Dim Bulbs!

Dim Bulbs!

Community Still Getting Con Ed Bill Even though they Spent $90M to Build Own Power Plant

By Michael Horowitz

BRONX, NEW YORK, APRIL 25- Riverbay assistant treasurer Daryl Johnson startled the community, early last year, with a revelation that Co-op City had paid Con Edison $17 million over the previous two years to help provide electricity to the local community.

Johnson’s revelation was especially striking, since the Co-op City Times and City News had repeatedly reported, in recent years, that the Riverbay Corporation’s cogeneration plant, which cost $90 million to build, had enabled the community to generate electricity without Con Edison.

In recent years, Johnson, who has an extensive background in auditing, has been compiling financial data aimed at bolstering his case that fiscal waste is rampant at the Riverbay Corporation.

Putting this seeming waste into perspective, an expenditure of $17 million represents approximately 17 percent in carrying charges.

Asked to comment on his startling revelation about $17 million in payments to Con Edison, Johnson said, last year, that he was looking into the matter and its implications relating to management, the Riverbay board, and the Co-op City community as a whole.

“We need to investigate about what’s going on in terms of how Co-op City spends its money in this and a wide assortment of other areas,” Johnson stressed, in a telephone interview last year.. “It’s really hard to piece something like this together when you’re dealing with a management that stonewalls you as much as possible.”

Informed observers, commenting last year, stressed that they found it more than a bit strange that Co-op City, which has had a state-of-the art cogeneration plant since 2009, paid Con Edison $17 million over the last two years to help generate electricity for the local community.

One shareholder, upon hearing about the payments to Con Edison, stressed, at the time “I thought we were generating our own electricity. In Co-op City, we seem to be dealing with a bunch of sleazes who think nothing of wasting the shareholders’ hard-earned money. What goes on in Co-op City is enough to make you want to throw up. We don’t get answers from management; all we get is a bunch of bs.”  

Bowling Thieves Caught Doing the ‘Wild Thing’

Bowling Thieves Caught Doing the ‘Wild Thing’ 

By Dan Gesslein

BRONX, NEW YORK, APRIL 7- A pair of robbers are about as sharp as as bowling ball when they were caught on tape robbing a bowling alley with distinctive clothing.

At around 4:50 a.m. on April 4, the pair cut a hole in the roof and entered the bowling alley 2417 Hollers Avenue outside Co-op City. Surveillance cameras caught the master criminals in action as they took money from the six cash registers in the bowling alley. 

Cops are hoping the criminals’ distinctive clothing will help them catch the thieves. Video surveillance shows one of the men wearing a shirt with designs and the word “Taylor” written on it. The second suspect is seen wearing a shirt with the words “Wild Thing” written on it. Both men are between the ages of 30 and 40. 

Anyone with information is urged to call CRIMESTOPPERS at (800) 577-TIPS. The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers Website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or texting their tips to 274637(CRIMES) then enter TIP577. 

All calls are confidential. 

Elevators Can’t Take the Cold?

20 elevators out of service within 4 days

$160K per month Contractor Blames Cold Weather for Outages

By Michael Horowitz

BRONX, NEW YORK, JANUARY 9- Twenty elevators were out of service between last Friday and Monday, leaving Co-op City shareholders in Buildings 12 without any elevator service for several hours on Sunday and leaving shareholders in Building 12 without any elevator service for several hours on Monday, informed sources told  the News this week.

Garages 1, 4, 5, and 8 reportedly had no elevators for several hours on Monday, said the sources, who wished to remain unidentified.

On Monday alone, 14 elevators were out of service for several hours at a time, the sources noted.

There were no reports, as of early this week, of shareholders being trapped in elevators for extended periods of time or of shareholders not being able to receive emergency medical care because of the elevator outages. 

Management officials are reportedly blaming the elevator outages on extreme temperature changes on last week’s snowfall, but critics of management are convinced that the outages resulted from a lack of proper maintenance.

The Ver-tech Elevator Co., Inc. has had a contract to maintain Co-op City’s recently rebuilt elevators since October 1999, but it was unclear, this week, if the elevator company or Co-op City’s management was responsible for the outages. 

Ver-tech is reportedly paid $160,000 per month, or close to $2 million per year, to maintain Co-op City's elevators, which were all reportedly upgraded in recent years. 

Co-op City has 192 elevators, so 20 elevators represent more than 10 percent of the elevators in the local community.

Commenting this week, civic activist Frank Belcher described the extensive elevator outages in the community as “totally unacceptable,” saying, “This is really no surprise to me. I have known, for quite some time, that the people who run Co-op City, who are ultimately responsible, are inept and incompetent. In this case, their incompetence endangered the health, welfare, and safety of the community’s shareholders and exposed the Riverbay Corporation to lawsuits relating to this lack of basic service.”

Belcher added, “You tell me that Co-op City pays an elevator contractor $160,000 per month to maintain our elevators, so we have a right to expect that our elevators will be properly maintained in all kinds of weather. It’s unacceptable for management to blame the elevator outages on the weather.” 

Belcher stressed, “It has been clear to me for years that this place is not properly maintained, so why would we think that the elevators are any different from the rest of Co-op City’s infrastructure?”

The elevator outages that were reported here last Friday were in Building 17, with one car out of service due to a broken hoist rope, and in Building 35, with one car out of service because of an issue with a sheave.

On Sunday, all four elevators were out of service in Building 35 for several hours due to a pipe break in the building’s basement.

On Monday, the following elevator outages were reported: Building 22B, two cars out of service due to a pipe break in the building’s basement; Building 12, all four cars out of  service for several hours due to a pipe break in the basement, and Garages 1, 4, 5, and 8, all eight cars out of service due to electrical boxes shorting out because of moisture.