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Coalition: Washington Mutual Agrees to Inspect Palazzolo Buildings

By JORDAN MOSS

After months of trying to get the attention of one of the biggest mortage lenders arround, members of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition sat down with a top-ranking official of Washington Mutual at the bank's midtown headquarters to discuss 3569 DeKalb Ave. and other buildings owned by Frank Palazzolo. They liked what they heard. 

The bank had apparently gotten wind of the organization's plans to pay an unannounced visit to the bank's investors' meeting the same day. The group was unhappy with the results of a previous meeting with a lower-level official in the Bronx in late November. Bank officials headed off the Coalition's plans with an invitation to meet with Craig Chapman, the president of Washington Mutual's Specialty Finance Group and its chief administrative officer.

According to participants in the meeting, Chapman acknowledged that the bank failed to follow its own lending policies by approving loans without checking on existing violations in the buildings. Chapman said the bank would look into what went wrong, participants said. 

Chapman also said the bank would inspect the Palazzolo buildings and issue a report on all the "C" violations (the most hazardous category in the city's system) at those properties, according to Myra Goggins, a member of the Coalition's board and longtime tenant activist, and Gus Birru, a tenant at 3569 DeKalb Ave.

At the meeting, Chapman announced that the bank would be issuing a default letter to the owner of 3569 DeKalb Ave. (see story on this page). 

Finally, Goggins said, Chapman volunteered to participate in a follow-up conference call from his office in Seattle, where the bank is based, to discuss progress in the buildings. 

At the November meeting with Washington Mutual Regional Vice President Donna Wilson at St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church, dozens of tenants from Palazzolo's buildings turned out to complain about hazardous conditions. At that same meeting, at least a dozen managing agents of the Palazzolo buildings showed up. (One told the Norwood News that Palazzolo was only a "lender," something Palazzolo himself has told the paper.) Wilson agreed to ask the managing agents to leave on the condition that the Coalition ask the media to leave. (This reporter was the only member of the news media in attendance.) Tenants at the meeting later said that Wilson would not agree to any of their demands.

As for the meeting with Chapman, Goggins was pleased but cautious. "For the most part, I think we all agreed it was a positive meeting," she said. "We were glad to meet with someone at that level. As usual we're going to have to follow up and keep the pressure on. We're taking them at their word that they're going to act in faith and help clean up the mess that exists."

Citing customer confidentiality, a spokesperson for Washington Mutual would not comment on the meeting, except to say they're working with Palazzolo to "ensure these issues are resolved satisfactorily."

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