Mr. Robert Ryan, President
Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation
591 Main Street
Roosevelt Island, NY 10044

Dear Mr. Ryan:

Why aren't the street lights lit along the west and east promenades of Roosevelt Island and most of those in the courtyards? They have been dark for months. Has RIOC not paid its Con Ed bill? What is the problem?

And with the daylight becoming less each day, darkness is coming sooner to the courtyards. Also, people who do their laundry in the 576 laundry room have to travel across the courtyard in the dark.

Not having lights in these public areas leads to increased vandalism and crime, especially behind the Nail Salon on Main Street. More vandalism and crime means higher maintenance and repair costs. Please do something immediately to bring the lights back to these dark areas.

Further, now that Public Safety has a number of late-model cruisers, the officers, with eyes fixed straight ahead, drive around the Island and have little contact with the Island residents. I live near the river on the east side of the Island, and it is rare to see a safety officer on foot down here. In the old days (I've lived here since 1977), Public Safety made regular rounds by foot of the buildings and grounds. Even the City Police Department has seen the wisdom of getting police out of cars to walk the streets. Let's get the Roosevelt Island Public Safety force out of their cars so they can be seen and confront crime rather than driving swiftly by it.

Thank you.

Hattie Jo P. Mullins

To the Editor:

Hats off to Joyce Mincheff!

Apparently with only a one-word ("ex-officio") utterance she has the power to delay a RIRA Common Council meeting for almost an hour.

Sound absurd? It is. There are only two explanations for the September RIRA meeting having turned into the joke it became. Either:

1. Joyce is a miracle worker and with a one-word interruption she can bring everything to a crashing halt, or

2. There's more here than meets the eye. Obviously something else was bothering the RIRA leadership that night.

The one thing that's patently obvious is: There's no leadership. You can read the quotes from the other Council members practically begging the leadership to go on with the meeting.

Please, guys, you were elected to work on Island business. Let's leave personalities outside of the meeting room.

To the Editor:

This letter is anonymous. I hate that! But, I'm doing it because the atmosphere on the Island is no longer conducive to publicly stating an opinion.

I read the account of the September RIRA meeting in The WIRE. I stopped attending those meetings some time ago because nothing important ever seemed to get covered. I'm hard pressed to remember even one meeting where the person who had the floor was actually the only one speaking. No one runs the place. The only thing it takes to be heard is pushiness and a loud voice.

With few exceptions, the committee reports (when they were given) rarely contained information of any value. They were usually recitations of what's wrong on the Island, ending with the obligatory placing the blame on RIOC. Certainly RIOC is a major contributor to the problems on the Island, but we're playing right into their hands when we fight among ourselves and treat each other with the discourtesy displayed at RIRA meetings.

What happened? Where/how did things go so terribly wrong? How did a once terrific community get into this kind of shape? The WIRE article about the September meeting gives Joyce Mincheff and Joan Christianson starring roles in what sounds like a fiasco. From what I've seen of those meetings, I don't think it's fair to single out Joyce for interrupting, nor is it fair to blame Joan for her reaction. Sounds like it was an inevitable outcome of months and months of frustrating meetings where real business is clearly secondary to hidden agendas, moaning about how poorly we get treated by the State, and mean-spirited gossip.

This community won't survive unless people start working together. Let's hope a new RIRA gets elected in November. Let's hope they come to the table with no baggage. Let's hope it'll be a RIRA that focuses on uniting the community and tending to the business of running the Island. Until then, let's all act like adults and leave the intrigue and drama to the Main Street Theatre Club.