It has come to our attention that Aldo’s employment at the building has been terminated by the Board and a severance has been mutually agreed upon.

We, the undersigned, are sending this letter to the Board to express our preferences as to how this termination should be managed to be fair to Aldo and to protect the interests of the building and our separate condo units. Please consider each of our signatures to be the equivalent of a unit owner's vote at an Ansonia Condo Association Meeting. We are also expressing our concerns over how the issues were handled and the lack of communication from the Board and Tudor to the owners.

In addition to the severance package Aldo requested and was approved (see details below), we request the following:

Aldo’s departure must be treated as a mutual parting in the ways, not as a criticism of his performance. Each of us who have signed this letter attest to his superior performance as Super: he solves the idiosyncratic challenges of a complicated and aging building, maintains our environment, manages a roster of vendors, and is always available to help with ad hoc problems. Many of us have spoken on his behalf when we have picked up rumblings of criticism among our neighbors. This letter is our opportunity to inform the Board of our feelings: we expect you to act upon our inclinations. He was hired to be the Super, not a concierge.

Aldo’s departure will put our comfort and safety at risk. His intellectual equity in the building, amassed during more than fifteen years of coaxing heat from our boilers, defusing alarms, managing repairs and renovations (burst pipes, leaky ceilings), briefing and supervising repairmen (sliding doors, elevators), plumbers, movers, and construction workers – this intellectual equity will not be replaced for years. We take it for granted that he helps us upgrade something seemingly as simple as a zone valve. We will lament his departure when we’re opening our windows wide in February because the off-spec valves won’t shut.

We request Aldo's severance include the following:

1. We must optimize the transfer of expertise concerning the building to Aldo’s successor. Toward this end we propose keeping Aldo in his unit through the end of October – an additional month past his request. Assuming his replacement can be found by the end of September, that would give him or her a full month to partner with Aldo as they tend to the Superintendent’s responsibilities.
2. Following his departure, Aldo should be put on a retainer for a period of six weeks with permission to visit the building approximately five hours a week, approximately one hour per day or divided up as needed, and be on call for an additional five hours per week to attend to unexpected but predictable failures of our systems. $40/hour, 10hrs/ week comes to $400/week for 6 weeks. Aldo will compile a document of information about how systems work, potential issues to watch out for, and suggested resolutions.
3. Aldo’s severance must include a positive endorsement of his performance, signed by the Board or by a committee authorized to do so by the Board. Some of us have witnessed aggressive behavior toward Aldo by at least one Board Member, so we’re aware that the Board might not subscribe to such an endorsement. That’s why we might do this via a committee.

In terms of moving forward, we recommend the owners have an opportunity to participate in the next steps. The work of a Super in an aging building this big with so many problems and upcoming work is too much for one person. We also need to take a look at the finances of the Super’s apartment, poll neighbors about their needs and set mutually agreed upon ways of respectfully working with building employees. This last point has created tension among neighbors. We are a community who lives together and needs to show each other respect, not constant finger-pointing and needling.

Those of us who signed this letter are saddened by Aldo’s departure: he has been our support and neighbor and friend. Clearly, something is amiss that the Board has drifted so far away from our perceptions of and feelings about Aldo. In signing this letter, we are stating for the record that the Board’s treatment of Aldo has not been done in our names.