Responding to the Board

In March 2026, the Board distributed a notice on official Fordham Hill Owners Corporation letterhead, co-signed by First Service Residential management, warning shareholders that our campaign emails "may present serious cybersecurity and privacy risks" including "embedded malware," "phishing attempts," "data harvesting schemes," "identity harvesting," and "signature collection manipulation."

No malware. No phishing. No data harvesting. No identity theft. The campaign collects signatures through a secure, commercially available electronic signature platform used by businesses worldwide. Every signature is voluntarily provided by individual shareholders who choose to support the petition.

The Board used your maintenance dollars to print and distribute these defamatory accusations on corporate letterhead. Not to tell you about the $167,000 left in reserves. Not to explain the $54 million in debt. Not to update you on the buildings without gas. They did it to scare you away from reading emails from a fellow shareholder who is asking questions they don't want answered.

Beyond written notices, the Board has publicly attempted to intimidate shareholders who question their leadership. At the February 2026 shareholder meeting, Board President Matthew Mbamelu stated on the record that the Board "want[s] to discourage misinformation" and warned there may be "policy measures" and "stronger measures" taken to address what he called "egregious" allegations. He even threatened to "take it outside" the community.

The Board's "Governance Transparency Packet" also falsely characterized our lawful Special Meeting campaign as "targeting residents and seniors." This language was calculated to frighten elderly and vulnerable shareholders into revoking their proxies by casting a legal, democratic petition as predatory conduct.

We have sent a formal Cease and Desist demand to the Board, Management, and Corporate Counsel demanding they stop using corporate resources to spread defamatory claims and intimidate shareholders who are simply exercising their rights under New York State law.

The Board's notice states: "The Corporation did not release, authorize the release of, or permit access to any shareholder email addresses or telephone numbers."

This is true, and yet is also deliberately misleading. Here is what actually happened:

1. Mario, as a shareholder, submitted a formal request under New York State Business Corporation Law Section 624 for the shareholder list, which the corporation is legally required to provide.
2. The Board fought this request and required Mario to retain legal counsel and file a court action to compel compliance.
3. Only when the matter was approaching a court hearing did the Board comply, providing the shareholder list of names and mailing addresses just days before the hearing, to avoid a court ruling against them.
4. Email addresses were obtained separately through commercially available data append services, the same tools used by businesses, nonprofits, and political campaigns every day. These services match names and addresses to publicly available contact information through licensed data brokers.

No information was "stolen." No systems were "hacked." No privacy was breached. The Board spent more energy (and your money) fighting a lawful records request than it would have taken to simply comply with the law.

The Board has now spent shareholder funds on multiple printed notices, each one focused on discrediting a fellow shareholder's campaign rather than addressing the issues that campaign raises.

Under New York law, co-op boards are generally not permitted to use corporate funds to fight internal election battles or distribute partisan campaign materials. Our maintenance dollars are meant to fix the buildings, pay the staff, and service the debt. They are not meant to fund a board's fight against a shareholder petition. Yet, while the corporation is in financial disarray, they are spending our money on exactly that.

Ask yourself: if the finances were in good shape, if the reserves weren't depleted, if the bylaws were being followed, if the Board had nothing to hide, would they be improperly spending our money this aggressively to stop you from hearing from a fellow shareholder?