Roosevelt Islanders are about to gain a powerful and persuasive advocate for the environment. It was Pete Grannis, after all, who put together the Roosevelt Island Open Spaces legislation that attempted to restrict construction on the Island’s open spaces and parkland. The Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) and the Pataki administration found a way to short-circuit the provisions of that law, but it was a valiant try.

Significantly, it was Eliot Spitzer’s troops from the Attorney General’s office who went to court on behalf of Roosevelt Islanders in an attempt to steer the court’s interpretation of the law toward retention of parkland. Of equal significance, it’s Spitzer as Governor who has turned to our Assemblymember to work for the envionment across all of New York State.

On the other hand...

What’s hard to take in this is that we will lose a talented and determined advocate for our Island home. Pete Grannis put forward the proposed legislation that responded very firmly to residents’ desire to have some say in what government does here. His bill to make most seats on the RIOC Board elected seats made his own sentiments clear. Again, its key idea was shunted aside by the Pataki administration. Yet, from that effort, Islanders gained a legal right to a majority of the seats on the RIOC Board – at least a step in the right direction.

Pete will have the Governor’s ear. When the question of Roosevelt Island comes up, we can hope that Eliot Spitzer will remember the strong Grannis connection here, and turn to Pete for his thoughts on how New York State can best give us the democracy due every American community.

We doubt he’ll forget us. After all, Roosevelt Island has grown up as a community while Pete Grannis has served his thirty-some years as an Assemblymember, growing in that job.

Soon enough, we’ll face a choice of a new Assemblymember. It cannot be lost on any of the potential candidates that in November, Roosevelt Island gave Jessica Lappin – who had served the Island diligently as an aide to Gifford Miller – 89 percent of its votes. The Island appreciates and rewards its political friends to the extent it’s able to reward anybody.

It’s a cliche, but Roosevelt Island’s loss is a gain for the whole of New York State – and the whole of New York State includes Roosevelt Island.

Thanks, Pete. Godspeed.

DL