Senator Olga Mendez:   You guys should consider having the President and Vice President resign from RIRA so it wouldn't be a double-dip on both boards...

Assemblymember Pete Grannis:   We've been through this. We've talked to you. You've talked to RIRA. You had a vote on this. To me, the bottom line is the Island has committed to balanced representation in the Common Council.

Sherie Helstien (member of MTG and the RIRA Common Council):   No, that's not true. That's exactly not true.

David Bauer (Convenor, MTG):   It was a split vote in RIRA.

Grannis:   It was a split vote in the last Presidential election. One guy got one more vote than the other guy. One guy won and the other guy lost. The bottom line is that we tried to mirror the balance that had been guiding the members of the RIRA Common Council, to avoid the concern, whether it's legitimate or not, of all the members of RIOC coming from one building. There may be times when the interests of the buildings might be at odds. And if you're going to look for a problem to develop when there's this possible conflict, I think that you cannot have a risk of having one side, the Island, you know, split up, because they're battling on which side of the street they live on and whether they live in a coop or a rental, and that's the risk.

Those are my worries and I don't want to be called on, or I don't think my successor wants to be called on to step into a range war where there are battles... some buildings want to buy out of the Mitchell-Lama program, ground leases, the balance of interests back and forth... The idea of saying we can only find 7 people in one building to run, to me, is fraught with danger and I don't think that I'm going to set up for my successor to get involved in.

Patrick Stewart (President, Roosevelt Island Residents Association, and member, Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation Board of Directors): If we look at the City and it is assumed that RI's buildings are its districts... that is logic, because that is the way the City of New York is run... it has the mayor, and the City Council elected from districts, and it is the way the United States is run. where there's an elected President and Senators and Representatives representing their districts. And it has worked reasonably well on Roosevelt Island, and it's fair to assume that it would continue to work reasonably well.

Ron Vass (member, MTG, and former member of the RIOC Board of Directors):   What we're doing with the membership in this manner is emulating or copying RIRA, and to date you're taking for granted... They're having a difficult time getting anything accomplished in RIRA; they're having a difficult time getting candidates to come forward, so that you're earmarking people coming out of buildings who may never want to come out, and you're putting us in a position where we could have.

Grannis:   When you've got 8,000 people and out of a whole building, nobody wants to come out, you've got problems...

Vass: That's what we have right now on RIRA.

At this point, discussion of how elected representatives should be chosen was then put off until later in the meeting. What follows occurred at the end of the meeting.

Matthew Katz (member, MTG, and member, RIRA Common Council):   This was, I think, the point that caused more debate within Maple Tree Group and within the Common Council than anything else, primarily because it came as surprise, because in every other version of the bill it had been an at-large election. The first time we saw this was when we saw this draft of the bill, and we needed to do a great deal of discussion on it before we could determine in our minds what were the problems or the strong points of it. All we knew at that point was when Tony had called me and said, fundamentally, the problem that they saw was the danger of having too much weight in a single building. Our concern was, and I think it was reflected in the sense of the Common Council that was split right down the middle, was that we are talking about two very different kinds of groups. The Common Council is, after all, designed to be a representative group, and when you look at the nature of it, there are 28 members elected by buildings, then there are five potential members from RICO, there's the President and all the officers of the Board, then you can have all the members of the RIOC Board of Directors, all the members of Community Board 8, School Board 2... Everybody can vote in the Common Council. It's intention was to be the most representative kind of organization.

Grannis:   It does guarantee that all of the interests are represented, at whatever balance. So that everybody who has an interest in the Island has a voice on the Common Council.

Katz:   Absolutely. That's its function. That's its primary function. We see the function of a RIOC Board as being fundamentally different. It is a corporate board. It is responsible for a $9 million a year budget, $460 million in assets. Its primary function is to be the most competent board it can be. And to be able to function in the most competent way it possibly can. The RIRA Common Council is presently 31 people. The potential for electing every interest group on the Island to a RIOC Board is mind-boggling. How would anything ever get done? So when we started to debate what kind of board it might be we were thinking in terms of a smaller board, and a board that would attract the best people on the Island. Now, I got into trouble with Patrick [Stewart] when I used the term, at the meeting, "the best and the brightest." Somehow this was, I don't know, an elitist idea, or somehow exclusionary, but my intent was that, like any election where two or more people are running against one another, you're looking for the possible people to do the job existing, and the job here is to run a corporation. Now it seems to me, Sherie [Helstien] and I are elected from Manhattan Park. In all the time Manhattan Park has been on the Island, it has had eight potential members on the RIRA Common Council. There are currently five who are on Common Council. There have never been more than five. If Sherie had voted for herself and I had voted for myself, and nobody else liked us, thought we were competent, thought we were honest, or we smelled good, we would still be on the RIRA Common Council, because we are unopposed. That's the danger we see with this kind of a board, because of the discrepancies between buildings, and with a small board...

Mendez:   But going by buildings we will insure, first, that there is a diversity in the representation. Second...

Helstien:   No, it does not insure that.

Mendez:   If you go by at-large elections, that could be challenged by any group on the Island.

Linda Heimer (member, MTG; member, RIRA Common Council; Chair, RIRA Government Relations Committee):   What could be challenged?

Mendez:   By at-large.

Katz:   And if people are elected and take advantage of that to do the business of their building and not the Island at large, they'll be out in two years.

Mendez:   What about if in one building seven members are elected from one single building.

Ethel Romm (member, MTG):   You can put that in the bill. "No building can have more than..." You could add that sentence. An at-large election, and make some caveat. You have set up a board that is... Would you like to run a business with that kind of a board? You can't run... RIRA can't run a business. They are a marvelous group, wonderful for telling you what's going on and the concerns of it, it is a funnel for every opinion in the Island... critical to the running of the Island, good, but what you're asking RIOC to do is run the place. They'll hire a professional manager... You could give us language that insure that one building, or two buildings...

Grannis:   A board, you know, there isn't a board...

Romm:   You could give us language...

Grannis:   No board... it does its job... You set general policy, you set general guidelines, you hire the manager to do that. You're not asking this board to... But I think to have all the interests of all of the buildings, particularly the blocks that are out there right now, I think is very important, because of the different ethnic and economic mix on the Island.

[MULTIPLE VOICES; BRIEFLY UNINTELLIGIBLE]

Helstien:   You'll see exactly what you would get on this kind of board. You won't necessarily get, I mean, if you're elected Island-wide as you are in your district... you are elected to represent everybody in your district.

Grannis:   But in my district.

Helstien:   And that means...

Grannis:   I got another segment of it on the East side.

Katz:   Our district is Roosevelt Island.

Helstien:   Our district is Roosevelt Island, and it's not...

Katz:   It's not Island House.

Helstien:   And whoever is on that board is on that board to represent... Black, East Asian...

Grannis:   But my district is different from John Ravitz's. We divide the Island, we divide it into districts for a reason, because there may be complete...

Helstien:   But we already have that with RIRA...

Grannis:   RIRA isn't making any decisions.

Helstien:   But RIRA is the watchdog, and RIRA...

Vass:   RIRA is about the buildings of the Island. I just want to make a comment. RIOC has no relationship to the running of the buildings. It's really an invasion of one thing upon the other. Management is an enterprise...

Grannis:   Who pays the ground rent?

Vass:   That's the only relationship between the Board...

Jorge Vidro (Aide to Senator Olga Mendez):   I think what's important... you have to remember...

Heimer:   And how often...

Vass:   And how often does that come up, Pete? There is no other function where they are inter-related.

Patrick Stewart:   Ground rent comes up every month.

Vass:   No, the policy comes up...

Vidro:   I think that what the Senator and what Pete are saying in terms of diversity, to represent, is so much that if there is a greater number of minorities living in one building that they get someone from that building so that representation can be on the board. I don't think that's the point. I think the point is that they be represented by the person that they choose from that particular building, be the person black or white, it makes no difference, because they are actually represented on that board.

Romm:   It's a very seductive idea.

Vidro:   You have to elect the person of your choice. That's what districts...

Grannis:   The other option, you want to do what the school board does? Preferential voting?

Lee Edelman (member, MTG):   May I make a comment...

Stewart:   What I'm hearing here is, I think, the formation of a corporate board, for efficiency, and so on. A community is not a corporation. We're not electing a board to run General Motors Corporation. General Motors Corporation is most assuredly not a democracy, so do we want a corporate board? I think not. I think we want representation of all of the people, all of the buildings on the Island.

Helstien:   It's a public benefit corporation.

Edelman:   May I take a...

Grannis:   But it has to have the confidence of the residents of the Island. It represents their interests.

Edelman:   May I make a couple of points, if I may. The... or a few points. First off, the idea of a building representation representing the diversity of the buildings as they are... Many of them are mixed with similar type of populations. Some of the buildings which you, in your bill, have indicated a couple of people from... or, I shouldn't say "buildings," I should say "building complexes," let me call them districts for a moment, by the system you have will not represent the diversity that exists there. Case in point is Manhattan Park.

Grannis:   Could I do it the other way? I mean, we didn't devise... We used the model in the approved Council...

Edelman:   Granted. But the point you made was to represent and to allow the diversity on the Island to be represented. And one of the points I made is that this system is not really representative. Case in point, Manhattan Park, your draft calls for, I believe, two representatives from Manhattan Park. Now, Manhattan Park has five buildings, one of which is a low-income building, and if you have two people running, there's no guarantee that that population, which is significantly diverse, socioeconomically, from the rest of Manhattan Park, which tends to be the most affluent on the Island, because it's free market rent. There's no provision in your bill, for example, to guarantee representation by 2-4 River Road...

Grannis:   Nor is there on the Common Council...

Romm:   You do...

Katz:   Yes, there is. They get a separate representative...

Edelman:   And further, if I may, the representation that you're proposing is not consistent, I don't know if it needs to be, with proportional representation. You suggest two representatives from Southtown when it's built. Southtown is slated to have 2,000 apartments. That means there'll be one representative from each...

Grannis:   Make it bigger.

Edelman:   The point I'm making on this... I would like to make a couple of points...

Grannis:   If you don't like our board, I don't like the board that's general-elected. In our memo we said come up with another board...

Edelman:   Let me just make the points that I think are germane to the consideration, OK?

Grannis:   If you can do it without going over the things I've heard before. We've heard this argument... one is that you made it when you were in my office before, and I've heard this argument, I understand the issue.

Edelman:   Well, there's that issue of diversity. There's also the question of what happens, for example, if no one runs from a building. What happens if no one runs from a particular building.

Grannis:   What if nobody runs in my district? We can adjust...

Edelman:   Well, the point is if we have at-large then there are going to be people running. A further point is that, you made the point that you represent the diversity in the buildings. The only real interface that the board would have is on the ground rents. However, the interface on at-large issues that concern everyone on the Island is virtually everything else, and as a result should it not be that someone can vote and decide on all the representatives that are going to be deciding their interests on Island-wide issues? A further point is board of that size, of, what it is, 14?

Katz:   15.

Helstien:   17, with Southtown.

Edelman:   A Board of size is going to be extremely hard to run.

[INTERVENING OVERLAPPING DIALOG ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE BOARD AS WRITTEN INTO THE BILL]

Well, 13-15 is going to be extremely difficult to run, a la RIRA, In fact, one of the people, Judy Berdy, who very strongly supports representation by building, at one of the last RIRA meetings, got up and said, "We never get anything done. How can we continue..." She walked out of the meeting.

Grannis:   The people on the board will be elected on the basis of their commitment to get something done.

Heimer:   So were we. So were the Common Council.

Vidro:   There's two points, two things... First of all, if a vacancy occurs, I think it had been written before, [UNINTELLIGIBLE] be the same, the Board fills that...

Edelman:   So if no one runs from a building, then the Board fills the vacancy, which is very un...

Vidro:   Number two is, you have potentially four seats that you can fill with somebody for, through the mayoral appointments and through the President and First Vice President [of RIRA], because if you know they're automatically going to go to the Board [of RIOC], then run a competent person that you believe... to be on the Board, that may not be able to run, because that... you have someone from that building, and get that person elected that way. There are different ways of being able to do that.

Romm:   The idea is so compelling. It sounds so democratic, we're going to lose it and we probably shouldn't take your time anymore. It is a seductive idea, that from the buildings we get more democracy. That is not true. And you come back to Island House and you'll see that. But there's nothing politicians can do. They have to sound like they're for democracy... Can't you give us some way...

Grannis:   Well, I'll tell you the other problem I see. Boards of Directors of co-ops elected... Chaos. They turn into dictators, they don't pay attention to other people's concerns, their renters... I see it all over my district. We have a bill, the Co-op Shareholder Bill of Rights, to address that very issue, to make sure that there's a diversity represented on a co-op board, not the six people that, you know, want to make decisions, and do all the work, as we know...

Romm:   That language -- it sounds more democratic... and you've shackled us with a...

Grannis:   ... and I'll tell you, I see this every single day, so if you have another option...

Romm:   Well, we've given you our concern. Maybe you can figure out... and tell us how to do it.

Katz:   What if there was a combination of by-building and at-large members.

Grannis:   You have the two at-large.

Katz:   No. Those aren't elected. They're appointed.

Vidro:   They're not appointed. They're elected.

Helstien:   They're appointed, because...

Grannis:   The decision for who is on the Board from RIRA is the result of an Island-wide election of the Vice President and the President.

Romm:   There's a... All of us voted for Patrick. I like that.

Grannis:   So there's an Island... Knowing that he serves on the Board...

Helstien:   But if it works for the President and the Vice President of RIRA, why can't it work for an entire Board?

Grannis:   Because, I think, there's the Island's perspective and then there's the district's perspective...

Helstien:   But it's not...

[MULTIPLE VOICES; BRIEFLY UNINTELLIGIBLE]

Heimer:   I'd like to... What about the idea of checks and balances, such as RIRA being like the House of Reps and the RIOC Board being the Senate, where they... RIRA is a watchdog organization over RIOC, I mean, that's how we've been functioning, anyway.

Tony Morenzi (Aide to Assemblymember Pete Grannis):   You have no say.

Helstien:   We've overthrown Blue. So I would say that we have some say.

Grannis:   Blue overthrew Blue.

Helstien:   Well, but then... Please tell Patrick that.

[MULTIPLE VOICES; BRIEFLY UNINTELLIGIBLE]

Heimer:   May I finish? I had the floor. The point is, I really think it's a mistake to say that no one can run from this building because they used to live in this set of bricks and someone's already running from there, so no one... I mean, to do it because of a building is so ridiculous. If we want the best people -- sorry, Patrick, I want the best people on this Board -- it has to be Island-wide because we don't know how many are going to come out. We have eight districts in RIRA, where there could be eight contests. Out of eight contests, eight districts, there were only three contests. And those three buildings, if you didn't win, you became an alternate. That means that if you want to run for RIRA, you're automatically on RIRA. That's it. I have the results with me if you want to look at it. Everyone who ran for RIRA is on [the] RIRA [Common Council], either as a permanent person or as an alternate, because five out of the eight districts there was no contest whatsoever, and in the three where there was a contest, the people got on as alternates and some left so they became permanent or if they're out, they vote. This means that someone can vote for themselves. They can run for the RIOC Board and vote for themselves and get on.

Mendez:   Or, hypothetically, I mean, if you want to do this, the worst thing you can ever do with a lawyer is go to hypotheticals, because unless it's ironclad, you open the door. You're the best person by far on the Island. You live in Eastwood. But unfortunately, you may be the brightest, most committed person, ready to spend 100% of the time... you don't have the time to run Island-wide, somehow you can't interest any... You lose that best person to three, you know, lesser people, or another lesser person, who just happens to have more friends, who happens to live across the street.

Helstien:   But if I wanted to vote for that person, I can vote for that person because I'm not in Eastwood.

Heimer:   Right. You can't force them to run.

Edelman:   Island-wide, there's more of a chance for the electorate to make an Island-wide decision. If you have two great people from a building that many people on the Island would like, they can't vote for them. They can't vote for them, period, because...

Grannis:   Can you imagine the dynamic of everybody in Eastwood looking at everybody in Island House and Westview on the Board of RIOC, making decisions on whether or not you're going to raise the fare. Can you imagine that... Watch out. Watch out.

[MULTIPLE VOICES; BRIEFLY UNINTELLIGIBLE]

Bauer:   There are two things that we are talking about here. One is the size of the group and I think there's a feeling among a lot of people that the group is too big to be effective. OK, so we settle upon a size, and then you divide that into the number of people who are on the Island, and there will be at least one nominee from each of those thousand people, or whatever it works out to be, wherever the lines come, so you have this problem with...

Grannis:   We're trying to make it very simple. The easiest way you associate... you don't associate yourself with the thousand people who live on one side of Eastwood. You associate yourself... everything I've seen, over my 25 years of representing... living in Eastwood, or Island House, or Westview. You don't do it...

Bauer:   There's an interesting point of view. I live in the blue wing in Rivercross, therefore should I have a representative for the blue wing of Rivercross? That's who I associate with. No, no, no. What I'm looking for, when you go through the election process, Pete, which you know better than anybody else, you state a position and people raise questions with you about that, make sure you're sincere, and they vote for you or don't vote for you.

Edelman:   And we're talking about Island-wide issues almost all the time. For Island-wide decisions...

Grannis:   Well, I think this is [UNINTELLIGIBLE]... I mean, if you don't like building representation, I don't like Island-wide for the entire Board, I just don't think that that works out...

Helstien:   What if we came up with one representative from each building to be elected, and other people run, so that each building has two representatives... I'm not sure... so that there's one person from each building and then Island-wide, have elections, but for whatever, five more seats, however many more seats...

[MULTIPLE VOICES; BRIEFLY UNINTELLIGIBLE]

Grannis:   Don't make RIRA [President and First Vice President] automatic on there.

Morenzi:   Make it separate, that they're not the President and First Vice President... they're just two Island-wide representatives.

Katz:   That's an excellent idea...

Romm:   Make it... If a building doesn't come up with a candidate, it becomes an at-large one. Is that a possibility? We're worried that many of these buildings won't, and therefore the Board undemocratically chooses somebody. Could that be...?

Grannis:   You could look at that, you can look [UNINTELLIGIBLE]... quorum of the Board is... if there happens to be an empty seat.

Heimer:   Tony, what was your suggestion?

Morenzi:   Instead of the RIRA President and Vice President, just make them Island-wide seats. At large.

Katz:   At large. So that it doesn't require a RIRA President to take on two massive jobs at the same time.

Grannis:   You don't know how much pressure I was...

Stewart:   You know that, in effect, the RIRA President does do that.

Katz:   I know. But with all deference, there will be a President following you who may not be the workhorse.

Stewart:   That's the risk of the game, my friend.

Grannis:   We were under intense pressure 15 years ago to make sure that the RIRA President was on the Board of RIOC...

Heimer:   That's because there was no elected representation, that's why.

Grannis:   There was no concern about this dual role at that point, whatsoever.

Helstien:   Who did you sit down to talk to about this?

Morenzi:   No, no. This was the bill that everybody wanted...

Grannis:   I spent as much time on that issue with Island... with all... people from the Island. I didn't make this up.

[MULTIPLE VOICES; BRIEFLY UNINTELLIGIBLE]

Stewart:   One last thing. If I remember correctly, back in 1986, Senator Mendez and Assemblyman Grannis said, in effect, that the answer to all of these problems was greater representation on the existing RIOC Board of Directors. Control of the RIOC Board of Directors. I think that's what was said.

Heimer:   Elected representatives.

Stewart:   Greater, no, greater representation...

Grannis:   ...appointed... I mean, the desperation...

Stewart:   That, to me, seems very simple, very straightforward...

Heimer:   And how well does David Kraut represent you, Patrick?

Stewart:   I'm not talking about...

Heimer:   When they're appointed they have allegiances elsewhere.

Stewart:   Let me just finish here... David Kraut is David Kraut. David Kraut was appointed, elected. Ethel Romm is Ethel... You know, how good are any of us in this room? Who knows? You've got to do the job before you find out how good you are.

Romm:   You're pretty good at it.

Stewart:   No. No. No, no, no...

Heimer:   The point is, you have different allegiances when you are elected than when you are appointed.

[MULTIPLE VOICES; BRIEFLY UNINTELLIGIBLE]

Helstien:   So five individuals, one from each of the buildings, two Island-wide...

Morenzi:   You want to give the bigger buildings extra...

Edelman:   Why not, why not one from...

Helstien:   ... one from each building, two Island-wide, the DHCR [representative], the DOB (State Director of the Budget)...

Morenzi:   No, it's not, you can't say from each building, because it's a complex.

Helstien:   One from each complex. One from Eastwood, one from Westview, one from Island House, one from Rivercross, one from...

[MULTIPLE VOICES; BRIEFLY UNINTELLIGIBLE]

Grannis:   The only problem that solves is it makes the Board, you know, four or five people, smaller. It doesn't solve...

[MULTIPLE VOICES; BRIEFLY UNINTELLIGIBLE]

Edelman:   Why not have one person from Eastwood, one from Manhattan Park, and one person from Island House-Westview-Rivercross. Those are kind of complexes. One each. And then three Island-wide.

Vidro:   You see, this is the problem we have. We're trying to solve the problems of democracy by getting more democracy, and you guys don't like it.

Edelman:   But it's less democracy, Jorge...

Romm:   We're asking for a more... You'll figure out a bill, so... So at the same time you can say, "I'm from democracy."

Helstien:   But why not one from each of the com...

Grannis:   This isn't a cosmetic concern.

Bauer:   It is not, no.

Grannis:   We deal with organizations all over our districts and all over the cities and these problems come up. You see the problems of Boards of Directors that don't have the confidence of the people they are speaking for, and it destroys the effectiveness of the organization because there's infighting when there doesn't have to be. And I think there's...

[MULTIPLE VOICES; BRIEFLY UNINTELLIGIBLE]

Edelman:   Representation by building will not...

Helstien:   ...that's five, plus two or three Island-wide, however large that number would be... plus two Mayoral appointees plus the two people from DOB and DHCR... that's, no that's not, that's eleven

Edelman:   Representation by building is not going to produce the infighting, you're not going to have that...

Grannis:   Concern noted.

Edelman:   One from Eastwood, one from Manhattan Park, one from Westview-Island House...

Joan Christianson (First Vice President, RIRA):   No, I actually think that people come out from the different buildings... I'm the vote that sat on the fence on this the other night [at the RIRA Common Council meeting], but sitting here listening to everybody, I honestly think that if you have the building representation we're better off. And different people will come out. People don't come out for RIRA because RIRA does not run the Island. If these people are going to be running our Island, I think we're going to get people coming out that we never see.

Heimer:   Joan, when you were setting up the Legal Committee and you wanted Larry Parnes and Marc Diamond, Nellie Negrin... Why? Because they're experts at certain things. You may have an expert in one building but you can't use him because there's already someone from that building...

[MULTIPLE VOICES; BRIEFLY UNINTELLIGIBLE]

Mendez:   You guys could create blue-ribbon committees of the Island to address specific things and report to the Board. You've got to do that. But let me mention something. It appears that there is very strong feelings on the Island from people who [MULTIPLE VOICES; BRIEFLY UNINTELLIGIBLE] show. Anyway, well, if you, could you guys agree to a compromise, I mean, who... which could be the compromise? Could we get a bill insuring that the Board would be constituted or certain elected people, and that they will work as the present Board of RIRA, but with control by the residents of the Island, for a certain period of time, during which time you do x, y, and z, and with self-governance. I was just thinking this crazy thing as a middle ground between the groups of people here.

Morenzi:   The one thing people have to remember is that there is no other public benefit corporation that elects its members. WE don't know yet what kind of opposition we're going to face just on that issue. I mean, this bill has never been out, and we don't know, it might get blocked because all of a sudden people say, well, you can't have an elected public benefit corporation as the only one in the State, and all these other public benefit corporations start... We don't know...

Mendez:   Wait... It's what we had in the original bill, that the powers-to-be... We knew that Governor Cuomo was not going to relinquish his power of appointing. We know that the Mayor of the time was not going to relinquish his power of appointment, so there are so many ways to skin a cat, we said, "A ha, let's have the elections here and then the names of the people that we want appointed, these people that we want appointed, they will have to choose between those names.

Bauer:   Olga, Pete, you know, maybe we've kicked this around long enough in here. Why don't we go back to the Island and try to think of something that might be a modification between what you're talking about and what...

[MULTIPLE VOICES; BRIEFLY UNINTELLIGIBLE]

Vass:   Somebody ought to summarize the meeting, Pete, please...

Heimer:   Where are we going from here?

Grannis:   We need to talk about this issue. Most of the other issues, we know where we're going, and those that we can't, we tell you...

Bauer:   We want to thank you for your efforts on this...

Heimer:   Yes, thank you so much...