The goal of the survey was to take a snapshot of our population and find out which aspects of our quality of life are having the most impact and where is there room for improvement. As an added bonus, we asked about some potential amenities to find out if any have enough traction to pursue. Full results are below.
The first set of questions asked about the basic demographics of our population:
Our pet population is often a matter of speculation. How many dogs live here? And how many more would live here if the coop’s pet policy were changed? Most cooperators do not — and would not — own a dog.
The second set of questions was about coop amenities — the ones we have and the ones we might want.
Amenities were ranked in a 5-point scale from very satisfied to very dissatisfied. To get a relative measure, we looked for the difference between very/somewhat satisfied and very/somewhat dissatisfied, then weighted that calculation by how many people actually use each amenity. (For example, a good response for the men’s club, used by almost no one, means less than the same good response for the laundry rooms, used by almost everyone.)
New amenities were ranked similarly, though without any weighting. You can see that all these options were relatively popular, of course with no counter-argument made about costs. This is just a wish-list, a jumping-off point.
The third set of questions asked cooperators to rank the departments in charge of running this place.
As you can see, the maintenance staff and security staff are generally appreciated for the work they do. There are mixed feelings about the management office. But the board of directors gets the brunt of cooperators’ dissatisfaction.
What specifically don’t cooperators like? Since the chart below cuts off the aspects of coop life we asked about, here they are in order from best to worst:
- Economic development of Grand Street
- Relationship of the coop to our community
- Quality of communication from management and directors
- Financial health of the coop
- Transparency of decision-making by management and directors
- Opportunity for shareholder input on policy changes
Finally, questions about two recent decisions by the board of directors.
And that’s it. Ideally, a survey like this would run every year to give us a measurement over time of cooperators’ satisfaction. That trend could be very useful in evaluating, for example, whether our new general manager is meeting expectations.
One last word.
This survey wasn’t hard to put together, distribute, or summarize. This sort of survey is conducted by management companies and coop boards all over the city. Most boards would welcome input that could help shape their decision-making. Instead, ours chose to react with fear and insults, even though the questions are not controversial and the results are not binding. I think this effort and the response from cooperators and from the board perfectly encapsulates why Cooperatively Yours is working hard to bring positive change to East River and run new candidates for the board.
We received 234 responses to our survey online and on paper. That’s good for a margin of error of about 6% if the sample were random. But even though the results weren’t stuffed (there were no duplicate submissions), it probably cannot be called truly random. Still, it’s worth calling this the start of a conversation, not the end. And — isn’t it better than not asking shareholders their opinion?
Thank you. I wish you’d gotten more responses — maybe next time. Why are cooperators too afraid/annoyed/angry to participate, give their opinion?
Alyce, Shareholders are worried to give into CY lies, i totally understand them.
Bill, Kindly substantiate what you refer to as “CY lies.” And how responding to a survey “gives into” them. I await your response.
here’s my substantiating — 1) Michael Turner told no one he was a REAL ESTATE BROKER when he ran for the board – just a little conflict of interest 2) you all act like “Cooperatively Yours” is anything more than an annoying club – like Revenge of the Nerds, only it’s Revenge of the Facist Liberal Millenials. For the most part, the members, aside from a few true socialists and those are people in their 70s and 80s, the goal, the question CY asks themselves each day is, “How can I make more money from my property here?” or, in the case of brokers who live here, “How can I get people out and re-sell their apartments for a large profit?” CY is about as charitable and giving as Hillary Clinton. You think the rest of us are stupid, or that because you’re 34, you deserve to live more than someone who’s 71. We’ve existed for so long because of US, not because of YOU. And by the way, Lee Berman has lived here all of his life. FYI.
because OUR LIVES are not your business…. Why are so many of the new cooperators so very comfortable taking 18 washing machines on a Sunday, or leaving their laundry in the machines for hours and then yelling if someone who needs a dryer moves their stuff? why do the relatively new cooperators think they are better than those people who have lived here for generations and kept this neighborhood going while you were raised in Great Neck or Portland, Oregon. Why do you think you’re more entitle to anything, from a parking spot to a laundry machine, because you paid more for your apartment? That’s the real estate biz – just ask Jim Kennan or Michael Turner — prices go up. They’d love it if everyone here died and they had 4,000 new apartments from which to stuff their pockets with fat stacks
Seek help, dear.
Just joined. Alyce 1213 – What a great and thoughtful response to elizawithaz – every time one of you extremely fascist civilian Antifa creeps disagree with anyone not spouting the party line, y’all respond with “seek help” or “you’re crazy” or “take your meds” Wow – what a powerful, intelligent and repetitive response with anyone you don’t agree with. No one can have a dialogue with you folks because it’s either agree or you offend the other person. I am no fan, but you keep wondering and whining about why Trump won. You, my dear, are precisely the reason.
Thank you, Jeremy! This is very interesting. Hopefully more shareholders will start to share their views so that we can all have a voice in what are the most important issues in our coop. A good start.
Deborah, Yes, I agree Jeremy has interesting creativity.
And this is not shareholders sharing their views. its shareholder sharing his view.
There are many of us who share Jeremy’s views. Sorry that it scares you so much that a group of shareholders actually expect something approaching accountability and transparency from their board, and are willing to do the hard work of organizing and making our case to gain votes during elections. We all vote according to our own views, and that’s not some sort of conspiracy: it’s called democracy.
Hi, thanks for your post! funny thing is though that I actually submitted many of the same flyers! In your favor, but so much for your assurance that there were no duplicates! 🙂
No you didn’t. The word for this is trolling, thanks for playing.
How can you know that she didn’t?
LOL! Miley, thanks for verifying that their system is a scam. Jeremy, I’m sorry its too hard for you to admit it.
Its so hilarious how you obviously made up responses because i said i was overall happy with the coop and for some reason you claim nobody is. Jeremy, this the life you have, a life of lies and annoying people. SAD!
Lots of happy people here: 35% of respondents reported generally satisfied or very satisfied with administration of coop. Thanks for participating in the survey. We have no reason to make any of this up. Sorry I can’t convince you of that.
And what kind of bullshit stats are these? I’m supposed to believe that because YOU say x amount of people here want dogs or don’t want an increase or like chocolate more than vanilla? who the f are you? I don’t care if you’re an actuary or a computer scientist – no one here asked you to conduct ANYTHING, and no one believes your results. Here are some of my statistics: Percentage of people who think Cooperatively Yours is anything other than a self-serving bunch of lying bullies, real estate brokers and hipsters who want to change everything? According to my survey, 93.6 percent of EAST RIVER COOPERATORS agree with our statistics.
I ran across your website looking for ideas to turn our cooperative around. For 8 years we have had no quorum with only 23% of the shareholders attending. What can we do other than screaming maintenance increase!