The Estates at Bayside Owners, Inc. held their annual shareholders meeting on June 10th and while there was not a great number of shareholders in attendance, the meeting was still very informative.

Before the meeting got underway, Bob Friedrich, president of Glen Oaks Village coop complex and currently running as a candidate for New York City Council in the upcoming September 15th Democratic Primary spoke about his passion for coops and its residents.

Bob has a solid record of achievement as a volunteer community leader and president of a 3,000 unit coop complex  located in Eastern Queens.  He successfully fought for and succeeded in gaining the right of shareholders to install 3rd floor dormers in coops reclaiming unused attic space thus enabling families to stay in their coop homes as their families grew.  He also won the right of coop owners to reclaim unused basements for additional family space.  He is running so the tens of thousands of coop owners have a voice of reason and experience on the New York City Council.

Steve Day, president of the Estates at Bayside Owners, Inc. then gave an update on the upcoming plans to replace close to 4,700 old windows with the energy-efficient, insulated, and double pane Pella windows in the 480+ coop units in his complex.  This undertaking will begin with the coop units facing Springfield Blvd. and then move onto other areas.  Efforts will be made to move expeditiously and professionally with the hopes of completing this huge project in 18 to 24 months.

Shareholders brought up the issue of placing their air conditioners in these new windows and various board members mentioned the issue of the warranty of those affected windows being made void if air conditioners are not installed in sleeves rather than the windows themselves.  The board will try to provide one free hole in each apartment so a wall unit can be installed.  Another sleeves/holes will be made available to shareholders at a discounted price.

John Maniec, a shareholder had his windows replaced last September as one of three volunteers so the board could evaluate problems that might develop once the entire project was to be started.  The board learned valuable lessons from these three volunteer installations.  John praised both the board and management team under the supervision of Dominick Signorile  for insuring that the best type of workmanship and highest quality Pella windows were used in his coop unit.  He also indicated that the windows eliminated cold drafts and window shade/blind movements so common during previous winters with his old windows.  Even outside noises were substantially reduced.  Finally, John gave special praise to David Kersey of Imperial Resources, the contractor who oversaw the crew of workers who replace his old windows with new Pella windows.  Dave made sure that John's furniture was not damaged or soiled as the work was done.  Dave repeatedly came either early in the morning or late in the afternoon to make sure the work had been done properly and cleanup of both inside the apartment and outside the unit done well.  David Kersey takes pride in his workmanship and even provided discounted window treatment and air conditioner firms to complete the work done on John Maniec's coop unit.