DEALING WITH DISSIDENTS, P.2

Richard Dattner, an architect who served on the board's architects and engineers committee at the time of the wall collapse, observes: "If you've ever been on a co-op board, there is always disagreement. There are always people who subscribe to the theory that there's some plot and people on the board are making money from this. [The dissidents] said the engineering [of the new wall] should be a group decision. I said, 'Look, you can vote for a candidate in a political election, but you can't vote on an engineering procedure, just like you can't vote on how your doctor takes out your appendix.'"

Rather than establishing a watchdog group, attorney Weisberg urges disgruntled shareholders and unit-owners to work within existing bylaws and proprietary leases to remove board members whom they deem unsatisfactory. Better yet, she says, dissidents should run for the board themselves.

To fight off the petition drive at Castle Village, Fingerhut and fellow board members relied on two tried-and-true tools: information and communication. "The most important thing is to gain the trust of the majority of the shareholders," Fingerhut says. "You do that by putting out information and meeting regularly. We kept people unbelievably well-informed about what was going on. We held many informational meetings during the wall reconstruction, and still hold one or two informational meetings a year in addition to our annual meeting."

The drive to oust the directors ultimately failed, and Fingerhut believes the board has finally won the confidence of most shareholders. But, as Dattner notes, disagreement is a fact of life for anyone serving on a New York City co-op or condo board. "That," agrees Fingerhut, "is the nature of the beast."

Adapted from Habitat June 2009. For the complete article and more, join our Archive >>