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Rudd Reality

In April 2005, a "gut feeling" compelled the then-President of our Board of Directors to select a new management company. In the memo distributed to shareholders to make this announcement, he referred to this company as "Rudd REALITY". In line with our hope to publish "reality", we welcome responses and clarifications from Directors, Neighbors, and Rudd Realty staff.

Several copies of a 25-page report submitted by Director Eric Mandelbaum to his fellow Directors have found their way to SPBuzz. This report presents details of Rudd Realty's performance — or rather, lack of performance — on a host of issues that pertain to the management of our corporation. The preamble of this report, quoted below, is an unambiguous declaration that Rudd Realty is not serving the needs of our corporation:

There has been much discussion about RRMC, their service, their priorities, and their performance. With this report, I hope to clarify RRMC’s relation to many of the problems we have here at SPHC. In my opinion, the problems illustrated in these pages are striking, and RRMC has showed disdain when presented with them. For this reason I firmly believe that it is up to this Board of Directors to take a suitable action that goes beyond palliative measures such as asking RRMC yet again to comply with our instructions.

The report goes on to document Rudd's failures with regard to many of the issues that confront us, including screenings, shareholder databases, filing, sales data, maintenance billing, Shabbos elevators, storage rooms, garage billing, bike rooms, work orders, steam trap replacement, electrical billing, the SPHC website, direct deposit, payroll, and more. In each instance, Mr. Mandelbaum presents that Rudd Realty has been ambivalent, ineffective or outright obstructive with regard to addressing the issues. [Discussion of individual issues will be presented later in this series.] Apart from this list of topics, what is most striking about this report is a single theme: the claim that Rudd Realty is regularly disinterested and often opposed to carrying out valid instructions, given by our Directors, whose purpose is to improve the lives of SPHC residents.

SPBuzz played a role in documenting one of these instances in November 2006. Our Board, recognizing Rudd Realty's non-action with regard to maintaining our intercom directories, decided to take over the task of producing them. In line with this, Mr. Mandelbaum requested that Mike Rubin, Rudd's Director of Operations, provide him with a current list of shareholders. Mr. Mandelbaum reports that Mr. Rubin refused this request on the grounds that it was illegal to provide such a list. This is obviously not true — business corporation law clearly indicates that any shareholder of any corporation is entitled to lists of shareholders. Ultimately, Mr. Rubin conceded the point — and awarded Mr. Mandelbaum with a shareholder list for just one of our four buildings. Fairly interpreting this response as obstruction, Mr. Mandelbaum turned to SPBuzz's Dan Strum for help. Mr. Mandelbaum continued to press Rudd Realty for the list of shareholders, while Mr. Strum simultaneously made his own request. Sure enough, Mr. Strum was given a full list, while Mr. Mandelbaum still waits to receive his.

There are other instances of obstruction documented in Mr. Mandelbaum's report. To wit (emphasis added):

Although we have asked for this at every meeting, apartments that we are asked to vote on fail to include whether seller has storage, parking...

¶ We are not provided with comparable sales data, despite repeated requests...

¶ But we still have no [PC-TV] hookup despite being promised it a year ago...

¶ Everyone knows that one of RRMC's responsibilities is to supply me (our webmaster) with electronic versions of all notices that go under doors or on bulletin boards. They have failed to do this 90% of the time....

All sorts of problems are to be expected when managing a corporation of our size. Although the specific issues that make up the bulk of Mr. Mandelbaum's report are of great concern, the underlying questions of attitude and responsibility need to be considered as well. These are issues that pertain to the quality of life of our neighbors and revenue for our corporation. If our management won't address these problems, who will?