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» Mid-Term Election Voting on Roosevelt Island » RIRA Election 2006

Last week’s elections on Roosevelt Island should present some important opportunities for the Island.

With a new administration in Albany run by "a Governor who actually knows how to find his way here on the F train" (as RIRA President Matthew Katz often describes him) and a solid series of votes on referendum issues to back up resident demands for better and more responsive administration here, we may be emboldened to cross our fingers over the oft-voiced hope that things can now change for the better.

Where we go, hopefully, is toward an elected RIOC Board of Directors that will act like a Board of Directors and take matters into its own hands in setting policy for management and development of the Island, and exercise the power the appointed Board has had – but has never exercised – to hire an experienced municipal manager to run the Island’s day to day operations and an administrative staff whose resumes offer something beyond a political connection and a favor owed.

 

Fall for Arts

One example of RIOC mismanagement that deserves some attention is the recent Fall for Arts Festival.

The WIRE doesn’t like to rain on anybody’s parade, and that’s why comment on this event has been reserved until now.

Fall for Arts was one of eight events for which RIOC contracted with an off-Island supplier, paying $80,000. Of the eight events, six were outdoor concerts, poorly publicized and sparsely attended. Each should have been staged for $2,000 or less. If done by RIRA, which has experience doing this sort of thing, and done with true RIOC cooperation, $1,200 to $1,500 would have been more than enough.

The seventh event was Fall for Arts, and there will be a sports day in Spring, 2007.

From the $80,000, subtract the $12,000 that is the maximum the six concerts should have cost, and you have $68,000 remaining to divide between Fall for Arts and the sports event. Assuming the sports event might cost as much as half that amount, it looks like at least $34,000 went into Fall for Arts.

Decent weather meant attendance was maximized but, if the cost was anything like $34,000, the cost per attendee was well over $50. That’s without counting what RIOC charged local artists who wanted to show and sell their works.

Even allowing for some experimentation, there was an oversupply of ineptitude in putting the event together. Where residents were fully engaged, as in the case of the Roosevelt Island Visual Arts Association (RIVAA), activities made sense, were fun, and were scheduled reasonably. Where RIOC thought it knew what would be best for residents, we got events scheduled as far away as the Coler Hospital front yard, where few showed up at an early hour for Kidstage. For that matter, nobody had an advance clue that there would be events for kids – not until the day of the event when The WIRE was finally able to publish a program.

The very multiplicity of events, scattered far and wide, did little to get the most bang for the buck. If scheduled for milder weather, over several weekends, and with funds placed in the hands of residents who know by now how these things should be done here, all of it could have been less expensive and each event would have been better attended.

Meanwhile, RIOC pulled out all the stops, even advertising through a flier delivered with The WIRE (thank you). But if resident organizations were allowed to drive anchors for advertising banners into the brickwork of landmarks like the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, they could point to true RIOC cooperation in the mounting of their events. The WIRE doesn’t endorse such use of landmark walls, but this is the kind of cooperation RIOC can give to itself when it really wants to do something. Residents, on the other hand, have learned to expect serious roadblocks and endless red tape when they ask for something out of the ordinary. RIOC even finds ways to make the ordinary impossible.

Somebody at RIOC came up with the idea for this Fall for Arts Festival. Good idea or bad, residents at large were not consulted. In a nutshell, that’s a chronic problem with RIOC – failure to seek the advice and consent of the appropriate committees of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association.

Most important, RIOC funds would be more wisely spent through resident organizations rather than off-Island organizations. When the off-Island folks are hired, after bids or not, there’s an appearance of shoveling Island money out the door to somebody who’s owed a political favor. When it stays on the Island, there’s the expertise of folks who’ve lived here and done this sort of thing for years and, consequently, real value for the dollar.

By way of example, consider the Halloween events and years of Roosevelt Island Days. Both are better-attended and better run. Experience counts.

DL