The fate of a well-respected management firm that’s provided services to a Mitchell Lama complex in Kingsbridge was put on hold by the building’s board of directors who seek to replace them.

For some 60 years, Amalgamated Houses has been tethered to Park Reservoir, the first Mitchell Lama cooperative in the Bronx. It offers amenities that include community get-togethers, and custodial services such as pre-dawn snow shoveling during the winter season. Tenants fear those services will be diminished should a new management firm be hired.

“The board felt there was a lot of confusion and anger at them so they smartly decided to postpone the vote and have an informational meeting where all sides can be heard,” said Andy Kimerling, board president.

The decision by Park Reservoir’s 12-member board of directors came on July 12, a day after a cantankerous meeting attended by nearly 100 cooperators criticizing the boards’ premature process. Following pressure, the board tabled its vote until after a September 11 informational meeting. The acrimonious emergency meeting further crystalized divisive infighting by the board that’s likely to have caused several procedural missteps.

Kimerling has been at odds with his vice president, Steve Zitrin, who sounded the alarm on changing management companies to one he and other members board found with little consultation from blindsided cooperators. Kimerling told angry tenants he was against the decision of moving forward with approving a management company without input from tenants. He later apologized to cooperators for adhering to the board’s decision in not sending a notice two months ago about the impending decision.

For his part, Zitrin declined to comment to the Norwood News on the decision. He did explain to tenants that financial decisions Amalgamated’s board of director’s makes has an impact on Park Reservoir, which he says has no control over what’s spent.

“Raises have been given against our vote even when there were times that we didn’t have the money,” said Zitrin. “We’re supposed to have input on approval or disapproval.”

Among the cooperators living in the apartment building is Gary Axelbank, a longtime cooperator at Park Reservoir suggested the board air out its grievances with Almalgamated before cutting them off completely.

Mitchell Lama housing was created in the 1950s for middle-class families unable to afford a private home. It falls under the purview of the Department of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), which institutes rules and regulations every Mitchell Lama needs to adhere. The board’s unilateral decision to seek a new management firm appears to violate those state rules, which call on boards to submit a Request for Proposal that must be approved by DHCR. The board did not do so, but instead called four companies before settling with Midas Management.

The agency does stipulate a board doesn’t have to solicit bids if it establishes to DHCR “unique circumstances or emergency conditions [that] render the use of a bidding procedure impracticable or inappropriate.”

In the running to replace Amalgamated is Midas Management, a family-owned realty management based in the Bronx. In its proposal, Midas Management offered 2-3 live-in supers, five porters/utility workers, and one manager. The bulk of the members determined that Midas Management would save cooperators several hundred thousand dollars in the long run.

The firm shares family ties to Daniel Padernacht, a practicing attorney and chair of Community Board 8. The board covers the Bronx neighborhoods of Kingsbridge, Riverdale, Fieldston and Spuyten Duyvil. With Park Reservoir falling within CB8, it could present conflicts of interest should ParkReservoir’s board hire Midas Management.

“I do not have an interest in Midas Management,” said Padernacht, in a statement. “In general, community boards do not get involved in the internal affairs of a cooperative building. As such, I don’t see any issues that could arise in a cooperative’s decision to change its management company that a community board would be involved. If seems to me that the individual suggesting the issue either has no knowledge of the way community boards function or is seeking to create an issue to suit his own purposes.”