Editorial

The answer to that question, in the past and continuing now, is "the Governor of the State of New York." By law, the Governor appoints all the members of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) Board of Directors. By default, that Board has allowed the Governor to choose the President of RIOC. By default, the President and the Board have allowed agents of the Governor to select key staffers serving under the President. Translation: Patronage rules.

On Wednesday, Assemblymember Pete Grannis introduced – again – legislation that would change the governance structure. It came too late to be reported on effectively in this issue of The WIRE (more July 1), but some key provisions are these:

• Direct election of five of the nine members of the RIOC Board by all Islanders over 18, regardless of national citizenship, who have lived here for a year or more. (As now: The City’s Mayor still gets to appoint two Board members [one must be an Island resident], as provided in the 99-year lease. The DHCR Commissioner chairs the Board, and the State Director of the Budget gets a seat.

• The Mayor will appoint residents to vacated seats.

• The Board will hire the overall community manager – the equivalent of the RIOC President.

• The Corporation will have the authority to issue bonds, with the approval of the appropriate State officials, up to $25 million.

• Audits will establish the state of the Island, both fiscally and in engineering terms, at the point of transition to the new mode of governance.

Appropriately, the legislation provides that, upon its passage, the appointed Board will become a caretaker Board, allowed to make no commitment of more than three months.

This is not the first attempt at giving residents the democratic power to choose those who make the key decisions about the Island’s future. This time, the bill has a Senate sponsor in Senator José Serrano, and while the State Senate remains Republican-controlled, Grannis’s aide, Tony Morenzi, says the bill has a better chance of becoming law than past attempts. (One possible reason: Perhaps the Governor, on his way out, will be less reluctant to cede power to citizens.)

Self-governance for Roosevelt Island has been a while not quite coming. It’s been some nine years since the Maple Tree Group drafted a revision of the RIOC legislation. It would be nice not to have to wait another year, into the term of a new Governor for whom attention to Roosevelt Island might be delayed while he gets his feet on the ground.

One key effect of a turn toward democratic resident control could be that future development here will be made subject to some sort of plan that takes transportation needs into account, along with all the other concerns attendant to adding more people. That’s been a failing in a system where RIOC Presidents have served only three tumultuous years or so, meaning too much time has been spent in transitions, and not enough developing a coherent plan for the future.

Self-governance – the democratic power of the ballot box – is the start of a coherent plan for the future. We hope that future is closer than we’d previously found possible under George Pataki.

DL