How small is small as in group? Sounds like you have a recipe and attitude for disaster. Legal quite likely but probably not cooperative living.

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The board spent one year sending out information about the revised PL. a well written letter by the lawyer which was not "legalese" explained the major changes, the 5 major changes were again listed and a chart was made that highlighted our old method, our new method and the method used by most co-ops. We did spoon feed everyone and made calls. I guess you have to trust me when I say we have a small group of people that ran things (selfishly I might add) and were not looking after the other shareholders. They talked about batteries in our smoke detectors while pocketing monies from our commercial space and keeping maintenance artificially low. They held two hats, they were the sponsors of the building which had control of the storefront and their rent was based on maintenance, the lower our maintenance was the lower their rent was and the more profit they made. They kept this secret for nearly 25 yrs. whe it was discovered and the bundling was in big debt their board control was overruled. So, if you speak about vindictive it's not the new board. The old board is never happy, is always claiming board doesn't communicate. The new boards are working very hard, it took years the unravel the subterfuge, get the debt paid, build a true reserve, run a balanced budget, etc. the disgruntled ones find things everyday to complain about and to discredit the board.

It's wearing on those tht volunteer.

I don't believe coopertive living means everyone gets their way. And, sometimes the minority have to accept what their fellow nieghborhoods vote in.

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This is a very small co-op. A Board comprised of nearly half the residents may easily have well above the amount of combined shares(presuming they vote as a block) which would keep the non-board shareholders in a permanent minority.
The writer states this "older group" never runs for the board. I find that surprising. The legal counsel given to the Board is unfortunate in that it treats a very small co-op the same as a large one, where it makes much more sense to have the board deal with these matters, but each unit not having as enormous an effect on another. The financials of new applicants were never open to non-board members in our co-op. but we did meet them before the vote to admit, after the Board brought it to that point of approval. But the final vote was one in which we actually had a face-to-face and the board had presented them to the rest of the co-op. That never seemed so onerous a task for anyone and we met our prospective neighbors before it was a fait accompli.
Does the Board have regular meetings where all Shareholders can air concerns? Is there an open policy of communication? Is there a common area where people see each other and can informally speak?
Without that things can get pretty ugly quickly, with bad feeling lasting a long time. It is essential that a board, especially one with this power, be one which is very forthright and proactive regarding communication and doing all it can to promote community in so small a building. If not, it is truly a recipe for disaster, as another wrote.

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I think there may be a problem on how the changes of the PL may have been handled. In a small building as yours, if it is a CO-OP building, the best way to address the changes in the PL would be to verbally explain the changes at a meeting of the shareholders to make sure everyone understood them and bring it up for discussion then a vote. This way the older group would fully understand what the changes are and then you could have discuss the meet and greet idea at that time.

The older group is probably looking at your small building as a CO-OP and not a Condo. If your building is a CO-OP I can see why the members would want to have a say or have an input on who shares the space on the same floor or above or below them. In a Condo that is not the case. If it is a large CO-OP it would be very hard to have that type of input. As far as financials from a potential buyer that is always for the Board and management eyes only.

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