At the core of our concern is the financial impact the Board has had on our wallets – both by increasing our maintenance payments and by reducing the value of our units upon resale. This results from at least the following:

  1. Renewal of the management contract with the T.Org. for four years with no ability to exit the contract absent breach or bankruptcy. Marc has spoken to several well-reputed building managers in Manhattan, and he was told that their standard building management contracts include the right to terminate at any time and that their standard contract is for one year. Each of these managers was incredulous with Marc that the current board signed on with the T.Org. for four years, especially with the public scrutiny and ongoing investigation with the NY Attorney General, combined with no real ability to terminate early. Marc also asked for prices these managers would charge to manage our building and the average was $175,000, as compared to the $240,000 the current board agreed to. We realize that this is not the same as a firm bid, but the Board did not do a formal RFP process, to evaluate competing managers, so proper due diligence was never done (our Board President Michael at the Oct 19th “Meet the Candidates” said he instead consulted Yelp about two other potential managers but the two groups he reached out to didn’t respond). Michael signed the 4-year renewal with the T.Org.. This impacts our building both by owners having to pay more maintenance and by the fact that many potential buyers of luxury condominiums in Manhattan would never buy a unit managed by an organization which is charged by the Attorney General with so much wrongdoing, and whose long-time CFO is going to prison for fraud. Fewer bidders for our units mean we realize a lower resale price. Our slate is committed to observing best practices regarding all material contracts including by using RFPs for all material contracts and recusing ourselves from any Board decisions in the event of any potential conflict. The above has nothing to do with whether an owner is a fan of our former President or not, it is simply about managing risk and what is in the best interest of our building.
     
  2. To clarify how the hallway renovation project was managed, Fabienne has collected information from different sources including meticulously parsing through the past ten years of board minutes which were vague in some respects. Fabienne found:
    - the cost was at least $4.5M vs. $3M budgeted for a larger scope (lobby + hallway);
    - the first designer (who did the original design for 220 RSB) was paid $111K for his design but then was abandoned by the Board;
    - Fabienne was told that the second designer with no experience in hallway renovation, was paid about $250k, for sure more than the first designer for a smaller scope; and
    - the design implemented is different from the 14th floor mock-up which was made available for owners to review.
    Fabienne asked questions of the board regarding the above, but the boar declined to respond. There was no opportunity to ask questions during the so-called annual meeting of owners in 2021. The presentation of this major project was merely a 1.5-minute video from the T.Org.. Major building repair work is usually foreseeable and should be properly reserved for, but we have had two large assessments recently. No consideration appears to have been given, during the historically low borrowing rates of 2021-22, to borrowing some of this cost to cause less financial pain to the owners. Most or all of the large maintenance projects were entirely foreseeable, yet the Board did not reserve for them sufficiently.
     
  3. The Board decided to forego the tax abatement for the building. This has cost many owners thousands of dollars each annually. Yet, even after request by Sean in April 2022, the board has still provided no calculations of why they believe this was the correct decision. The FAQ we all received which discussed this issue added basically nothing and remained without the simple and obvious financial analysis we should expect from a board. And this is notwithstanding that, numerous other owners reached out on the tax abatement decision- this was clearly demonstrated by several audience members at the Oct 19th, 2022 “Meet the Candidates Night”. Why did owners never receive the simple financial analysis? Why could no board member tell us how many owners applied for abatement in prior years? Why were the owners never consulted about the issue? Other buildings we have spoken to or heard about have all said they retained the abatement, and it made economic sense to do so. It is not at all obvious that all the people referenced in the Board’s communications are actually “building service employees” as defined by the NYC Regulation and the Board did not take the time to inform the owners of how they analyzed the comparative costs. The complete lack of a financial calculation is indicative of a board unable to fulfill its most basic duties. And no abatement will translate into a lower resale value for any buyer wishing to reside in the building.
     
  4. The lack of proper reserving for future maintenance and repair is so glaring that the building’s independent accountant provided a warning in their opinion regarding our official financial statements that the building “has not presented the information about the estimates of future costs of major repairs and replacements that accounting principles ... require to be present ... Such information is ... an essential part of financial reporting for placing the basic financial statements in an appropriate ... context“ (bold emphasis added). This is a most fundamental requirement for any board responsible for buildings. We do not like paying special assessments, do you? This is simply gambling with your money and an absence of risk management.
     
  5. The termination of our building’s 20-year resident manager, Danny, has been mishandled. As personnel matters are necessarily confidential, we do not know the reason behind his termination. The Board has not told the owners the nature of the claim against the building, how much in damages he is demanding, or whether the claim is insured by the building (and, even if insured, there may be a substantial deductible). A.B. inquired about the situation, and he was told that D.G. filed a claim against the condominium with the Union for 6 years of unpaid overtime wages, wrongful termination, and age discrimination. He refused to take it to arbitration due to a close relationship between the Realty Estate Board of NY and the arbitrator, and he is going to NY state Court and Federal Court. There could be a cost to the building, and the building’s reputation may also be damaged. The other building managers spoken to by Marc stated that the current board should have negotiated a buyout immediately with our former resident manager and found someone to take his place promptly, particularly given the age of our building and its need for substantial repairs/renovations. A more professional handling of the matter should have avoided a claim being made. What we know is that this termination occurred about seven months ago, and we still do not have a permanent replacement, and we are instead relying on an employee of the T.Org. at an unknown cost.

The governance practices of the Board are not consistent with accepted practice and routinely violate the bylaws of the building. This is why:

  1. The owners’ annual meeting last year was not lawful and violated our bylaws. No owner could speak (two-way communications is a basic construct of an annual meeting). No owner could ask a question at the meeting. No owner could even enter a comment or question in the chat function of Zoom, since this function was turned off. No owner could exercise their right under Section 3.5 of the bylaws to adjourn the meeting given there was no quorum so that a quorum might be achieved at a later date. This was not a lawful meeting under New York law and bespeaks a Board that believes it does not work to represent the owners, only themselves.
     
  2. Article 12 of the bylaws unambiguously grants to owners the right to review the building’s records. Multiple requests to do so by the members of our slate have resulted in zero records being made available. In two cases, Sean and Ian were told by the building’s lawyer (spending time on this which is paid for by the owners) that they could not have access to records unless we (I) sign a non-disclosure agreement, which would mean we could not talk to other owners or our own legal counsel about what we are seeing and (ii) represent that we are not reviewing records “for personal or pecuniary gain” – but why else would we want to review such records? We are doing so to try to protect the monetary value of our units and assure the building is run better so we can enjoy living here more. Nowhere do the bylaws impose these conditions on access to records.
     
  3. Indeed, when Ian sent an email expressing concerns about several Board decisions to the Board and copied it to all the emails, he could find on buildinglink.com, the Board then deleted all those emails addresses on buildinglink.com. These were emails that owners and renters decided to post so that they and others could communicate better. Apparently, the Board found this threatening and deleted the email addresses. Even more egregious, the Board hired a lawyer (which the owners pay for) to respond to this email from Ian and among various objectionable statements, the lawyer said: “the Board hopes and expects ... that you will not disseminate your complaints to other unit owners without giving the Board an opportunity to review and respond to your complaints”. The lawyer cited a rule that complaints need to be sent in writing to the Board, but nowhere does this rule say that owners are muzzled and cannot talk to other owners. And what could we do if the Board never responds? This lawyer seems to have forgotten that our country protects free speech.
     
  4. Several Board members have served for over 10 years. Since the Board has almost never obtained a quorum for an owners’ annual meeting, they just keep re-electing themselves with no willingness to allow others to serve on the Board and provide a fresh perspective. As you saw in our resume statement, our slate commits to serving no more than 5 years, unless no one else is running for the Board.
     
  5. At the Oct 19th, 2022 “Meet the Candidates Night”, it was disclosed that Don, an incumbent running for re-election, had put all his apartments up for sale (6W, 14E). We believe that once the unit in which you live is on the market, you must resign from the Board as you no longer have a long-term interest in the building.

It is clear to us, and after talking to many other owners, it is equally clear to many other owners, that the current Board has not been transparent, doing whatever they want to do without informing owners of major decisions, or consulting with owners before major decisions are made (for example, the unexplained change of the hallway project from the agreed 14th floor demo colors/materials to the ultimate color/materials used). Many of the above items demonstrate this fact. Our slate of 5 candidates has committed that every communication to the Board will be acknowledged within 24 hours and will receive at least a partial response within 72 hours, even if it just explains why a complete response needs more time. 
Ladies and gentlemen, we truly care about our building, we want to make sure our building is managed better, and we want to assure that the investments we have all made in our units are protected. We are all owners and we need change immediately in how the building is operated. If we are elected, we will make sure that you get this better Board management.

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