Newsletter 143

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350 BLEECKER STREET NEWSLETTER #143
November 4, 2001

LANDSCAPE PLAN

On the other side of this page is Ron Walker's landscaping plan for the Bleecker Street planters. Ron Walker is a landscape architect adept at working with small spaces. His plan fee was $480. A full-size copy is posted in the display case outside the mail room, and another full-size copy was given to Mary Sculley (apt LJ), acting as head of the Design Board. The height of each plant is shown, except for the ground cover in front of the shop windows. If you have any comments or suggestions, please contact Mark Lilien, 3E, (212) 929 4619. Our goal is to bid this to several nurseries shortly, so that installation can be done before Thanksgiving. All plants have leaves year-round. The list is:

EFC	Red Wintercreeper	2 Ľ inch pots	MS	Star Magnolia	5 to 6 ft
EKM	Manhattan Euonymous	4 to 5 ft	PL	Zabel Laurel	2 to 3 ft
INS	Nellie Stevens Holly	6 to 7 ft	VR	Leatherleaf Viburnum	4 to 5 ft
ICB	Dwarf Buford Holly	4 to 5 ft	ND	Heavenly Bamboo	3 to 4 ft
LM	Lilyture	gallon pots	PLS	Schip Laurel	4 to 5 ft

THANK YOU, ARMANDA SQUADRILLI

Armanda Squadrilli, 1J, ran a "meet the candidates" night on October 30th. Twenty-one people attended, including 9 of the 13 candidates. Some of the information shown in Armanda's write-up was going to be part of this Newsletter. To save paper, it can now be omitted (section 6 on page 4, having to do with legal fees and the 80/20 tax rule, and page 9, which is the history of our cash position, going back to 1986). This information will added to the web site later this week.

KEN'S LEGAL FEES

Ken Newman claims that the co-op owes him approximately $270,000 in legal fees, due to the loss in the lower court of the garage lawsuit, but no documentation of this amount has been received by the co-op. Eventually, a federal judge will have to decide if the amount is reasonable. The co-op's expenses were approximately $75,000, so the $270,000 is being questioned. Judges often reduce legal fee requests substantially. Our attorney reported an 80% reduction in a recent case. Ken still owes the co-op $114,000 from the store lease.

NEGOTIATIONS

Ken requested that all negotiations go from the co-op's lawyer to his lawyer. On October 30, the board again offered to pay half the cost of a neutral mediator ($3,000 to $6,000 total), but Ken declined. When people are seriously committed to ending a dispute, professional mediation can bring agreement when other efforts fail. It can certainly improve communication.

On October 30, Ken offered the co-op a settlement. In summary, he offered to drop his undocumented legal fee demand if the co-op will drop its demand for the garage. The board believes that Ken mailed his offer to all shareholders. To see a complete copy, please go to the co-op's web site [www.350bleecker.com/newsletters/html/142p1.html], or ask any board member to print it out for you. In past negotiations, Ken required a confidentiality agreement, so these exchanges could not be publicized.

After considering Ken's best and final offer, the board will present it to the non-sponsor shareholders for a secret ballot vote. Since it is not clear how long the negotiation will take, this date hasn't been set.

In the meantime, the co-op filed the Notice of Appeal. As stated in Newsletter #141, if the co-op remains dissatisfied, the attorneys will need to start legal work on the appeal by November 20th.

Newsletter #142 Acrobat file Return to archive Newsletter #144