Key Fobs: Our co-op has just
transitioned to the use of digital keyfobs for entry to our
buildings. Although this brings about many benefits, its implementation
at SPC introduces significant privacy, entitlement, security,
and ergonomic issues.
Excessive Courtyard Lighting:
The Courtyard between Buildings #1-2 is certainly well illuminated
at night, with over fifty lamps lined up, many of them less
than twenty feet apart. The lamps were installed with the
aim of safety, but are deemed to be problematic to neighbors
whose windows face the courtyard, for whom nighttime darkness
is largely offset by the floodlights.
Cycle Hazard: Cycling is
great — it offers convenience, independence, affordability,
speed, exercise, all with a minimal environmental impact.
However, some manifestations of cycling in our neighborhood
are outright hazardous.
June 2016
Election Corner: The Results
Are In!
May 2016
Election Corner: Ask-The-Candidates
questions have been submitted and the first result has been
posted. Campain flyers are coming in, and the "peanut
gallery" can't be far behind!
Election Corner: Meet the
Candidates. Coverage of the meeting has been published along
with some Candidate Speeches, and Second-Official Statements
ahve started coming in.
Election Corner: Candidate
#4 drops out.
Election Corner: All eight
Candidate Statements have been published, two exclusively
here. Nine significant issues have been written up... and
there is more to come.
April 2016
Election Corner: Fasten your
seatbelts, SPC's 2016 Election is about to get under way.
Candidates, issues, and details of our election process will
be covered here... for the twelfth year running!
NYS Primary Election: Three
candidates — Alice Cancel, Lester Chang, Yuh-Line Niou
— are running to fill the NY State Assembly seat vacated
by Sheldon Silver. "Cooperatively Yours", a group
consisting of Shareholders of East River Housing , invited
the Candidates to debate. Ms. Cancel and Ms. Niou accepted
that invitation. See
their debate here.
August 2015
Open Gates! The Essex Street
Gate of Seward Park has been opened!
June 2015
Mental Brassiere. The way
the election, the new assessment, and other topics presented
by SPBuzz are ignored, obliquely referenced, or explicitly
copied by the Proboards and SPComm fora brings to mind the
"mental brassiere" described in Italo Calvino's
great short story.
Assessment! As a final act,
our prior Board unanimously approved ~$13/room assessment.
The Results Are In. Stember,
Fineman, Cullman, Erez.
Maintenance Increase? The
Annual Meeting turned into a sort of love-in for the pro-maintenance-increase
crowd. SPBuzz shares some observations on the circumstances
surrounding this.
ELECTION CORNER 2015. Voting
is done, and receipts should all be on their way. We're expecting
results to be announced on-or-about Wednesday, June 17. In
the meantime, monitoring of our proxy-receipt process is on-going;
check here
for details.
January 2015
Open Letter to David Pass.
An open letter was delivered to David Pass and all SPC apartments.
Shareholders are responding to SPBuzz, but Dave Pass and our
Board remain silent. Now published: The original message sent
to the entire Board on June 17, 2014.
January 2015
Accident on Clinton Street.
A contractor was injured while working on a "standpipe
line" — a water pipe used by the Fire Department
in the event of fires. The contractor was hospitalized in
serious but stable condition, and is expected to be recover.
December 2014
Open Letter to David Pass.
Our Board chose to ignore critical flaws in our election this
year which, among other things, rendered our process of proxy-ballot
receipts meaningless. This open letter to David Pass is being
distributed to all resident shareholders.
June 2014
Receipts Not Received. Another
open demanding follow-up on the fact that proxy receipts were
not sent as they were supposed to.
The Winners. Non-receipt
of proxy receipts notwithstanding, the winners were announced.
Proxy Receipts 2014. Following
up on this year's proxy receipt issues.
The more things change, the more things
stay the same. Open letter to our Board of Directors
about this year's election Issues.
All You Wanted To Know About The Air
Rights Referendum But Were Too [Bent Out Of Shape] To Ask.
Election Corner 2014: All
you need to know: Candidate Statements, Audio of Meet-The-Candidates,
Ask-The-Candidates Responses, Election Issues, and the Air
Rights Referendum.
May 2014
The Ayes Have It! ALL NINE
Candidates recommend that Shareholders vote YES on the forthcoming
resolution.
Met The Candidates!
Referendum 2014! There will
be a referendum on this year's ballot seeking to require overwhelming
Shareholder approval of any sale of Air Rights. Text of the
referendum is available.
April 2014
Recycling: Despite advancements
with regard to recycling, our ground-floor recycling slots
remain sorely inadequate.
July 2013
Election Corner 2013: The
Board selects John Ryan to fill the seat vacated by Goldstein,
rather than appoint fourth-placed Candidate Skidelsky.
June 2013
Election Corner 2013: The
results are in!
May 2013
What does Election Fraud mean to you?
As our election draws near, SPBuzz encourages you to consider
the impact election fraud has on our elections.
Repointing in Action. (click bottom right to enlarge)
January 2012
Election Issues: Unresolved.
Once again, more than six months after yet documented fraud
in our election, no investigation has been undertaken.
Beer/Wine License for Eastwood?
Eastwood Chip Shop just opened on the corner of East Broadway
and Clinton. SPBuzz encourages Shareholders to come out in
support their application for a Beer/Wine License at the CB3
meeting on February 11.
December 2012
Thanksgiving in December?
SPBuzz encourages Shareholders to tip the security, maintenance
and office staff whose dedication contribute so much to the
quality of our community.
For the Record. Election
issues of non-receipt of receipt and a documented instance
of a fraudulent proxy remain unresolved. In a message to our
Board on December 6, 2012, I quoted a message that I sent
on June 25, 2012, in which I quoted a message I sent on April
24, 2011:
... When we
face problems in our elections year after year, it stops looking
like honest mistakes, conflicting priorities, or a desire
to “move forward”, and starts to look like deliberate
foot-dragging and obstruction.
June 2012
Got Proxy Receipts (again)?
Two weeks after our election was certified, proxy receipts
still have not been received.
Open the Gates of Seward Park!
While we wait for our election results (and proxy receipts)
to come in, please consider a simple idea for adding vitality
to our neighborhood.
Terrace Tomatoes Update: Gearing up for July's
Tomato Tasting tournament; check
out the garden (youtube video)!
May 2012
Tigers: What rules do we
have in our bylaws regarding tigers?
April 2012
Terrace Tomato Tasting Tournament:
Do you grow tomatoes on your terrace? Stay tuned for the first
ever SPBuzz Terrace Tomato Tasting Tournament, coming in July!
New Treasurer, Steam Study, Financial
Update & Meeting: This flyer from Board President
Eric Mandelbaum was distributed in part of Building 2 and
perhaps nowhere else.
Election Corner in April?
The seasons are not the only thing out of whack; the first
campaign flyers have already come in beneath our doors.
November 2011
Jump 11. We have a unique
opportunity for a world-wide moment of solidarity, and I don't
mean rapture!
September 2011
Man Over Board! Eric Mandelbaum
is our new President, and that Bill King has resigned, leaving
a vacancy to be filled at the Board's discretion.
The Re-results are in! Congratulations
to Wolfson, Aranoff, Goldstein and Mandelbaum!
August 2011
Our Story So Far... On July
1, management announced that there were tallying errors by
the machine in Building-3, and that residents who voted there
would be asked to recast their votes. It was subsequently
announced that the whole community would be repolled, and
a date was set for September 14th. Meanwhile, Director Margarett
Jolly has resigned from the Board, and Candidates Finston
and Ramirez have withdrawn their candidacies. This is gonna
get ugly folks!
July 2011
Our 15 Minutes of Fame. Our
election conflict gets covered by the NY Times and Director
Margarett Jolly resigns rather than be associated with what
she describes as "a preordained election outcome."
To Repoll or Not to Repoll, That is
the Question! Our election results have been proclaimed
to be inaccurate, with a repoll date for Building 3 scheduled
for July 19. Meanwhile, many in our community demand a brand
new election.
June 2011
The People Have Spoken! Or
maybe not. The results of our election have not been certified,
and revotes for those who voted in the Building 3 booths are
scheduled for July 19.
May 2011
Floor Refinishing Testimonial!
April 2011
Who Keeps Track of Key Track?
Automated notifications when keys are removed and replaced
have not been working at least since April 7.
Fix Our Elections! The investigation
into the proxy fraud conducted during our last election opens
more questions than it resolves, leading SPBuzz to ask why
it is objectionable to properly investigate this issue.
Hester Fair/Greenmarket Update.
Last year's trial run has led to significant changes regarding
the Hester Street Fair and Greenmarket, and plans for a new
Youthmarket.
Gender Clubs an Election Issue?
At the March 2nd meeting, questioning the rationale behind
having separate Ladies and Men's clubs was referred to as
an "election issue".
March 2011
Elections an Election Issue?
The promised investigation of the proxy fraud that was discovered
in our last election was never completed.
"Projects" Meeting.
An overview of many projects, including a frank discussion
of the Hallways fiasco.
July 2010
Hester Street Needs Us. When
the Hester Street Fair opened, there was a waiting list of
interested vendors. Now there are more than a few empty booths.
Proxy Haze. Details of how
our proxy problem was resolved have not been disclosed, and
SPBuzz is aware of one shareholder whose proxy ballot was
never verified.
June 2010
The People Have Spoken. Election
results have been reported.
More Spending on Gender-Based Clubs?
Plans are underway to relocate and refurnish the Ladies' Lounge.
Maybe we should seize the opportunity to reconsider how we
allocate our space?
Hester Street: Off the radar and onto
the map. By all accounts, the Grand Opening of the
Hester Street Fair was a great success.
When is a Proxy Recipt not a Proxy
Receipt? When it's not received. The SPBuzz team
is in place, mailing proxy ballots, hand-delivering proxy
ballots, and overriding proxy ballots. Hopefully this year
we'll get our receipts as expected.
May 2010
State of the Co-op. The unprecedented
"State of the Co-op" Meeting that was held on May
12th was very informative.
March 2010
SPHC Website. SPBuzz reflects
on the new website in light of information published in a
recent flyers.
A shout-out to Mustafa, owner
of the Laura
& Melinda Tailor Shop (named after his daughters)
for his creative, resourceful, stylish, expert and caring
salvation of a bunch of old clothes. 137 Rivington Street.
January 2010
Grand Plan for Grand Street?
A flyer by Director Deborah Finston claimed that our Board
was pursuing a covert plan to redevelop our Grand Street commercial
property. A memo was distributed by Board President Michael
Tumminia to refute her claims.
Meeting: New Website. A meeting
took place on January 12 at which the proposed website was
presented and discussed.
Local Law 11. At the November
meeting, our Board presented $2.5MM worth of work needed to
meet "Local Law 11" requirements. The process by
which they arrived at that number warrants some further disclosure.
New Website. The new SPHC
website is being unveiled. It's functionality is compelling.
It's price tag? Pretty steep.
Did Someone Say "Ethics"?
With ethics training under their belts, we can be especially
sure that our Directors will conduct elections in a robust
and ethical manner.
December 2009
New Counsel. Audio recording
of informational meeting at which new counsel was introduced
November 2009
Up, Up and Away!
Audio recording and notes from the November 3 meeting
at which our maintenance increases were discussed.
