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July 4, 1999
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Self-Governance Plan Ignites Debate
MTG Effort Survives Stewart Challenge,
Self-governance is stalled, at least temporarily.
The legislation sponsored by the Maple Tree Group (MTG) is on hold, for now, in committees of the
State Senate and Assembly. Whether it will be released for action by the two houses of
the Legislature, and how that will happen, is the subject of discussions expected to take
place over the next two to three weeks both in Albany and the City.
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 Patrick Stewart |
Residents Association President Patrick Stewart mounted a challenge to the current form of the legislation after reading it in the last issue of The WIRE, primarily on financial grounds (see RIRA President's Column). Stewart called two emergency meetings, one of the RIRA executive committee, consisting of the body's Vice Presidents, and one of the full RIRA Common Council. The meetings, held Monday and Tuesday, June 14 and 15, resulted in a 17-3 Common Council vote in favor of moving forward with the legislative effort. (The vote had been mistakenly announced as 17-4, until it was learned James Kaufman had not left a "no" proxy.) |  Among those defending the legislation: Ron Vass, Linda Heimer | ||
 Matthew Katz summarized MTG's defense of the legislation |
The story of MTG's two-year effort to change the way Roosevelt Island is managed is the subject of a special section of this issue of The WIRE. Meeting weekly, and sometimes more frequently, the group worked first with Assemblymember Pete Grannis, then with Senator Olga Mendez, in crafting a bill which, if it became law, would allow Island residents to elect five members of the Board of Directors of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC). That Board would then be empowered to hire professional management. | |||
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There have been two basic versions of the MTG legislation - the so-called "Grannis bill,"
essentially a rewrite of the current law that established RIOC, and the "Mendez bill,"
crafted by Mendez aide Jorge Vidro with extensive input from the administration of
Governor George Pataki. The Mendez version is the one under most recent active
consideration, and the one Patrick Stewart continues to oppose as "foolish." Because the legislative process has produced several last-minute alterations of the Mendez bill, Stewart has said the June 16 Common Council vote is no longer valid; MTG members claim instead that the June 16 vote was an endorsement of the process MTG is managing, rather than of a specific bill. |
 RIRA Common Council member Zahieh Wazani congratulates members of MTG after their successful defense of the then-current version of self-governance legislation. | |||
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Pataki is believed to favor resident-based management of Roosevelt Island at this time for any
number of reasons, with speculation ranging from a desire to relieve the State of a
moderate-income housing development not in synch with his ideas about housing, to wanting
a strong Republican-compatible position on local rule as part of a bid for nomination for
the Vice Presidency if George Bush of Texas becomes the GOP Prsidential nominee. Last month, Pataki relieved the controversial President of RIOC, Dr. Jerome Blue, moving him to the State Commission on Human Rights, and replacing him with Robert Ryan (see RIOC President's Column). (The bill, the process that led to it, and the debate over it are dealt with in an advocacy article and editorial, the RIRA Column, and in letters in this issue, plus the special section.) | ||||
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