Dorie Miller Shareholders Alert Information

Dorie Miller Shareholders, It’s Time to Demand Accountability & Expose Those Responsible for Our Governance Crisis.

Dear Fellow Shareholders,

For those of you who may not pay close attention to how your property is managed, I want to bring you up to speed. I pay close attention and document everything that comes my way, and I can tell you—we are in a serious crisis.

Since the six members from Team Legacy were elected to the Board, we have watched as our cooperative has been mismanaged by the Board, Metro Management, and legal counsel. Under Team Legacy’s leadership, headed by the new President, we have had the lowest election rate in modern Dorie Miller history. Since I moved here in 2018, elections have never been held according to our bylaws, and in 2022 and 2024, we had no elections at all.

Our voting rights have been stripped away by a Board that lacks experience, struggles for power, and is getting bad advice from counsel and Metro. They govern and operate by violating our bylaws and abusing their authority, and they are doing so completely unchecked. Metro Management and legal counsel are standing by, allowing this to happen, despite being paid with our maintenance fees to protect our rights.

What Does This Mean for Shareholders?

We are seeing higher maintenance fees, continuous assessments, financial mismanagement, poor property maintenance, and no transparency from leadership.

🔴 Our property is being mismanaged:

Water sprinklers wash parked cars, sidewalks, and building entrances, while the lawns dry up and need reseeding.
Lights were left on for two weeks straight during Roy Curtis Hall renovations, wasting our money.
Holiday lighting extension cords were left as tripping hazards.
Trash and tree branches are left lying around for weeks.
Benches on 34th Avenue are falling apart, while money is wasted elsewhere.

🔴 Our democratic rights are being stripped away:

Four of our Board is unelected and was appointed behind closed doors. Shareholders don’t know who they are, why they were picked, or what their qualifications are. No announcements, no meet and greet—all done in behind closed doors, all we got was the announcement, here are your new board members, unbelievable.
For the first time in our history, shareholders are no longer given hard copies of the Annual Meeting minutes.
Questions submitted in writing by shareholders were censored, with some edited and others completely ignored.
Two meetings were deliberately scheduled on July 4th weekend, when participation would be low.
Another meeting was held outdoors during a heat advisory and poor air quality alert, intentionally preventing elderly and disabled shareholders from attending.
The Board and Metro interfered with the 2025 Shareholder Meeting request, labeling it a ‘private meeting’ to control how it is promoted and to charge a rental fee of $450 for 3 hours.

🔴 Board, Metro, and legal counsel are protecting each other instead of protecting shareholders:

Metro and the Board work together to block shareholder meetings.
Legal counsel protects the Board instead of ensuring bylaws are followed.
Shareholders who speak up are harassed, intimidated, and retaliated against.

This is not just incompetence. This is an intentional effort to suppress shareholder participation and stay in power without accountability.

What Has Been Happening & Why You Should Be Concerned

1. Board Violations & Bylaw Noncompliance

Our cooperative’s bylaws require an Annual Shareholders Meeting to be held on the last Monday of March. However, year after year, the Board has ignored this rule.

🔴 This year, the Annual Meeting is scheduled for April 7, 2025—again in violation of our bylaws, which proves that the newly selected Board members are already failing to comply with the bylaws.

Additionally:

In 2022 & 2024, no elections were held. Your right to vote was taken away.
One-third of our Board is unelected, appointed in secrecy. These individuals were put in place without your vote, without your input, and without any disclosure of their qualifications.
Two current Board members were identified by legal counsel as responsible for the foreclosure proceedings, yet they still make major financial decisions.
We now have a Board majority consisting of unelected members and individuals with a history of bad financial decisions. This is a disaster waiting to happen.

Placing our trust in the Team Legacy members was a huge mistake. Not only did they take advantage of our trust, but they put our cooperative at serious risk by allowing this corruption to continue unchecked. If shareholders don’t wake up, we will end up in another crisis just like the foreclosure proceedings.

2. Metro Management’s Failures & Interference

Since Metro Management was hired in April 2020, they have:

❌ Failed to ensure bylaw compliance by allowing the Board to ignore election rules.
❌ Allowed misinformation to spread. In 2022, a false "Annual Meeting" was advertised on July 4th weekend, where legal counsel promised an official meeting in the fall—it never happened.
❌ Blocked shareholder organizing efforts by refusing to allow us to hold shareholder meetings in the community space.
❌ Allowed unsafe conditions & financial waste to continue unchecked.

Metro’s job is to manage the property and protect shareholders, but instead, they enable the Board’s corruption.

3. Legal Counsel’s Role in Protecting the Board, Not Shareholders

Hankin & Mazel, the Board’s legal counsel, is paid with our maintenance fees, yet they serve the Board, not shareholders.

🔴 They have:

Allowed bylaw violations to continue.
Failed to enforce election rules, protecting the Board’s power.
Ignored shareholder rights by failing to provide meeting minutes.
Issued a false harassment accusation against me without evidence, refused to answer when I requested proof, and ignored my offer to apologize if they could show evidence of wrongdoing.

Legal counsel is being used as a weapon to silence shareholders, not to protect them.

What We Have Done to Fight Back

✅ We formally demanded answers from Metro Management, and they failed to comply with the deadline.
✅ Legal counsel has been notified and must respond by March 19, 2025.
✅ The Board will be formally notified the week of March 19, 2025, and given a deadline to respond.
✅ These questions must be answered in writing and placed on the April 7, 2025, Annual Meeting agenda.

If They Fail to Comply, the Following Steps Will Be Taken

🔴 Formal Complaints & Investigations:

A formal complaint has been filed with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) against Metro Management.
A request for investigation has been submitted to the New York Attorney General’s Office for governance violations.

🔴 Escalation to Government & Legal Authorities:
The Board, Counsel and Metro are given a fair opportunity to make the necessary adjustment, which is more than what shareholders get. But, if Metro, the Board, and legal counsel continue ignoring these demands, further action will be taken:

Newspapers, TV New York 1, The Cooperative News, Coop Expo and online media outlets will be contacted to expose these violators and companies responsible.
The Queens Borough President’s Office will be notified of governance failures and shareholder suppression.
A formal complaint will be filed with the New York Bar Association, requesting an investigation into legal counsel’s misconduct.

Here is your chance to do it right Board

Conclusion: It’s Time to Take Action

Shareholders, if we do nothing, nothing will change. Remember Foreclosure?
🔹 Your voting rights will continue to be ignored.
🔹 Your maintenance fees and assessments will keep increasing.
🔹 The Board will remain in power, unchallenged.

If you care about the future of Dorie Miller, you need to demand change, otherwise your property value will by way below market price for generations to come.

Sincerely,
Wolfgang Busch
Shareholder, Dorie Miller Housing Cooperative
📧 WolfBnyc@gmail.com

🔴 This is not about one person—this is about ALL OF US. If we stay silent, we will lose everything. It’s time to demand accountability! 🚨