Category Archives: News

2020 Board Candidates

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This year five candidates are vying for four open seats on the Seward Park Cooperative Board of Directors. The candidates are:

#1 – Michael Tumminia
#2 – Karen Suss Wolfson
#3 – Darcey Gerstein
#4 – Adam Cohen
#5 – Carol Anastasio

Karen, Darcey, and Carol are all incumbents seeking reelection.  The fourth seat is being vacated by Dave Pearson, who served for three years. Michael previously served on the board, including as president. Adam is new to the co-op’s electoral politics.

The election will be held on June 17, 2020.  We have not yet heard whether there will be in-person voting this year or whether all voting will be conducted by mail and online due to the pandemic.

2019 Seward Spark Board Endorsements

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Seward Spark’s 2019 endorsements again come from Micah Arbisser, who publishes the Seward Spark, and Kate Nammacher, who recently served on the Board as a director, president, and treasurer.

The field of candidates this year is by far the smallest in recent memory, but the race remains competitive.  Wei-Li Tjong, Darshan Somashekar, and Betsy Jacobson are the candidates who will continue to ask hard questions and seek good answers in the Boardroom, while maintaining civility and helping the Board to do its incredibly important (and often underappreciated) work.

#1 Wei-Li Tjong – Wei has served multiple terms on the Board and has an excellent record of voting for progress tempered by affordability concerns.  He grew up in the co-op and has strong relationships with generations of cooperators. He’s a smart lawyer with highly relevant professional knowledge and gets along well with everyone in the Boardroom.

#2 Darshan Somashekar – Darshan is a first time candidate and relatively new to the co-op but has lived in the neighborhood for almost 10 years. He brings a fresh young perspective, a genuine desire to serve the community, and technology and business skills that will enable him to make a very real, substantive contribution as a Director. Everyone who meets him seems extremely impressed.

#3 Betsy Jacobson – Betsy’s work puts her in daily contact with many of our senior residents, and she is friendly with a number of cooperators who are not particularly friendly with most other Directors. She has therefore become an indispensable Board member, giving voice to those folks’ thoughts and concerns in a challenging but constructive manner, while bringing her own positive energy and intelligence to almost every Board matter. The Seward Spark did not endorse Betsy three years ago, but seeing her track record while on the board, we do so with high confidence this year.

Whether or not you agree that these candidates are the best, please exercise your shareholder right to vote on Tuesday, June 11!

Your neighbors,

Micah Arbisser
Seward Spark Publisher

Kate Nammacher
Former SPC Director, President and Treasurer

2019 Board Candidates

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Only four candidates will compete this year for three seats on the Seward Park Cooperative Board of Directors. The candidates are:

#1 Wei-Li Tjong
#2 Darshan Somashekar
#3 Betsy Jacobson
#4 Arnold Sandler

Wei-Li and Betsy are incumbents.  The third seat is being vacated by James Mastroianni, who served a single term during which he worked very hard on the air rights and mortgage refinancing matters, among other projects.  Arnold is waging his fourth consecutive campaign to win a seat on the board.  Darshan is a first-time candidate.

This is the smallest candidate field we have seen in a board election for at least 15 years.

More to come…

The people have spoken, and they said no

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As The Lo-Down, Bowery Boogie, The Real Deal, and Crain’s have already reported, only 690 out of the 1,227 participants in Tuesday’s vote said yes, which is 128 short what was needed for the deal to pass.

It will be interesting to see if the developers conclude that there is no way to get a deal passed, or whether they’ll do more market research to see if there are changes to their plans (perhaps scaling them down a little?) that might turn around 128+ votes if the developers and Board go back to the negotiating table.  Given that the vote fell considerably short of the needed two-thirds, however, the developers may conclude that we will never approve any deal and simply move forward with their as-of-right construction plan (whatever it might be).

A few air rights fact-checks – Round 2

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Advocate both for and against the air rights deal have been working overtime to generate fliers.

Here are some corrections to a few of the more misleading statements we’ve seen.  There will likely be more to come.

"It's the total mass" flierThis flier is mostly accurate. We tend to agree that one 28-story building is the most likely as-of-right alternative to the deal. But the flier places the 28-story building on the wrong lot. Due to “setback” requirements, we do not believe it is possible to build 28 stories on the corner lot (even the “with air rights” plans don’t call for a 28 story building on that lot).  Perhaps not coincidentally, a 28-story building on the correct lot would cast a shadow with almost exactly the same impact on Rainbow Park as the “with air rights” scenario.
"2 buildings no matter what"This flier has a few issues (common to most of its numerous cousins as well):

  • As was pointed out by an opposition flier, the scale of the two photos is different.
  • The statement that two buildings are happening “no matter what” is inaccurate.  It’s a possible scenario, but we believe the single 28-story tower on the eastern lot to be the most likely as-of-right scenario (which, ironically, would make the impact of the YES vs. NO scenarios less disparate).
  • The $53 million figure is pre-tax, so the co-op won’t actually benefit to the tune of $53 million (we believe the $39 million after-tax estimate is more meaningful).
"37' from building 2"In no circumstance will the air rights towers be 37′ from building 2.  The shortest distance from the corner of building 2 to the Bialystoker lot line is about 60′.  The new buildings won’t be any closer to the F section (and only 12 feet closer to the C section) than the old East Broadway Medical Associates building.  The shortest distance between an F section window and the new buildings will be about 20% farther than the distance between the F section and the E section.
 "questions and some answers"This is the most egregiously misleading flier we have seen so far.  It incorrectly states that we will “permanently give up our access to a strip of our open space,” that we wont’ know how big they can build if say YES until after the deal is done, and that a successor owner would not be legally bound to abide by our contract if Ascend sells to someone else.

2018 Seward Spark Board Endorsements

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This year’s Seward Spark endorsements again come from Micah Arbisser, who publishes the Seward Spark, and Kate Nammacher, who recently served on the Board as a director, president, and treasurer.

After reviewing the candidates’ biographies, hearing their presentations at Meet the Candidates, and reviewing the records of those who have already served, we believe the following four candidates stand out for their high levels of engagement, knowledge, optimism, and professionalism.

#1 Aaron Fineman, #4 Doron Stember, and #6 Erica Cullmann – The incumbents this year are among the most hard-working, thoughtful, effective directors in the co-op’s recent memory.  They absolutely deserve reelection. Erica, Doron, and Aaron have led us through a challenging period where they raised revenue from non shareholder sources, overhauled our budgeting process to make it more stable, expanded access to amenities, and were responsive to shareholder concerns and alternative Boardroom viewpoints.  They also toiled for 17 months to bring the best possible air rights deal to a shareholder vote, while presenting detailed and balanced information about the deal.

#2 Sidney Goudie – From Sid’s first days in Seward Park, he has demonstrated a deep commitment to our community.  Sid is well known for his friendly presence in the E section, and can often be found engaging neighbors with questions about our collective home in an effort to understand the issues from all perspectives.  He is someone who can naturally find common ground on the most pressing matters facing our co-op. Sid also has a strong finance background and focuses on long-term preservation of capital. He wants to apply his financial expertise to the co-op’s budgeting and fiscal management strategies and would be an extremely valuable Board member.

Whether or not you agree that these candidates are the best, please exercise your shareholder right to vote!

Your neighbors,

Micah Arbisser
Seward Spark Publisher

Kate Nammacher
Former SPC Director, President and Treasurer

Breaking: Air Rights Sale to be on June 2018 Ballot

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Today the co-op circulated the official announcement of the air rights sale by e-mail.  Since the last communications, there have been two key changes:

  1. The sale price was increased by over $5MM, which has been ear-marked for a 4-month total maintenance holiday for shareholders.
  2. The Board has decided to unanimously endorse a YES vote on the referendum.

We will have further analysis and opinions on the sale in the coming days…

Liquor Store Update

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Following up on our prior post about the State Liquor Authority denying Seward Park Liquors’ request to move their license to Ludlow Street, we have confirmed that there was in fact an outstanding violation for selling to minors.  That violation appears to have been resolved on January 28, when Seward Park Liquors paid a $6,500 fine (see page 63 of this document).

According the SLA’s website, on January 24 both VinFamily (the would-be new liquor store) resubmitted their application for a new license at 393 Grand, and Seward Park Liquors resubmitted their “removal” (i.e. new location) application.  Both applications are scheduled to be reviewed by the full SLA board on April 4.