Welcome to my candidacy blog for Seth Greenspan

My name is Seth Greenspan, and I am running for Shore Towers Board. Please watch this blog for updates, information, position statements, and a conversation about Shore Towers.

My LinkedIn profile may be found at www.linkedin.com/in/theseth

My position statement as candidate is as follows:

My parents were native Brooklynites who escaped to Connecticut in the sixties. When I returned to New York in 1996, I chose Astoria as my home, living on 18^th Street, practically in the shadow of Shore Towers, until I purchased here three years ago.

I worked in the entertainment industry since cutting my teeth as a child television actor in the 80’s. I preferred being behind the camera, studying filmmaking at NYU’s prestigious school before entering this challenging field, eventually meeting with enough success that I was able to buy in Shore Towers.

For several years in the late 90’s, I was the Director of Saks Fifth Avenue’s in-house multimedia department. We created videos for advertising, POS and window displays that carried respectable budgets. I was also responsible for several national and regional conventions that required extensive planning that included union, facilities and vendor negotiating, and fiscally responsible project management on multi-million dollar budget events. All were brought in under budget and above expectations.

Currently, I wear a number of hats. In addition to working full-time at CNN, I also own and operate my own boutique production company that creates local corporate/commercial media in Astoria, produces international marine documentaries, and currently working with Fabien Cousteau and General Russel Honore (retired) on an episodic television series.

I bought here at a tumultuous time; as a brand new owner, I am taking it in the wallet. I paid regular maintenance for all of three months after moving in before these assessments hit. But this is not about looking back at mistakes made before I arrived, but about looking ahead and solving the problems facing the future of this building while maintaining value and services.

At the last “friendly and open” informal owners’ meeting, when I suggested the board’s numbers meant additional shortfalls should be expected after the three year assessment period, certain board members decided to shout me down. When I was finally allowed to speak, rather than suggest a few potential long-term solutions as I originally intended, I instead let my conclusion linger. At that moment, I decided to run for the board and bring my plan for fiscal “future planning” – I call it my “Year Four” plan -- directly to the building as a member.

The assessments’ rehabilitation projects have been nothing short of unimpressive, including excessive and unacceptable delays in delivery that negatively impacted every owner and renter calling Shore Towers’ their home. The board’s answer is to throw live-in owners’ and investor’s money at the problems, while ignoring some common-sense fiscal responsibility by: a. insisting on properly and realistically managed projects, b. spending judiciously on certain maintenance that would reduce common expenses, and c. simultaneously finding opportunities to monetize building assets in innovative ways. All three save money that can be carried forward to help cover projected “Year Four” expenses that, according to the board’s own numbers, may not be covered when we are done with the current assessments.

This is the plan I bring to the table as a candidate. 

One thing I neglected to include in the above, distributed statement, was that for the better park of a year, in the position of Creative Director for a boutique agency called Mitchell & Associates, one of my most important accounts was with the Building Owners and Manager Association of New York. As such, we were an important part of distributing best practices and other critical information on everything from code changes to incentive programs for things such as energy conservation across the membership via newsletters.