Armory Secrecy

February 22, 2007

By Editorial

When it comes to choosing a development proposal for the Kingsbridge Armory is the city interested in what the community thinks, or isn’t it?

Does it want the process to be open and transparent or doesn’t it?

If our cover story on the bizarre confidentiality agreement the Economic Development Corporation wants Armory task force members to sign is any indication, the simple answers to these questions is that it isn’t and it doesn’t.

The whole point of inviting community leaders and elected officials to participate in the process of selecting a developer is to seek their advice on what proposal would best suit northwest Bronx neighborhoods. If task force members can’t talk to anyone in their own communities about the proposals (in addition to the safeguard of masking which proposal belongs to which developer), how can they develop a reasonable sense of what would best serve the community?

Congressman Jose Serrano and Council Member Oliver Koppell made the sensible judgment that they would be abdicating their responsibility to their constituents if they kept secret the details of one of the biggest area development projects in decades.

The EDC deserves credit for incorporating task force recommendations into the final request for proposals. But if the city blocks task force members from being able to talk about the various proposals, it raises the concern that the task force is just window dressing on a done deal.

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Fire Destroys 4 Stores on Kingsbridge Road

February 22, 2007

By Laura Sayer

A fire broke out in a restaurant kitchen on Feb. 12, and by the time 168 firefighters tamed it two and a half hours later, a decade’s worth of Kingsbridge Road businesses had gone up in smoke.

From a deep fryer in Crown Fried Chicken, the fire spread to its three closest neighbors on East Kingsbridge Road between Morris and Creston avenues – Vicky’s Coffee Shop, Kingsbridge Grocery, and finally, to a fruit stand owned by Chuljae Kim, as reported by The New York Times.

“Vicky’s diner was my breakfast every morning – actually, it was breakfast for the whole block.”

–Doyle Whiteman
C&S Value Store

Doyle Whiteman, the manager of C&S Value Store, directly across the street from the fire, said he hopes the owners would be able to rebuild.

“Either way it’s a loss,” he said. “Vicky’s diner was my breakfast every morning – actually, it was breakfast for the whole block.”

The fruit stand was also very important to people in the neighborhood, Whiteman said. Residents and businesses along Creston Avenue in both directions would come and buy groceries there at reasonable prices rather than trek further west down Kingsbridge Road.

Juan Fitch, who lives up the block on Creston Avenue, smelled the smoke coming right in through his window when he was getting out of the shower, before he even heard the fire engines.

“I was amazed,” Whiteman said, about the fire itself. “I shed a little tear that morning. All those businesses, except for the diner, were here before me, and I’ve been here 12 years.” Beyond the goods they sell, the businesses had become “little icons in the neighborhood.”

There was nothing special about this fire, firefighters from Ladder Company 37 said after shopping for food on the street later in the week, just a combination of factors that left behind the charred remains.

The day was windy, which only fed the flames, one said. And the fire had already reached the ceiling of the chicken shop by the time they arrived. As is typical of this type of structure, called a “taxpayer,” once the fire climbed above the first restaurant, there was no firewall to keep it from ripping through the shared ceiling space above all four venues.
Yndira Garcia, of Natural Life Nutrition Center, two doors down from the blaze, watched the fire from across the street at Rodriguez Barber Shop where she was keeping warm since the electricity had been shut off in her store.

Garcia said that Kingsbridge Fish, the one business between the fire and hers, was worse off, but was already opened for business again as of Monday, Feb. 19. But the New Way Newsstand, to the right of the fire, its awning melted where it had been licked by the flames, was still closed as employees sifted through wet plaster and ruined goods.

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Allstate Looks at Bedford Park, Sees Coastline

February 22, 2007

By Annie Shreffler

John Reilly loves his home on 202nd Street near the Grand Concourse, the home his grandfather purchased that now houses a fourth generation of Reilly’s. But while he never considered the house to be on beachfront property, his insurance company, Allstate, decided the home was too close to the Atlantic coast and for that reason would not renew his policy after over 20 years of coverage.

Allstate has determined the eight counties of New York along the Atlantic coastline to be at particularly high risk for damage from hurricanes and flooding. In light of recent hurricane destruction in other parts of the U.S., Allstate feels it has to limit its exposure.

Reilly is one of as many as 28,000 homeowners in the coastal counties to receive notices of non-renewal at the anniversary of their three-year policy. The company began ending policies to reduce risk in October 2005, said Krista Conte, an Allstate spokesperson.

“This is not an issue of profitability,” Conte said. “Allstate insures 26 percent, or one in four homes. We must manage our risk in order to preserve our promise to our policyholders. Allstate has the lion’s share [of the market] and home values in those areas are high.”

According to the New York State Insurance Department, 142 companies write home insurance policies in the state, seven belonging to Allstate, which holds 20 percent of the market share.

When an Allstate homeowner’s policy comes to the end of its term, the company said it considers several criteria when deciding whether to offer renewal. For example, coastal homeowners that have made previous claims or have wood-framed homes may receive notices of non-renewal. In some cases, homeowners who also carry auto or life insurance policies may receive a renewal, but only if those other policies were added before October 2005.

But Allstate employees at the Neill Avenue office in the Bronx know of homeowners with no previous claims who also received non-renewal notices. Office manager Francesca Reilly (no relation to John) also said clients who had multi-line policies and received non-renewals on their home policies are taking the rest of their business elsewhere.

“It’s definitely hurting us,” Francesca Reilly said. “It pulls a lot of business away. And why should they stay?”

Most customers in this area switch to secondary insurers such as Tower, one of five other insurance companies operated by Allstate. Rates with these secondary companies tend to be higher, Francesca Reilly said.

Another broker, Regina Floria, from an Allstate office on Webster Avenue, said she sees three to five homeowners switch to Tower each week.

Homeowners may find they also do not qualify for Tower’s higher priced coverage. Those individuals have no alternative but to apply to the state for coverage offered by the New York Property Underwriting Association. This process involves a hearing to determine eligibility and offers only minimal coverage. The rate tends to be 5 percent higher than the market.

State Senator Jeff Klein began investigating non-renewal by insurers after receiving calls from his constituents in Edgewater and City Island last year. He claims insurance companies are cherry picking customers.

“There was no rhyme or reason to why homeowners were losing their policies,” Klein said. “Some had never made a claim and had been with the same company for 20 years.”

Klein introduced legislation in Albany last April directing the New York State Superintendent of Insurance to slow the rate at which insurers may decide not to renew home policies. In a press release, Klein called the non-renewal trend “unfair” and the insurance companies “out-of-control.” But the legislation was tabled.

Klein’s amendment also calls for a study of the profitability of the insurance industry in New York. He noted that Allstate won a petition to increase the number of policies it can offer statewide without being considered a monopoly, while also dropping its coastal customers.

For now, New York has some incentives to mediate the problem of keeping insurers active in the coastal areas and offering reasonable rates.

“[A]llowing a catastrophe deductible helps all companies stay in the market,” says Andy Mais of the New York State Insurance Department. He also said the department is trying to create a tax incentive, in addition to the credits offered by insurance companies, for homeowners who stormproof their houses.

As for John Reilly, he found another well-established carrier to insure his home, giving him better coverage, but at a higher price. He isn’t buying Allstate’s catastrophe logic. Reilly is a veteran in the fight against insurance companies redlining areas of the Bronx many years ago, when carriers offered unfair rates or stopped writing policies altogether in certain neighborhoods.

In this case, if insurers assessed the topography of the Bronx, they would find not all regions are prone to flooding or other damage caused by hurricanes. That would benefit Reilly, who lives near Lehman College, a designated evacuation site in the event of a hurricane or flood. But real risk assessment doesn’t seem to have much to do with Reilly’s non-renewal.

“It seems that if I have auto insurance with Geico, or if I don’t have a car at all, I’m more likely to be hit by a hurricane,” he said.

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Pols Reject Gag Order on Armory

February 22, 2007

By Alex Kratz

A controversial confidentiality agreement is threatening to derail the selection process as New York City searches for a developer to renovate the Kingsbridge Armory in the northwest Bronx.

The city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), which is heading the Armory project, is asking everyone on the Armory task force – an advisory group comprised of local elected officials and community leaders – to sign a confidentiality agreement before reviewing the three Armory proposals at a meeting on March 1.

Local elected officials are balking at signing the agreement because it effectively precludes them from publicly discussing the details of the Armory proposals from the moment they sign it until the end of time.

The EDC has said it will not allow those who do not sign the confidentiality agreement to participate in the review process. It remains unclear, however, what would happen if all the elected officials – including Borough President Adolfo Carrion, Congressman José Serrano, City Council Member Oliver Koppell, Assemblyman Joel Rivera, State Senator Efrain Gonzalez and Councilwoman Maria Baez – refuse to sign the agreement.

Serrano, a long-serving, powerful member of Congress, said he would not sign the agreement on general principle and concern for his constituents.

“I did not sign the confidentiality agreement because clearly communicating information about pertinent and pressing issues to constituents goes to the core of a Member of Congress’ work,” Serrano said in an e-mail statement. “Anything that imposes limits on those communications would be problematic for any Member of Congress.”

Koppell said the agreement is problematic for him as well and will not sign it. “I don’t agree with it,” he said. “This should be an open and public process.”

A spokesperson for Carrión said the B.P. needed more time to review the document before making a judgment on it.

The confidentiality agreement is common practice, the EDC says. “As with all RFPs [Request for Proposals], the process is competitive and to keep it as fair as possible, we require confidentiality – of ourselves and the developers, as well as the task force members,” said EDC spokesperson Janel Patterson in an e-mail.

On March 1, proposals will be presented to the task force anonymously and without financial details. “They will have ample time to ask questions, review presentations and provide their input,” Patterson said in an e-mail. “We anticipate a series of such meetings and presentations with the task force.”

But in presenting their input, the EDC has told the task force not to create any kind of scorecard to base their opinions on. If they do, those numbers will not be used to make a decision. Task Force members say they are going to create a scorecard anyway.

Though it’s trying to avoid setting hard deadlines, the EDC has said it would like to choose a developer by June.

The other problem is that the confidentiality agreement does not run out, said CB7 Chair Greg Faulkner, who sits on the task force. “What happens when I want to write my book?” he said, half-jokingly. He said that he signed the agreement, but was thinking about retracting if no one else on the task force signs it.

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PS 280 Principal Removed

February 22, 2007

By Alex Kratz

Gary LaMotta, the longtime principal of PS/MS 280, one of the northwest Bronx and District 10’s most successful schools, was reassigned on Feb. 5 to the Region One office pending an internal investigation.

In the meantime, LaMotta has been replaced by Pamela Edwards, who was working as a local instructional superintendent in Region One.

Since 1991, LaMotta has led PS/MS 280, “The Renaissance School,” to high test scores and numerous accolades. During his tenure, the school has grown from a moderate-sized elementary school to a 750-seat, K-8 institution.

With rumors swirling in hallways and at kitchen tables, the school sent home flyers calling for an “Emergency Meeting to discuss parental concerns and/or questions.”

At the meeting, Parent Coordinator Nyes Rodriguez and Parents Association President Frenchie Muniz wouldn’t go into detail about the pending investigation, but did say that it was not criminal in nature, according to a parent who attended the meeting but wanted to remain anonymous. Then they asked the parents in attendance to sign a petition asking for LaMotta’s reinstatement, which the parent thought was unfair given that they knew little about the circumstances surrounding his removal.

Discussion at the meeting drifted toward a female employee at PS/MS 280 who was interviewing for an assistant principal’s position and had apparently filed a complaint against LaMotta, the parent said, adding that Rodriguez wanted to know why she was still at the school while LaMotta had been removed.

Dina Paul Parks, a Department of Education spokesperson, said that the investigation stems from allegations of inappropriate conduct or misbehavior and confirmed that they were filed by another staff person at the school who remains in her position. Separating the parties involved is common practice and doesn’t mean that investigators favor one side of the story, she said.

“I understand that these processes can be upsetting to the school community,” Parks said. “That’s why we want to make sure that it’s a process that is rigorous and thorough.”

These investigations can take anywhere from two weeks to six months, Parks said. Whenever it is completed, she said, there will be a public report released explaining the nature of the allegations and the findings of the investigation.

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Fordham Hill Roiled by Security Controversy

February 22, 2007

By Alex Kratz

Shareholders, property managers and a minority of the board of directors at the Fordham Hill Owners Corporation are outraged because they say a united majority (six out of nine) of board members are making sweeping changes to the co-operative housing complex without approval or even input from anyone but themselves. Some shareholders have even dubbed the majority group the “Fordham Hill Mafia.”

Lena Townsend, Fordham Hill’s former board president, grew so frustrated with the group’s unilateral and secretive decision-making process that she resigned in December. A month later, the assistant property manager resigned because of the deteriorating relationship between the board group and management.

Most disconcerting to shareholders is a board plan to drastically revamp the security system, which residents say is Fordham Hill’s defining feature and major selling point. The plan, as presented to shareholders during meetings in December and at the end of January (without time for discussion), calls for a switch to a system based on electronic entry cards and turnstiles, as opposed to a rotation of 24 live security guards.

Safest Place to Live

Built in University Heights more than half a century ago, Fordham Hill has 1,100 units of middle to upper middle-class housing, homes for close to 3,000 people.

Fordham Hill, with its gated entrance and security team, is widely considered the safest place to live in University Heights and is home to prominent Bronx politicians, including Assemblyman Jose Rivera, State Senator Efrain Gonzalez and former State Senator Israel Ruiz.

The new electronic system, which calls for a cut in security forces by more than half, has many shareholders and residents saying they would leave the complex because of safety fears. Longtime board member Elizabeth Errico, who is also a member of Community Board 7, said the new security plan is a “nightmare scenario.”

Just last month, a female Fordham Hill resident was saved from a would-be attacker by a security guard who was on duty. No one at the housing complex can remember the last time there was an incident in or directly outside of Fordham Hill.

When Fordham Hill residents elected a board of directors last June, Townsend and five other board members – Charles Williams, Lanier Hollie, Griselle Diaz, Pereta Rodriguez and Franklyn Duporte – ran as a “progressive slate” and won, Townsend said.

Over the next six months, Townsend, who was chosen as president of the board, made an extra effort to reach out to all the board members, including holdovers Errico, Linda Brown and Nancy Alvarez.

“Lena Townsend made a valiant effort to include everyone in the process,” Errico said. “She ran a good board.”

Out of the Loop

But Townsend said she increasingly felt like she and other board members were being left out of the loop. In her resignation letter, Townsend wrote that despite her insistence on inter-board communication, she was stonewalled by the slate after requesting simple information like meeting dates, agendas, committee correspondence, and committee minutes or notes.

“You could just tell,” Townsend said. “You would show up to a meeting and you just knew everything had already been decided [by the slate] beforehand.”

Townsend said she took her responsibility as a board member seriously and couldn’t understand the rationale behind all the secrecy.

“You are there to represent the best interests of the corporation,” Townsend said. “They were more interested in being slate members.”

The Norwood News made several attempts to contact the slate of board members – through a series of phone messages, faxes and e-mails – as a whole and individually, without success. Errico even approached Williams to ask if he would respond to our questions. She said Williams told her he “absolutely would not respond.”

Williams, a former District 10 school board president, once held political aspirations, but has stayed largely out of the public eye since losing a City Council race in 2001.

The beginning of the end for Townsend came in October when the board approved a motion, five to four, to approve the security restructuring plan, without any discussion among the entire board or without consulting any shareholders.

Finally fed up with the slate’s tactics and to show her disagreement with the new security restructuring plan, Townsend submitted her resignation letter at a Dec. 11 shareholders meeting. The slate then consolidated its power. Hollie became president and John Ursini, a slate supporter, replaced Townsend.

At that same meeting, the board introduced the security restructuring plan to shareholders. Though the board said it was still only an idea, they had already spent $2,000 for designs, which, in addition to cutting staff, would require renovations of building and complex entrances. Without offering details or cost estimates, the board said they would need to take out a line of credit for $15 million to $23 million to complete the renovations and other capital improvements and repairs. Shareholders say the numbers just don’t add up.

The owner’s corporation is still repaying a $19 million loan for repairs and capital improvements from 1999, according to board members, shareholders and property managers.

‘We’re Gone’

The general reaction among shareholders was: “If these security guards leave, we’re gone,” said resident and shareholder Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter whose comments were echoed by everyone interviewed for this article. Pilgrim-Hunter added that security guards don’t just provide safety; they help the elderly and disabled and look out for the kids. It’s their presence that makes residents feel comfortable, she said.

“[The board group has] taken the posture that they don’t care about the other shareholders,” Pilgrim-Hunter said. “They’ve effectively hijacked the board.”

In response to the board’s plan, Pilgrim-Hunter, a feisty bulldog of an activist who owns three apartments at the complex, started a group called Concerned Shareholders of Fordham Hill. She wrote the board a letter on Jan. 8 to express shareholder displeasure with the plan and to request a meeting. The board did not to respond to the letter.

The Concerned Shareholders held a meeting on Saturday, Jan. 27 to discuss a plan of action.

Moving quickly, Pilgrim-Hunter collected 480 signatures of residents and shareholders who opposed the new security plan and submitted it along with a letter to the Buildings Department and other city agencies. The board still needs approval from Buildings to implement any structural changes to the housing complex.

In an effort to placate the riled shareholders, the board conducted a hastily arranged shareholders meeting on Jan. 29. The board, lead by Treasurer Charles Williams (Hollie deferred to Williams at the beginning of the meeting), presented the security plan in a power-point presentation. Shareholders were not given anything to read or take home with them to evaluate.

At the meeting, board members hinted, even mentioning Enron, that the property managers and past board members had stolen, or at least grossly mismanaged, $4.3 million. Property Manager Everton Moore and former board president Elizabeth Tillman dismissed the charges as ridiculous and have since hired lawyers.

The charges prompted the resignation of one of Fordham Hill’s assistant managers, Eddie Ramos, later that week.

“[Ramos] resigned because we feel attacked right now,” Moore said. “They’re cutting staff and overworking us. We’ve seen terrible things here that have taken place.”

Despite the siege, Moore plans to “see the process through.” He also said that despite shareholder sentiment, the board has wide-ranging powers to institute building and security changes. The only action that would require approval by a shareholder vote would be the sale of a building.

Skepticism

When pressed, Williams advised the rest of the board that the security restructuring plan would be put to another board vote, Errico said. But she and others are skeptical this will happen.

“There are over a 1,000 people living in this community and if they aren’t behind this, then it shouldn’t be done,” Errico said. “If it’s such a great idea, it should be sold on its own merit.”

Rumors are flying through the Fordham Hill hallways about why the board is pushing the restructuring plan so hard, but nothing can be confirmed because none of the six slate members have offered explanation. Townsend, Errico and the Concerned Shareholders are calling for a new board, but elections aren’t until May.

Already, Piligrim-Hunter says one of her neighbors, an elderly woman who had lived at Fordham Hill for years, has packed her bags and moved to Florida after hearing about the security plan. If the plan goes through, residents predict many of her neighbors will follow.

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