Co-op City Times 01/17/15

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Co-op City’s official newspaper serving the world’s largest cooperative community. © Copyright 2015 Co-op City Times

Vol. 50 No. 3

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Shareholders hear details of Legionnaires’ Disease at public meeting Tuesday evening BY BILL STUTTIG

Approximately 400 shareholders turned out for a public meeting in Dreiser Center Tuesday evening to address the 8 documented Legionnaires’ Disease cases within Co-op City since the beginning of December. Experts from the Department of Health (DOH) hosted the meeting and provided details on the preliminary

overview of Legionnaires’ Disease and the events leading up to the reported cases in Co-op City and its suspected link to the cooling tower, including recent disinfection steps that began literally hours after the preliminary tests on the tower came back positive for the legionella bacteria. Dr. Balter stressed to the hundreds of Co-op City residents gathered in the

Riverbay’s Interim General Manager Noel Ellison introduces a panel of experts from the city’s Department of Health who gave residents a detailed overview of the legionella bacteria contamination preliminarily found in the power plant’s cooling tower and then addressed concerns expressed by many residents at a public meeting Tuesday night in Dreiser Center. Photo by Bill Stuttig

finding late last week of the presence of the legionella bacteria within the Riverbay Power Plant’s cooling tower and its potential link to the sudden increase of the presence of the disease within Co-op City over the past month. Dr. Sharon Balter, Director of the Department of Health’s Bureau of Communicable Diseases, who was one of a panel of experts provided by DOH for the public meeting Tuesday evening in Dreiser Center, began the meeting with a visual presentation offering an

Dreiser Auditorium that the key to successfully fighting the potentially serious respiratory disease is getting treatment from a doctor quickly after symptoms appear, symptoms which include a persistent cough along with fever, tiredness, loss of appetite, aches and occasionally diarrhea. Treatment usually involves a heavy dose of antibiotics prescribed by a physician, similar to how more common cases of pneumonia are

Riverbay Holiday closing

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Riverbay’s administrative offices will be closed on Monday, January 19th in observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Shareholders who have maintenance emergencies may contact their local Maintenance office and follow the prompts for service, and the Co-op City Public Safety Department at (718) 671-3050, and 9-1-1 for all other emergencies. Because of the holiday shortened work week, the deadline for submission of all community club articles and Directors’ viewpoints will be by 9 a.m. on Tuesday, January 20. Material received after this time will not be considered for publication in the Saturday, January 24th issue of the Co-op City Times. Articles may be submitted by fax to (718) 320-2595; emailed to cctimes@riverbaycorp.com, or slipped under the door of Room 21 in the Bartow Community Center, 2049 Bartow Avenue, Bronx, N.Y. We wish our readers an enjoyable holiday weekend.

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Board discusses how to pay legal settlement costs in labor case BY JIM ROBERTS

Faced with extraordinary, onetime expenses due to a pending legal settlement and costs related to treating the Co-op City Power Plant for possible legionella bacteria, Riverbay Corp. is facing $8 million in bills above the annual operating budget that have to be paid in the first part of 2015. To address the situation, Riverbay Board President Cleve Taylor laid out the costs that Co-op City shareholders are facing and presented Board members with a proposal at the Board’s meeting held on Jan. 14. “We have the convergence of a secondary and tertiary event. The secondary event is the settlement of the Ramirez [labor] case which is

going to cost the corporation $6.25 million and another approximately $300,000 in extra legal expenses,” Board President Taylor said. “We also have costs related to the Legionnaires’ situation, which involves additional natural gas costs and cleaning which will probably be in the area of $1 million that we know of,” Taylor said. (see related story, page 1.) Additional labor legal settlements could cost another $200,000, Taylor told the Board. There is also the possibility of several hundred thousand dollars cost in legal fees regarding other potential litigation in 2015, Taylor said. The money that needs to

Door-to-door delivery of Co-op City Times discontinued (Continued on page 4)

The test period for door-to-door delivery of the Co-op City Times has ended, and beginning this Saturday, January 17, 2015, the paper will be returned to delivery by the elevator area on each floor in the high-rise buildings. Delivery to the townhouses and community center bins is not affected. As shareholders were notified in the Saturday, November 22, 2014 issue of the paper, the test period was expected to last for approximately 2 months, and that time has now expired. Residents are therefore encouraged to pick up the paper from the elevator area as was the case prior to the test period, and to read the Co-op City Times each week to be accurately informed about what your Board and Management are doing to ensure the viability of the Riverbay Corporation and maintenance of your homes and community. Shareholders who do not receive the paper by 1 p.m. on Saturday should contact the distribution supervisor at (347) 439-5632 and let him know that the paper was not delivered to your floor. If you do not receive the paper at all, please contact the Co-op City Times office at (718) 320-3300, Ext. 3375 and let us know so we can follow-up with the distributor. We thank you for your cooperation as we work to ensure efficient delivery of the Co-op City Times.

Work continues at Co-op City co-generation plant to clean up cooling towers

BY ROZAAN BOONE

Riverbay Power Plant personnel and consultants are continuing with decontamination procedures at the cooling towers under the close supervision of the city’s Department of Health (DOH) to ensure the health and safety of residents, employees and the community. These efforts began immediately after DOH informed Riverbay officials late last week of the possibility of the presence of legionella bacteria in the

cooling towers. Power Plant staff worked throughout last weekend and during the week with the water treatment contractor to wash the plant, and disinfect the towers and water. In addition, Riverbay’s General Counsel firm, Smith, Buss & Jacobs, has retained Dr. Janet Stout, president and director of Special Pathogens Laboratory and research associate professor at the (Continued on page 26)


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