Newsletters or No? A Myriad of Ways Co-op / Condo Boards Can Communicate
May 10, 2011 — It started two years ago, when John Gebhard and his fellow board members at the 140-50 Burden Crescent cond-op in Jamaica, Queens, were discussing how to keep down costs in the building. One suggestion was individual water meters, so that each apartment paid for its own water usage. But while the idea was still in its infancy, one resident got wind of it, and soon there were ad hoc meetings in the lobby.
The board had let its hold on communication slip away — and the result could have been disastrous miscommunication that might have strangled the idea in its crib. Fortunately, when heard about the sessions from an employee, he didn't panic. He prepared.
At the annual meeting last October, he began with humor, thanking the shareholder who had spread the news of the water metering "for getting us this great turnout." The board president then went through a detailed PowerPoint presentation, explaining rising costs in the building and possible ways to meet them. At the end of the session, he was reelected to his third term. (The idea of water metering is still under consideration, however.)
Gebhard's experience shows there are right ways to communicate with shareholders and wrong ways. Yet while Gebhard believes in passing on information — twice a year he dispatches a letter to all the shareholders with a list of items on the board's agenda — he feels that there should be limits.
"I think there are some things that you have to provide information [about] at the appropriate time," he says. Ideas in early discussion should not be "put out for general consumption until such time as the board has done its due diligence." If there is some pressing issue, he's more than happy to take time to put his thoughts down on paper, he says. But, "I'm not really anxious to undertake the work of a monthly newsletter," and is looking into having a building website created as a communication tool instead.
Need for a Newsletter?
There are other ways to communicate than a newsletter. Every year, the shareholders at the 205 East 10th Street cooperative in Manhattan ask for a monthly newsletter and every year, says board president Don Warshaw, the board puts out an open call for shareholders to work on one — and no one steps up. With eight projects currently going on in the building — from façade work to an elevator rehab to a new laundry room being installed, along with unit alteration applications — the board members are too busy to write, edit and distribute newsletters themselves, Warsaw says.
That doesn't mean shareholders don't know what's going on in his building. They can reach the board or the management company at the building's e-mail address, and those shareholders who have provided the board with their e-mails are kept up-to-date on all the public projects.
For those residents who don't use e-mail, the board typically sends out notices with the monthly maintenance bill, alerting all shareholders to any forthcoming project or pressing issue. The management company, Bell Realty, takes care of the mailings, says Warsaw, who estimates it costs about $20 a month in postage and photocopying to reach all 30. "[W]e try to encourage them to write to management with general issues, because management always copies us. We want to give board members some privacy, so they can be neighbors and not board members."
Big Projects, More News
But the newsletter per se is not dead. The board at Manhattan's 400-unit 165 West End Avenue Owners Corporation, a co-op with six elected directors, uses a newsletter and other methods to communicate. Don Asch, the board president, says board members are diligent about listening to the residents. To that end, shareholders are allowed to attend the public portion of its monthly board meetings and there is a 90-minute question-and-answer session in the lobby three times a year, separate from the annual meeting, to update shareholders on what's going on.
Typically, about 75 to 100 people come, and as you would expect, there are those who want to raise their voice or hold forth for a long period of time. Managing that is "part of what you have to do" as a board member, maintains Asch.
The board also sends out a newsletter – in this case a one- to three-page summary of what the board is working on -- delivered via hard copy under residents' doors and through the building's website.
All these different efforts, says Asch, make for a happier building. It's "much, much better" to have complaints and questions aired than to let shareholders stew, he notes. "As uncomfortable as it might seem, you need to over-communicate. You need to listen to what shareholders are saying."
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