Shortly before the RIOC Board voted to hire Steve Shane as the Corporation’s new President, he responded to questions from residents. Full transcript on Website NYC10044 at nyc10044.com.

As expected, Steve Shane was confirmed to the RIOC Presidency when the Board of Directors of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) met last week. The vote was unanimous.

Both before and after confirmation, Shane fielded questions from residents, including Board members. He suggested, in two sets of answers, that residents might devise a mechanism under which they elect residents to be potential appointees to RIOC Board seats. Deborah VanAmerongen, Commissioner of the State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) and chair of the RIOC Board, also spoke encouragingly of that possibility.

"Steve and I have certainly talked about how to ensure that the community is involved in proposing names for Board membership," VanAmerongen said. "Obviously, we need and want to have people who are members of the community as members of the Board, and we’re open to talking with you about how we get names to suggest and what sort of process that might be." VanAmerongen was responding to a question from Residents Association (RIRA) President Matthew Katz, and added, "I’m sure that through your election process and the way you go about getting participation from all the buildings on the Island, you have some ideas you can share with us about that."

Before leaving last week’s RIOC Board meeting, outgoing President Herb Berman spoke warmly of his replacement, then joked that, newly retired, he had to get home to prepare dinner.

"There are seven non-statutory positions on the [RIOC] Board of Directors," Shane said moments later. "Those seven non-statutory positions can be filled and should be filled, in my view, from Island people." He seemed to suggest, however, that direct election of Board members might be a later goal. "We cannot change the statute because we’d like to, but we certainly can arrange – sort of memorandum-of-understanding-arrange with RIRA that you, through your democratic process, making sure that there’s representation from the various constituencies on the Island... So look at the constituency of the Board, with terms, and how you would arrange for staggered terms and elections under the auspices of RIRA where you could forward the candidates without having to change the statute. We could then push them to the Governor’s office for confirmation by the Senate... Democracy would be served, you would have a representative group... You wouldn’t need to be concerned about a Board of Directors who wasn’t listening to the Island residents." After an additional comment from Katz, he added, "So puzzle it out if you can, among your constituency, and among your [RIRA] Board, to see if we can come up with a workable plan, because I think all of our hearts are in the same place in terms of representative government."

Another Goodbye – of Sorts Tony Morenzi got a standing round of applause here Wednesday night at the Community Board 8 meeting when he made his final appearance as the manager of the 65th Assembly District constituent services office. Morenzi will continue to work for former Assemblymember Pete Grannis in Grannis’s new role as Commissioner of the State Department of Environmental Protection. He’ll be based in Queens and expects to continue to work, now exclusively on environmental issues, with groups in the CB8 area, including Roosevelt Island.

When resident Nurit Marcus recalled that Governor Eliot Spitzer said, when he appeared here as a candidate in October, that "a member" of the RIOC Board might be elected by the community, Shane responded, "I’m suggesting to you that we can go farther than that."

Later in the meeting, responding to questions from new Community Board 8 member Ellen Polivy and RIRA Secretary Sherie Helstien, Shane expressed concern about abiding by the terms of the Public Authorities Accountability Act and the law establishing RIOC, when residents wish to meet with RIOC Board members, even informally. "The open meetings requirements of the Public Authorities Law are a pain because they are quite often counterproductive," Shane said. "We cannot have, as I understand it, a quorum – and out of nine members of the Board that would be five – assemble in any one spot where they might do business." When Helstien insisted a way should be found to change the law, Shane added, "This is a purely legislative matter. It is a law that is written and codified. So, in order to be able to change it... you have to go back to the Legislature and change it. And that requires a considerable effort through a whole host of steps, as you might guess, in order to change it only for Roosevelt Island."

After a comment from RIOC Attorney Kenneth Leitner, Shane later observed that, because the RIOC Board is now down to eight members, four members would constitute a quorum. That means, he said, that the limit of Board members who can assemble in one place is three.

That didn’t end the discussion, which is available in transcript form, with the rest of the two Q&A sessions with Shane, with this issue of The WIRE on Website NYC10044 at nyc10044.com.

Before the unanimous Board vote that officially hired Shane as President of RIOC, he responded to several questions from Board members and the residents in the audience, on the suggestion of resident Board member Michael Shinozaki, who expressed concern about residents having an opportunity to question Shane. "Is Mr. Shane what you guys want for the President of your community?" he asked rhetorically. "We catch a lot of grief about not obtaining input from the community at all before the Board makes decisions. [I want the chair] to give you an opportunity to ask him questions about his stance before we take our vote."

Those questions, and the Town Meeting Q&A that followed the formal Board meeting, elicited some views on some of the Island’s long-smoldering issues:

Asked to list the "top five priorities of the residents," Shane said, "Having read the last several years of The WIRE, my view of the top five priorities are, probably, to get the streetlights working; to do the best we can with the truly iconic transportation system that is the Tram, as coordinated with the bus system, so that people are not entirely dependent upon the MTA and the subway... Transportation is an important issue."

Shane also listed "the stores on Main Street... You need to have the kind of available local services that every small community wants to have," and the Island’s appearance: "It has an aging infrastructure. We are very fortunate now that we have the resources to address those problems, and address them we shall."

After asking how many issues he had named, Shane added a fifth. "We need to address the issues of affordability and ownership of the people who are presently here on the Island in a way that makes sense for everybody, not only the people who are presently in those buildings, but for the public purpose of the Island, which is to maintain an economically affordable mix of various income levels – for a society that is not to become stratified or monolithic in that stratification."

Shinozaki asked Shane, "How do you see our requirements for low- and middle-income housing and the commitments made in leases and the recent developments of real estate? How do you see that playing out?"

"The charter of Roosevelt Island is the Master Lease with the City of New York and the General Development Plan, and it has an affordability component. RIOC is charged with the legal responsibility of carrying out its obligations under those documents as they are incorporated into the various leases for development... The issue of affordability, per se... falls within the ambit and supervision of [DHCR]. My job would be to deal on behalf of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, and deal with the agreements that it has. I’m not here to enforce the affordable component. I’m here to see that the plan gets carried out in accordance with the contractual agreements that exist." Pressed by Shinozaki, Shane continued, "I think the General Development Plan requires that there by an affordable component to the housing going forward. That’s my official position. My personal predilection on the subject of affordable housing is that I have always been involved in delivering affordable housing, and I personally believe that affordable housing is an essential component of our society. I certainly personally will do everything that I can to see that it is enhanced within the constraints of the contractual obligations of the Corporation."

In a later answer, Shane seemed to straddle the issue of whether apartments in Island House, Westview, and Rivercross must remain "affordable" when the buildings leave the Mitchell-Lama affordable housing program. "I understand the need, the urge, to privatize. And I understand that we need to do so in the context of maintaining the affordability for the population on the Island. So there has to be some combination of those elements. I will do whatever I can... to try and encourage the stability of those populations on the Island." (Tenant representatives of those buildings have been pressing the idea that they must leave Mitchell-Lama and, in order to accomplish repairs and building updating, tap the market value of the apartments.)

Shane said he has met with representatives of FERI, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, who seek to use the southern half of Southpoint Park’s length for a Louis Kahn-designed memorial to FDR. "I met with the FDR Memorial people and urged them to immediately interface with the Trust [for Public Land], because the time is now. If they want to get involved – if they want to do their thing on a coordinated basis – they must do it now." Responding to a question from Nurit Marcus, Shane said, "I understand that [the Kahn design] is controversial in the community. I just remind you that in the original dedication of the Island going way back when, under Governor Rockefeller, that the FDR Memorial was then a twinkle in everyone’s eye and it was actually part of the planning. And to the extent that they want to go forward... and they raise the funds for it, we’re going to have to... The people on the Island are going to have to demonstrate very convincingly that it would be a bad thing... It would be a tasteful part of Southpoint Park. That is what’s proposed... It should be a sensational thing for the people of Roosevelt Island and for the City of New York and the State of New York."

"I would hope that appropriate service establishments will be back in business on Main Street. You need them," Shane said in responding to a question about the Island’s retail offerings. After mentioning the pizza parlor, the bakery, and the fish store, Shane added, "Vacant stores are not a good thing for anybody. I would hope... to attract people who will come here and give you back those kinds of establishments, whether it’s a table-cloth restaurant... a bakery... a fish store – whatever it is.

"You have an evolving community. You have people up in Octagon who may not ever stop to shop on Main Street. We have people from Southtown who may or may not come north to shop, and obviously the developers of Southtown have some of their own retail establishments that they’re putting in there. It’s going to be an evolving thing. We are mindful of the problem."

When Ellen Polivy raised the question again later, suggesting the possibility of a subsidy for Main Street merchants, Shane added, "As a public authority, we can’t give away the space. We have legal constraints. On the other hand, we can certainly deal with spaces that service community needs at a subsidized rent. We can try and encourage retail tenants of diversity in order to try to meet the needs of people, which certainly include the handicapped. These are problems that we will address... and we will involve the community in addressing them."

Shane was joined by resident Board member Patrick Stewart in responding to questions from Island House tenant Sharon Bermon about direct pedestrian access to the Queensboro Bridge, which has been advocated by a number of residents recently, backed by resolutions from RIRA and Community Board 8. Stewart pointed out that many agencies would probably have to be consulted. Shane cited issues under the Americans with Disabilities Act, engineering difficulties, and the fact that the City Department of Transportation is cool to the idea. (Bridge access is the subject of another report in this issue.)

The RIOC Board approved the planned sale of Eastwood and, in doing so, collected a "transaction fee" of over $5 million. One Board member, Michael Shinozaki, voted against the transfer of ownership after citing concerns about the handling of the transition from Mitchell-Lama to private ownership.

The Board approved a grant of public-purpose funds to the Roosevelt Island Youth Program.

The Board was also briefed on a RIOC budget for the fiscal year that has now started. The budget is the subject of a separate report on page 8.

In responding to a question before the vote hiring him, Shane spoke of a desire "to make sure that this continues to be the bright and shining Island in the middle of the East River that it was envisioned to be and, in many ways, is uniquely so in the entire United States. There is no other mixed-income community like this. It is successful. You should all be very proud of what you have. I can appreciate your unhappiness about your wish list of how things might be better. But you need to, on balance, appreciate the wonderful stuff that you do have. And we will always try to make it better."