In every community in the United States, residents elect the government that most closely affects their daily lives.

Except here. Here, residents have no power over local government, because our local government is appointed by the Governor, bypassing the City of New York and, not so incidentally, all requirements that the Governor's appointees know anything at all about how to run a community.

While such an arrangement may have been a good idea back when the State was determined to jumpstart a planned community here, today it is the anachronistic vestige of a government that saw a need to act by fiat without the inconvenience of consulting the governed.

That's over.

It's time for people who live here to elect people who live here to act on behalf of people who live here. It is time, in short, for elected residents to hold a majority of seats on the Board of Directors of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation.

It is time for the Governor's choices for RIOC management and Board to step aside.

It is time for democracy here.

For over three years, the Maple Tree Group, now led by Matthew Katz, has been working with State legislators Pete Grannis and Olga Mendez to revise the law so that residents will have the primary say about the way Roosevelt Island is run, repaired, and developed. Under the latest version of the plan, the State would remain financially responsible for Roosevelt Island under the Lease it signed with the City. The State would, in fact, be assigned more accountability for funding the fixing of all it has neglected since 1996.

The Common Council has put the question of democratic election of local government on Tuesday's ballot. That referendum - be sure to look for it on the RIRA ballot - deserves a Yes vote by anybody who sees the value of voting in a democracy.

Not coincidentally, Matthew Katz is running for the Presidency of RIRA - a RIRA which should participate more actively in the conversion to locally-elected democratic governance of Roosevelt Island and the professional community management it will bring. His only significant opponent, incumbent Patrick Stewart, opposes the plan. Stewart even opposed putting the democracy question on the RIRA ballot as too complicated for residents to understand - another vestige of autocracy, perhaps arising from Stewart's new role on the Governor-appointed RIOC Board.

Stewart's fears, which he has tried hard to communicate to others, are that the State will stop giving Roosevelt Island money to develop the Island and keep it running. But the State hasn't given Roosevelt Island a dime for over three years, and the current unelected RIOC Board isn't even asking.

So it's time for democracy here. It's time for a Yes vote on the referendum question, and time to elect RIRA leaders - Katz and Gaspard - who will reinvigorate the RIRA Common Council and give it a positive role in the move toward local democracy.

Through his years of service on the RIRA Common Council, Matthew Katz has demonstrated a profound ability to persuade, lead, and find paths of constructive compromise. Byron Gaspard has shown himself to be an energetic advocate for better Public Safety and greater diversity on the Council. Each has earned community support and your vote.

The WIRE recommends: Yes on the democracy referendum. Yes to Katz. Yes to Gaspard.

Four years ago, when this newspaper endorsed Patrick Stewart for the Presidency of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association, he stepped into a natural role - leading resident opposition to Dr. Jerome Blue, an unqualified hack parked here, in a high-paying job, by Governor George Pataki.

The worse Blue got, the better Stewart looked. He served well as a nemesis for Blue.

But then Blue was gone, and left a gap: Stewart had no plan for a post-Blue RIRA.

Meanwhile, working with Assemblymember Pete Grannis and Senator Olga Mendez, the Maple Tree Group had prepared legislation, and the RIRA Common Council adopted it with repeated votes, but - largely due to Stewart's foot-dragging - it wasn't quite ready for prime time, and Pataki simply put a Blue think-alike into the job.

Stewart embraced Blue's replacement, and was quickly co-opted by the system, even joining Rob Ryan as co-moderator of a resident meeting and assisting in restricting residents' right to speak critical comments freely.

Stewart, now a member of the RIOC Board, clearly relishes his role in the RIOC power structure. But he is caught in a conflict: He must remove himself from RIRA planning for legal action against RIOC, even while his wife, Karen, holds the pivotal role in guiding that effort. He speaks of his "fiduciary responsibility" to the State, but we have not heard him roar at a RIOC Board meeting, as he should, about the State's financial responsibility to Roosevelt Island under the Lease and General Development Plan.

The degree to which he has been caught in this dilemma was made clear when he abstained on the minicondos. Stewart joined residents in anti-minicondo talk, but when it came time to walk the walk, he stumbled. He abstained, and broke not just his promise to residents but also the bond of trust.

Stewart has since "explained" his abstention at least three different ways, starting with, "As everybody knows, an abstention is the same as a no vote." When that dodo didn't flap its wings, he eventually just claimed he was ill-informed when the vote was taken.

That abstention symbolizes the quality of Stewart's representation of resident interests on the RIOC Board. At best, it's wimpy. At worst, he's become part of the system.

In any case, he's now past the time when he can be a strong and trusted voice for resident interests. Recusing himself from discussions of legal action against RIOC, discouraging residents from raising money for legal action, backing Southtown construction on Blackwell Park land... the list of his errors goes on.

To say that Stewart has been co-opted is a no-brainer. To say RIRA has been neutralized would overstate the result. But Stewart's effectiveness as RIRA President has now evaporated, and RIRA has become ineffective as a resident-oriented counterbalance to RIOC.

Anyway, Stewart is weary of the RIRA job. Last summer, he told more than one resident that he would not run for re-election - unless someone associated with the Maple Tree Group ran. Denying the job to someone else is the wrong reason to want it.

All these concerns reduce to a simple question: Should we elect a member of the RIOC Board of Directors as President of the Residents Association?

Obviously, no. Stewart can continue serving residents as a RIOC Board member, and do it more effectively if a vigorously pro-resident RIRA is speaking to him and other RIOC Board members with a voice uncontaminated by ambiguous allegiance.

With thanks to Patrick Stewart for years of service, The WIRE now urges a vote for Katz and Gaspard.