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November 18, 2006 |
| The RIRA Column |
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I’m back.
It seems that I received 79.1% of the votes cast for RIRA president in the recent elections. But who’s counting?
Many friends and neighbors asked if I was nuts for running again or whether I was simply a masochist. While accepting the possibility of insanity in the family, I did have reasons for wanting to take on this two-year task along with a new Common Council. After twelve years of King George Pataki ruling Roosevelt Island like a foreign colony, we now have an opportunity to work with a new governor and a new regime. Eliot Spitzer has talked with us and has sent his political and community representatives to learn our issues and needs. He even participated in a Town Meeting here to address our concerns directly; a tack his predecessor never considered. New York’s governor is the key elected official in the decision-making processes for Roosevelt Island, and I’m looking forward to working with a man (and an administration) who knows us and wants to improve the quality of life here. Further, Spitzer has committed to sending us trained, experienced, competent community managers to work within RIOC and the RIOC Board of Directors sphere of influence and we intend to hold him to his promise.
In the last Common Council meeting of the Steve Marcus administration, the RIRA Constitution was amended to include the residents of Octagon Park Apartments. I’m looking forward to working with the new delegates from Octagon and Southtown as well as the newbies and old-timers from the Northtown buildings. So that we can hit the ground running at our first December meeting, I conducted an orientation earlier this week to share the procedural rules of the Council and to bring new and old members together for the first time.
While many issues will present themselves over the next two years, there are several that will engage our attention immediately: Many Island leaders have worked towards a Southpoint Park that will attract users who live here, people from all of New York City, and visitors from around the world. I sat on an advisory council convened by the Trust for Public Land (TPL) to produce a conceptual plan for that park and, when it comes to pass, it will be a proud day for all of us who worked and dreamed. However, a cloud hovers over these plans. The RFIP (request for initial proposal) issued for the northernmost three acres of the park could involve construction of additional residential apartments, commercial development or almost anything else; the proposals (and proposers) are a secret. In the election referendum questions you, the voter, made it clear that you support parks that are truly parks with a ringing 87.6% endorsement of the TPL "Wild Gardens/Green Rooms" plan. We’ve lost too much open space to development that was ill-conceived and contrary to the spirit of our General Development Plan. We want a park that’s a park and nothing but a park and that’s what we’re going to have.
Our new neighbors at Octagon inadvertently have created a transportation snafu for those of us living south of their complex. The Red Buses taking rush-hour commuters to the subway and the Tram are filled by Octagoners, creating overcrowding problems for those in Manhattan Park and points south. It’s ironic that, when Manhattan Park was built during the Cuomo administration, additional buses were negotiated into the final agreement. In fact, the $5 million per annum ground rent that Manhattan Park pays is the most significant portion of the RIOC budget. Octagon Park, which was obliged to cough up a single $11 million payment to RIOC for its ground lease, has no such obligation. Adding insult to injury, DHCR Commissioner and RIOC Board of Directors Chair, Judith Calogero, suggested at a Board meeting that we all chip in with higher Red Bus fares to defray the cost of additional Roosevelt Island surface transportation. That, dear friends, is called chutzpa.
So. We intend to hit the ground running with energy, commitment, enthusiasm and an agenda of issues already forming. At this point, I’d like to plagiarize – from myself – several statements from previous RIRA columns. In my first column, dated November 19, 2000, I said, "Will my writing be biased, opinionated and subjective? Y’betcha!" That won’t change. In my last column, dated November 6, 2004 I said, "During the first RIRA debate in 2000 a prescient questioner asked me how much time I would devote to the task [should I be elected]. Ruffled, I answered, ‘As much time as it takes.’ Little did I know how many hours every week that would entail." I now know very well how consuming the RIRA presidency can be. Again, my answer hasn’t changed.
I want to thank former President Steve Marcus and former Vice President Margie Smith for their efforts over a stormy two-year term and also thank them for continuing on the RIRA Common Council, Class of 2006, as delegates from Rivercross. Their contributions will be essential to our success. Also, thanks to Nominations Committee Chair and current Vice President, Mark Chipman, and Elections Committee honcho and current delegate from Eastwood, Joyce Mincheff, for producing a superb, flawless election this year. Joyce, you and your team of volunteers (and you know who you are!) worked the polls from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Election Day and then adjourned to the Trellis to finish counting the votes. I’m tired just thinking about it!
The RIRA Common Council is composed of volunteers elected by you, me, all of us. We are your neighbors and, like you, have jobs and families and interests away from Island issues. What we have in common is a passion for Roosevelt Island, for the quality of life that residing here affords and a dedication to preserving and enhancing that unique, small-town, island existence in the heart of the Big Apple. We will be as successful as our combined efforts allow and as your attention and participation requires.
Y’all come on down to a RIRA Common Council meeting or two and watch us work. We won’t let you down.