Mike Deluca, a resident and former board member at the Galaxy Towers condominiums – which contain most of the population of the tiny waterfront town of Guttenberg – is fully aware of the extent of the controversy his community website encounters.
A computer programmer, Deluca says he created GalaxyFacts.com in 2006 after he felt that he wasn’t given the chance to defend himself at Galaxy Towers Condo Association board meetings.
After five years, Galaxyfacts has grown into a thriving message board, frequented mainly by residents of the Towers. Due to popular demand, Deluca intends to expand his website to offer pages for other condominium owners to express their opinions.
He has also been involved in a number of lawsuits involving the Galaxy and his website. In fact, a member of the Galaxy Board once filed a suit to identify anonymous posters who allegedly made defamatory remarks. The suit was eventually dropped.
The Galaxy has certainly given Deluca fodder for his site. The Towers have had a tumultuous summer, highlighted by the laying off of 60 unionized employees, alleged carbon monoxide leaks, a racial discrimination lawsuit filed against the board by a former employee, and residents contesting a nearby proposed development.
Site history
According to Deluca, Galaxyfacts was born after he was unable to voice his concerns over proposed renovations to the Towers. Deluca said that partners in the company doing the renovations had a questionable background. Deluca said that when he went to board meetings, he was not allowed to speak his mind.
“So I started the website,” he said. “It originated so I could get my word out.”
Deluca, who opposed the GTCA Board, quickly gained supporters. He formed the Concerned Unit Owners Group in 2004 before board elections. Many of the members had met in an online Yahoo! chat room to voice their concerns. The chat room, however, was shut down after the board hired an attorney, who successfully convinced Yahoo! that it violated their terms of service, Deluca said.
In order to continue to provide a voice for the CUOG, Deluca added a message board to his Galaxyfacts website.
“The chat room basically became more popular than the main page,” said Deluca, adding that he registered it in India in order to help ensure that it could not be shut down.
“Now people can find out where there money is getting spent,” added Deluca, “and that’s the thing I’m most proud of.”
Deluca then organized a successful petition in 2007 that called for the recall of three of nine board members. The recall was successful, and following an election, two of Deluca’s allies, including current GTCA Board President Slava Lerner, were voted in.
However, Deluca soon found that his allies could not alleviate his woes. He began to feel that many of the problems with the former board only worsened when his allies took power.
“[They said] they were proponents of freedom of speech,” said Deluca, “but once they got on the board they became like the other board.”
“These are the same people that I defended and helped get elected,” continued Deluca, “and now they’re shutting me out.”
Determined to make a difference, Deluca successfully ran for the board in 2008, and remained on the board for a year. After feeling that he still did not have his opinions heard, he stepped down to focus more on his website.
Residents have had mixed feelings about the site. When asked for comment last week, Board President Lerner responded with what seemed like veiled criticism.
“I do not want to comment on people who are fighting for their First Amendment rights while ignoring everyone else’s,” Lerner said.
Although many of the website’s commenters are on Deluca’s side, others have defended the board.
“I have lived here for a while now (well over 10 years),” wrote one anonymous poster in August, “and no matter who is in charge, they always get blamed and attacked mercilessly for everything.” The post adds, “People seem to forget that being on this condo board is not a paid job. It is volunteer work.”
“If you really care about the Galaxy,” reads an anonymous post from earlier this month, “this site would be professing all the good things the Galaxy has to offer. The Galaxy still remains unparralled (sic) to any other building on Blvd East with what we have to offer to our residents.”
Messages left on the board’s voicemail for further comment went unanswered.
Center of controversy
Since the inception of Galaxyfacts five years ago, discussion has centered on many local lawsuits, conflicts, and issues.
The first of these came in 2005 while Deluca and his allies were attempting to earn seats on the board. According to Deluca, the board changed the election rules to bar candidates from campaigning within the Towers. Deluca and his allies responded with a suit against the board.
“That was the first lawsuit that was filed,” said Deluca, who added that the board agreed to a settlement. “They changed the rules so the candidates could speak only in a certain area of the lobby.”
Later that year, Deluca and other owners contested a series of proposed amendments from the board. According to Deluca, these amendments attempted to shift the responsibility of damage from common areas of the towers from the board to the actual unit owners. The owners hired an attorney to analyze the amendments, who then sent an informative letter to each owner. The board eventually failed to receive the necessary votes to pass the amendments, according to Deluca.
Newer controversies
The towers were at the center of a number of controversies this year, all of which generated discussion on Deluca’s website.
Some Galaxy residents have been protesting a nearby development for over a year, but the controversial Appleview, LLC condos were approved last month by the Hudson County Planning Board. Residents are concerned because the development will rise near a gas pipeline, and they believe construction could cause an explosion. Hearings were regularly attended by residents and by John Lamb, an attorney for the Galaxy Towers Board of Trustees.
Also, this past August, 60 unionized Galaxy employees were laid off, some of whom had worked for the company for 25 years or more. The jobs were outsourced to Planned Building Services, a firm based in Parsippany-Troy Hills. Many Galaxy owners took to the message boards to voice their support for the former employees.
A hearing for the laid-off employees is set for Tuesday, Nov.29 at 9:30 a.m. in Newark before the National Labor Relations Board. If the NLRB rules in favor of the employees, the complaint has asked that the GTCA “restore its business operations as they existed.”
Another suit
The most recent topic of discussion on the Galaxyfacts website is a pending racial discrimination lawsuit against the GTCA. The suit was filed by Francois D’Anjou, an African-American and a former spa manager at the complex. Elayna Center, a Spa Committee chairperson for the Towers, is the other defendant named in D’Anjou’s suit.
According to the complaint, D’Anjou, who is represented by Englewood Cliffs-based attorney Elizabeth Foster, claims that he was the subject of racial discrimination. He also said he received much criticism from Center. The complaint states that D’Anjou was terminated “on account of his race” in May 2009, after a year of employment. He filed the suit in the Hudson County Superior Court last May.
“[The GTCA Board] intentionally discriminated against Plaintiff,” the complaint alleges, “by paying plaintiff less than comparable Caucasian employees.”
In the GTCA Board’s response to the complaint, the board acknowledged that D’Anjou was paid less than the previous spa manager, but insists that his salary was not related to his race. The board also insists that D’Anjou was not properly performing his job.
“Any damages allegedly suffered by plaintiff are the result of his own actions or inactions,” the GTCA Board’s response to the complaint states. “This defendant denies that plaintiff was discharged based on his race.”
Center and her attorney did not return phone calls for comment. They had not personally answered the complaint filed by D’Anjou by the time of publication.
According to Deluca, Center is covered by directors’ and officers’ liability insurance, which helps cover directors and officers of a company in the event of a lawsuit.
“This could cost us a lot of money,” added Deluca, referring to the board’s and Center’s actions as “reckless.”
Slava Lerner declined to comment on the suit.
The GTCA Board’s attorneys did not return calls or e-mails for comment.
According to Deluca, owners from separate condominiums all over New Jersey have approached him with the intention of establishing their own website.
Deluca said he is currently in the process of expanding Galaxyfacts to include separate pages for other communities to have a voice.
He said he would like to help other condo owners who are “suppressed by tyrannical boards.”
Stephen LaMarca may be reached at slamarca@hudsonreporter.com.