To RIOC President Herb Berman:

I have been a resident of Roosevelt Island for over 25 years and, like many of my fellow Islanders, have witnessed and complained about the deteriorating conditions of the Island, often citing Motorgate as a prime example of neglectful management. Motorgate has become so deplorable that I feel compelled to speak out. Therefore, I am writing to you regarding RIOC's responsibility and complicity in this matter.

Motorgate is the gateway to the Island for anyone arriving by car. If one is to generalize, based on this first impression, one would conclude that Roosevelt Island is a slum. Ironically, Southtown housing is currently being marketed to a high-end, luxury clientele. It would seem that for all parties concerned, RIOC should make every effort to upgrade Motorgate as part of an overall improvement plan for the Island.

The specific conditions I am referring to are:
1.  Permanent malfunction of the escalators
2.  Frequent breakdowns of one or both of the elevators
3.  The shabby condition of the elevators (ripped linoleum, dirty walls, sagging and dirty light covers).
4.  Building walls with crumbling cement and pock marked with large holes
5.  Dirty windows, pipes, and staircases throughout the facility
6.  Unswept, filthy floors
7.  Stairwells that smell of urine
8.  Abandoned cars allowed to remain in the garage for months at a time
9.  Numerous break-ins; lack of adequate security including security cameras

We Islanders have no alternative other than Motorgate for parking our cars. With a maximum of 40 minutes of street parking and no other parking facility on the Island, we are held captive by a dysfunctional system totally controlled by RIOC. For years RIOC has collected parking fees without requiring their vendor, Edison Parking and now Central Parking Systems (CPS), to meet even minimum standards of maintenance, repair, and security.

Regarding RIOC's current relationship with CPS, I have the following questions:

1.  What is the time frame for this contract?
2.  What are the standards that CPS must meet to maintain their contract?
3.  What sanctions, such as terminating the contract, can RIOC impose if standards are not met?
4.  What oversight does RIOC conduct to assure that CPS delivers appropriate services?
5.  Was there competitive bidding upon securing CPS as the vendor and does competitive bidding take place each time the contract is renewed?

It is my sincere hope that you will take this matter seriously. As President of RIOC, you, as well as your entire board, are responsible for carefully managing the hard-earned dollars we residents pay to your facility for parking. We expect, and are entitled to, a higher standard of maintenance, repair, and security than what we have received to date.

Without an appropriate response and follow through from you, it may be necessary for the residents of Roosevelt Island to take a stand and demand that conditions in Motorgate improve by withholding our parking fees.

I look forward to your reply.

Bimal Parekh
Area Manager
Central Parking
360 W 31st Street
New York, NY 10001

Please consider this letter as a formal complaint against an employee of Central Parking regarding a terrible and dangerous incident this past Saturday evening.  When I parked on level 6A, I walked to the elevator with my guests, who included my elderly sister who has a problem walking stairs.  We rang for the elevator, which after many repeated attempts for over 20 minutes did not come.  My niece and I had to help her down two flights of very slippery and steep steps.

When we got to level 4, where the Motorgate office is, I went to the office to report the problem and request assistance for my sister.  I knocked on the window, as there was no attendant in sight.  After a few minutes of knocking on the window, a tall African-American male who was wearing a white shirt and Central Parking Cap, started screaming at me. He was nasty, abusive, and used obscenities because I dared to knock on the window!

This is the worst of several scenarios with your personnel.  For example, before the Passover holiday in April, when the elevators and escalators were out of service and I was returning with a shopping wagon full of groceries which were too heavy to take down the slippery, steep stairs, I finally made it down to the office.  I told the attendant on duty about the elevators out of service and, instead of offering to call Roosevelt Island Public Safety for help, he said, "What do you want me to do, carry your packages?"

The demeanor and attitude of your personnel is despicable.  I remind you that their salary comes from my monthly fee and therefore I should not be treated so disrespectfully.  Further, while I understand that mechanical systems are sometimes unreliable, the fact that these employees think that it is OK to treat their paying customers with disrespect is totally unacceptable.  Further, I am making you a promise that if any of your employees ever opens a mouth to me like this individual did on Saturday night, especially when there was a potential for a life-threatening emergency involving an elderly woman, I will stop at nothing to have that employee arrested for reckless endangerment, and bring a lawsuit against your company.  As a matter of fact, I have not ruled out such an action regarding this incident.

In the meantime, I trust that this problem employee will be removed from this garage and that you will work with RIOC to get those elevators repaired, as well as implement a training program with your employees on how to provide assistance to your paying customers.

Imagine if you will that when I knocked on that window I was trying to report an accident or life-threatening emergency requiring assistance. By the way, I seemed to be interrupting a pas-de-deux between that employee and a young lady with whom he was engaged in a very merry conversation.

I can also tell you that I am hereby putting RIOC and Central Parking on notice that the elevators and escalators must be properly repaired immediately.  I understand that there were several stalled attempts to engage elevator consultants and go to contract on these repairs. However, the problem continues, and nothing has been done about the problem because RIOC keeps citing lack of funding.  I can also tell you that if need be, I will work with the Residents Association to initiate legal action to force RIOC to get those elevators and escalators repaired immediately.  I can tell you that if my elderly sister had a heart attack because of this situation, it would have cost RIOC one hell of a lot more to compensate my family than it would cost to fix these mechanical systems.

Raye G. Schwartz

Copies: Herb Berman, President, RIOC; Mary Beth Labate, DHCR; Steve Marcus, President, Roosevelt Island Residents Association; The Main Street WIRE; Community Board 8; Gifford Miller, Speaker, City Council; Virginia Fields, Manhattan Borough President

Editor's note:  To read an extended version of the following letter, click here.

To the Editor:

It is an axiom in sports that the team making the fewest mistakes usually wins.  What mistakes did the Democrats make in the campaign?

The Candidate:  John Kerry is a liberal from Massachusetts.  The last successful candidate with that profile was John F. Kennedy and that was 44 years ago.  The nation has moved on.  Ronald Reagan made "liberal" a dirty word.  In the heartland, so many "liberal" candidates have gone down to defeat in recent years that one would think the Democratic Party would have gotten the message, especially after the defeat of Michael Dukakis in 1988.  Bill Clinton broke the pattern by insisting he was a moderate.  Jimmy Carter was from the South and seen as a moderate.  Liberal candidates from the Northeast may have appeal in New York and California and some support in the Upper Midwest, but in the rest of the country, they are looked upon with grave suspicion and distrust.

John Edwards:  Part of the Democratic strategy was to enroll young first-time voters and to win their votes with a young and energetic vice-presidential candidate.  Unfortunately, Edwards's public pronouncements were an immediate embarrassment, and he all but disappeared from the campaign trail until late, when he surfaced to assail Dick Cheney and his wife for opposing gay marriage even though they had a lesbian daughter.  John Kerry could not bring himself to apologize for this gratuitous attack and sickened a great many Americans.

The Direct Message:  Undecided voters sifting through the statements of Senator Kerry during the primary campaign and after his nomination must have been bewildered looking for a consistent theme other than opposition to everything President Bush had done in the past three and a half years.

The Image:  The first time I saw a photograph of Senator Kerry windsurfing and wearing Spandex shorts, I knew he had not a clue as to how to establish a link with the average American.  John Kennedy had a standing rule that he was not to be photographed playing golf, reasoning that most people regarded golf as a rich playboy's activity.  Kerry, already suffering from the stigma of managing to marry not one but two heiresses, was so tone deaf that he thought windsurfing in the Caribbean and snowboarding in Colorado would win him votes.  Later, he made a transparent attempt to portray himself as a man of the people by going goose hunting and throwing around a football.  But in a long Presidential campaign, voters have full opportunity to take the measure of a candidate.  Kerry, an elitist from wealth and influence who married wealth and influence, should have been satisfied with that persona.

The Indirect Message:  This was delivered by celebrities who flocked to Kerry's side and the causes they espoused.  Clinton became enamored of the Hollywood crowd, but we all knew he was an actor at heart who chased women with all the diligence of a Hollywood producer.  John Kerry wanted to work both sides of the street.  He would personally appeal to intellectual liberals with his "nuanced" approach to problems, while his celebrity friends would win over the Oprah crowd.  Michael Moore got a prominent place at the convention.  So did Al Sharpton.  Voters saw Democrats fawning over a multi-millionaire "man of the people" who had made his fortune and reputation impugning American traditions, and a Brooklyn street hustler fond of opportunities to traduce our police and courts.  The message? Profound contempt for average Americans and the way we lead our lives.  While Senator Kerry was attempting to establish common ground with the voters in the middle, his celebrity spokespeople were sneering at values most American hold dear.

The Strategy:  The Democratic Party has become the captive of its left wing.  They rejected Dick Gephardt and Joe Lieberman, men of sense and honor who would have brought integrity to the campaign.  Democrats turned to Senator Kerry after Howard Dean, darling of the Far Left, scared the pants off everyone else in the party.  Kerry was seen as holding on to the Dean supporters while winning over the moderates.  Pulled two ways, he was forced into untenable positions to keep the leftists in line, then moved away from them to appeal to the moderates.  This was the root cause of the inconsistencies in Kerry's campaign.  Was he for the war in Iraq or opposed to it? Kerry could point to votes in the Senate that answered "yes" to both parts of that question.  And so it went on question after question, trying to appeal to two disparate parts of the party and electorate.

Will the Democrats learn anything from this defeat? On the past record, one must be skeptical.  But it can be done.  Tony Blair forced the Labor Party to break the socialistic mold in which the party had been held since the days of Clement Attlee.  That is what it will take for the Democratic Party to separate itself from its lunatic fringe and rejoin the mainstream – an articulate moderate who can make a persuasive case for liberal causes modified by common sense.  For the sake of the two-party system and for the good of America, let us hope it happens.

Jim Baehler