Matthew Katz and Byron Gaspard won RIRA's President and First Vice President posts with 59% of the vote (see chart), scoring a 9-5 margin over the incumbents, Patrick Stewart and Joan Christianson. Nneka Pope, who filed a last-minute bid for a return to the RIRA Presidency, scored under 10% of the vote, as did a third Vice Presidential candidate, Walter Hill.

Katz and Gaspard won solidly in every building-district. (Katz comments on the election in The RIRA Column.)

In the days just before the election, questions were raised by Stewart-Christianson supporters, in e-mail exchanges, about the Katz-Gaspard campaign expenditures. The RIRA constitution limits candidates' campaign spending to "$250 per candidate or per slate," but doesn't address the question of residents or organizations that advertise on behalf of candidates they favor, which is the "soft-money" question that arose in this year's election when an ad hoc organization calling itself "Roosevelt Islanders for Democracy" ran a full-page ad in The WIRE supporting the Katz-Gaspard team. In addition, large color posters were put up for Katz and Gaspard, bringing the suggestion that only "traditional RIRA signage" of black-on-white letter-size paper should be used. (The signage issue is not addressed in the RIRA constitution.)

In the post-election period, e-mail exchanges between Katz and Stewart have dealt with the question of when the new officers and Common Council take over, with Stewart maintaining that a December 6 Common Council meeting is to be conducted under his presidency, and Katz pointing out established precedents under which Councils and new officers took over at the first Common Council meeting in December, including 1996 and 1998 under Stewart.

Total votes cast in the 2000 election – 1,595 – were only slightly above the 1,566 cast two years ago, despite the fact that the U.S. Presidential contest drew over 2,400 voters to the general election on Roosevelt Island.

In the election of Common Councilors, individual vote tallies (results), were down compared to 1998. Byron Gaspard, who was this year's top Common Council vote-getter in Eastwood, drew 180 votes this year. In 1998 he received 17 more – 197 – but was the lowest-scoring Eastwood contender in that election. The tallies were similar in other buildings: In 1998, Mary Lou Risley was elected as a delegate from 546 Main Street with 234 votes; this year, Dolores Green scored best with only 68 votes. Only in Westview was voting up; Deirdre Breslin polled 108 in 1998, 132 this year.

Why individual vote scores were down while total votes cast remained even with 1998 is a minor mystery. But there were generally more candidates this year, spreading votes more thinly.

The Common Council results brought ten new or non-incumbent returning faces to the Council; two incumbents were reduced from voting seats to alternate status, able to vote only if voting members from their buildings are absent. (Tally and story.)