"IMPERIOUS" BOARDS, P.2

At the same time, the board was launching the printed 127 West 96th Street Newsletter, a four-page collection of news and events concerning both the building and the surrounding community. It was all done with a light touch and a spirit of fun by Carolyn Hahn and Chamberlain. Hahn has written and edited it from the beginning, while Chamberlain, who has lived at the property since 1998 and joined the board in 2005, designs it. The glossy document has everything from "The Board Update," about current decisions and initiatives, to lighter pieces like "The Whole Story on Whole Foods" (about the supermarket chain opening a branch nearby).

With its breezy, informative style, the quarterly newsletter did a lot to make the community feel like, well, a community. Shareholders felt as though they were part of something.

"Last year," says Chamberlain, "there was a potential strike by all the porters and doormen. That's where something like the newsletter can come in very handy. We used it to explain the potential of the strike, how this would affect our building, and some of the things you could do. Then we would also follow up with official memos. And we did very well getting people to sign up for volunteer duty [in the event of a strike]. It brought a [cohesion] and a sense of being neighbors. It's a great way of building a more neighborly feeling. [T]he old board [would just send] out a memo, which might sound patronizing. In the newsletter it's just a reminder and might be done in a funny or nice way."

Meet and Greet

The board also established a second, unofficial shareholder meeting where it could update residents about ongoing projects and also take the pulse of the building. The gathering came about by accident: One year, the annual meeting was called but did not achieve a quorum. Instead of canceling the session, the board members held an unofficial get-together and found that the give-and-take — the plain speaking without the necessity of conducting any official business — was useful and helped them plan for the future.

"We could say, 'We're thinking of a maintenance increase,' rather than hitting them with it, and they would have a chance to express their concerns and prepare for it financially," says Brown, the shareholder liaison. "Again, more communication."

So, six months after that, the fluke became official policy, as the board convened the first of its mid-year informational gatherings. That first meeting is now held in the spring and the official, annual shareholders meeting is in September, when the board has a better sense of say what the price of heating oil will be during the upcoming winter months.

Finally, the board sends out detailed memos and letters on ongoing projects to keep shareholders in the loop. For instance, when the board was upgrading the building laundry rooms to make the water use more efficient, bigger machines and higher fees were predicted. The board sent out memos explaining that eventuality, and it also set up an area in the lobby where residents could contribute ideas to the design. "We learned from the interior renovation [we had done] that people like to have decision-making [input] in terms of what their building looks like," Brown says. "So, when we re-did the laundry room — painted it and tiled it — we left out samples in a box, told people to let us know what they liked. So no one could say that we acted unilaterally."

The result? "There's very little animosity these days at the shareholder meetings," board member Mecarini notes. "There are one or two people who raise concerns, they are addressed, and we move on. … Our approach now is that we are here to serve the shareholders, and they should know what [we're doing] and why we're doing [it]. I think that makes tough decisions easier to take."

Keeping everyone in the loop is the lesson of the remarkable turnaround at 127 West 96th Street. As Chamberlain puts it, "The former board didn't do anything evil or bad; they just came across as obnoxious. The imperious board actually did a good job. They just didn't know how to sell themselves."

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