Co-op City’s official newspaper serving the world’s largest cooperative community. © Copyright 2013 Co-op City Times
Vol. 48 No. 14
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Benedetto to MTA Chairman: Co-op City deserves its fair share of MTA budget increase BY BILL STUTTIG Citing an increase of $358 million in New York State allocations to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in the State’s budget, Co-op City’s State Assemblyman Mike Benedetto has personally written to the Acting Chairman of the MTA, Fernando Ferrer, and requested that Co-op City receive its fair share of the increased funds in the form of restoration to much of the service which was cut from the community in 2010. The $358 million, which is a 9% increase in state allocations provided to the MTA in the previous year according to Benedetto’s office, is actually $40 million more than the MTA was expecting to receive. With this unexpected windfall, Benedetto has made the case to Ferrer, the former Bronx Borough President and a one-time political ally of Benedetto’s, that a small percentage of this extra money should be used to restore service to communities adversely affected by the 2010 service cuts and no community has been more adversely affected than Co-op City. “The bus services in Co-op City have been unacceptable since the 2010 MTA budget cuts,” said Assemblyman
Benedetto. “I have made it a high priority for these routes to get full restorations for the senior citizens of this community. Hopefully, with this extra funding, we can finally resolve this long fought issue.” Benedetto, along with other community and elected officials in Co-op City have long voiced their displeasure MTA officials about what they perceived to be the unfairness of the cuts, which made it more difficult to commute from the north sections of the community to Section 5, without transferring buses. The cuts also took away many stops near the vicinity of many Co-op City buildings and made it a longer walk for many residents to stops serving lines which transport residents from the community to subway lines and other transportation to jobs, recreation and medical facilities. In 2011, at Assemblyman Benedetto’s urging and following a visit to the community by some high ranking MTA officials, some previously cut service and stops was restored to Asch Loop, providing easier access to many residents living (Continued on page 4)
Cardboard, scrap appliances added to Co-op City recycling program BY JIM ROBERTS One million tons of waste paper, 627,000 tons of commingled plastic bottles and metal cans and more than 100,000 tons of scrap metal sounds like a lot of worthless garbage. But all that waste material, because it was recycled here in Co-op City, earned nearly $70,000 for Riverbay shareholders in 2012. And, more importantly, recycling cuts down the need for landfill space, reducing the amount of damage done to the environment for everyone. A staggering 40 tons of household waste is handled every day in Co-op City. Recycling a portion of that garbage is a task that pays dividends for shareholders and residents. “Instead of going into a landfill, these recycled products are going to be used over and over again,” said Kevin Keenan, Riverbay Director of Operations. “Whether it’s our waste oil from the motor pool and the power plant, old car batteries, old tires, all that is being recycled.” According to the American Forest and Paper Association, every ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees, 6,953 gallons of water, 463 gallons of oil, 587 pounds of air pollution, 3.06 cubic yards of landfill space
and 4,077 kilowatt hours of electricity. Two new initiatives are adding to the amount of garbage that is being recycled in Co-op City. Old appliances that used to be thrown away will now be sold intact to a vendor that won the bid for the job. Riverbay will receive $30 for each unit the vendor removes. “Riverbay never used to get paid for old appliances – stoves, refrigerators. They would be scrapped because there wasn’t a lot of value for them,” Keenan said. “So we went out to bid and now we’re getting paid for each appliance. Believe it or not, some companies will refurbish the units and ship them to South America.” Another new source of revenue will be the sale of scrap cardboard that is produced by the commercial stores in the three Co-op City shopping centers. “One of the other new things we’re doing that could be big revenue generator is selling the commercial cardboard,” Keenan said. “It was going into a dumpster and being taken away at no cost to us. We went out to bid and the winning bidder (Continued on page 9)
25¢
Petition period ends for 2013 Riverbay Board election Candidates’ meeting to be held April 23 BY ROZAAN BOONE Sixteen potential candidates who picked up petitions to run in the 2013 Riverbay Board election, which will be held on Wednesday, May 22nd, returned their petition packages by the 5 p.m. deadline on Monday, April 1. The qualifying petitions became available on Monday, March 18 and among the resident shareholders who picked petitions up are all five of the incumbent Directors whose terms expire this year — Helen Atkins, Bernard Cylich, Andrea Leslie, Evelyn Santiago and Raymond Tirado. The other potential candidates in this year’s Board election are Emanuel Armfield, Frank Belcher, William Craft, William Gordon, Amrendra Singh, Kevin Lambright, Sebastian Ulanga, Charles Phipps, Emmanuel Torres, Cynthia Isales and Leslie Peterson. Although shareholder
Kermit Saltus picked up, completed and returned his petition package to the Riverbay Legal Department by the April 1st deadline, he has decided to withdraw from the Board election. With the petition period over this week, non-resident Riverbay staff conducted electronic signature verification on each of the signed petitions. This process was overseen by Michael Munns, Riverbay’s senior attorney; Director Eleanor Bailey, Chair of the 2013 Election Committee, and Mary Ahland, Riverbay’s Director of Computer Services. “We went through the petitions to verify the signatures, and we want to wish all of the candidates good luck,” said Director Bailey. During the week, based on the results (Continued on page 2)
Election Committee Notice regarding poll workers Each year, Riverbay requires 160 poll workers who are trained by the NewYork City Board of Elections and whose names are on the Board of Elections list to work on election day in Co-op City, which, this year, will take place on Wednesday, May 22, when shareholders will vote for five candidates to represent them on the 2013 Riverbay Board of Directors. These are compensated positions. This year, the Election rules and regulations were changed to give preference to trained residents of Co-op City whose names are on the Board of Elections’ list of approved poll workers and who have
worked in previous Board elections, and also were trained by the NYC Board of Elections on the OLD voting machines. For those that have had prior experience and training and who did not work in the 2012 Riverbay Board Election, kindly come to the reception desk in the Riverbay Administration Office, 2049 Bartow Avenue, and sign up and you will be contacted by the Election Committee via letter, if needed. If, however, you worked last year, you are already on the list and you do not need to sign up. You will be notified by mail of the dates of the training sessions.
Elevator piston replacement … Staff from the Ver-tech Elevator Corp. this week began the task of dismantling and removing the old pistons from the Dreiser Community Center elevator shafts and replacing them with new ones. The replacement work in each elevator will take approximately one month. Elevator one (the left car) will be replaced first. One of the two elevators will remain in operation during the entire process. Photo by Bill Stuttig