I rushed home today to attend the annual (and my first ever) co-op board meeting. Not many people gathered in this dingy room in the basement (it'd be perfect to make that into a gym) while this man droned on about the financials. I want to say that it was a waste of time and that I now know to not attend in the future (so boring and all polite talk to keep people somewhat satisfied that they won't move out) but I'm afraid I'd miss something important if I didn't show up.
What was truly a waste of time was the time described on the agenda as "new business." People went off on complaints that the corporation really can't do much about -- noise. Maybe we're lucky to have relatively quiet neighbors, but gimme a break, you live in an apartment building, there is going to be noise. You really don't need to dwell on the issue for longer than 10 minutes. This one woman, though, kept going on, unsatisfied with each suggestion. The management will check the above apartment for the proper carpeting... but what if...? She was told to keep documentation of the noise to make a strong case in court... but how much documentation is enough? Keep a log, write letters, bring in neighbors/super/doorman to be witnesses.... But she wasn't interested in "winning a court case"... ad infinitum.
Then there was a quick, unorganized vote for the new board. When trying to give a description of their work, they did not make the work seem appealing -- they described how they've been deciding between carpet samples for the past several months. In the end, I made an uninformed decision (no one described their qualifications and we were choosing 4 members out of a pool of 5 -- not much choice). It kinda pisses me off about this democracy thing b/c I'm not sure it works. And is there a reason why co-ops are so prevalent in NYC and nowhere else throughout the U.S.? I think it's all a scam. Either that, or liberal NYers just have nothing better to do than to create extra bureaucracy, even where they live. Maybe it's both.
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We attend every year and condo board meetings are no different. Even worse here, I'm told we haven't had a quorum in 12 years to get any business done because so few attend. But you're right - there will always be those who complain at these meetings. We have a couple who objected to the common area renovation project because of noise in the lobby and dust/debris in and around the building because of their expected newborn baby. Yeah, let's just holdup renovations of a building with 50+ other homeowners for 18 years until their baby girl moves out for college....NOT!
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