Showing posts with label Co-Op Shareholder Meeting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Co-Op Shareholder Meeting. Show all posts

Thursday, April 23, 2026

The one time I can talk about a co-op board meeting

 


I could talk about going to the bank.  I could talk about the junk food I ate.  Instead, I will talk about the open shareholder meeting we had tonight.  And this is one of the few times I can talk about co-op business, as what I'm able to say tonight actually happened at tonight's meeting.

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Leaving for the board meeting at the local library, I made one mistake - running into the local pizzeria for a Chicken Parm Hero. (For those not familiar with NYC area sandwich terms, a "Hero" is an elongated sandwich roll. In other regions, it is known as a "Sub", "Hoagie" or "Wedge".)  I should have ordered pizza slices, as I was rushing to put food in my stomach before attending the board meeting.

Arriving at the local library shortly after 6, we reviewed business (which I won't recount here) for the next hour, until shareholders started to come in.  Just before 7, a woman we've been having trouble with  arrived.  The woman has serious mental issues, and probably should be institutionalized.  For the next half hour, people ambled in, but we only had 36% of the shareholder share represented.  So the meeting couldn't be official, only informational.  And then, the troublesome lady started to shout and disrupt our meeting.  She made a big deal about the contrasting color the outside walls of the laundry were painted.  She was shouting, and I ended up shouting back to her to stop shouting.  At this time, someone made sure the police were on call to remove her from the meeting.  Luckily, she left early, and her neighbors told the story of how they were being victimized by this woman on a daily basis.  (She even pushed one lady several times.)  Her neighbors had proof that this lady was harassing them, but the police have not yet done anything.  Maybe someone needs to get hurt before this sick person gets the help she needs, and gets her out of our way.

Eventually, we got to discussing the financial state of the co-op, and the need to continue with our current assessment.  (I won't go into the story of our former managing agent, our insurance, our mortgage holder, and going into special service handling.  I don't think I'm free to tell the story as I see it.)  Our shareholders didn't understand how a major bank could be treating a co-op like ours so poorly.  But then, we have a hard time understanding it too.  Although we think we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for our financial problems, it's going to be a rocky road for us until the end of the year.

Hopefully, the mentally ill lady will soon be evicted, and her shares reverted back to the co-op.  Only then, will the other residents in her building (as well as nearby businesses) will be free from her tyranny.  (BTW: One of the residents victimized by this woman handed the board a complete list of all the times this woman has caused them trouble.  Too bad this resident couldn't have known about this woman before she bought her apartment.)

Friday, April 25, 2025

A Co-Op shareholder meeting - I couldn't wait for it to end.

 


Well, this was another day that I couldn't spend any time as Marian.  By now, the look on my face probably mirrors the look on the picture above.  OK, it's not that weird, but I feel that way after the weekend I've had.

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Around 3:30 pm, I finally got around to doing 2 loads of laundry while I got showered and dressed for the 6 pm board meeting.  By 5:30, I was out the door and off to the shareholder meeting.  We have had a problem for the past several shareholder meetings - not enough people attending for us to have a quorum. And this year wouldn't be different.

At 7:45, our attorney called the meeting to order.  He noted that we didn't have a quorum, and that the old board would continue for another term.  And then, the "fun" began.  Due to financial problems we encountered last year and that we are working to resolve, we have a shortfall for which we will need to make an assessment of all shareholders to cover this shortage.  Understandably, people were upset.  They were even more upset that our bank hasn't been able to give us final totals for us to work with.  So, we are going with our attorney's estimate for what we will need to pay, and we then gave an estimate of what we expect to ding our shareholders to make things whole again.

The meeting ended at 8:30, and I was able to make it to the diner for a chef salad before they closed for the evening.  It was nice to go there again, as it is a place I only go when presenting as Mario.  Yes, I ended up eating too much today, but I'll watch my diet tomorrow.

 

Boredom is the worst demon to handle (a short post)

  The worst of my demons is boredom.  I can be idle, yet not be bored.  But it is when my mind wants to do something and I have no mental en...