The latest brick facade memo to residents of building # 5, you need to read this.
Monthly Archives: August 2010
Building #5 Update
Next week, on Tuesday, the path from the back of building #5 going toward the picnic area will be closed off and stay that way until the 2958 wing is completed. They will close it off, bring down the mast climber from the first wing (2956? I always get them confused.), and set it up on 2958. Lagging behind by no more than two weeks will be the other side for the same thing (2954/2960) at which point the entire rear path we’ve been using will be shut down. A new path will be made going directly to West 8th Street from behind our lobby alongside that newly-renovated second wing (2954?). It should make for a shorter walk to the parking lot and train.
JASA Calendar Update
I’ve added announcements for September activities and a caregivers seminar for 8/30 and 8/31.
Latest Board Meeting Minutes Posted
Please view our August 3, 2010 meeting minutes.
Key Fob System & Picnic Area Fence
We just met with another company that will give us a better key fob system and save us around $15k in the process. We also had a separate discussion about the picnic area fence that resulted in some changes that will save us around $10k. Not a bad day. We should be seeing both implementations within a few weeks.
Next Building for Construction
Building #4 will be worked on after building #5.
Board Meeting – 8/17
Some highlights from tonight’s meeting:
- We revised the insulation thickness we’ll be using going forward; adjusting from 1 1/2″ to 3/4″. This will save us more than a million dollars over the course of the entire project.
- We reviewed the free tree proposal from the NY Restoration Project. We have the option to implement it however we want over the next 5 years so we agreed to start this October with just the picnic area and go from there.
- We chose Honest Ballot company to conduct our election this year. They’ve worked for Luna Park in the past. We decided not to use the company from last year, Voting Group, due to a number of issues we had with their service quality.
- We decided to move the Men’s Club from building #2 to building #3. Their current location is adjacent to where we want to put the gym and we can save a lot of money and make the gym bigger by joining the spaces.
- Verizon FIOS is coming to Luna Park. We don’t know when they plan to run their wires but they served us notice of intent.
- Management went through the various options for phone service and made a decision. We’re going to save a bunch of money by switching a bunch of our phone lines to Optimum Voice.
Buzzsaw Enclosures
Technical Construction have put up sound reflecting rubber on one fence and have begun building little enclosures around each buzzsaw. There is already a noticeable reduction in noise.
Anti-Car Stanchions
The stanchions are now in place to block cars taking the illegal sidewalk shortcut by our senior center.
Letter from Congressman Nadler to MTA
At the request of the board and Adam Bailey, our corporate attorney, Congressman Nadler sent a letter about the excessive train noise Luna Park is bombarded with. You can see the letter here.
Picnic Area Porta-Potty
There will be a new porta-potty by the picnic area within a few days.
New Meeting Minutes Posted
Tony Donadio’s Semi-Retirement
To All Shareholders:
For over a decade, Tony Donadio has been a fixture at Luna Park. As Director of Operations, he knows our buildings better than anyone and has given us his best efforts at keeping them running. He has organized maintenance, overseen our many major projects, and kept our relationships positive with unions and vendors. He’s been an important thread of continuity in a period of much change and has been key in preserving facts and history for Luna Park we would’ve otherwise lost to time and incomplete records. Despite being only 70 years young — and with the energy and strength of a man 30 years younger — he has decided to take extra personal time to enjoy life and family.
Generous in his understanding that Luna Park is in the midst of the largest project it has ever undertaken (since first being built), he’s not completely leaving us. Rather, he will scale down into a semi-retirement that has him in the office three days a week but available to us whenever we need him. Not only will this keep our course steady, it will allow a timely and orderly hand-off of responsibilities, knowledge, and experience to our already-capable superintendent, Eric Szurant. The board looks forward to driving Eric as insane as we do everyone that works for us. Just kidding…maybe.
We are NOT saying goodbye to Tony but we are a bit jealous of his newly-found extra free time. Congratulations, Tony!
Sincerely,
Luna Park’s Board of Directors
New Luna Park Safety & Compliance Coordinator Hired
To all shareholders:
It is very rare to find oneself served by someone who truly loves his job. Someone who takes it seriously and dedicates himself fully to the work and the people. Over the past 3 1/2 years we’ve all come to recognize Raymond Perez, a supervisor from Park Avenue Security, as one of those people. Luna Park’s directors rarely agree but both current and former directors agree on that. He’s been a huge asset in his role as a security supervisor and constantly went above and beyond his duties; whether it be stopping someone from jumping off our roof or going after drug dealers, he’s earned respect from all of us.
Our recently-formed Security Committee, led by Gennady Rotberg and Eugene Lyubronetsky, broached the topic of hiring Raymond Perez as a direct employee of Luna Park to oversee all safety and enforcement issues. He would still work patrols as before but would also oversee our security company to make sure it works as hard and well as he does. They brought the proposal to the board where it was met with unanimous approval and so we are happy to announce that, as of the first week of August, Raymond Perez is now Luna Park’s Safety & Compliance Coordinator. Please join us in congratulating and welcoming him to the team.
On a similar note, the board has solicited, received, and reviewed bids from six different security companies. After careful consideration we have decided to grant Park Avenue Security a contract to continue at the same rate for another term.
Sincerely,
Luna Park’s Board of Directors
Board Meeting – 8/3
Some highlights from tonight’s meeting:
- We caught up on all previous meeting minute approvals.
- After considering — I think it was 6 — different security company bids we authorized a new contract to be signed with Park Avenue Security at the same rate we’ve been paying them for the last 3 years.
- The anti-car stanchions by the senior center should be up no later than next week. We already have them.
- We’re petitioning HPD to let us publish our parking lot waiting list (with the names changed to initials.) We’re also planning to simplify how the waiting list is maintained. The motivation for all this is transparency to the shareholders. If everyone sees the list and has a record of how it changes then there will be no opportunity for mischief.
- We approved an 8′ tall wrought iron fence to be installed around the picnic area.
- We’re going to change some of our phone lines to Optimum Voice and save around $12k a year.
- We have most of the pieces for moving forward on the gym. We agreed to have Tony and Fikret try to finagle some more savings out of the final plan which we’ll agree to in two weeks or less.
FreshDirect
FreshDirect is an online grocery that delivers right to your door and a number of us have been waiting for FreshDirect to become available in our area; they already deliver to the 11235 zip. We inquired as to how we could get them to deliver to 11224 and the answer was simple, “Get people to sign up as interested on their website. If enough people sign up, they will expand to the area.” To sign up, go to http://www.freshdirect.com/ and near the top right enter your home zip code. After you click Go it will take you to the screen where you can enter your home email and submit it. Hopefully enough people do this.
Loud Electric Saws in the Basketball Court
I just ran into a gentleman that was so disturbed by the saws that he’s had to sleep in another apartment. I myself woke up this morning to sawing so loud it seemed to come from right by my head. I called our architect at L&M and told him we can’t continue this way for the years they’ll be on the job and he agreed. He will contact Technical and work something out. What that something is I don’t know yet but I’ll share it when I do. For now you can all know that we’re not going to let it stay as it is.
Luna Park Co-op @ Coney Island 