At the July 13 meeting of Board of Directors of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC), Jessica Rademaker addressed the question of what mechanism should be used in making decisions to fund projects proposed by Island organizations, asking the Board to drop a system in which the Common Council of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) and the Board of the Roosevelt Island Council of Organizations (RICO) made recommendations to the RIOC Board. Although Rademaker did not make a copy of her remarks available to The WIRE, her reasoning is thoughtful and worth the attention of a broader audience than was available at the RIOC meeting; this version is reconstructed from a reporter's notes of the meeting.

Returning control of the Public Purpose Funds to RIRA and RICO would be a terrible mistake. The Roosevelt Island Residents Association, or RIRA, as it is commonly called, and the Roosevelt Island Council of Organizations, known as RICO, have persistently demonstrated that they cannot rise above their own petty prejudices and priorities by objectively considering any valid proposal for approval if it does not fit their agenda, which is total control of all phases of Island activity. Time after time they have approved proposals that, on careful examination, prove, to use the old expression, that it's their way or the highway.

RICO was created as an ad hoc committee of RIRA. In accordance with the RIRA constitution, members of an ad hoc committee are chosen by the President of RIRA. Therefore, the choices of President and members were made by the then-President of RIRA. This hand-picked committee became the original executive committee of RICO. This committee then set up a selection process to admit only organizations that met their standards. RICO members supposedly elect members of the executive committee. RICO does not hold public meetings, does not publish any information on their activities, and to the best of my knowledge has been dormant for a number of years. What has RICO done in the last five years? What has RICO done recently? Does it still exist?

In a letter published in the October 27, '89 issue of The WIRE, Ronald Musto, Ph.D., President of the Board of the Roosevelt Island Community Library, described RICO as an organization that appears to have no claims to legitimacy, politically or financially. This article should be required reading before making a decision to allow RICO to again have any say in the approval process.

The RIRA/RICO process of approving requests for Public Purpose Funds requires proposals to be submitted to RICO for approval. RICO then notifies RIRA of its decision. The Common Council of RIRA then votes to approve or disapprove the Public Purpose Funds request and submits both decisions and recommendations to the RIOC Board.

Here's the best part of this ridiculous scenario. The RIRA consitution states that resident members of Community Board 8 have one vote each on the Common Council, 2 votes; resident RIOC Board members have one vote each in the Common Council, 4 votes; RICO Board members have a vote on the Common Council, 5 votes. This adds up to eleven votes. The CC has 28 elected members. A quorum is 15 and a quorum majority is 8. You don't have to be a genius to see how the RIRA vote can be controlled. In addition, Susan Whitaker is a RIOC Board member and RICO Chair. Does she have two votes? Patrick Stewart is a RIOC Board member, President of RIRA, and a Community Board 8 member. Does he have three votes? Dave Kraut is a RIOC Board member, ex-President of RIRA, possible member of RIOC's Public Purpose Fund committee, and supporter of returning to the failed RIRA/RICO approval process. Is there a conflict of interest? If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.

If control is returned to RIRA and RICO, a hand-picked group will again return to the self-interested distribution of Public Purpose Funds. It is not surprising that the major portion of the Public Purpose Funds have been spent on projects that are enthusiastically supported by the so-called community leaders. No wonder the Cultural Center, headed by a then-member of the RICO Board, and whose members are her relatives, are staunch supporters of the Cultural Center, received over $600 thousand in Public Purpose Funds. No wonder RICO received $350,000 in Public Purpose Funds. Return of control of one-half of the approval process to RICO, the beneficiary of $350,000, which is over one-third of the Public Purpose social service funds and a complete failure to the extent that former supporters Dave Kraut, Ron Vass and other Board members [now disavow it, would be a mistake]. Patrick Stewart, [also a] former enthusiastic supporter of the RICO fiasco, finally rejected further spending when results returned to the past policies that resulted in a stranglehold and lack of interest on the part of many who have been rejected in a request for funding.

Returning the other half of the approval process to RIRA with its domination of reactionary "back to the future" mentality will further erode confidence in equal opportunity on Roosevelt Island.

Returning control of the Public Purpose Funds to RIRA and RICO would be a terrible mistake. The same group continues in their attempts to control all aspects of life on Roosevelt Island and stifle any community spirit and encourage the continual apathy of the majority of residents. The only organization to receive Public Purpose Funds without RIRA and RICO approval was the Young Adult League. It is no coincidence that the Young Adult League is, without question, the most successful social service program on Roosevelt Island, despite the disapproval, denunciation, and ridicule of RIRA and RICO and the so-called community leaders.