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LOTS of people brought delicious desserts: Thanks to Elsa Gonzalez for her guava and dulce de leche cupcakes, to Joan Browne for her brownies, to Letty Orellano for her bread pudding, to Namita Prasad for her pakoras, to Steve Koulish for mixed fruit, to Sekhar Ramakrishnan for clementines, to Laurie & Nicole Barton and Alan Fox and others for cookies, and more! So we had a sweet meeting to go with our coffee & tea (thanks Denis Hayward!).
See you all on Feb. 1st!
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Save the date: OUR VALENTINE FUNDRAISER will be on Saturday, February 1, 2025, in the lobby, thanks to Rosa Delgado and Debbie Gonzalez.
Johntex, CC BY-SA 3.0
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
Please donate individually-wrapped sweets to Rosa in 2T. As usual, we'll have great information for tenants, good music and good company. Plan to pick up some sweets for your sweetie - and you can even pay your tenant association dues ($10/year).
Get a ticket for the March 14, 2025 benefit performance of Augusta by playwright/actor Renée Flemings for the Emma L. Bowen Community Service Center, which provides mental health and related services in Harlem. The Bowen Center is chaired by Patricia Jordan, of our tenant association executive committee, and its treasurer is Ray von Dohren, who is also on our executive committee. When a tenant is performing a great service for the community, others hop on that bandwagon. The Bowen Center has also helped some of our tenants.
FINANCIAL REPORT: Treasurer Barbara Geller reported on our income and expenses - and that tenants in more apartments are joining us.
LARGER TENANT ISSUES: Housing Justice for All - and its member groups - (including our tenant association) are supporting a RENT FREEZE (instead of rent hike) from the Rent Guidelines Board this year. That means
- Sign the petition so all Mayoral Candidates promise to appoint only RGB members who will support a rent freeze.
- As we voted at the meeting: Our tenant association has signed onto a petition for organizations urging mayoral candidates to support a rent freeze.
- Sign up for Housing Justice for All's citywide canvass launch on February 1 to talk to neighbors about how we can win a rent freeze.
TENANT ASSOCIATION ELECTION: Since there were no contested seats and no additional people chose to run for the Board, we voted by acclamation and all the existing officers and board members were re-elected.
Executive Committee:
President: Sue SusmanVice Presidents: Jodi Brockington, Pat Jordan, Steve Koulish, Ray von DohrenSecretary: Denis HaywardTreasurer: Barbara Geller
Additional Board members: Rosa Delgado, Ayana Dixon, Debbie Gonzalez, Alex Martin, Alec Merber, Letty Orellano, Bones Rodriguez, Maxine Soares.
CITY ELECTIONS: All 51 Councilmembers, all 5 borough presidents, the NYC Comptroller and the Public Advocate, and 2 District Attorneys (of 5) are up for election this year.
Deadline for changing your registration: February 14, 2025Primaries: June 24, 2025Election: Oct. 25-November 4.
We're hoping to host a mayoral panel here, probably on March 6th in the evening. Stay tuned.
BUILDING ISSUES
Heat:
- Ask Sako to try to fix your radiator if you're not getting enough heat.
- Close the bathroom door.
- Cover your air conditioner(s).
- Do NOT use an extension cord if you're using a heater.
- Sako said that Stellar would deduct something from the electric bill for 15th floor tenants who were using a heater to get up to the legal minimum temperature - but we have not been able to get any details.
See you all on Feb. 1st!