As Election Day Neared, Jerry Blue Starred in a Minor Backstage Drama

Would the RIRA voting be on machines, or not?

Would RIOC ever write the check?

In the final days before Tuesday's election, those questions hovered in the zone of conflict between Jerome Blue's administration at the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) and the Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA). Before the final answers were known, the State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) was drawn in, and Blue appeared to be doing everything possible to defy not only his boss at DHCR, but the RIOC Board, as well. It became a drama worthy of a bad high school production.

This account was pieced together through interviews with Audrey Berman, who ran the election for RIRA; Attorney Jim Kaufman, an active Republican who serves on the RIRA Common Council; a representative of the company that provided the voting machines; and two sources who insisted on anonymity.

Before it was over, Blue's resistance to cooperating in the RIRA election extended even to a refusal to provide a temporary bus stop at PS/IS 217, where votes were cast in both the general election and the RIRA election.

The dilemma for Blue was classic: In the two and a half years of his administration, he has refused to recognize any special RIRA status as the elected representative of Island residents. Yet, he was being asked, then told, to write the check that would fund RIRA's election. In Blue's official vocabulary, RIRA has always been "one of 54 Island organizations" (the number varies), and he has declined every opportunity to use RIRA resources in shaping the Island's future, or even to shape public opinion on his plans for the Island. In return, RIRA has successfully opposed Blue on moves to hike field fees for Little League and other youth sports, to stop Tramway service after 9:45 p.m., to put commercial hotel towers on Southpoint parkland, or build a high-ticket commercial eldercare facility on land long designated as Octagon Park.

Blue and RIRA have never really agreed on anything, in fact. RIRA is resident-oriented, and sees Blue's RIOC as interested only in development and cutting services to fit a strangle-tight budget and refusing all offers of State funds, despite a standing agreement between City and State that the State would subsidize Roosevelt Island until its population reached 20,000.

So was set the stage on which the drama of the voting machines was played. And played. And played. If Jerome Blue is cast as its villain (and there seems to be little disagreement on that), its hero is probably Joe Lynch, the Acting Commissioner of DHCR. Significant cameos include a DHCR attorney and Frank Rubino, RIOC's attorney, in a duel of legal strategies and opinions.

Act One

"The whole thing probably started with trying to arrange for the election machines at the end of August," says Audrey Berman, recalling her first activities as the volunteer coordinator of the RIRA election process. "First, we tried to get them free, from government sources, but when that didn't work out, I had conversations with Commissioner Lynch and Dr. Blue."

As Jim Kaufman remembers it, when RIRA President Patrick Stewart and Common Council member Al Weinstein talked with him about the coming election, he saw an immediate equation that produced net value for DHCR by avoiding controversy over the legitimacy of the RIRA election. "I told Joe Lynch, 'This is going to be the cheapest case you ever settled for this kind of nuisance value.' He agreed completely, saying 'We don't want the elections challenged."

Lynch thus came down early on the side of supporting the funding of the RIRA elections - from the RIOC budget, as participants recall it, though in a final rewrite of the script, it didn't turn out that way.

"All along the way," Kaufman continues in his account, "Jerry was putting up red flags - fictitious litigation against RIOC going back some years, erroneous legal opinions put forward by Frank Rubino, other stuff. It became obvious to me that Rubino, as RIOC counsel, with Blue, was working at cross-purposes with Joe Lynch. They had a divergence of interests."

At that point, Lynch sought legal advice within DHCR, whose counsel provided a contrary legal opinion -effectively a trump card thrown across the Rubino interpretation of the law.

But Blue, whose RIOC budget is believed by many to be far tighter than he admits, was looking for ways to keep the $2,650 expenditure out of his expense column. "Dr. Blue called me to say that he needed me to fill out forms requesting public purpose funds," says Berman. "But I was getting a different feeling from Lynch."

Act Two

Enter a minor player: Monika Graf, an employee of the Election Machine Service Company, Inc., provided Berman with a requested invoice to document her filing for public purpose funds - monies administered by RIOC but held for special community purposes only. Though Berman believed Lynch wanted the machines funded from the RIOC budget rather than public purpose funds, she decided to play along, giving Blue not only the application he wanted, but the invoice, as well.

Graf recalls that two years ago, "It took forever to get final payment" from RIOC, "so we had to have a guarantee of payment."

Berman presented her case to Blue's Advisory Committee, believing it was essentially a formality, given the assurances she had from Joe Lynch that the costs would be covered. But the next day, she had an urgent fax from Graf: "Call me ASAP. I've just gotten a nasty note from RIOC. They're not going to pay for the machines."

The letter, from General Counsel Frank Rubino, was blunt: "I have included with this fax a copy of an original invoice that has come into my possession. This letter is to inform you that the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation cannot honor this invoice... The order was not placed by an authorized party nor are any of the parties listed on the invoices employees or agents of this corporation." Referring to routine inclusion of RIOC's tax-exempt number on the invoice, Rubino concluded his letter, "In addition, the use of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation's tax exempt number without its expressed permission may constitute a violation under the New York State Tax Law and the New York State Penal Code."

Berman remembers that at the Advisory Committee meeting, "Blue had said nothing to me. At that point I became somewhat livid." She called Lynch, and received renewed assurances from him that the funding would be forthcoming, then tried to reach both Rubino and Blue, who did not return her calls. Instead, she received calls from another bit player, RIOC employee Nicole John. After several exchanges, Berman refused to speak further with her, saying the matter was too far along to brief her fully on background details.

Act Three

Under State law and RIOC operating procedures, Blue could have the check for $2,650 - a relatively minor amount in the scheme of things - written on his own authority. That, essentially, was what Joe Lynch had asked of him.

But as the road blocks continued to appear, Lynch took the matter to the RIOC Board of Directors to secure a directive to Blue that the check be written. "Outside members of the Board told me they were frustrated and fed up with Blue's attempt to micromanage, his way, the outcome of Board votes," recalls Jim Kaufman. "They decided to take things into their own hands."

Berman says that both Joe Lynch and RIOC Board member Nancy Reuss were "truly fine public servants through all of this." Reuss called her for information about RIRA and its role in the community; Lynch stayed with the battle to break the funds loose. Kaufman points out that while Roosevelt Island should probably be no more than ten percent of what demands Joe Lynch's attention, he probably spent at least a third of his time and mental energy on it through this controversy.

Lynch took a vote of the RIOC Board by telephone, and the fate of the matter was sealed: RIOC would have to write the check, though to expedite matters, Lynch allowed the funds to be taken from Island Public Purpose Funds rather than from the RIOC budget. Even so, the check wasn't ready when Patrick Stewart called for it, and to insure availability of the voting machines, he wrote a personal check, knowing he could collect later.

By the end of Thursday before election day, the curtain was down on the drama, and the reviews were coming in:

• Kaufman: "Joe Lynch was a very positive influence and a good friend of the residents of Roosevelt Island."
  
• Berman: "Jerry is continuing to behave as he always has. Through all of this, Blue was being Blue. But Joe Lynch and Nancy Reuss are good public servants in whom I have absolute trust. The RIOC Board really did the right thing. They didn't buy all these obstacles that were being put into place by Blue's people. I really believe there could now be a new working relationship between RIRA and the RIOC Board because there was communication and trust and understanding, as we all worked around what the local RIOC office was trying to do."
  
• Stewart: "I am grateful to Joe Lynch for sticking with us and making sure the funds were made available. It was time-consuming, and he was extremely diligent and extremely cooperative."

A Comedy Trailer

The day RIOC's check was picked up, Berman received a letter from Nicole John of RIOC. It was a list of all the things RIOC would need if RIRA were to be given the funds.
By that time, of course, the money was in the bank.