Management Report to the Community

This past Wednesday, March 22, the Board of Directors held an Open Board meeting at the Einstein Community Center. Due to time constraints, I was unable to provide a Management Report to the community. Before I get to this, however, I would like to once again address questions about the corporation’s finances.

Bob Klehammer Management Report

A comment was made by a resident which repeated a false narrative concerning how the corporation’s funds have been used in the last five years. Once again, I have repeatedly addressed this issue starting with my presentation at the last Open

On Wednesday, March 22, we held our Open Board meeting at the Einstein Community Center. It was a well-attended meeting. We apologize for the delay in getting the meeting started. Under normal circumstances, we would have started on time with a President’s and Management Reports, followed by the two resolutions and the Gallery Session. Unfortunately, we had to change the schedule around to accommodate the Gallery Session first missing other parts of the President’s and Management Report. The Gallery Session registered 34 shareholders who spoke on concerns personal to them and on some that were community-related. We thank all who attended and are committed to having more of these Gallery Sessions.

I misspoke when I said we are getting a new class of officers in 2023. This is not accurate. We have the plan to include a new class of CCPD recruits in the 2024/2025 year.

Board meeting in October, followed that up with a presentation produced for our public access channel and that is still available on our YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/3h6CrF7. Finally, please go to our website at coopcity.com and read the March 11th

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2023 Riverbay Board Election Candidates to be Certified Friday, March 31

First Election Supplement to be published Saturday, April 15

BY ROZAAN BOONE

Certification of the candidates eligible to run in the 2023 Riverbay Board of Directors election will take place next Friday, March 31.

Executed election packages were due to be returned to the 2023 Riverbay Board Election Committee on Friday, March 24. As of press time yesterday, five potential candidates had submitted their Statement of Intent and other required documents indicating their interest to participate in the election for a seat on the Riverbay Board of Directors.

“Thank you to the potential candidates who have applied for the Board of Directors. The community looks forward to seeing your vision for Co-op City, identifying its strengths, and your proposals for resolving areas of improvement,” said Director Lynette Wright, chair of the 2023 Election Committee.

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Begins Today

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It has been a demanding 8 months for the Board. We had to deal with a carrying charge increase that was not popular with many, but necessary to ensure that we kept our corporation running efficiently to continue to provide the goods and services without any interruptions. We welcomed two new Board members who have hit the ground running, getting familiar with all the aspects of Riverbay’s Management. Our General Manager Noel Ellison retired on January 31st and our Executive General Manager Bob Klehammer is retiring on or about May 12th. We started exploring candidates for the executive general manager position and after months of searching for a successor for Mr. Klehammer, we have chosen the person from a small pool of candidates who will run Riverbay for the next years to come. I congratulate our Board for working together to make this challenging process a smooth one. Our candidate will be transitioning from their current position; therefore, we will not name the individual until allowed to do so. We expect the onboarding process to be successful and we hope to have our new executive general manager by the middle of April. This will be an exciting time for the community as we move forward with moving the corporation forward.

Late last week, about 100 or more shareholders suffered a flooding condition in their homes. We are still assessing the situation and more information will be forthcoming as to the cause and remediation steps. This was a great pain point in the lives of our shareholders. Our Management team is working on ensuring that all our affected shareholders are taken care of quickly.

(Continued on page 9) edition of the CC Times for my direct response to this matter. We continue to manage the corporation so that operations are paid for while still executing our capital improvement program which is vital for the future.

We have recently completed another capital project, the installation of ADA-compliant building entrances. We will continue to make adjustments to these doors when issues arise. However, because these doors have more mechanical components than the older doors, we now will have higher expenses to maintain them. Remember that this work was required because the corporation had been sued by a disabled resident for failure to comply with the ADA.

Other capital projects that are ongoing or will begin this year are:

1. LL 11 façade work will be completed at Buildings 2, 4 and 5 this summer. Buildings 1, 3, 6, 7 and 8 have been completed. Work will begin soon on Buildings 15-19 and be completed by early next year. That will complete all work required in Cycle 8 of LL 11 for Co-op City. As we have completed each tions should start in 2026 for Section 5 and 2028 for Sections 1-4.

2. Work has begun in Garage 8 to remediate the damage from last year’s car

3. We are bidding out major concrete restoration in Garage 8, similar to what we recently completed in Garage 2. This work should begin later this year. We are doing work in the garages in anticipation of mandatory garage inspections that we will have to complete starting in 2026 pursuant to LL 126 of 2021. This law imposes a requirement to inspect garages and repair any defects every six years. Facilities located in the Bronx have from January 1, 2026 to the end of 2027 to conduct inspections and complete repairs.

4. We are also bidding out work to modernize all the garage elevators. We expect this work to begin later this year.

5. Work you will not see but which is one of the more vital repairs is continuing in the pump rooms of each building. This work is replacing and rebuilding deteriorated bases for water pumps which supply both domestic cold water and the heating and cooling. This will eliminate excess vibration of the pumps which causes malfunctions. These bases have not been maintained for manytions to residents. We have also installed all new insulation on the pipes in these mandated energy audit completed in 2021.

All these capital projects will be paid for by the funds we received from re-

Other improvements that have begun include the installation of Amazon package lockers throughout the community. They will be placed in locations out- side of buildings. This is being done to reduce the clutter in the lobbies, elevator service disruptions and package thefts.

Verizon FIOS service is coming to Co-op City. The company has begun its pre-construction planning and work will begin in Section 5 by early summer. This will give residents a choice in service to receive internet access and cable tv. To get this service will require noisy work within each building, particularly drilling as they have to install risers in the stairwells to install their conduits. Please show some patience as this is done in your building.

We will also be creating access to the waterfront along Co-op City Blvd. south skine Place by the basketball courts. The work is being funded by a $500,000 corporation funds will be used for this. I need to say that as this issue has been so politicized by some residents and Board members – it has been one of my most disappointing experiences during my time at Co-op City. The only intention was to provide an amenity to the residents. The Section 5 waterfront access has been welcomed by that part of our community.

This is a great community but you have many challenges ahead of you, including what to do about other parts of the infrastructure that we did not get to deal with, primarily because we did not have the funding. The most important of these is the convectors and the distribution system that brings heating and cooling to you. Last Friday, we had a major failure of the system that caused close to 30 pipe breaks throughout the community and caused over $1 million in damage to apartments and elevators. We believe this was caused by increased boilers in the Power Plant. While the pressures were within limits that our system should have tolerated, we still had these failures.

The options for improvement of the system are being discussed, but any decision will cost many millions of dollars that you currently do not have. This will be a challenge for future Boards and management staff.