This feels like no other May in recent Roosevelt Island memory.

There's action everywhere, and you can sense its roots in another May that was like none in recent Island history – last May.  In May of 1998, Islanders were doing their best, without legal assistance, to cope with a RIOC proposal to take Octagon Park for a commercial Eldercare facility.  By mid-May, the RIOC Board of Directors had stalled that plan in response to resident pressure, and the site was eventually changed to take over part of the Sportspark footprint just south of the Queensboro Bridge.

Score one for residents and parkland?  Not quite.

By the end of May, RIOC was pushing the idea of twin 17-story hotel towers at Southpoint, another egregious taking of open space.

That SSJ Hotel plan remains alive today.

Without commenting in any way on the new proposal for the Octagon Tower put forward by Becker and Becker Associates (see page 1), because we just don't have enough information yet, it seems abundantly clear that the Roosevelt Island Residents Association rather desperately needs a capability for doing something more than grousing at the rare evening RIOC Board meeting.

That's why there's now a legal fund. The fund for which residents are now raising money will provide the clout that can put Island leaders in an empowered position when they sit across the table from RIOC personnel.  Such a sitdown happens rarely, but the potential inherent in a litigation fund can arm-wrestle a reluctant RIOC to the negotiating table.

Who knows?  RIOC might even start listening to the people who live here, and to their elected Common Council in the Residents Association.

But to make it stick, your contribution is needed.  If you haven't pledged yet, or written a check, use the form at the right.

Do it now.  Do it to protect the Island's open spaces.  Do it to bring a runaway RIOC to heel.  Do it because public servants who ignore the public are not public servants at all.  Do it for yourself and your future, and for the Island.

Last election, 92% of Island voters cast ballots favoring self-governance for Roosevelt Island as embodied in legislation introduced in the State Assembly by Pete Grannis.

If you see your fellow residents wearing buttons reminding you of that simple, democratic, mathematical fact, you'll know they're trying to remind you – and officialdom – that those who live here want the responsibility for controlling this Island's destiny.

Conversely, they want the power out of the hands of non-residents.  After all, does the Governor send an incompetent personal representative to manage Utica?