Letters To The Editor

To The Editor:

As president of Village View Housing Corp., I am obliged to correct the distortions that appeared in Mr. Paul Hellund’s Feb. 11 letter to the editor, “Village View board is secretive.” Mr. Hellund’s letter represents the view of a disgruntled minority that has unfortunately chosen to ignore reality.

A few years ago, an increasing number of residents at Village View felt that the co-op was being poorly maintained, and that the existing management was negligent. So a campaign was launched to get active and more-forward-looking shareholders elected to the board. The newly elected members found that conditions were even worse than expected — in fact they were appalling. To cite just a few examples: for years fuel oil had been leaking underground from old tanks, water mains were breaking and, just being patched, 40-year old boilers were rapidly becoming obsolete (two of the six hadn’t worked in years). Our facades are deteriorating and require major repairs, and our single-pane windows keep out neither noise nor wind and are energy inefficient.

Over the past few years, the board has taken an unprecedented initiative to address these major issues, including making our seven building lobbies A.D.A. compliant. By portraying the lobby alterations as “inappropriate,” Mr. Hellund and his group are ignoring the fact that we have already been sued twice by disabled shareholders who are unable to access their mail, and also that many of our elderly shareholders have great difficulty negotiating the lobby steps. The board feels its decision to improve the lobbies is the right thing to do — a prudent investment that will benefit all our shareholders.

In answer to Mr. Hellund’s other charges:

First, Mr. Hellund indicated that the board has not disclosed enough information about the so-called “controversial” capital improvements. Since 2002, the board has informed our shareholders via numerous means, including: 1) our monthly minutes containing details pertinent to each project as it develops; 2) frequent shareholders meetings open to all residents (four were held in 2003 alone); and 3) additional written information, including a newsletter and a recently initiated distribution of “Frequently Asked Questions” (FAQ) pertaining to each capital project.

The shareholders’ meeting we held in September 2003 focused specifically on the capital improvement program and featured a slide show so that shareholders could get a close-up view of the problems we are now addressing. Our construction manager, attorney and accountant were available at this meeting (and others as well) to explain each project and answer questions. And finally, photographs from this presentation (along with plans of the proposed lobby renovation) were on display in each lobby for several months. If Mr. Hellund and his group remained uninformed despite our efforts, they have no one to blame but themselves.

Second, while it is true that our minutes are not distributed immediately after each board meeting, Mr. Hellund seems to have forgotten that each set of minutes must be approved by the board at its subsequent meeting. This is standard practice. Our most-recent minutes (for a special meeting held Nov. 17 and our regular board meeting held Dec. 8) were thus approved and distributed in January.

Third, in his letter, he states that the board “secretly” set up a new corporation. In fact, the Village View Senior Corporation was established as a 501C3 (nonprofit) organization so that we are eligible to receive grant monies for our successful senior program. Our decision to file this application is described in the minutes of Oct. 15, 2002. We were not successful in obtaining grants last year, but we are reapplying this year and hope to be more successful.

Fourth, with a multimillion-dollar capital improvement budget, we are required by our banks to have a construction manager to oversee the projects. In 2002, the board outlined a list of capital improvement projects before selecting a construction management team. In accordance with the rules and regulations of H.P.D., we interviewed three companies in 2003, and selected Cooper Square Realty, our current managing agent, to oversee these projects. Cooper Square has assigned four people to coordinate our capital improvements, in addition to three on-site management staff responsible for daily operations.

This board is a fiscally responsible, honest, hard-working group dedicated to preserving Village View by keeping it structurally and financially sound. We will continue to keep our co-op affordable, as was the original intent of the Mitchell-Lama program. Our capital improvements are being funded by modest maintenance increases that were already phased in over the past two years. Mr. Hellund represents a small group of shareholders so averse to spending money now that they would prefer to allow conditions to further deteriorate rather than do needed quality repairs and effective preventive maintenance. Fortunately, most shareholders understand that to defer needed repairs today would result in more extensive and costlier repairs tomorrow.

Our co-operators deserve better than that.

Ceres Shulman

Shulman is president, Village View board of directors

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