It’s sad that our Board doesn’t want us to know what’s happening in our own homes. In 2021, NYS DHCR issued directives to all Mitchell-Lama developments to a few amendments to the By-Laws that were supposed to be implemented immediately. In 2022, a few month later, those amendment were codified into New York State law. Those new laws were written in part as a response to the transparency shareholders have been asking from their Boards.

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One of the new requirements states that Boards were to immediately set up a website and share with shareholders everything from minutes of all meetings to records of any votes of the board, along with several other provisions that clearly work in the favor of the shareholders. I only learned about them in July, while I was looking for By-Law procedures. That requirement is significant and even thought it came from HCR and became NYS Law our board ignored them just as theyv’e ignored US. We should have been informed of any major decisions made since January 2022, NYS Law and still they keep us in the dark

How many of us were asked, whether we wanted the added weight of storage rooms and vending machines in our lobbies? I wonder who had such a brillaint idea and their resoning was, to generate extra income. Adding weight to our already weak supports, is not looking out for the well being of CVI. The extra income? They collected $600,000. in increases alone in August. Since July 2023 WE have paid $12.6 million in increases (based on avg of $100 monthy increase X by 1,500 units/apt thats on the low end). If the board and management can show HCR that CV is not meeting the fianancial obligations, they can ask for another increase NEXT year. If you look at the annual summary budget the mintenance budget went up $4.5 millon between 2020 and 2025

Were any of us consulted before spending $20,000 on a Deer tractor in 2022 or an outside hire for the west side? Why is the board making these purchases that are not beneficial to CVI? Outside hires, new faces in maintenence, but they can’t pay to fix the fire alarms, working two-way intercomes is a legal requirement. We are paying NYC min wage $17 hr x24hrs=$408. x30 days = $12,240 per month x 5 months = $61,200. x 2=$122,400 for two people to sit and walk the halls.

The Board has been failing to ensure that we have SAFE homes, anyone can walk into our buildings for a few years now. I can’t understand, why they failed to have the company come back and fix the issue? I wonder what that cost us.

It may be acceptable to have a fire person when the fire system is not working but where does that make any financial sense?

A Change is Coming.

‍ I thought that Mr. Mohamade our HCR representative, had the board bring our By-Laws into compliance,during the June meeting. I expected to see the By-Laws on the agenda for the Annual meeting. The CVI By-Laws state how CVI is Managed, it outlines WHO makes the decision, meetings and the board of directors and their power.*After I read the 2010 By-Laws, I was able to see why our boards have historicly behaved so badly. It was written in the By-Laws, * that also explains why in 16 years none of the boards changed them.

The Rochdale Principles are a set of 7 ideals for the operation of cooperatives. They were first set out in 1844 by the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in Rochdale, England, and have formed the basis for the principles on which co-operatives around the world continue to operate.* It believes that cooperatives should be self governing democracy, governed by the people, for the people. All Mitchell Lamas are Self Governing and are expected to be controled by the people for the people/shareholders or members through elected-voted representatives.

Now more than ever, we need access to the same information so we can begin rebuilding a better, more organized Concourse Village community. If all 1,800 of us share information and work together, we become capable of far more than any of us could accomplish alone.