Co-op City’s official newspaper serving the world’s largest cooperative community. © Copyright 2010 Co-op City Times
Vol. 45 No. 17
Saturday, April 24, 2010
15 certified as candidates for 2010 Riverbay Board election BY ROZAAN BOONE Fifteen shareholders who submitted petition packages to participate in the 2010 Riverbay Board election were officially certified as candidates by the Riverbay Election Committee on Tuesday night, April 20, at the candidates’ certification meeting. In all, sixteen shareholders submitted petitions to the Riverbay Legal Department before the 5 p.m. deadline on Monday, April 12. The signatures on the petitions were checked for their validity throughout last week, and one of the candidates who submitted petitions was found not to have the required number of valid signatures and therefore did not qualify to enter the race. The fifteen certified candidates for this year’s Board election, in the order that their names will appear on the ballot, are Herbert Moreira-Brown, Frank Belcher, Leah Graham, Andrea Leslie, Helen
Atkins, Yolanda Canales Schumann, Lauretta J. Jaysura, Raymond Tirado, Tony Illis, Larry N. Barnard, Michelle Davy, Krystal Serrano, Evelyn Santiago, Bruce Gitelson and Bernard Cylich. The official candidates include all five incumbent Directors—Helen Atkins, Michelle Davy, Tony Illis, Andrea Leslie and Evelyn Santiago. At Tuesday’s Candidates Meeting, the qualified candidates received their instructions for running their campaigns according to the Riverbay election rules from the 2010 Riverbay Election Committee. During the meeting, the names of the fifteen candidates were randomly drawn to determine the order in which they will appear on the ballot and also the order in which their candidate’s statements and ads will appear in the Co-op City Times to be distributed on Saturday, (Continued on page 4)
Board members call for delay in reporting credit history BY JIM ROBERTS Management and some members of the Riverbay Board are at odds over whether to send cooperators’ payment history of carrying charges to credit bureaus. In an April 14th memo, several
Board Directors, led by Board Secretary Khalil Abdul-Wahhab, asked Riverbay management to stop reporting late payments of carrying charges by cooperators to credit bureaus until the
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Co-op City to pay $2 million more for water as rates rise again BY JIM ROBERTS Co-op City is facing another huge hike in its water bills if the proposed 12.9% rise in city water rates is approved by New York City’s Water Board when it votes on the staggering increase on May 21. That increase will add about $2 million to next year’s water bill at Co-op City, which would be the equivalent of a 2% carrying charge increase if austerity measures are not implemented by management. But that is just the latest addition to four straight years of double-digit annual water rate hikes, costing cooperators millions of extra dollars for water. Over the past four years, New York City has raised water and sewer rates by doubledigit amounts annually, drawing the ire of both apartment dwellers and homeowners throughout the city. While many political leaders continue to express their support for affordable housing, the failure to address rising fees, including water rates are hurting the working class by adding to their cost of housing. Residents of Co-op City, just like everyone in NewYork, are being hit hard in the pocketbook by these constant water rate hikes. “It’s been very difficult to budget for each year with these runaway increases from the city,” said Peter Merola,
Riverbay’s Director of Finance. “It’s sad that the shareholders are forced to carry this burden. The increases have added up over the years and now the cost of water is hurting everyone.” In 2007, the rate increase was 11.5%, followed by even bigger soakings of ratepayers of 14.5% in 2008 and 12.9% in 2009. For Co-op City, these staggering increases translate into millions of dollars each year. The water and sewer bill for 2008/09 came to $11.356 million here and then exploded the next year to $16.6 million, costing an extra $5.244 million in the annual Riverbay operating budget. Part of that increase was due to the delay in billing from New York City. Some of the charges actually cover water consumed in the prior year, but billed late by the water department. Some of the increase bill reflects higher water usage. Water costs of $11.356 million in 2008 made up approximately 7% of the total operating budget of $158 million that year. In 2009, with another double-digit rate increase, the water bill of $16 million consumed just under 10% of the entire Riverbay operating budget. (Continued on page 4)
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Savings from co-generation totaled nearly $1.4 million last month BY BILL STUTTIG With the new co-generation plant now producing the majority of the electrical power used by the community, Riverbay has begun to see the type of savings that was originally projected when construction of the plant was originally proposed. According to figures released by Riverbay’s Finance Department this week, during March 2010, Riverbay realized an energy savings over budgeted costs of $1,388,365. Riverbay’s Finance Director, Peter Merola, said that the bulk of the savings is due to the production of electricity by the plant significantly decreasing the community’s payments to Con Edison. For instance, for the month of March, Riverbay budgeted more than $2.1 million to the cost of electricity. The actual amount billed to Riverbay by Con Edison
was just slightly over $600,000 resulting in savings of more than $1.5 million. Riverbay saved slightly more than $900,000 in gas over the budgeted amount for the month of March bringing the total savings in both electric and gas to more than $2.4 million. The final figure of nearly $1.4 million in energy savings was reached after the cost of gas needed to run the cogeneration facility was figured in. The cost of cogeneration gas for the month was $1,023,016. For both March and February, the cost of gas needed to run cogeneration was over $1 million for only the second and third time indicating that the cogeneration plant has been running at its most consistent rate. (Continued on page 21)
Special invitation …
The six highest achieving seventh and eighth graders from Co-op City’s M.S. 181 were invited to the White House for the President and First Lady’s annual Easter Egg Roll on Tuesday, April 5th. M.S. 181 was the only group from the Bronx to receive an invitation to the prestigious event, thanks to former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, who is now the Director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs Policy. The six students, joined by Principal Christopher Warnock, Assistant Principal Nelson Medina (rear) and Assistant Principal Donna Ridley (far right) were (l. to r.): Co-op City resident Sharrod Gorum; Co-op City resident Deric Rollins; Abir Md. Choudhury; Arya Ramnarine; Megi Shehi; and Ashley Brown. After the White House event, which featured a variety of physical activities in conjunction with First Lady Michelle Obama’s fitness initiative “Ready Set, Go,” the children were treated to a private tour of the Capitol Building arranged through Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Letters of thanks to the President and the First Lady have already been written and arrangements have been made to have them personally delivered to the Oval Office, Assistant Principal Medina said.