Matthew Katz, President Roosevelt Island Residents Association e-mail: MatthewKatz@verizon.net

It’s been a month since my last scribblings in these pages, and I’m itching to get back in the traces. My thanks to RIRA Housing Committee Chair Joyce Mincheff for her insightful guest column. The rationale for a RIOC Board composed of a majority of Island residents is compromised by their reluctance to meet regularly with the community they supposedly represent. I’ve always considered the occasion to meet every other month with the Board, after their official agenda has been addressed and the meeting adjourned, to be unproductive and, frankly, insulting. And we are told that, if three or more of our resident Board member neighbors meet together, that constitutes an official Board meeting and that’s a no-no. Surely there is a mechanism whereby neighbors can sit with neighbors over a cup of coffee to address our common problems, don’t you think?

It’s my distinct pleasure to congratulate our City Council Member, Jessica Lappin, and her husband Andy, on the birth of their first child, a son named Lucas. Jessica is here so frequently that we’ve been able to monitor her pregnancy at every stage. Mother and son are home and doing well. Jessica, here’s a heartfelt mazel tov from all your Roosevelt Island friends!

So now we’ve lost another merchant on Main Street. The fish store is gone, and history suggests that nothing will fill that storefront anytime soon. We are told that RIOC has issued an RFP (request for proposal) for a commercial real-estate firm to deal with all the commercial vacancies. However, until there is a RIOC Board Chair who will convene a Directors’ meeting (the Board hasn’t met since November 30 of last year), no business can be done. Over the past few years, RIOC’s real-estate consultants have done a spectacularly poor job, and the empty bakery, credit union, pizza parlor, and sports bar bear witness to just how inept their efforts, or lack thereof, have been. The few new businesses that will inhabit Southtown may, someday, supplement our commercial strip on Main Street, but will never replace it. As our population grows, we must have a thriving shopping capability in order to survive as a community.

The RIRA leadership met with DHCR Deputy Commissioner David Cabrera last week, urging him to bring our many concerns with both housing and RIOC Board leadership issues to his new boss, Commissioner Deborah Van Amerongen, and he has done so. We saw them both last Saturday at the Mitchell-Lama Conference sponsored by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. Deborah was the keynote speaker, but left directly after her remarks, disappointing our hopes to at least introduce ourselves. We hope that she, like her predecessors, will sit down with the Island leadership soon to address housing issues as well as her role as the ex officio Chair of the RIOC Board of Directors. This Board makes most of the critical decisions that the Operating Corporation then carries out, but they must meet to act.

David Cabrera sat on a panel composed of housing professionals, politicians, academics, and tenant housing advocates at the Mitchell-Lama Conference. Unfortunately, they were given little to do. The conference started an hour late and most of the remaining 2½ hours was taken up by speeches from political bigwigs such as Congressman Charlie Rangel, City Comptroller Bill Thompson, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and others who were essentially preaching to an audience of tenant advocates more knowledgeable than they. The audience they spoke to filled the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and must have numbered close to a thousand. That’s a thousand folks from all over the City who turned up at 9:00 o’clock on a Saturday morning to talk about the future of Mitchell-Lama housing. That tells you something about how critical people consider the issue, doesn’t it?

The speakers made all the right noises, talking about what bills must pass the New York State legislature to effect any significant change. The Urstadt Law must be repealed. Assembly Bill 352 must be passed to protect pre-1974 buildings from "unique and peculiar" exclusions from rent stabilization provisions. Assembly Bill 795 must become law so that post-1974 Mitchell-Lama buildings, like the ones in Northtown, may be included in rent stabilization protection. We all are aware of these needs, and that an unsympathetic State Senate is, and has always been, the stumbling block. Panelist Vito Lopez, an Assemblymember, pointed out that one-house bills are an exercise in futility were the most cogent of the morning’s agenda. Only the last half-hour was given to a Q&A, and those questions came only from the on-stage panel.

We Roosevelt Islanders are experts in one-house bills, having tried to pass legislation that would require the RIOC Board of Directors to be elected by this community rather than being appointed by (and representing, and serving at the pleasure of) the Governor. How many times have we seen this bill passed by the Assembly through the good offices of our soon-to-be-ex-Assembly Member, Pete Grannis, never to even reach the floor of the State Senate for consideration? As the political pendulum swings, we can only hope that thie Senate will follow the tide of history and, with a Democratic majority, start to address our and the City’s housing woes. I can dream, can’t I?

It seems that Micah Kellner, Democratic candidate for Pete’s Assembly seat, has eliminated other Democratic opposition and received the endorsement of everyone with the possible exception of George W. Bush. He will face a Republican in a special election to be held some time after Pete Grannis’s appointment as Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is approved. We on RIRA know Micah, we like him and respect his considerable knowledge of Island issues, and we wish him success.

I must ask y’all a question and I hope you will take a moment or two to respond to my e-mail address. At the February 7 RIRA Common Council meeting, Communications Committee Chair Frank Farance asked me to ask you the following question: If we videotape the Common Council meetings to be downloaded and viewed on line, would you watch them? We don’t see many RIRA members (that’s you) at our Wednesday evening meetings, and none of us volunteers has the time to indulge ourselves in futile gestures, but if enough Islanders show interest by responding to this question, we can do it.

I want to comment on the passing of our friend Robin Russell. Robin didn’t live here but he was an intrinsic, an essential, part of the cultural life of Roosevelt Island. The classical concerts in the series he created graced the Chapel of the Good Shepherd. The Irish dancers in gorgeous regalia that he brought us made St. Patrick’s Day special even for a non-Hibernian like me. And the music school he founded here enhanced the lives of everyone who studied or taught there. Robin was one of three instrumentalists who accompanied my wife Sherie when she sang a beautiful Bach piece at the Arts Festival last October. Also, we’ve gotten to know Robin’s son Matthew, who has interned with this newspaper on a work-study program from Bennington College. There is far too little beauty and grace in this world, too little devotion to what makes human existence civilized and bearable. Robin brought us some of that devotion and it rubbed off on many of us. His service to this community is irreplaceable, and he will be sorely missed.

My column has traveled "the dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying," as T.S. Eliot wrote. Sometimes we get so caught up in the minutiae of existence that we forget what’s at the core of our lives. A week like this past one helps to put things in perspective. Life goes on.