Co-op City Times 05/14/11

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Riverbay Election Supplement on pages 29-38

Co-op City’s official newspaper serving the world’s largest cooperative community. © Copyright 2011 Co-op City Times

Vol. 46 No. 20

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Riverbay Board election Wednesday; $1,500 Voting Incentive being offered BY ROZAAN BOONE On Wednesday, May 18, shareholders of the Riverbay Corporation will choose 5 of the thirteen candidates running in this year’s Board of Directors election when they cast their votes in their building lobbies from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. All thirteen shareholders who submitted qualifying petitions to the Riverbay Legal Department before the March 28th deadline indicating their intention to enter the contest were certified by the 2011 Election Committee after the appropriate checks and validations were completed. The thirteen certified candidates in this year’s Board election, in the order that the names will appear on the ballot on Wednesday, are Daryl Johnson, Rev. Dr. Calvin E. Owens, John Rose, Kenneth Mercer, Michelle S. Davy, Leah Graham, Carmen M. Howell, Emmanuel Manny Torres, Eleanor G. Bailey, Tony Illis, Yolanda Canales Schumann, Krystal

Serrano and Frank Belcher. There will be one vote per unit by residents who are shareholders of record as of March 28, 2011. After the polls close at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, the votes will be tallied in Room 31 of the Bartow Community Center and the preliminary results will be published in the next issue of the Co-op City Times on Saturday, May 21. A recount, if necessary, will be conducted on Thursday, May 26. After the results of the election are certified by the 2011 Election Committee, the top five vote getters will be sworn in on Wednesday, June 8th and begin serving their terms. “I’d like to thank all of the candidates and shareholders who attended and participated in the Candidates’ Forums held on May 4 and May 9,” said Director Bill (Continued on page 4)

Department of Buildings’ approval clears way for additional $2 million in annual savings through J-51 tax abatements BY BILL STUTTIG Riverbay Corporation received word last week that the city’s Department of Buildings has signed off on the satisfactory removal of numerous longstanding violations that existed in Co-op City, most of it related to the city’s required Local Law 11 work, clearing the way for the community to apply for available J-51 tax abatements from the City of New York. This abatement will add approximately $2 million more to Riverbay’s bottom line. Riverbay General Manager Vernon Cooper said this week that the community has received the necessary approvals as to the satisfactory completion of many of the extensive repairs that have been performed on Co-op City’s buildings over the past several years and attorneys representing the community in this matter have already filed the necessary paper work with the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) for the tax abatement which will mean approximately $20 million added to Riverbay’s bottom line over the next ten plus years.

Riverbay’s Director of Finance Peter Merola explained this week that Co-op City already receives a J-51 tax abatement of approximately $2.1 million a year due to a wide variety of already completed work in the community, including the elevators, the large scale on-going window replacement project and the new Ric-Wil underground piping. This additional abatement will bring Co-op City’s J-51 tax relief total to more than $4 million per year. Cooper said this week: “This tax abatement will help tremendously in allowing the community to meet its operating expenses and as a result diminish the need for future additional carrying charge increases.” Attorney Barry Zweigbaum, along with Cooper, Riverbay Counsel Michael Munns, in-house engineer Nick Massand, and Jacob Wolf of the Riverbay Legal Department, did much of the exhaustive work over many months in documenting the repairs and filing the (Continued on page 4)

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HUD officials tour Co-op City, discuss possible refinancing deal BY JIM ROBERTS Possible alternative options for refinancing Co-op City’s existing $475 million mortgage, held by New York Community Bank, were returned to the table last week by a competing bank, Wells Fargo. Three weeks after the Riverbay Board of Directors voted to approve management pursuing a proposed new refinancing loan with New York Community Bank, Wells Fargo officials communicated terms of a potential loan by Freddie Mac to Riverbay, and also brought a delegation of representatives from the federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from Washington, D.C. for a fact finding tour of Co-op City this week. Wells Fargo, which has been working with Riverbay management to seek federal government involvement in a potential mortgage refinancing deal for Co-op City, could potentially offer better terms than the New York Community Bank proposal

if the federal government, either through Freddie Mac or HUD, becomes involved in making the new mortgage. On May 12, four officials from HUD, including the Deputy Secretary for MultiFamily, met with Herbert Freedman, principal of Marion Scott Real Estate, Inc., Riverbay’s managing agent; and Riverbay Board President Helen Atkins, former Board Presidents Othelia Jones and Al Shapiro, and Director Khalil AbdulWahhab, Second Vice President of the Riverbay Board. According to Freedman, the HUD officials came here to get a first-hand look and ask questions regarding the operations and finances of Co-op City. The HUD officials went to the Power Plant to view the community’s cogeneration plant, which produces nearly all of Co-op City’s electricity, and also visited the Peartree Recycling Facility, which (Continued on page 4)

Mayor’s SCOUT Team tours Co-op City with an eye towards repairs of surrounding properties BY BILL STUTTIG properties in and around the communiAs part of the comprehensive ongoing ty were confronted with dozens of phofix-up of Co-op City property and sur- tos documenting numerous conditions rounding areas this spring, Riverbay ranging from unsightly litter to far more General Manager Vernon Cooper (Continued on page 3) arranged for a visit this week from Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Street Condition Observation Unit (SCOUT) with an eye towards correcting many of the unsightly and, in some cases, hazardous conditions that exist on city controlled properties in and around Co-op City. The tour by the SCOUT team was a follow-up to a meeting held in late April whereby representatives from a wide As part of Riverbay’s in-house annual spring spruce-up this week the Construction Department built stone variety of city and efforts, flower planters at the entrance of the Bartow Shopping state agencies with Mall, and later in the week, Buildings and Grounds staff direct oversight over planted seeds which will help beautify the area. Photo by Bill Stuttig


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