You’ve Got to Want This, or Succumb to the Inevitable

You Signed a Contract –We all did

I went to a repass after the service of a beloved shareholder. One of the cool things about this community are the relationships that have been formed among shareholders for decades. You and if it’s not your own family or friend, you sit politely with an amicable person. But here in Co-op, mediately with folks I grew up with and we were surrounded by some as able and spirited enough to be my parents. That is just a part of the magic of the Riverbay Corporation, aka Co-op City.

One of the extended-family-friends is now a his mouth was, “The best thing our parents did was bring us to Co-op City.” That phrase stuck with me for many reasons. I wonder if this is ringing true for you as well?

I wonder if you remember the day you were accepted into this community? You had to go through a process to live here. If you don’t remember the process, then you, like me, were a child when you moved here. If your parents were like mine, they made sure you understood the culture here. You got to know how the infrastructure works by being involved. Now that you are an adult, you understand the importance of laws and infrastructure, otherwise there would be anarchy and chaos and certainly no corporation that would offer us amenities, such that can be found nowhere else in this city. But you enjoy these comforts because of our infrastructure and when you came to live here, you were asked to sign a contract that bound all of us together, not as renters, but as shareholders

What Really Matters?

What does matter is involvement by you Your involvement and mine is not only necessary, it is imperative. Your job as a shareholder is to vote in the annual Board Elections. It should be like Christmastime in Co-op City! This is your time to shine. To step up and run for a seat on the Board or use your power as a shareholder to choose a Board of Directors. You have the information, now do the very necessary, essential thing required to “Save Our Community” from paying unnecessary funds to extend the elections. Vote now! Right now! Help someone else vote as well.

We Are Only at 2,365 Votes!?

5,002 votes should have been achieved in the should be a drop in the bucket, especially when you factor in all the amenities we enjoy and the up this election. Hard to believe we are still talking at the time of this writing. When will you understand the power of your vote, and the power of our strength as a community united? Exercising your vote, is that power!

Section 4 Partnership of Co-op City Meeting

We had a meeting of the Section 4 Partnership last Friday. We discussed the importance of each Building Association. We invited the presidents, vice presidents, treasurers, secretaries, and other important? Because this is where our infrastructure begins. Your Building Association is the hub and link to the Board of Directors and Management. This is how you stay connected. Each building should be connected to a “Section Association” 5 Association). We named our “section association” the Section 4 Partnership of Co-op City as a way to promote the fact that “we” (you and I) are “business partners” of a corporation. That corporation is the Riverbay Corporation. You want better services and to keep affordability here? Make sure understand how important we all are to each other.

to this corporation; the Riverbay Corporation is our partnership and our duty is to aid in the governing of it with our votes.

10th Annual Co-op City Spelling Bee

Praise and honor goes out to all of the families of the children who dared to be contestants in the African-American Association of Co-op City’s was had by all! Congratulations to First Prize win“boundary.” Second Prize winner of $200.00 was awarded to Jomo Mendy, age 8, who attends school

Bonus Prize!

There was a surprise $25 gift card awarded to our Fourth Place winner, Isabella Kwakye, from before and was the 2022 winner last year. Every child received a gift bag and two books of their choice. I hope you will encourage your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and friends to join Annual Co-op City Spelling Bee. It is good clean fun, right here in our neighborhood, where we live and call home. Yet another reason to be involved in your community.

More on the Bee

There is much more on the Spelling Bee, photos and information about this year’s winners and the fabulous staff and volunteers who helped to put this intricate event together for our young Kings and Queens. Check out the African-American Association of Co-op City article in this issue written by the founder of our Spelling Bee, Ms. Francine Reva Jones.

Thank you for the compliment of reading my viewpoint. I can be reached at mmarbury@riverbayboard.com.

“Each one of us, multiplied by all of us, equals “A FORCE FOR GOOD…”

MTA

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(Continued from page 1)

LIRR and Metro North

• Monthly passes: 4.3% increase in price with a $500 cap

• Weekly passes: 4.3% increase in price

• One-way peak tickets: 4.6% increase in price

• One-way off-peak tickets: would have a standardized discount of 26% across all railroads

• 10-trip off-peak passes: the discount would remain at 15% lower than a one-way off-peak ticket

Bridges and tolls

Robert F. Kennedy, Bronx-Whitestone, Throgs Neck and VerrazanoNarrows bridges and the Queens Midtown and Hugh L. Carey tunnels:

• (Option A) EZ pass would increase from $6.55 to $7.01

• (Option A) Tolls by mail would increase from $10.17 to $10.88

• (Option B) EZ pass would increase from $6.55 to $6.96

• (Option B) Tolls by mail would increase from $10.17 to $11.19

Henry Hudson Bridge:

• (Option A) EZ pass would increase from $3.00 to $3.21

• (Option A) Tolls by mail would increase from $7.50 to $8.03

• (Option B) EZ pass would increase from $3.00 to $3.19

• (Option B) Tolls by mail would increase from $7.50 to $8.25

Cross Bay and Marine Parkway bridges:

• (Option A) EZ pass would increase from $2.45 to $2.62

• (Option A) Tolls by mail would increase from $5.09 to $5.45

• (Option B) EZ pass would increase from $2.45 to $2.60

• (Option B) Tolls by mail would increase from $5.09 to $5.60

Both the fare and toll changes were originally included in the MTA’s 2023

VOTING IS YOUR DUTY AS A SHAREHOLDER!

Voting in the 2023 Riverbay Board of Directors Election has been extended to June 9. To make the quorum, 1,377 ballots are still needed. Anyone who requires a replacement ballot, or their unique PIN and Code to vote electronically, should contact YesElections at 855-940-4801, or by sending an email to help+riverbay@yeselections.com.

budget plan, which the MTA signed and adopted in December of last year.

One slide in particular explained how the MTA was able to avoid a larger fare and toll increase thanks to funding from the state.

“In the state budget, Governor Hochul and the legislature provided $65 million to bring the planned 2023 fare change in line with the standard biennial 4% increase in fare revenue, rather than 5.5%. The planned 5.5% toll revenue increase remains in place,” as explained in the slide.

behind implementing a fare increase during the MTA Finance Committee meeting.

“Since 2010, the MTA has increased fares and tolls to achieve roughly a 4% revenue yield every two years. These small frequent fare and toll adjustments offering predictable fare and toll increases, and it helps address our expenditure growth and it also gives us a little predictability in our fare and toll revenue,”

The MTA plans to hold hybrid public review sessions during the month of hikes. Those interested in voicing their opinion can look out for details later this month on the upcoming hybrid public review sessions by visiting new.mta. info/transparency/public-hearings.

Co-op City Times Deadline Notice

In observance of the Memorial Day holiday, Riverbay’s

Because of the holiday shortened work week, directors’ viewpoints and community organizations’ articles must be received by 9 a.m. on Tuesday, May 30. Material submitted after that time will not be considered for publication in the Co-op City Times.

Material for publication may be emailed to cctimes @riverbaycorp.com.

Have a safe Memorial Day weekend.

Unfortunately, some of our cooperators are acting out in terrible ways. So, let’s review some issues and see if we can make some improvements here.

We’re Not Going Down

need to recognize some negative issues and then make some changes? Absolutely! Therefore, let’s go over a few issues from our most recent management report, March 2023.

To start, here were some disturbing issues that were called into our Public Safety department: complaints and perhaps a few other matters to a far more violent level. Thereafter, they made a choice to start carrying a weapon. So, yes, they may have been angry over some loud noises in their apartment. But, think, did things have to go that far? No! Thinking about violently hurting someone can lead to some terrible consequences.

Well, some of our cooperators have made some terrible choices in how they’re dealing with their neighbors. For instance, noise is the biggest complaint that we have here. So, should anyone think that it’s appropriate to make an extreme amount of noise inside of their apartment? No! Making an extreme amount of noise in an apartment is going to disturb your neighbors.

Example: Some neighbors like to enjoy a quiet and peaceful apartment. But, how can they enjoy that type of serene environment when they can hear extremely loud noises coming from their neighbor’s apartment? Well, in some cases, some cooperators have let it be known that they can’t enjoy their surroundings because of their noisy neighbors.

For instance, there are lots of cases wherein some cooperators have aggressively confronted their their anger to lead them to bang on their neighbor’s door in a violent manner. Then, well, let’s just say that the police had to be called.

Example, there have been some heated confrontations in some communities that involved one person shoving another person. Then, that other person