Residents Association President Patrick Stewart appeared Thursday night on CB8 Speaks, a public access program carried on Time-Warner Cable Channel 34. The program will be shown again Friday, May 21, at 5:30 p.m. Appearing with Stewart were RIRA Common Council member Matthew Katz, and Assemblymember Pete Grannis, who has introduced legislation that would replace RIOC with an elected Board of Residents empowered to hire professional municipal management for the Island, replacing the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, its President, and its Board of Directors, who are appointed by the Governor. The program is hosted by Richard Speziale.

Richard Speziale (RS):   Good evening and welcome. You're watching CB8 Speaks, the voice of Community Board 8. I'm Richard Speziale. Tonight, we return to the quite beautiful place called Roosevelt Island. It's unique in all of New York State, and tonight we're going to be speaking about some of the unique aspects of the government and some of the concerns of the residents of Roosevelt Island. With me tonight are State Assemblyman Pete Grannis of the 65th Assembly District, which includes Roosevelt Island; Matthew Katz, who is a member of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association Common Council, and a member of the Maple Tree Group on Roosevelt Island; and Patrick Stewart, the President of the Residents Association, and a member of Community Board 8. We should point out that several attempts were made by CB8 Speaks to contact Dr. Jerome Blue of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, and Commissioner Joseph Lynch of the State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) in an attempt to have a balanced program, and we regret that they did not get back to us and participate in this show tonight.

Let's start with you, Assemblyman Grannis. You have recently introduced a bill that addresses the way the Island is governed. Why don't you give us a brief overview of why a bill needs to be introduced and the unique situation...

Pete Grannis (PG):   This is the latest step in a long line of steps for the Island to achieve some measure of self-control and self-governance. Actually, the bill I introduced was written by the Maple Tree Group, Matthew's group, and other people who've worked long and hard on trying to refashion this State-chartered Public Benefit Corporation, into a more community-oriented entity, in which the members of the Board of Directors would be not Governor's appointees and the Director of the Budget and the Commissioner of Housing Preservation and Renewal, but members elected by the people on the Island, the thought being that the Island's destiny is very much a matter of concern for the 8,200 residents on the Island. This is a unique planned community, planned for the benefit of the people who are living there, not for anybody else, and the families and individuals who live on the Island ought to be in charge of their own destiny. There have been a number of events that have led to this. This used to be a corporation that was supported by the State government. The Governor of the State used to provide operating subsidies and support for the capital infrastructure of the Island. Both those supports have been removed by Governor Pataki in the last several years, so the Island is, for all intents and purposes, self-sufficient, operating on its own revenues, and the feeling among the Island residents - a strong feeling - is that if they are paying for the operation of the Island they ought to be in control, or at least have more of a say in the running of the corporation that controls their destiny.

RS:   Matthew, why don't you tell us just a little about the Maple Tree Group, and some of its concerns, and why you helped to shape this legislation.

Matthew Katz (MK):   About two years ago a group of residents sat down under a maple tree behind our landmark building, Blackwell House, which is a 200-year-old farmhouse, to discuss the problems of the Island, to see if there was a way we could make an inventory of the problems of the Island and perhaps come up with some solutions. This was done about a year ago, when it seemed apparent that while the RIRA Common Council, the Residents Association, was very effective under Patrick Stewart's tutelage in dealing with the crises that were occurring, given that we were now self-sufficient, or supposedly so, in terms of raising revenues on the Island in inappropriate ways, in dealing with shortfalls by simply not maintaining the Island sufficiently, by not making repairs, we decided the problem was a systemic one, that as long as people who did not live on the Island were responsible for the Island's destiny, then we would have no control; the Island would go in directions we were not a part of, and we saw a continuing road of disintegration for the Island.

A decision was made to create legislation, based on the original 1984 legislation that created the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC), and over the past year this legislation was crafted to replace an appointed Board, an appointed President of RIOC, with an elected Board - elected from the residents of the Island, who would then hire a City Manager to run the Island. It was our contention that residents of the Island who had a stake in what was going on could do a better job of it than an appointed Board, that we could find efficiencies that the State could not, that we could find sources of income that the State could not. We've done this, we've consulted a great many people in the process. Certainly, Pete Grannis has been one of them, and some of the people who were there at the initiation of the Island, to give us guidance, and members of DHCR, and we've put together a piece of legislation that we're proud of, and that we feel has found a place in time right now, given that there is a great deal of development scheduled for the Island, and that if we are to have any impact on this development, we need to assert ourselves right now.

RS:   Patrick, I believe the last program in this series focused on the building of a Marriott Hotel at the south end of the Island, on land that is designated parkland. Can you give us an update on what's happening with that hotel?

Patrick Stewart (PS):   I'd be happy to do that Richard. I believe Pete mentioned a Public Benefit Corporation, which is correct. This particular Public Benefit Corporation is neither for the public nor for the benefit of the public, unfortunately, which is why we are moving toward Pete's bill and the Maple Tree Group's bill. Currently, there is proposed $1.1 billion worth of development under consideration for Roosevelt Island. There is Southpoint, at the southern tip of the Island, which is, at least for Roosevelt Islanders, the most valuable piece of real estate in the City of New York. It is the proposed site for a $400 million hotel, conference center, spa, restaurant, etc., which will intrude upon 15 acres of designated parkland.

Moving north, near the Tramway there is a 31-story eldercare facility, about $200 million in construction. Unfortunately, it's my understanding that very few people on Roosevelt Island would be able to use that facility, simply because of the costs of that. Then you move up to Southtown, which is a 2,500-unit apartment complex in buildings. This project, of the four, is the only one that has general citizen approval. It is apartments, designed to fit into the General Development Plan that is contained in the lease between the City and the State of New York, and therefore of great benefit to the Island in building it up population-wise. And the fourth, and the smallest, and probably the most contentious, interestingly enough, is this little operation called mini-school conversion. At one time, all of the kids on the Island went to schools in separate buildings. Now, we have a school that has them all. The mini-schools were then abandoned, and I think the Board of Education left $500,000 for the rehabilitation, making them safe, and so on. And the Operating Corporation has been looking for a way to use that space in a profitable way, which is fine and reasonable. They came briefly to the citizens with an idea of turning those mini-schools into fifteen condominiums, and that seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea. They then came back to us with an additional floor atop the condominiums, which therefore would ruin the view of a substantial number of residents who are in the existing buildings. So the citizens have taken the view that we would give up far more in terms of quality of life, for the residents who are already there, to have these sixteen condos built. So all of that adds up to 1 billion, 105 million dollars. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money to be spending on a 2-mile long, 800-yard wide island.

RS:   Obviously, somebody thinks this real estate can be very profitable. I think that's obvious to anybody who has ever been to the Island.

PS:   One would assume so.

RS:   Right. And the residents simply want a say in the way the profit is generated. I don't think there's too many people who are against all development. There seems to be room for development. There seems to be certain needs to be fulfilled on the Island.

MK:   There is. Sure.

PG:   The Roosevelt Island plan was not to use the land for the most valuable, for the biggest return to the City. The whole plan for this planned community was to have an economically integrated, racially mixed Island with people from all walks of life, from all backgrounds, living in a planned community in the middle of the East River. There were other things that would probably have generated a great deal more money.

RS:   And that's largely been fulfilled.

PG:   Well, the plan was originally to have a community of nearly 20,000 people. During the very early days of the plan's development, the State Agency in charge of developing it, the Urban Development Corporation (UDC), went belly up. At least it got into a great deal of financial difficulty. And the development of the Island stopped, at more or less at the size it is today.

RS:   Which is about 8,200, you said. And it's largely integrated, economically integrated. That part is a success.

PG:   That part has been very successful. But the goal of the Island was not to sell it off to the highest bidder.

RS:   Right.

PG:   And it's all subject to a very complicated master plan that laid out how the Island was to be developed. I think everybody there understands that it's not a plan written in stone. It can be changed. It has been changed. But there was a goal to have this broad base of integrated community living where people knew each other. It was a small community located in a big city isolated by the East River on both sides. And the idea was to have a community that functioned and operated much like a small town. And, in fact, that's what it is. In many ways, it is a small town in the middle of the City. It's not a community like Yorkville. Because of its unique barriers with the River on both sides. And I think that brought a great deal of strain on the City, on the residents of the Island, because while, in fact, they are a small community, they've been manhandled, for the last four years, by the Pataki administration. And they've been basically ignored by the City. It's City land leased to the State, turned over to the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, on which there are the homes of now 8,200 New York City residents, possibly several thousand more, if the next phase of the development goes ahead. But the master plan still should be the guiding principle that says how the Island is developed. And to make that work, we all believe the residents ought to be an integral part of the planning process. And under the current State administration, they've been excluded from this planning and development, and the discussion about where their community is headed.

RS:   Now what about RIOC, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation. The Governor appoints - is it nine members?

PS:   Nine members.

RS:   Are a majority of these people Island residents?

PG:   Well, there's a scheme for how the appointments are made. Some of them are supposed to be on the recommendation of the Mayor of the City of New York. Both of those positions are unfilled.

PS:   Unfilled.

PG:   And have been for quite some time. The Mayor has said he's made his recommendations to the Governor. The Governor hasn't acted on the recommendations from the Mayor. Whether that's true or not, we don't know. But the point is, there are at least two openings from the City that have not been filled. The Governor then makes recommendations on his own. One of the recommendations is supposed to be the head of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association. It's been a sort of unwritten commitment to have an Island elected resident on the Board.

RS:   It seems logical.

PG:   Yes, it does, if for no other reason, then just to be able to have a way for the Island's voice to be heard. Several other members of the Board are Island residents, but their appointing authority is not on the basis of recommendations from the Island community. However, these appointments get made through the Governor's process and the Mayor's review process. The State Controller, the State Director of the Budget, sits on the Boards by legislation, the State Commissioner of Housing and Community Renewal is on the Board. Basically, this is an agency that is answerable through the State Division of Housing and Community Renewal. But the only elected Island appointee that is meant to be there, at this point, is the elected President of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association. That, so far, has been denied.

RS:   So, Matthew, it seems to me that a great deal of the residents are literally up in arms because the Island seems to have been cut loose. We did a show in the past couple of years, on how the operating budget, the capital budget, was reduced to zero. The way it's set up, it certainly needs some money from the State. It was designed like that from the beginning.

MK:   Oh, yes. Well, we've seen our infrastructure suffer, as a result. Our streets are not being fixed. The seawall, the railings around our Island - we have a beautiful promenade, have not been repaired. There are a great many equally neglected facets of the Island. They have tried to make up revenue in bizarre ways. They've tried to quintuple the fees to our Little League for our own community ballfields. The RIRA Common Council fought that back, but it's been one brush fire after another. And it doesn't need to be this way. We are capable of running the Island ourselves. There is a very talented pool of people on the Island who could do this. The original intent of the Island was that it be self governing at some point. And we would like to make that happen now.

RS:   Patrick, you mentioned a very contentious issue having to do with the mini-schools. I understand there was a meeting recently in the Chapel, and residents were quite annoyed and turned as a group and walked out of the meeting because they felt somebody who was supposed to be there...

PS:   Well, essentially, the President of the Operating Corporation chose not to be there, and left it to a commercial developer to stand in his stead, which was not acceptable to us.

This whole thing to me is very interesting and almost not understandable in that the Roosevelt Island situation could be synonymous to a situation like this:   The Mayor of New York City tells the people of Chelsea, let's say, that they don't get anything more - no more sanitation, no more fire protection, no police, no more nothing - that they have to be self-sufficient. Or the Governor tells the town of Peekskill that they have to be self-sufficient. Well, there is no such thing as self-sufficiency. There is no community in the country, there is no state in the country, that is self-sufficient. The country itself is the biggest debtor nation in the world. So to talk about self-sufficiency in those terms is sort of an insult, because as I sit here and look at what seems to be going on here is that not only are we supposed to be self-sufficient, but we are supposed to be a profit center for the State of New York. And I take great umbrage at that. We pay taxes to the City of New York, we pay taxes to the State of New York, and we pay federal taxes. The taxes we pay to the City and the State, we get nothing in return, literally. People in Manhattan, for instance, do not worry about whether the seawall is going to cave in. We do. And on and on and on. It's the old story, I think, you can make money by not maintaining things, or save money by not maintaining things. And wait until they break. And when they break, you fix them. But if you wait until they break, it's going to cost you ten times more money than if you had maintained them in the first place.

RS:   Exactly. We've seen the situation with the Williamsburg Bridge being ignored for many years, the entire subway system was ignored for many years. Just to play catch-up with all the repairs got very, very expensive. And this is what's going on, on the Island.

PG:   Exactly. It's a lesson that seems to have been forgotten. The City, penny-wise and pound-foolish, failed to invest in its infrastructure, and paid a very stiff price, not only in taxpayer dollars but in our credit rating, in trying to pay catch-up to get the subways running, and the bridges fixed, and all the roads and all the other problems that had been allowed to deteriorate.

RS:   And Matthew, you mentioned the streets have not been maintained, and I'm thinking that there are not a lot of streets on Roosevelt Island. There's one main street and a few other roads that shoot off of it.

MK:   And on opening day of our Little League, we have a parade down Main Street. We're like small-town America. I did want to add one point - that the idea of self-government is not an idea of a small group of people that has been foisted on the rest of the community. Last November, during the elections that brought me to the Common Council, we put a question on the ballot, asking the residents, to paraphrase, "Would you be in favor of self-government and specifically would you support the Grannis bill?" We worked very hard to educate the residents of the Island as to what this entailed. Ninety-two percent of the residents voted to support the Grannis bill. Also, the Common Council voted this past February to actively support the Grannis bill. This is a groundswell from the community. We've seen the future and we want to have a stake in it.

RS:   And Patrick, self-rule, this sounds like something the Queen bestows on certain African nations in the 1950's when she cut them loose from the Commonwealth. It seems kind of bizarre to be talking about a apart of New York City or any part of the United States that involves self-rule.

PS:   It's a good point, and I will not make the comparison of George III of England and George Pataki. However, the situation is such that we are the only community in the United States that does not elect the people who operate the Island. Thank God we've got Pete Grannis and Gifford Miller as our local representatives, but Pete and Gifford don't run the Island. The State of New York runs the Island. And prior to this administration, that had not been a problem. Now it is a problem, and when it becomes a problem like that people begin thinking, "Well, we're living in a situation right here, right now, and have been for a long time, that is essentially unconstitutional." The last time I know of a community like Roosevelt Island, it was Washington, D.C., when Congress ran it. But that's unacceptable from the constitutional point of view.

And as I said before, to add on to that, we the taxpayers pay $4 million to the Operating Corporation for payroll. that's adding insult to...

RS:   How much is that?

PS:   $4,100,000, to be exact. Those of us who have been around for a while know that you can do it for less, and that you can do a far better job for less, and that should be done.

RS:   Let me ask you, Matthew. The $4 million goes out there. Nobody's sure where it's spent, is that correct?

MK:   That's true. The communication between RIOC and the community has not been good. More than anything, that is what drew me into the local politics of Roosevelt Island. My wife and I found ourselves at a RIOC meeting in which the community was encouraged to make comments and ask questions, and we did so for one solid hour. We were told that, at the end of that hour, there would be answers forthcoming. And at the end of that hour, there was a cardboard box produced, and plunked down on the table, and we were told that these were position papers and that all our answers would be found there. I thought this was rude. And at that point I resolved to get a bit more active in the local politics of Roosevelt Island, and that's escalated ever since, and I've never regretted a minute of it.

RS:   So, Assemblyman, what needs to happen with this bill now? What would you like to see happen next? What needs to happen for this bill to become a reality?

PG:   The bill has been introduced in both the Assembly and the Senate, by me and by Olga Mendez, who represents the Island in the State Senate. The goal will be to get it past both houses and to the Governor's desk, and to get him to sign it. I think we have to concentrate now. There are some technical issues involved in how you deal with public benefit corporations, so that we don't jeopardize outstanding obligations. But I think we can resolve those.

I think the Island group, the Maple Tree Group, has done an extraordinarily good job in preparing this draft and in working with the residents of the Island to understand what it means in practical and technical terms, in the changes that are necessary. The goal over the next several months is to get it in final shape and past the Assembly and, hopefully, past the Senate, and then we have to worry about what the Governor will do with it if we ever get to that point.

RS:   Matthew, if there are people watching who would like to get involved with your group, how can they...?

MK:   The Maple Tree Group has met every Monday night for the past two years. We meet in the cafeteria of our school, PS/IS 217, at 7:30 in the evening. We encourage everyone to come out. We've been a group of as many as 80 residents of the Island, although there's a core of about 15 people. We're convinced that the more ideas that come our way the better prepared we'll be for taking control of our own future.