H. Patrick Stewart will run for re-election as President of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association.  RIRA's current First Vice President, Joan Christianson, will apparently run with him, according to an e-mail communication received Tuesday from Stewart.

If elected, Stewart would be serving his third consecutive term in the office; Christianson's term would be her second.

Stewart's candidacy became known early this week when he mentioned it to WIRE Ombudsman Armand Schwab, then to Matthew Katz, the only other formally-announced candidate for the post.  Katz said Stewart challenged him to a series of debates, and that he accepted the challenge.  (No debate schedule has yet been worked out.)

Stewart refused The WIRE's requests for a statement on his candidacy (see box).

Stewart was first elected to the RIRA Presidency in 1996, within a few months of Governor George Pataki's appointment of Dr. Jerome Blue to the Presidency of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC).  Within a short time, Stewart became the central figure in resident opposition to Blue, who refused to recognize RIRA or its Common Council as the legitimate voice of residents.  As Blue and the RIOC Board assented to the Governor's deletion of funds for Roosevelt Island from the State budget, the hallmark of Stewart's leadership of the residents organization was his determination to have Blue removed from the RIOC Presidency.

In a defining moment of resident opposition to Blue, Stewart ran unopposed for a second term in 1998, in an election which also saw residents vote by a 92% margin to support proposed legislation that would reduce State control here, give elected residents the major voice in Island policy, and provide for professional management of the Island.  Soon after, State Housing Commissioner Joe Lynch named Stewart as a non-voting member of the RIOC Board in a move widely considered a deliberate slap at Blue.  The Governor, who appoints the members of the RIOC Board, later named Stewart to a voting post on the Board.  (Rivercross resident Susan Whitaker was named, as well.)

When the Governor moved Blue to the top post at the State's Human Rights Commission in June, 1999, Stewart publicly credited the Residents Association and its Common Council for getting rid of him.

(Blue served in the Human Rights post about a year, then was moved to Battery Park City as Vice President for Construction; his replacement at the Human Rights Commission is Evonne Jennings Tolbert, a Rivercross resident.  Blue's replacement at RIOC is Robert Ryan, who had run the Governor's election campaign in 1994.)

Since Blue's departure, one hallmark of Stewart's leadership of the Residents Association has been his opposition to legislation introduced by Assemblymember Pete Grannis and Senator Olga Mendez that would provide for resident election of most members of the RIOC Board.  "The bills, in any iteration you can think of, have been financially irresponsible," Stewart said in the September 13 RIRA Common Council meeting as it debated a proposed November referendum on the question.  "They have asked us to take the risk, on behalf of the 8.500 people who live here, a risk that we are not ethically right in doing."  He pointed out that a resident-run RIOC, like the present RIOC, would have no taxing authority.

Although the Island has not received State funding for over three years, Stewart said that the Island needs "forty million dollars" in infrastructure repairs.  While Stewart himself has at times called for a resident advisory referendum on the local control question, he has opposed asking residents to vote on a form containing this statement, headed Financial Responsibility: "I understand that the State has provided no funds to Roosevelt Island for four years, and that passage of such legislation [providing for an elected resident majority on the RIOC Board and professional management] may or may not change the Island's financial condition."

The Island's Maple Tree Group, which has spurred development of the legislation, is headed by Matthew Katz, who is also Stewart's only announced opposition for the RIRA Presidency.  Thus the question of local elected control versus continued State control of the Island may become a central issue in the campaign.

On Wednesday, Katz told The WIRE: "I welcome opportunities to contrast our philosophies of what the RIRA Common Council is, and what it might be if used to its full potential.  Patrick should respond to the disappointments and frsutrations of many Council members over lost opportunities in the last two years, and be given a chance to shoot down my hopes and expectations for the Island's future."  Saying he hopes the proposed debates will happen, Katz added, "This is an excellent way for Roosevelt Islanders to hear our positions on the issues and to demand responsibility and accountability from their next President."

Stewart has also opposed efforts by Roosevelt Islanders for Responsible Southtown Development (RIRSD) to mount legal opposition to certain aspects of the current plan for development of the land between the Tram station and Eastwood/Rivercross, although RIRA joined the RIRSD suit as an intervening party after Stewart's wife, Karen, discovered that the Southtown plan called for construction that would reduce a mandated six-acre park to about three acres, considered by many to be a violation of the Island's General Development Plan.  (Justice Harold Tompkins of the State Supreme Court ruled July 5 that RIRSD filed its case too late, in a decision that confused RIRSD with RIRA, whose intervention pleading had come after a deadline for legal challenges.  The case, along with another mounted by Rivercross resident Robert Chira, is currently on appeal.)

On its editorial page, The WIRE has backed both the MTG effort toward local elected control of the Island and the RIRSD challenge to the form of the present plan for Southtown.  Among other factors, this led to Stewart's "resignation" from The RIRA President's Column in January, 2000, after a three-year run.  He wrote, "There is no question but that my decision is in part based upon the editorial direction of The WIRE itself... I am frequently asked by Islanders whether, by virtue of my own presence in The WIRE, I therefore support The WIRE's position on Island issues and events.  Nothing could be further from the case."

He continued, "RIRA needs its own separate voice."  Referring to a planned RIRA newsletter to be distributed to residents, he continued, "We will have something before you soon."  No newsletter has yet appeared, but Stewart has declined repeated WIRE invitations to resume the column.