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 February 24, 2001 |
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Editorial: RIOC's Blinded Board The RIOC Board is blind. For that matter, RIOC President Rob Ryan is blind, too. They are blinded by the fact that most are either occasional visitors to Roosevelt Island or, in Ryan's case, they come here to work, not to live. Tunnel vision focused on the Island's financial concerns, they are blind because they cannot see the nature of daily life here. Yet they are in the position of regulating too many aspects of our daily lives and our long-term future. Motorgate parking is a prime example. In last week's RIOC Board meeting, Board member Leo Kayser, otherwise a likeable chap, lectured residents on the value of the free market in setting rates for things like Motorgate, saying, in effect, that the market would bear only such prices as residents would pay. Kayser and most of his colleagues on the Board (Patrick Stewart a notable exception) miss the point that Motorgate Parking is a raw monopoly. A resident who chooses to have a car here, or must have one, has no other place to park. And when Board member John Mannix mentioned the high cost of heating garages as one justification for increased parking costs, it was clear he's not a regular here. Perhaps he doesn't know that Motorgate is unheated. Or that security arrangements elsewhere actually work. In Queens or Manhattan, own a car and you can choose to park on the street and deal with the problems of that. Or you can choose from among various paid-parking alternatives where there is true competition among providers - both in rates and in quality of service and security. Here, you have no choice. You own a car, you pay the rates. The Board is blind if they think Ryan did the right thing by willy-nilly approving a rate hike at Motorgate, and Ryan was unthinking when he gave the go-ahead. It's one more proof of the long-obvious: This Island needs professional management, executing policies set by an elected Board of resident Directors. Looking for the Light But The WIRE eagerly applauds Ryan and the Board for their wide-open evening session last week. Except for one Board member who didn't show up and another who left early, they sat for a free-swinging round of questions and argument from residents, and responded, mostly, point by point. Residents knew they were heard because the Board members responded, as did RIOC President Rob Ryan. But, as resident Board member David Kraut has observed, being heard doesn't mean being heeded, and there was little evidence of a meaningful coming together. It was apparent in resident questions, in fact, that the current Board is suffering the harvest of the suspicion and distrust sown during three years of Jerome Blue's occupancy of the RIOC presidency. Last Thursday night, it was not easy to be a member of the RIOC Board, attacked and on the defense. Of course, it was just three hours in the month, while residents are reminded daily of the shortcomings and insensitivity of Island management. (Have you noticed the Blue fence?) Even so, hearing the resident viewpoint can't hurt, and residents gain from knowing the attitudes of Board members on specific issues. Until there's professional management and a locally-elected governing Board here, such sessions have value and they should continue at least every other month, as scheduled.
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