"The most important thing I see for this Island is the question of who runs the Island," Katz said, announcing his candidacy before a meeting of the Eastwood Building Committee.  "RIOC [the Roosevelt Island Opecrating Corporation] has been a thorn in the side of residents.  The way it's set up now, there is a Board of nine appointed members, and there's a politically-appointed President of RIOC.  At present, five members of the Board are not residents.  None of these people has shown himself to have a stake in this community."

Katz has been an active member of the Maple Tree Group (MTG), which for three years has worked for legislation to change RIOC so that a majority of its members would be elected by residents, and so that the RIOC President would be a hired professional manager rather than a political appointee.  Katz was recently elected Convener of MTG, taking over the post David Bauer had held for three years.

"We've seen an entire layer of government denied us," Katz said.  "We have a Federal government and we have a State government.  What about local government?  Most places in New York State have a local government responsible for the day-to-day running of the place.  We have a bright young member of City Council, Gifford Miller, who has worked hard for us, but he has absolutely nothing to do with the budget of this Island, or with the day-to-day running of this Island.  Who does?  RIOC.  Can we elect its Board members?  No.  They're appointed by the Governor and they are beholden only to him."

Katz faulted current RIRA leadership for failing to work actively toward local democratically-elected governance of Roosevelt Island.  He said local self-governance "is something the RIRA Common Council has voted for on at least three separate occasions.  In fact, in February of 1999, they passed a resolution that said they would actively support passage of the Grannis bill.  This has never happened.  Why?  Because the RIRA leadership has not been actively supporting self-government for Roosevelt Island.  And even though the Common Council voted to do this, without the support of the leadership, it didn't happen."

Both Katz and Vice Presidential candidate Byron Gaspard were repeatedly critical - often directly, sometimes by implication - of the administration of current RIRA President Patrick Stewart.  Gaspard, who introduced Katz to the Eastwood meeting, said in a later Q&A session, "The reason RIRA is not functioning is that we've taken things personally rather than putting the community first.  It is time for you to elect people who will put the community first, rather than personal ambitions." (Last month, Stewart told The WIRE he has not yet made a decision on whether to run for a third two-year term as RIRA President.)

Katz, in his most critical comment about Stewart's administration, said, "What's wrong here?  When the Common Council votes time after time to do good works for this Island and then doesn't follow through?  What's going on here?  It's a lack of leadership.  That's what's going on."

Both Katz and Gaspard expressed a desire to reshape RIRA into a more active organization; both said they would attempt to make it more responsive to residents.

"At present," Katz told the Eastwood meeting, "the power seems to emanate from the top down, and there doesn't seem to be much interest in using the organization other than for these monthly meetings on Wednesday nights.  It seems to me that the real purpose of this organization is to get the work done between the meetings - that the work is supposed to be done by the committees set up to do it.  And yet, everything seems to be put on these single meetings once a month.  Three hours, four hours, we yell and we scream.  We never get to new business, we never get to old business.  Nothing ever happens because there's no discipline in running the meeting.  The business just doesn't get done.  That's part of the job of RIRA President.  He has to know how to run a meeting.  I know how to run a meeting."

But Katz reserved his most critical moments for a discussion of RIOC and the present management structure of Roosevelt Island.  "Last February we found out that the report by the Corps of Engineers on the seawall had been completed.  Pete Grannis got a copy, RIOC got a copy, the President of RIRA got a copy.  Who didn't get a copy of it?  The community.  It's now eight months later and we still don't have a copy of it.  What's going on?  We keep hearing these rumors that there is $6 million in work necessary for that seawall out there.  OK – is that all this year?  Or is that over five years or ten years?  And does that include the repairs, or is that the repairs and the maintenance?  Or is that the repairs and the maintenance and a new seawall down at Southpoint?  We don't know.  Nobody tells us."

Katz was critical of the RIOC decision to stay out of the Metrocard system.  "We're told that the cost of getting the equipment for Metrocard on the Tram is about $700,000.  That's enough to run the Transit Authority for about 15 minutes.  Why on earth can't the TA front us the money, install the Metrocard system, return some of the money to us, and take out of that money the cost of the machinery that needs to be installed - amortize it over ten years?  There are ways to do this if people have the will to do it.  I don't see the RIOC Board doing that.  Not now, not ever.  They need to be replaced."

Katz also criticized RIOC for its handling of development.  "RIOC supervised all these meetings that we had on Southtown, in which they told us everything they knew about it, and wanted to know why we were bugging them for more information." He listed a series of questions about Southtown, saying the answer was consistently, "We don't know." He added, "RIRA represents the community and the community has to have a seat at the table for development.  If they build the Marriott Hotel on Southpoint, the amount of traffic that will increase on our little Main Street will be humongous.  There will be food trucks, and sanitation trucks, and three shifts of employees coming and going, and linen deliveries, and everything else that is involved with a major Marriott Hotel 24 hours a day.  That's what we can expect on Main Street.

"RIOC just took a vote on the minicondos.  Every single person who voted at the Town Meetings was against it.  The Capital Planning and Development Committee was against it.  Nine members of the RIOC Board voted for the project...  OK, eight voted for it, and one of them, the RIRA President, declined to vote.  He abstained.  Here was an opportunity for the RIRA President to make a statement: 'This is what the community wants; we are united on this matter.' It was an opportunity lost."

On Southtown, Katz was critical of RIRA's lack of preparedness to challenge construction on land many believe to be designated, in the Island's General Development Plan, for open space or parkland.  He said that when City Councilmember Gifford Miller suggested May 8, 1999, that residents put together a $100,000 litigation war chest to demand a voice in Southtown decisions, RIRA President Stewart opposed fund-raising, saying it wasn't yet time to ask the community to give funds for a legal effort.

Katz also put forward a plan for revision of the RIRA constitution.  Among other things, his proposed changes would remove non-elected Common Council members, such as those appointed by organizations like RICO (the Roosevelt Island Council of Organizations) from the body.  Katz pointed out that RICO has been inactive for some time, but still sends representatives to Common Council meetings.

"What we need here is a revolution of democracy," Katz said, "and that's why I've been working with MTG for so long toward local democratically-elected government of Roosevelt Island."

In campaign literature passed out at the Eastwood meeting, Katz made pledges on a series of points, including:

• To act on the community's views expressed through the majority votes of its elected Council members rather than on his own views.  "The president's power must not override the consensus of the Resident's Association, but must come from the community that elects him."
• To increase the diversity of the Common Council through the use of the currently moribund Membership Participation Committee.
• To keep the community informed by re-instituting a regular RIRA President's Column in The Main Street WIRE.

The RIRA election will be held Tuesday, November 7, at the same time as the national election.  All residents 18 or over are eligible to vote, whether citizens or not.