Friday, August 29, 2014

Guterman Responds



GUTERMAN PARTNERS, LLC

Gerald Guterman
stpcv@gutermanpartners.com

8.26.14
To the STPCV Tenants:
I received the following message in my stpcv email (stpcv@gutermanpartners.com) earlier today;
"We are intrigued by your proposal for PCVST. Our only reservations for joining with you, strong reservations, are your efforts for:
The Community Housing Improvement Program

The Rent Stabilization Association of New York
These organization's very existence is to tear apart middle class communities and rip working people out of their homes.
Please would you tell us how we can trust you to steer us when you are entrenched with those opposing us? I am asking this by email rather than on the STR Blog so you have a chance to address it with us without the Tenant Association using this against you if it is true you are genuine in your intention to help us save our community. Our homes are worth protecting, our community is worth saving. We need help from your expertise and guidance. Would you just clarify this one reservation we have."
Guterman says: To the writer.
I am sure that you found this information within our i-site entitled, "gutermanpartners.com"
This site was produced by and is owned by Guterman Partners and is a true summary of where we have been, what we do and how we do it.
In the interest of full disclosure, a portion of the website contains a fair presentation of my personal background, including a number of organizations that I have had the sincere pleasure of being affiliated with and some organizations that I affiliated with for the sake of business goals.
I can tell you directly, that that about thirty years ago, at the time of my affiliation with The Rent Stabilization Association of New York and The Community Housing Improvement Program, my beliefs were more black and white and I had a "them or us" mentality. In those early years, my prospective concerning responsibilities to others, wasn't yet as developed and my beliefs weren't well shaped. As the years have passed and life has happened, circumstances have modified my beliefs and attitudes.
However, while I my personal beliefs have changed to a degree and my concern for the welfare of tenant families has matured, my basic beliefs have not changed with regard to the continuation of RSA and CHIP. These organizations have been and continue to be necessary, as a force for moderation. The organizations play an important part in the financial protection and stability of owners.
My partners and I are offering a consulting and representation arrangement to the Tenants of STPCV. We believe in the positions previously stated, can be achieved through negotiations with the landlord, or from the Court through litigation. 
We are further convinced, that significant tenant participation (5,000+) will be necessary to accomplish the program we have presented.

Gerald Guterman
stpcv@gutermanpartners.com   

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

Things are ONLY going to change around here is if and when a legitimate owner comes in and straightens things out around here. Everything else is just a waste of time. End of story.

Anonymous said...

I've always found that people in business or in their personal lives only take new directions & new actions when pressed to do so. Based on some recent activities at PCVST, it looks to me as if CW is getting ready to go through some paces to show the place for a sale. My greatest concern is with the fix being in for Fortress. As we hit this pressure point, I think the Guterman offer will look better and better.

Anonymous said...

So is it $10 a month or ? what am I signing off on?

Anonymous said...

Fair enough.
Good question.
Honest answer.
But to have us sign up we need your 100% allegiance because we will be relying on your guidance to help us protect ourselves in our state of siege.
Those organizations are one sided, aggressive, and well funded and not necessarily looking to moderate or balance anything. They are going for the one sided winner take all.
We are coming off two decades of great loss.
And
We have more at stake in this fight then the developers and RE.
plus rather unfortunately we have internal folks operating against us.
Will you be 100% with us so we can be 100% with you?

Anonymous said...

Churned apartments on our floor are now , what seems to be a tattoo parlor. Not sure how they are doing it, but it's a revolving door of 20s, young 20s, in out. I don't even think they are students. I bet that not one of them are a day over 25. Seems to be 3 or 4 at least living in the one bedroom. This is peter cooper.

Anonymous said...

Mr Guterman is not St Theresa. He's a businessman. He's not doing this out of "concern for the welfare of tenant families." He's doing this to try to make a buck. But first he has to claim he represents tenants. Hence the need to get us to sign on the dotted line and paying the $10 membership fee or whatever he's calling it to join his alterna-TA.

Mr Guterman's plan is he's in, he takes a fee, and he's out. The purchased apartments can then be flipped to whoever whenever. Any thought to keeping a percentage of affordable rental units here in ST-PCV would be over.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps we should rally around someone who knows the difference between PROSPECTIVE and PERSPECTIVE. Mr. Gutterman is probably a wonderful guy, but he is NOT the guy to be helping us save our homes. I mean, REALLY.

Anonymous said...

He has exactly the expertise and knowledge we need. Period.

Gerald Guterman said...

To answer Anonymous who said.
"Perhaps we should rally around someone who knows the difference between PROSPECTIVE and PERSPECTIVE. Mr. Gutterman is probably a wonderful guy, but he is NOT the guy to be helping us save our homes. I mean, REALLY.

August 29, 2014 at 7:18 PM

To the writer.

Obviously it is you who is ready to be a spoiler and criticize without actually knowing what you are talking about. It seems to me that you need English lessons and a backbone.

My experience and expertise is a forty-four year proven fact.

Your condescending comments prove nothing except that you are willing to stand on the sidelines with nothing to contribute except anonymous hysteria.

Gerald Guterman

Anonymous said...

I agree. Let's stop chastising and beating up on on Guterman for the moment as we are basically fucked if no one or no entity or legislation steps up to help us.

WE ALL KNOW THIS RIGHT? we are TOTALLY AND ROYALLY screwed if there are no drastic measures taken STAT.

Anonymous said...

7:18
It is clear you are trying to stop Residents from protecting the PCVST community with your petty and irrelevant grammar argument.

A decision to join together and get industry advice from an expert as Mr Guterman will not be based on grammar or any of the idiotic comments desperately trying to convince residents not to get knowledge and insight on the industry from an insider as Mr Guterman. You are trying to hard to convince us not to join - so clearly joining is the best thing we can do to protect PCVST.

His honest answer and background was all I needed to hear.

I am in.

Anonymous said...

Mr Guterman's background is exactly what we need. I appreciate his owning past affiliations and current opinions. Honestly the immaturity of some of the comments to this post are embarrassing i.e. grammar police.

Anonymous said...

7:18 is probably on the ta board. gotta be mindful of those guys and make decisions based on self interest and common sense.

Anonymous said...

Let's stop chastising and beating up on on Guterman for the moment as we are basically fucked if no one or no entity or legislation steps up to help us.

Not sure why G Guterman should get a pass in the chastising and beating up dept. Nobody else does.

Anonymous said...

Geez. Why do so many commenters head for the fainting couch whenever Guterman gets the same kind of treatment that the TA and Garodnick get?

Anonymous said...

August 30, 2014 at 9:04 AM

I notice that you hall monitors come out in force for every Guterman thread.

Anonymous said...

If the hall monitors come out with every Guterman post then clearly there is something to learn from Mr Guterman that will help us that the TA doesn't want us to know about seeing that they are always keeping us in the dark with their secret deals. My new NYU neighbors loudly moved in. The way I see it. We have nothing to lose from meeting with Mr Guterman and everything to gain.

Anonymous said...

So true, we have nothing to lose by listening to mr Guterman. Let's just inquire for now. Lord knows I too am canceling out our current Ta. Veryunhappy with last interaction as they were not helpful at all, downright rude and have been not addressing our lease problem.

Anonymous said...

You cannot trust DHcR . Btdt, good luck all.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Gutterman is a smart and experienced real estate person, no question. But CW Capital is going to ignore him unless he has THOUSANDS of tenants with him....and that will not happen, because PCVST tenants prefer to eat their young rather than actually band together for their own good.

Gerald Guterman said...

Anonmous said...."Mr. Gutterman is a smart and experienced real estate person, no question. But CW Capital is going to ignore him unless he has THOUSANDS of tenants with him....and that will not happen, because PCVST tenants prefer to eat their young rather than actually band together for their own good".

August 31, 2014 at 5:29 PM

Gerald Guterman answers.

You are exactly on target...
the residents of this community will continue to "talk" everything to death (theirs) and never take any action to help themselves.

I have not yet received a sufficient number of Representation Agreements to go forward. I am establishing September 15th as the final date to receive the Agreements. If I have not received a sufficient number of Agreements by that date, I will discontiniue the representation offer.

Gerald Guterman

Anonymous said...

Another real estate mogul who came and left..... the community would be better served to retain its own experts and band together. But that will never happen because 50% are paying very low rents and 50% are paying very high rents. And the two groups hate eachother's guts.

Anonymous said...

Did this Mr. Guterman really think he'd receive 5k replies and sign ups in just a few weeks of summer due to his note on STR board?

Wha?

Anonymous said...

Mr. Guterman, with all due respect, this was the wrong venue to try to reach 5,000 tenants. You were told that more than once here and yet you did nothing to change your approach. Why?

Giovanni said...

Gerald Guterman gets the award for Quote Of The Decade:

"The residents of this community will continue to "talk" everything to death (theirs) and never take any action to help themselves."

He is like the fireman who has offered to help rescue people from a burning building, and all they can do is shout out their windows, "What's in it for me?"

Now the NYU students are coming back in numbers greater than ever, and no doubt CW is closer to closing a deal that will make things worse for everyone than ever, and yet people keep asking, what's in it for them?

As the frog in the pot of water on the stove said right before it began to boil, "The water's great, come on in!"

Just ask yourself these questions: If the naysayers win, and you do nothing, will they be helping you pay your exorbitant rents? Or helping you pack boxes as you are forced to move again? Will the naysayers keep all the NYU students from overrunning the property and turning it into their own personal Animal House?

You already know the answer, and so do they. It's time to do something, or else stop wasting Mr. Gutermans and STR's time with the endless debates that go nowhere.

Anonymous said...

Wow, Mr. Guterman. Nice threat to discontinue your offer if you don't get 5,000 replies in the next two weeks, when the only effort you have made to publicize your offer is on this blog.

Are you really under the impression that 5,000 PCVST tenants read this blog??? No disrepect to STR -- I think this blog is great -- but there is just no way it gets that kind of traffic.

To all of you who thought Guterman would be your white knight, you can forget that, because he is giving up.

Anonymous said...

Mr Guterman has to reach beyond this blog to get more numbers.

Or he could help those he has on one thing then have them tell their numbers of their success and gather more people that way.

Surely someone of his stature could build a following and lead a community who is in need of his expertise. He just has to get the word out and even a small success story case study would work to gather more people to do the same for themselves, and so on and so on.

Its going to take building momentum and fast.

If Mr Guterman helped just one person and they talked about their success that would start the ball rolling. So just help the current list who has joined on one thing and let's get this ball rolling!

Anonymous said...

i agree we are basically FUCKED here but not really much faith in a guy who asked for 11k signatures on an anonymous blog.


dude, really.

Stuy Town Reporter said...

I agree with those who say more has to be done from Mr. Guterman if he wants to get 5,000 signatures--and in two weeks, no less. I don't think there is any STPCV blog or Facebook group, including that of the TA, that has an active participation of 5K members--not even half that number.

Anonymous said...

I think GG knows he isn't going to get 5k people and thus the lack of effort. That is almost every non dorm apartment plus the 500 apartments that are current dues paying TA members. No chance he'll get those numbers. I offered to pay more than the $40/year and he never responded. Seems to me he set this up to fail. Not sure why, perhaps so he can try and be a knight on a white horse who rides in at the end and offers lower coop prices??? Don't see that as a factor, so I am baffled.

Anonymous said...

If Mr Guterman would arrange for his firm to design and post a printable PDF "sell sheet" with the benefits of signing on, well, I would print copies at my cost and slide under the doors of my building.