Can you help us out?
There was a sense at our last meeting that this group — Cooperatively Yours — could have a real impact on life at our coop if we could have a stronger organization that promoted activities and encouraged engagement all year long.
To that end, it would help a great deal if we had a better sense of who was on our mailing list, reading the website, and following along on Facebook and Twitter:
Who are you? What are you involved in? And how would you be willing to help us even more?
Please fill out the brief survey below and encourage your neighbors to do so as well — it’ll give us a much better idea of where to go from here.
Good on Berman (and Hanania) to make friends with a literal campaign manager who can organize and market to people. He’s hungry to not lose that third consecutive election. With your direct mailing campaign and his annual inflammatory platform this year is sure to be a success!
Cant wait for our special part of the LES to turn into Williamsburg West…I’ve been craving 5 dollar coffees and 12 dollar breakfast specials.
Oh, just noticed you changed the comment policy to not allow anonymous comments, as if in response to me being anonymous, which is not the case. Although why should I have to provide my last name, exposing myself and my family to ire of a steadfastly passionate group for my views. Do you not approve of dissenting views? transparency?
“James C” is fine, “Mickey Mouse” is not. Dissenting views are welcome — yes, please!
I don’t know what you’re implying but I applaud your consistency in propagating unfounded claims with no context.
Here’s more context: The comments policy was not changed in response to your being anonymous. Signing in as ‘James C’ is fine, you are most welcome here. If someone were to sign in as ‘Mickey Mouse’ then the comment gets moderated away. That hasn’t happened yet, and I’m hopeful it won’t.
There is nothing wrong with a group organizing in order to work together cooperatively to strengthen our coop. There are so many things that can be done that do not involve turning our coop into “Williamsburg West” that could improve our wonderful coop. How about asking cooperators what they would like to see in a new community room instead of renovating in a vacuum. How about sharing financial information and explaining why it’s not a problem for us to have a $25M interest only mortgage with variable interest rates and no principal payback until the end. What about asking for shareholder input before dismissing zipcar, community gardens, composting , etc purely based on board decisions. Many of things that Cooperatively Yours is driving towards have been achieved in our sister coops and have strengthened the community feeling among shareholders. The typical scare tactics that you are employing have been used over and over in this coop to keep us from continuing to evolve. Let’s give this a chance and focus on moving forward.
Please, spare me the talking points. You are so blindly idealistic that you refuse to acknowledge any negative consequences of the many issues you push. You dumb down those issues by throwing out ambiguous buzzwords like moving forward and positive change. These provide zero substance and couldn’t possibly describe the intricacies of such proposals but are used to garner support from those who don’t read between the lines.
I don’t know what the zip car concept is but I bet it has gaping logistical and security based issues if you’re talking about opening up our secure lots to random people. The fact that you even frame such an idea as if it was so obviously beneficial and accepted just shows how out of touch you are with the established community outside of a subset of yuppies.
As for composting in NYC, we can thank Bloomberg. He passed a law mandating it that will go into effect soon. And a garden is good for a sense of community
maybe that’s why the idea was actually accepted and came to fruition. Still,
this acceptance has only inflated your heads and now everyone is being spammed
with demands that are potentially detrimental and definitely uncharacteristic
of our neighborhood.
You throw a multitude of haphazard concepts in
front of the board with the entitled sentiment of “we need this now,
figure it out and make it happen.” At the same time you don’t present plans
but just throw shit at the wall to see if it sticks. When it doesn’t stick, you
turn into divas and rile people up with gossip and selective misinformation
because you didn’t get what you wanted, when you wanted it.
Its like you think that the demands of your
friends in the emerging yuppie demographic supersedes everyone that was here
before, justifying it with the prospective money they bring to the table.
Simultaneously you are willing to compromise the fleeting peacefulness and
uniqueness that has defined our corner of Manhattan to satisfy people whose
validation we never needed in the first place.
I would argue the co-op, or any longstanding
organization, is best off with a policy of measured, incremental change rather
than submitting to a multitude of reactionary proposals in an attempt to conform
to an unsustainable cycle of hyper gentrification. It’s that scrutiny that ensures that only the most viable, benign and widely beneficial plans are brought to fruition. To dismiss
any criticism and scrutiny as scare tactics shows just how pompous you are in
believing that nobody could disagree with your platform of half baked ideas.