Riverbay Election Supplement on pages 31-41
Co-op City’s official newspaper serving the world’s largest cooperative community. © Copyright 2010 Co-op City Times
Vol. 45 No. 21
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Board election Wednesday; $1,500 cash Voting Incentive being offered to 3 shareholders BY ROZAAN BOONE On Wednesday, May 26, 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. Sixteen shareholders submitted qualifying petitions to the Riverbay Legal Department before the April 12th deadline indicating their intention to enter the contest. Although 15 candidates were certified, one later dropped out of the race citing personal reasons. The fourteen certified candidates in this year’s Board election, in the order that the names will appear on the ballot on Wednesday, are Herbert Moreira Brown, Frank Belcher, Leah Graham, Andrea Leslie, Helen Atkins, Yolanda Canales-Schumann, Lauretta J. Jaysura, Raymond Tirado, Tony Illis, Michelle S.
Davy, Krystal Serrano, Evelyn Santiago, Bruce Gitelson and Bernard Cylich. The official candidates include all five incumbent Directors who are seeking reelection—Helen Atkins, Michelle S. Davy, Tony Illis, Andrea Leslie and Evelyn Santiago. There will be one vote per unit by residents who are shareholders of record as of April 12, 2010. 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 29. A recount, if necessary, will be conducted on Thursday, June 3rd. After the results of the election are certified by the 2010 Election Committee, (Continued on page 16)
MTA tells Co-op City leaders that bus changes are a done deal BY BILL STUTTIG A meeting between Co-op City community representatives and MTA leadership Wednesday afternoon at MTA headquarters brought little progress or hope that the changes will be averted before they take effect on June 27th.
Algernon Quattlebaum, a Co-op City community leader who formed the Coop City Coalition against the MTA Cuts months after the MTA’s announcement regarding changes to the community’s (Continued on page 12)
City to review proposed senior center closings BY JIM ROBERTS The senior centers at Einstein and Dreiser may be spared from closing in July if New York City determines that the two sites are not part-time operations and are vital to the quality of life for Co-op City seniors. Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, Commissioner of New York City’s Department for the Aging (DFTA), told a City Council member this week that she will “reconsider” her department’s preliminary finding earlier this month that the two centers, run by JASA, the Jewish Association for
Services for the Aging, should be closed due to budget cuts by the Bloomberg administration. The Mayor’s office has said the cuts are due in part to reduced funding from the state for senior citizen programs. City Councilman James Vacca, who visited the Einstein Senior Center on Tuesday, told representatives of JASA that he spoke directly with Commissioner Paoli and that she is willing to consider restoration of funding for the two Co-op (Continued on page 4)
25¢
Repair work to start soon on closed terraces We want to have some work being done BY JIM ROBERTS Repair work will begin over the next in all seven buildings simultaneously.” several weeks on all seven of the buildings with terraces closed by New York (Continued on page 14) City’s Department of Buildings as soon as the city issues permits to erect scaffolding so the work can begin. Proto Restoration, the contractor doing the work on the Local Law 11 repair project in Co-op City, has already filed for the permits, which normally take about ten days to be issued. Riverbay General Manager Vernon Cooper has been visiting the seven buildings with terraces closed by the city during the two weeks since the order was issued to explain the situation and listen to residents. The new plan to start repair work now on all of the buildings was developed late this week by shifting money from other capital projects and by using savings created by the new cogeneration plant. After nearly two decades of intermittent bal“Initially, because of our lack of cony closures and on-going structural concerns funds, we were just going to con- due to the community’s original construction defects related to poor governmental oversight, centrate on Buildings 6, 7, and 8,” balconies on 28 of the communities 35 buildings Cooper said. “Now, money will be have been fully restored over the last four reallocated to allow us to acceler- years. Work on the seven remaining buildings will be done simultaneously, beginning as soon ate work to be done on two terrace as the required scaffolding permits are lines in each of the seven buildings. approved. Photo by Bill Stuttig
Negotiations with 32BJ enter final week; both sides hopeful that a strike can be averted BY BILL STUTTIG With Riverbay’s contract with the community’s 500 porters, handymen, garage attendants, and grounds workers set to expire on May 31st, negotiations in hopes of reaching a new agreement are entering their final week with both sides expressing hope that a settlement can be reached and a strike averted. Negotiations with Riverbay and Local 32BJ, the union for more than 500 Riverbay employees, are set to reconvene this Monday and hopefully continue through the week until a settlement can be reached. Herb Freedman, Principal for
Marion Scott Real Estate Inc., managing agent for Co-op City, said on Thursday, “We remain hopeful that a strike will be averted. So far this year, we have successfully concluded negotiations with the Teamsters union and Public Safety union.” Kwame Patterson, a spokesman for Local 32BJ, expressed similar optimism when asked about the status of the talks. He said he felt that the talks will not really begin in earnest until Monday and said the union is hoping for a contract similar to what it received (Continued on page 17)