joyous passover & happy easter to our readers! Co-op City’s official newspaper serving the world’s largest cooperative community. © Copyright 2017 Co-op City Times
Vol. 52 No. 15
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Safety inspection program underway throughout all of Co-op City
25¢
Seven Candidates Officially Certified To Run In 2017 Riverbay Board Election BY ROZAAN BOONE
BY JIM ROBERTS
There’s one sure fire way to deal with accidents in the workplace – prevent the majority of them from ever happening. Besides injuring people, workplace accidents cost companies like Riverbay lots of money in higher insurance Anthony Barzellato (second, rates, workers com- Riverbay Safety Director left) conducts an inspection in the Bartow Center on pensation premium April 13 as part of the program of safety checks hikes, and lost hours throughout Co-op City. Photo by Jim Roberts of work from employees. The accidents that never occur are the valuable result of eliminating unsafe conditions. Riverbay Safety Director Anthony Barzelatto is now conducting the first stages of his initial inspection program that will include all the shopping areas, offices, residential buildings and other facilities throughout Co-op City. He’s finding many issues to correct, and numerous opportunities to eliminate unsafe conditions that breed accidents at work and in common (Continued on page 2)
NYPD Seeking Armed Robbers Of Mall At Bay Plaza Electronics Store The NYPD is seeking the community’s help in finding the two men responsible for the armed robbery of a Sprint store in the Mall at Bay Plaza at approximately 8 p.m. Sunday evening. T h e N Y P D ’s Public Information Office said that last Sunday, the two men entered the Sprint store within the Mall, displayed a gun and ordered three employees – two women and a man – to the rear of the store where they forced the employees to open a safe that contained electronics. They removed from the safe more than 280 electronic items including iPhones, iPads and Smart watches. The robbers then tied up the three employees and fled the store. In the days following the robbery, the NYPD released images of the suspects taken from mall surveillance cameras. (See above) The first suspect is described by NYPD as a dark-skinned male, approximately 35 years old, 5'10", medium build; he was last seen wearing a gray sweat suit. The second suspect is described by NYPD as a male, Hispanic, 25 to 30 years old, 5'9", thin build, with black sunglasses; he was last seen wearing a black baseball cap, a blue jacket, a black shirt, black sneakers and black pants. Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential.
At the Candidates’ Meeting on Tuesday night, April 11, the 2017 Election Committee officially certified all seven of the candidates who turned in their qualifying petitions to compete in the 2017 Riverbay Board of Directors election. After the candidates submitted their qualifying petitions on Monday, April 3, the end of the petition period, the validity of the signatures on the petitions were checked. The Election Committee also worked with the Riverbay Finance Department to verify that none of the potential candidates were indebted to the Riverbay Corporation. The seven candidates who were certified, in the order that their names will appear on the ballot for the 2017 Riverbay Board of Directors election scheduled for Wednesday, May 24, are Marie Smith, Linda Berk, Daryl Johnson, Leah Richardson, Aminah Lucio, Jerome L. Rice and Kevin Lambright. The official candidates include four of the Board’s five incumbent directors whose terms are up this year — Directors Berk, Johnson, Lambright and Smith. At Tuesday’s Candidates Meeting, the qualified candidates received their instructions for running their campaigns according to the Riverbay election rules from Riverbay’s General Counsel Jeffrey Buss and the 2017 Riverbay Board Election Committee. The candidates also received the Co-op City Times guidelines and deadlines for the submission of their candidates’ statements and ads which must first be reviewed by the election committee and their attorney before publication in the three election supplements to be published in the April 29th, May 6th and May 20th issues of the Co-op City Times. During the meeting, the names of the seven candidates were randomly drawn to determine not only the order in which they will appear on the ballot, but also the order in which their candidate’s statement outlining their qualifications for the position of Riverbay Board Director and their views on issues facing the community, as well as a free ¼ page ad, (Continued on page 2)
Pizza with a Cop As a spin-off to the Public Safety Department’s highly successful “Coffee with a Cop” initiative, the department, with the event’s co-sponsor, the Building 9 Association, held its first ever Pizza with a Cop program giving young people up to 16years-old and their parents the chance to meet with officers over a slice of hot pizza. Over 30 young people came to the event in the Building 9 Association meeting room Thursday afternoon. Chief Apollo called the event “very successful” and said he hopes to hold similar events in other buildings in the future. “Most of these young people are the future shareholders of the community, just as I was once a future shareholder when I was growing up here. I appreciated then that the officers took the time to talk to my friends and I. That meant a lot to me so we are trying now to do the same thing with the young people of today, to make them comfortable interacting with our officers.” Linda Collins, president of the Building 9 Association, said: “There were coloring books and crayons for the youngest, child ID kits with corresponding information sheets on what to do if your child is missing and multiple handouts covering various safety tips and contacts. The smiles and laughter and long conversations made it clear that our children now have a positive experience and outcome with which to refer all future contacts with law enforcement.” Capri Pizza in the Dreiser Shopping Center provided the pizza. Pictured above (L-R) are Detective Damita Johnson, Chief Apollo and Sergeant Collette Mills who helped coordinate the afternoon’s activities. Photo by Linda Collins