Co-op City Times 05/31/14

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Co-op City’s official newspaper serving the world’s largest cooperative community. © Copyright 2014 Co-op City Times

Applications available beginning this week for Riverbay amnesty program for illegal subletters Vol. 49 No. 22

Saturday, May 31, 2014

People who have been illegally subletting apartments in Co-op City are now being given their chance to stabilize and legitimize their residency, and at the same time, probably lower their housing costs by participating in an amnesty program for Co-op City’s illegal subletters. Applications for the program are available at the Riverbay Sales Office in the Bartow Community Center beginning this week and amnesty will be granted to illegal subletters who apply and qualify from July 1 to September 1. Formal approval for the amnesty offer, similar to one offered to sublettters a decade ago which resulted in 41 families qualifying as legal shareholders in Co-op City, was granted by the New York State Division of Homes and

BY BILL STUTTIG

Community Renewal earlier this month in the form of a letter to Riverbay’s managing agent from Assistant DHCR Commissioner Richmond McCurnin. In granting formal permission to begin procedures to start offering amnesty to interested illegal subletters, Commissioner McCurnin set down certain conditions for the program in keeping with DHCR regulations. Commissioner McCurnin wrote: “…as it did ten years ago, DHCR will authorize Co-op City for a time limited period commencing no later that July 1, 2014, not to exceed three months, to publicly solicit present residents of their apartments to become cooperators although such residents may not have obtained such apartment in full compliance of Part 1727.”

Co-op City Times now available online (Continued on page 2)

Can’t wait for your Co-op City Times delivery on Saturdays? You don’t have to! Shareholders can now read the Co-op City Times online at http://issuu.com/cctimes. In the coming weeks, we will add more of our back issues. Please check back periodically for updates.

Board approves new lobby entrance system pending a survey of Building 15A The Riverbay Board of Directors gave approval to the installation of new doors and a new keyless entrance system for all 65 lobbies in Co-op City pending the results of a satisfaction survey of the residents of Building 15A Building 15A is the building that received the first installation of the new lobby doors and entrance system completed in early April. While most Board Directors have inspected the new lobby entrance themselves, the majority of them felt that it would be prudent to also survey the residents living with the new doors for the past two months to gauge their satisfaction with the new system before going ahead with installation in the rest of the community. But the new entrance doors and lobby entrance system, as installed in Building 15A, was given a preliminary go ahead by the Board as part of the BY BILL STUTTIG

same resolution calling for the survey. The results of the survey is expected in a few weeks and if a majority of the residents express their satisfaction with the new entrance, then Riverbay will begin the process of attaining approval from regulating agencies – HCR and HUD – before the installation work can begin later this year. Pending the results of the survey, one resolution passed by the Board at its regular meeting on May 14th approved a contract with Atlas Restoration Corporation for the installation of the 64 new lobby entrance doors in Co-op City, similar to the new doors recently installed in Building 15A, at a cost of approximately $2.4 million. A second resolution was also passed approving a contract with Siemens for (Continued on page 4)

25¢

New Board Directors to be seated June 5; 2014/15 Board officers to be elected on that date The 2014 Election Committee officially certified last week’s Riverbay Board election results after a recanvass of all ballots cast in the May 21st election resulted in the top five candidates holding onto their leads, as did all other positions except the thirteenth and fifteenth place spots in the preliminary count which switched places in the final recanvass of the votes. After the recount on Thursday, May 29, the official results showed Daryl Johnson holding his first place lead with 2,744 votes, followed by Cleve Taylor who maintained second place with 2,665 votes, and Leah Graham remaining in third place with 2,578 votes. Linda Berk, a newcomer to the Board, settled in to her fourth place win with 2,083 votes, and Rev. Calvin E. Owens held steady in fifth place with 1,922 votes. Among the other candidates, Frank Belcher maintained his sixth place finish with 1,788 votes; incumbent Board Director Eleanor Bailey, who was in BY ROZAAN BOONE

seventh place after the preliminary count, maintained that position with 1,764 votes, followed by Emmanuel “Manny” Torres in eighth place with 1,599 votes and incumbent Director Tony Illis in ninth place with 1,563 votes. Junius Williams finished tenth with 1,509 votes, followed by Dr. Amrendra Singh in eleventh place with 1,394 votes. In twelfth place was Sebastian Ulanga with 1,375 votes. Alonzo Newton moved up two spots in the final count on Thursday to the thirteenth place with 1,060 votes, Lynne Brookes maintained fourteenth place with 1,057 votes and Raymond Tirado finished in fifteenth place with 1,030 votes. The unofficial results in this year’s election were announced in the May 24th issue of the Co-op City Times, and based on the preliminary results that were announced after the vote count on election night, the results showed that Daryl Johnson was the top vote getter (Continued on page 4)


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