Summary of Sept. 26, 2018 General Tenants Meeting

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Come to our annual Trick or Treat for the Tenant Association table on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018.  Rosa Delgado in Apt .2T will take candy contributions in advance.

Get your flu (and pneumonia and shingles) vaccines. If you have insurance, they’re generally free at the RiteAid, CVS, and Duane Reade.  If you lack insurance, ask our local Assembly Member Daniel O'Donnell's office if there will be free shots offered. 

STATE ELECTIONS

Six out of 8 members of the Independent Democrat Conference, which caucused with the Republicans in the State Senate, were defeated in the Sept. 13^th primaries. With them out of the way, actual Democratic control of the State Senate is possible, depending on November 6th elections. That will affect bills we can get passed when the rent laws are renewed in June 2019. Those bills include tenant costs for MCIs, and whether owners can continue to take vacant apartments out of rent stabilization.  If they couldn't they'd be less motivated to try to get stabilized tenants out, and there would be more stabilized apartments for younger people.  We'll have a meeting on this later. 

SUBMETERING MCI (Major Capital Improvement)

After 6 years, we lost our motion for reconsideration at the state's housing agency.  If we don't appeal, Stellar will bill the tenants of each rent stabilized apartment a one-time retroactive amount of $72.48 per room for 8 months, under the DHCR order. That comes to:

• $217.44 for a one-bedroom apartment
• $289.92 for a two-bedroom apartment
• $362.40 for a three-bedroom apartment.

Since no tenant can be billed more than a 6% increase for an MCI each year, your rent bill would temporarily go up by no more than 6% until that amount is fully paid, and then it would come off your rent bill.

BALCONY REPAIR

Stellar is hoping the rear balconies will all be completed by some time in November when cold weather halts the work. (Concrete doesn’t set well in cold weather.) Once the balconies are inspected, the scaffolding will be removed and in the Spring installed in front of the building. Tenants  must remove everything from the balconies being worked on.

TRASH TALK with the dynamic Jacquelyn Ottman.   

What’s the big deal?

$$$!! In 2018, $440 million of our tax dollars are being spent to pick up garbage and send it out of state for incineration or burial in a landfill. (Both are banned in NYC for poisoning our air and soil.)  

IF we recycle more, the city will make more money selling the recyclables and spend less on exporting it. We’ll have more money for other programs we want and need. So NYC is trying for no waste sent to landfills or incineration by 2030.  Quicker road repairs, anyone? More money for schools, parks, and more?

 

Wikimedia Commons

The environment:  Decomposing food in landfills sends out methane gas that heats the climate. (Methane heats 25 times more than carbon dioxide.)

By recycling food waste, NYC can heat homes instead of the climate. 

But I’m so busy, and I just got home from work with a pizza and . . . .

New time: 8:15 PM for Talking Trash meeting this Wed., Sept. 26, 2018

WHAT HAPPENS TO MY TRASH??!

Hear Jacquelyn Ottman 

of the 

Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board 

TALK TRASH
at our next

General Tenants Meeting

Wed., Sept. 26, 2018 at 8:15 PM (new time!)

in the Community Room.

To learn something about the topic in advance, check out

NY Times: How New York Is Turning Food Waste Into Compost and Gas.

We'll also talk about building issues and (a little) about the past election. 

Bring a friend!

Wed. Sept. 26 - General Tenants Meeting at 8:15

Let's not feed the NYC Trash Monster.

Hear Jacquelyn Ottman of the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board talk trash at our next

General Tenants Meeting

Wed., Sept. 26 at 8:15 PM

in the Community Room.

To learn something about the topic in advance, check out

NY Times: How New York Is Turning Food Waste Into Compost and Gas.

We'll also talk about building issues and (a little) about the past election. 

Bring a friend!

Trash talk: Where does our garbage go, and how can we make things better?

Hear Jacquelyn Ottman, a member of the 

Max Pixel image

Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board* 

TALK TRASH:

 Where it goes 

    How that affects us

        What we can do about it.

at our next GENERAL 
TENANTS MEETING

Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2018 at 8 PM

in the Community Room.

Refreshments (of course).  Bring a friend and a neighbor!

________________________

*The Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board (MSWAB) – a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization – is a joint creation of the City Council and the Borough President, dedicated to increasing recycling, reducing solid waste, and advancing solid waste policy in New York City. The Board is composed of waste and recycling industry experts and concerned citizens, nominated by sitting Board members or Council Members and appointed by the Manhattan Borough President’s Office.