at our building the board votes as a whole and the minutes reflect the total for and against. There is no names mentioned unless a board member wishes it stated for the record how she or he voted for the issue.
Pg

If Shareholders dont know the voting record of Board members, how are we to judge thier business acume, knowledge of the building and personal or otherwise agenda.

This is how we judge our elected leaders.

We have two board members whose voting records have been a financial disaster for the building. (the also kept a lying/stealing super on because of personal favors) But they both are brilliant communicators. (makes excellent speeches at SH meeting) Fortunately a shareholder took the inicitive and after questioning each board member, published thier voting record. We voted one off the board, and basically nuturlized the other...

If your board members are lying and stealing, vote them off the board! Knowing the way they vote isn't the issue, it seems.

As has already been mentioned, once a decision is made the board acts as one. Individual votes do not need to be recorded (I can't imagine any attorney suggesting such a thing) in part because Americans love lawsuits, and New Yorkers in particular. You'd be surprised, Alice, how many people will find the smallest reason to threaten a lawsuit.

If you want to know how board members feel about an issue, ask them! If they don't answer, don't vote for them!

Wish it were that simple. Voting someone off a board, is not that easy. And without going into the long answer, everyone at Habitat knows this. The reality is that its not easy.

I agree about the lawsuits, but the Board has to be accountable. And, as long as Board members vote in good faith, without a personal agenda or otherwise, there should be no problem in publishing thier votes.

It took us four years to get rid (two finally moved) of our problem board member. The Sponsor still has a major block of votes, but he finally realized (after the third raise in maint) that this guy was the problem, and all the little favors he had been getting no longer added up.
The Shareholders who had been his supportors, were finally getting the picture, but it took us FOUR years...

I certainly wish that making big changes were easy. To be fair, I don't remember anyone who posts here saying that voting the bozos out is, in fact, an easy thing to do.

It takes a lot of effort by one or two or several shareholders to make their neighbors realize what's' going on around them. And even that is a big challenge because people either want to believe that their leaders are honest people devoted to the common good or, what's worse, they're apathetic.

So congrats on making a change in only four years.

I'd like to add one other point. Just because there are maintenance increases doesn't mean there's a problem. In fact, without knowing the size of the increases you're referring to, I would say the opposite is the case.

That is, if maintenance fees are NOT going up, there's a problem.

Now before you think I'm a crook or just bonkers, remember this: In July your water & sewer rates are going up 11.5%. In March, your electricity rates may go up as much as 17%. Oil prices (to heat your water, if you have a boiler, and to heat your apt, if you have steam heat) have doubled in my three years on a board. Insurance rates after 9/11 have gone up 10%-25% or more. On top of that, the cost of the floor cleaner your super uses, the light bulbs, and even your lawyer's hourly rates are higher now than a couple of years ago.

So without a maintenance increase, your board would either be spending down its reserves to finance operational costs (a big no-no) or it would have to buy its supplies & professional services from some magic kingdom where inflation doesn't exist.

Everything from the price of a bagel to medical insurance is more expensive today than it was five years ago. (Except the Staten Island Ferry. That's still free.) So take this as tough love: You're a home owner. Get used to paying for the privilege.

Steve, Thank you for your supportive words. And yes, apathy was originally our problem. But as the expenses went up, this began to drain away. For years noone came to the SH meeting but we now have almost 85% of the Shareholders represented at the SH meeting.

We also know that everything is going up, but unfortunately the maint increases in our building are only a very small part of the picture. And there is not enough room to go over the mis-handling (financial and structural) of our building for the last 20 years... Everytime the board peels away a layer, they find new problems.

But, the good news is that we have a new board, who understands that they are running a business, are working together, and hopefully will put us on solid footing.

I'm glad to hear that you're able to see things so positively, Alice.

When I was a political science student, one of the basics of elective democracy we were taught was that the more comfortable people are about how things are going, the smaller the election turnout. Not until the people get upset does turnout go up. So your building is exactly typical in that regard.

As for your other problems, our board tells new owners a story not so different from yours. We've been a co-op for a couple decades, but in the 90s, when the economy took a real dive, there were more than a dozen defaults in our building. Maintenance was not being paid, and the physical structure was not being maintained. Because people were on the edge financially, maintenance was not raised (or was only marginally), leaving the corporation barely able to pay for its monthly bills.

Then things got better. We enacted a flip tax, which has given us a comfortable reserves fund that had never existed. Every year for the last few years we have had a small maint increase (1% to 2%). And we've been able to complete some significant capital improvements through careful planning and an assessment.

The building is in much better shape physically, as well as financially, which makes it more valuable both for the long-term residents (who benefit from a sound structure) and for the sellers (who can promote the improvements as a selling point).

So keep faith. And hey, why not run for the board yourself? It seems as athough you already know more about how the building is run than even some board members. What's more, you care! And that, honestly, is what makes all the difference.

Steve,, Again thank you for your encouraging words. Because the old board had too many agendas of their own, and were making individual SH happy so they could have thier proxy, things like the flip tax was ignored. But it was the first thing that our new board voted in.

So we are on our way. And by the way, it really was a few dedicated individuals, who plan to live here long-term, who started and kept the revolution going. But we could have NEVER done it without Email. We stopped a lot of non-sense (renovations without permits, illegal sublets etc) with "Email Power". All the board and Mange need to see is a few emails come in, and they begin to backtrack very quickly..... So do pass this along.

This is the way most buildings record votes (as Pg states), or should.
The minutes reflect how many for, how many against, and abstained. If a particular member wishes thier vote to be recorded with thier name, it may be done.
You are a Board, a team, when a vote is passed, it is passed as a majority and that’s really all the shareholders need to know.
The other Board member(s) know who is the one always going against the grain, or voting for his/her own benefit, and as a result, can vote against that person come the next annual meeting.

I see this from our Board President receiving complains because one Board member is never recorded as voting against various questionable issues. Please advice!

"What.... does not understand, and any one involved in any coop can tell you is that debate and disagreement that goes on when it does go on behind closed doors is not appropriate to present in board minutes, which are used above all for the lawyers of potential buyers to evaluate whether a building is a sound investment for the potential buyer to be making.
Time and time again, ......would like to see “his voice” and “his opinions” expressed in the meeting which would be devastating to anyone trying to sell, as our building would be seen as troubled or at the least, in some sort of divided and tumultuous state. A lawyer would tell a potential buyer to avoid our building based on the discussions the minutes. The less said in board minutes, the better for all investors Minutes do not exist to be a manifesto for minority or majority positions…they are supposed to be almost telegraphic.
So besides the deeply paranoid and troubling sentiments expressed, as he is just plain wrong about both the collusion and deceit at work, he is also poorly informed the purpose of board minutes as the place for his positions to be reflected. This has been explained to him on numerous occasions, but he does not seem to get it and continues to harp on this issue."
Miriam