Co-op City’s official newspaper serving the world’s largest cooperative community. © Copyright 2010 Co-op City Times
Vol. 45 No. 26
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Appellate Division of Supreme Court upholds 2009 Riverbay Board election BY ROZAAN BOONE The Appellate Division, First Department, of the Bronx Supreme Court has upheld the 2009 Riverbay Board election which was being contested by Bernard Cylich, who placed second in this year’s recent Board election, and his 2009 running mate Yolanda Canales Schumann following their disqualifications last year for being indebted to the Riverbay Corporation. After more than a year of legal wrangling and thousands of dollars spent in legal costs on both sides, this matter has finally been settled by the Appellate Division. In its ruling, which was delivered on Tuesday, June 22, the court upheld the 2009 Board election and dismissed, with prejudice, all claims made by Cylich and Canales Schumann. Further, the court also found that: 1. Cylich and Canales Schumann, the petitioners, had not made any showing of impropriety on the part of Riverbay;
2. The 2009 Election Committee was properly formed; and 3. The Board’s acceptance of the 2009 Election Committee’s recommendation to disqualify Cylich for engaging in improper electioneering was indeed supported by substantial evidence. “The Appellate Court rejected every legal argument made by Mr. Cylich and his attorneys,” said Jeffrey Buss, Riverbay’s General Counsel, who successfully defended Riverbay in these matters. “They were wrong on every point. The Court found that there was no impropriety in the way the election was conducted, that the composition of the Election Committee was valid, that no law requires three board members to serve on the Election Committee, that no law prohibits resident shareholders from serving on the Election Committee, that Cylich had engaged in improper electioneering, and that disqualification of Cylich (Continued on page 4)
Co-op City commuters facing fewer buses, more transfers BY BILL STUTTIG Beginning tomorrow, Co-op City residents will be dealing with changes and cuts to four of the local bus lines that serve this community and provide access to and from key areas and subway lines to the west. The Bx. 26, Bx. 28 and Bx. 30 will be significantly rerouted, eliminating service to certain points in the community previously covered by each line. A new Bx. 38 line will be added and the Bx. 25 will be eliminated. The Bx. 38 will replace the portion of the run that is being eliminated from the Bx. 28. The end result will be a confusing redesign which will make it necessary for residents traveling between the
northern sections of the community and Section 5 to sometimes transfer to another line and also transfer in some cases when going to and from the community via the bus lines that travel to the west Bronx via Bartow Avenue, Allerton Avenue, and Gun Hill Road. (Continued on page 5)
Access-A-R id e E ligib ilit y (See pa ge 2)
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Riverbay, 32BJ reach deal on new contract BY JIM ROBERTS Six hours of an “intense” negotiating session between Riverbay Corp. and Local 32BJ on June 22 has produced a preliminary deal on a new four-year contract with Co-op City’s janitorial staff. The “memorandum of agreement” that both sides signed this past Tuesday now must be approved by a vote of the 500 workers in Local 32BJ and by the Board of Directors of Riverbay. The Riverbay directors are scheduled to vote on the contract at a board meeting on Wednesday, June 30. Terms of the new labor deal won’t be publicly disclosed until both sides approve the new contract. In a joint statement released following the announcement of the agreement, both Riverbay and Local 32BJ expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the month-long labor dispute. “32BJ SEIU and Riverbay are pleased to announce that they have reached a tentative contract agreement to
keep Co-op City’s maintenance workers on the job for another four years. “The tentative agreement ensures a continued high-level of service to Co-op City’s fifty-five to sixty thousand residents, provides salary adjustments in each year of the agreement and maintains health care for five hundred workers and their families,” the statement said. In a statement to the Co-op City community on June 23, Riverbay management said the agreement was fair to both sides and will ensure stability in operations for the next four years. “We are happy to report that last night a settlement was reached with the Local 32BJ union. Neither side got everything it wanted, but we believe it is a fair economic settlement for Co-op City and a fair wage package for the workers. “The union had many reasons why it was, for them, impossible to move our (Continued on page 5)
Deal could save Einstein Senior Center from budget cuts BY JIM ROBERTS A last-minute deal at City Hall has apparently restored funding to keep the Einstein Senior Center open for another year, but it appears the Dreiser Center will be closing on Wednesday, July 1. Officials at the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged (JASA), which has operated three senior centers in Co-op City for the past five years with funding from New York City, received word yesterday that a tentative deal was reached to keep Einstein open. But JASA is waiting for the official announcement when the city’s $63 billion budget for 2009-10 is passed by the City Council next week. “The word we have received is that the Einstein Center will be staying open, but the budget has not yet been passed,” said Leah Firster, Chief Services Officer at JASA. “It’s not over ‘til it’s over. So we’re kind of breathing easier, but we’re not celebrating yet. “As far as we know, the funding for Dreiser has been eliminated. Nobody has said to us that it has been. All we’ve been told is that Einstein will provisionally be staying open.”
At press time, a spokesperson for New York City’s Department for the Aging (DFTA) could not confirm which centers from the original 50 targeted for closing would be saved. The Bartow Senior Center will continue to receive city funding and remain open. Tentative plans call for buses to take seniors who attend the Dreiser Center to Bartow each day. The three Co-op City Senior Centers are operated by JASA and funded through DFTA. In his proposed budget for 201011, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg cut funding for 50 senior citizens and other city programs because of the state’s elimination of $301 million in annual Aid and Incentives to Municipalities (AIM) funding. The Einstein and Dreiser Centers were included on the list of 50 centers that DFTA originally targeted for closing. Another 60 senior centers in New York City also scheduled for closure in Mayor Bloomberg’s budget were saved when the state legislature approved spending federal (Continued on page 4)