFK/Triborough Bridges regularly will take a hit as the base toll to cross the bridge will rise to $7.50 per crossing, a rise of $1. Commuter rail service, such as Metro North, will also increase by up to 10% or possibly more depending on the destination. In accordance with these fare increases, the cost of a monthly MetroCard rises from $104 to $112, a weekly MetroCard will rise by $1 from $29 to $30. The only bit of good news coming out of this is the bonus fare ceiling on pay-per-ride MetroCards will drop from $10 to $5, but the actual bonus will also drop from 7% to 5%. In addition, a new $1 new card surcharge will be implemented on the purchase of each new MetroCard in a move that the MTA said is designed to encourage commuters to refill their old cards, (Continued on page 2)

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Riverbay Repeater Program tentatively set to begin March 1 BY BILL STUTTIG Beginning next Friday, March 1, residents who have had maintenance or restoration problems repeat in days, weeks or even a month after the original repair was completed, will now be able to call their CSO office and have a supervisor from either the Maintenance or Restoration Departments directly assigned to oversee the follow-up repairs and ensure that the job is completed in a satisfactory and timely manner. The new program, designed by Riverbay Director of Operations Kevin Keenan is called the Riverbay Repeater Program. According to Keenan, for each shareholder, the process will begin as soon as he or she calls to report a problem in their home for the second time in a thirtyday period. The new procedure was first detailed to cooperators attending a January management forum on the operations of the Restoration Department and more details were presented at the February management forum detailing the operations of the Maintenance Department. Since then, the program’s plan has been fine tuned and General Manager Vernon Cooper and Keenan will meet with supervisors from Restorations, Maintenance, CSO and Atlas Restoration to go over the final details of the new procedure early next week before putting it into effect on March 1st. If there is an unforeseen delay in implementing the new program, the community will be apprised of the reason and the new tentative date for implementation in next week’s Co-op City Times. Keenan explained at the most recent management forum, “We are going to have a new program called the RRP Program or the Riverbay Repeater Program. If you have a problem that repeats – hopefully, it doesn’t repeat – but if you have a problem that isn’t fixed right the first time, when you call your CSO to report that repeat problem, CSO is going to hand that off to a supervisor and that supervisor will be your single point of contact. You will get the supervisor’s business card with the phone number on it and the supervisor will show

up with the utility person to follow up and make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Keenan explained to the Co-op City Times that the program will have many advantages, the first being the shareholders will have direct access to a supervisor charged with making sure the problem is corrected properly. “For Riverbay,” Keenan added, “it will allow us to better track problems that consistently occur and determine their root cause whether it be a defective part, insufficient training of the workers or just complacency on the part of a worker.” Following the kick-off of the program this Friday, March 1st, department heads and supervisors will go over the log of complaints every two weeks and try to establish patterns that can be tracked to a particular cause and then have that problem rectified on a long-term basis throughout the community, if possible. Keenan said that a computer program has been developed by Riverbay’s Computer Services Department to help with administering and tracking the new program. Although the process varies slightly depending on whether the call is for maintenance or restorations, in both cases after a cooperator calls into CSO to report a problem for the second time, a supervisor and the original utility person, if possible, will be sent back to the home to see why it was not corrected on the first visit. From that point, the supervisor will take ownership of the repair to see that it is, in fact, corrected. The supervisor will leave the cooperator his or her business card as the single point of contact for rectifying the problem. The supervisor will then follow up to see that the needed repair is fixed to the cooperator’s satisfaction. The cooperator will not be told to contact another department. If another department is needed to complete the repair, the supervisor will make arrangements and work with the other department to schedule the needed work. (Continued on page 2)

One cooperator injured in early morning fire in Building 18 BY BILL STUTTIG A resident on the 33rd floor of Building 18 was pulled from his smoky apartment by firefighters early Friday morning after they responded to a report of a smoke condition in the home. The firefighters responded, along with Public Safety and the FDNY Emergency Medical Service, after numerous calls of a possible fire in the apartment at approximately 5:30 a.m. yesterday morning, February 22nd. According to the Public Safety report on the incident, responding firefighters forced entry in the home immediately upon arrival at the smoke-filled apartment and found the resident of the home unconscious in the living room.

The man was pulled from the home, treated by EMS technicians and taken to Jacobi Medical Center for further treatment of smoke inhalation. According to the report, the fire and resulting smoke condition was contained to the living room sofa and quickly extinguished by firefighters. The preliminary report states the firefighters believed that the fire was caused by smoking. The incident is still under investigation by New York City Fire Marshals. While much of the damage was contained to the apartment where the fire started, some water damage occurred in a neighboring apartment, according to the Public Safety report.


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