Briefly...

• RIOC has notified the Roosevelt Island Marlines Swim Team that its charge for using the Sportspark pool will be tripled in 2008, as part of a two-year contract. On Wednesday night, the Residents Association Common Council passed a resolution urging RIOC to back off on increases for Island facilities used by Island groups.

• Catherine Johnson has left her part-time RIOC job as Vice President for Operations, returning full time to her post at DHCR. Other RIOC jobs have changed hands, as well. President Herb Berman reports on the changes in his column on page 3.

• The Swedish firm of Skanska AB has won the contract to renovate the Roosevelt Island Bridge for the NYC Department of Transportation. The bridge, built in 1955, will remain open during the work, which will replace the bridge deck, the lifting machinery, and cables. The three-year project will begin soon.

• Website NYC10044 (nyc10044.com) had over 101,000 visits in 2006, according to Frank Farance, who provides technical facilities for the site. Each month brought 5,700 to 6,200 "unique" visitors to the site, meaning no visitor was counted more than once in a given month, though many may have returned several times. The site has an Island history, the current WIRE, and supplemental materials not found in the newspaper. This issue, the supplemental materials include an unabridged verion of the interview with former RIOC Board member Deborah Beck (see story, this page). Also, nearly 1,000 now subscribe to The WIRE’s e-mail bulletin service, which supplements the newspaper when important news is available between issues (sign up by sending an AddMe message to editor@MainStreetWIRE.com).