-- Winter 2005 Edition --

Q&A With Steve Kiel   Fair Lawn News asked Steve Kiel some tough questions, recently.   As the outgoing President of the Radburn Citizen’s Association and a  member of the Radburn Association's Board of Trustees, Steve Kiel has led meetings and faced the hostility of Radburn residents regarding Radburn’s pending sale of Daly Field.  Kiel served the maximum term as President, two terms of two years each.   Although Kiel was born and raised in Fair Lawn, he never visited Radburn until he was 31 years old.  “When my wife and I came here for the first time, I said to myself this is a great place.  We knew we wanted to live here and raise our family here.  Now our kids want to raise their kids here, too”, Kiel said.   There were two controversial elections in Radburn recently -- the Radburn Association’s Board of Trustees had two open seats and the Citizen's Association elected a new president.  The nine-member Board of Trustees assesses dues and maintains Radburn’s communal property (parks, pools, tennis courts, etc.).  The Citizen’s Association organizes social programs and its President sits on the Board of Trustees.   Some people say the Board of Trustees is not a democracy because they choose people who will run for open seats on the Board. What do you think? I do think the election process works well.   Many people are nominated and anyone can put in their names.  The Board then selects four candidates to run for the two open seats in each election.  Ballots are then sent to all Radburn residents.   The Board of Trustees looks for specific things that we need to make the Board run better.  We nominate people who can bring different skills to the board, such as lawyers, accountants, bankers, parents of young children, senior citizens, etc.  We try to have both younger and older residents.  It would be nice if we had more woman, though.  Right now, we only have two.   The Radburn Association isn’t a democracy.   It wasn’t set up that way in 1929.  It’s a non-profit corporation run by the Board of Trustees.   Have the elections been different this year than past years? Absolutely.  Before this year, no one ever campaigned for either the Citizen’s Association or the Board of Trustees.  This year, there was a campaign for the Citizen’s Association and there was a write-in campaign for the Board of Trustees.   I think it is terrible that there were campaigns.  I think you should vote for people you know will serve Radburn best.  If you don’t know them, you should call them up and ask them questions. Because there are only 700 families in Radburn, a campaign pits neighbor against neighbor.  It polarizes people.  Remember, the Trustees are all volunteers.  The Citizen’s Association does mostly social activities; the President of the Citizen’s Association shouldn’t be a position you campaign for.   When people wrote in the names of candidates for the Board of Trustees, did those votes get counted? No.  The write-in votes do not get counted.  There are no provisions in the Board of Trustees by-laws for write-in votes.   In the most recent Board of Trustees election, did you only choose people who were in favor of selling Daly Field? No.  The Daly Field issue never came up when we went through the names of potential candidates.  I have no idea what their positions were on Daly Field.  I think having different opinions on issues is great for the Board.   What do you think of Concerned Citzen’s for Radburn’s Future (CCRF)? For the most part, CCRF includes good people who are doing what they think is right.   CCRF is also very good at what they are doing.  But, they are putting a spin on things said by the Board.  The Board of Trustees has chosen not to respond to all the things said by CCRF, because we don’t want to get into a ‘you said -- we said’ scenario.   Negative posturing by CCRF has divided the community.  The Board hasn’t done a good job of explaining our position, which just adds to the craziness and the divisiveness between people.   Usually only ten or twenty people vote for the Citizen’s Association President.  At the most recent election, about 450 voted.  What do you think that meant? There are a lot of issues that people are upset about.   Some people are upset over the architectural guidelines that limit residents to what they can do with the exterior of their homes.   Also, people think that we are set up like a condominium association in New York.  But, we’re not.  In a condominium, the homeowners own a piece of the common areas.  Here in Radburn, the Radburn Association owns the parks, tennis courts, and pools.   When people buy their homes, the Deed of Restrictions is very clear about this.  But, maybe we need to have an education process.  All homeowners are members of the Citizen’s Association, not the Radburn Association.   If you had to do it again, would you still sell Daly Field? Yes.  But, our marketing approach to the community would be different.  We recently announced that we are going to have block meetings.  We realized that you can’t explain things in a big room where people are screaming at each other.   The Trustees have a tough job.  Not only do we control finances on an annual basis, but we also have to ensure that the community is here in the future.  Ensuring the long-time survival of Radburn was the driving force behind selling Daly Field.  We wanted to ensure the long-term viability of Radburn without making it so expensive that people couldn’t afford to live here.   Some people say we should just assess the homeowners.  But, we could need $1.5 to $2 million.  We will need to replace the seventy year old South Side pool one day.  Also we want to make the Grange Hall handicapped accessible and upgrade our property.   We would also like to add new things, like maybe exercise equipment at the Grange.   We sold Daly Field for $3.7 million plus a commission on the sale of every unit.  With the $4 or $5 million we will get, we can provide a capital reserve for these types of items.  New assessments from the new units could bring in an additional $200,000 to $300,000 every year, these funds could be used to reduce fees or provide more services.   When you announced the sale of Daly Field, you never said what you would do with the money.  Why not? That was our biggest mistake.  People were suspicious because we weren’t talking about it.   We did say that it wasn’t our decision; it was the decision of a future Board.  But, that just annoyed people.  But, now we are starting to talk about it.  We would like to hear everybody’s suggestion on what to do with the money. These suggestions would be held for the sitting Board when Radburn receives the money.  How that money is spent will be their decision, just as we have been saying all along.   Has the criticism of the Board been difficult for you? It hasn’t been pleasant. At the first Citizen’s Association meeting after we announced the sale of Daly Field, the very first question I got was ‘How much did you get for yourself?.'  That set the tone from the Trustee’s perspective.  It is very tough to turn the other cheek and to work with people who accuse me of taking bribes.   Radburn is such a jewel, such a beautiful place.  It’s too bad it happened.   Anything surprise you about the reaction of residents? I’m surprised by the twisting of information and the rumor mill.  I’m also surprised by the support for Daly Field.  It’s a piece of something that is not used.  There is a big Park and field maintained by the Borough of Fair Lawn up the street on Berdan Avenue that is not used. Although I played softball there years ago, I’ve been surprised by the depth of feeling towards Daly Field.  Personally, I’d rather see development on Daly Field close to NYC transportation than the continued sprawl outside the developed metropolitan area.   Why did the Board sell Daly Field without talking to Radburn’s residents, first? If we had publicized the sale of Daly Field, we would have gotten less money for it and maybe lost control over the developer.   Landmark wanted to buy both Daly Field and the Hayward property next door.  To make a development profitable, developers only have a limited amount of money to spend on real estate.  If we had put Daly Field up for the highest bid, then we thought the value of the Hayward property would have gone up (because the two properties together would have been more attractive to developers).  If the price of Hayward property had gone up, then developers would have had less money to spend on Daly Field.  The Radburn Association hired an outside appraiser to ensure that we were getting a good price.   We also choose to sell it to Landmark Associates.   Landmark gave us the right price, but more importantly, they are a company that will develop something that will make Radburn proud.   We could have had a developer build something that met our architectural guidelines, but if it wasn’t the right company, it could have been horrendous.   I think we made the right decision in selling Daly Field and not talking with the residents first. Although, if we did have time to go to the residents and explain all of our thoughts, reasons and financial benefits, we might not have had all the hassles we have now. But as I said earlier, it is the responsibility and duty of the Board of Trustees to manage the assets and plan for the future of Radburn and its residents.   Who owns Daly Field, now? The Radburn Association still owns Daly Field, although we have a contract for sale.  Landmark owns the Hayward property.   Remember, if we had done nothing there would still be something built on the Hayward site.  If Daly Field is just left a recreational area, we would still have more families moving in, but we would have passed up the opportunity of making $4 to $5 million.  People would have been angry about that, also.  The long-term viability of Radburn is the issue.   What does the Radburn Association think about the number of units proposed by Landmark (170 units on the 10 acre parcel)? The Radburn Association has no role in density.  Our only role is in architectural control.  Landmark needs approval from the borough of Fair Lawn.