Seniors Talk the Talk, Board Says Take a Walk: Condo Controversy Spills into Media
July 27, 2009 —The five of them range in age from 66 to 90. Two are war veterans; one has a Purple Heart. And for years, on and off, some iteration or other has spent an hour or so in the late afternoon chatting in the lobby of the Staten Island condo where they are unit-owners.
In February, however, Thomas Raia, Leroy Tepper, Ron Silver, Thomas Milazzo and Charles Montemaranno (left to right, in photo) each received a $25 fine for violating section 5, article 6 of the Elmwood Park II condo's bylaws, which states: "No one shall play or loiter in the public halls, elevator, vestibules, lobby or stairway of the front entry of the building."
The seniors, disputing the board's definition of loitering, fought back, taking their cause to venues ranging from the Staten Island Advance newspaper to TV's Fox News Channel, and retaining an attorney. In the process, the building has gained a notoriety that one board member says has daunted prospective buyers — and like the case last year of a board fighting to remove a small American flag from a shareholder's door, the controversy illustrates the danger boards face when navigating issues of rules and rights.
"We used to sit out there, talk to people, talk amongst ourselves," says Tepper, 81, who moved to the building within the last couple of years. "Other than me, three or four of them had been sitting out there for years and no one complained." But after a tiff, he says, with board member Joann Goldstein, who used to chat with them, "They said we can't congregate in the lobby because we are violating one of the bylaws of the condo."
Cheryl Ruiz of Wentworth Property Management, managing agent for the two-building complex at Windham Loop in the New Springville neighborhood, counters that residents "have complained about people sitting in the lobby. People who live on the first floor are entitled to their privacy like anybody else. If I had teenagers hanging in that lobby, do you know what would happen?" She additionally says the men open the buzzer-operated doors to let people in. "They claim they didn't do it, but three people attested to it," Ruiz says.
If I had teenagers hanging in that lobby,
do you know what would happen?
"They make comments about all the women's legs and backsides," says one board member with direct knowledge of the situation, who insisted on anonymity. "A bunch of women go through the garage to avoid these men," the board member claims.
Tepper says these claims are untrue or exaggerated. "The people on the first floor signed a petition stating that we don't bother them." The loitering charge only arose, he claims, after he and Goldstein, 55, got into a disagreement and, says the men's attorney, Robert Adinolfi, she "went on a vendetta."
[The board member]
went on a vendetta
"She would come down and talk with us in the summertime when we were outside," says Tepper, "and throw her cigarette butts on the walk. I criticized her, saying she as a board member shouldn't do that. And she got excited and things developed and she told her husband, who came down the next day or so and threatened me. 'I'll kick the living *--* out of you! I wish you were 15 years younger!'"
The board member acknowledges the circumstances. "They had words with [Goldstein]. That's when it all started," the board member recalls. Goldstein "used to sit outside with them at the side of the stoop. Tepper was very rude and arrogant. He stopped [Goldstein] to say sarcastically, 'Congratulations for putting your cigarette out in the planter!'" As for threats by Goldstein's husband, a former police officer, "[He] said, 'If I was 20 years younger I would kick the *--* out of you!' Because [Tepper] had been verbally abusing [Goldstein]."
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The board has not formally responded to the men's claims in the media, and board president John Buday, an architect, was away and unavailable, said the person who answered the phone at his Staten Island office.
In the meantime, the board has come under withering criticism in the media. Columnist Andrea Peyser in The New York Post wrote, "These vintage citizens' civil and human rights have been violated!" Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson also had choice words for the board's behavior when two of the men and Adinolfi appeared on the FNC morning show on July 8. (See the video.)
Attorney Adinolfi says his clients have "filed in the State Supreme Court a lawsuit against the board and the president of the board." Attempts at compromise have been mixed, and the full story contains multiple police responses and claims of physical violence and counterfeit disability permits. The developing story well shows the snowballing effect when boards react poorly — or not at all — to allegations in the public arena.
Follow the story in more detail to its conclusion in HABITAT's November print-magazine feature.
Photo by Eileen Tepper