To the Editor:

An open letter to Mr. Leo Kayser of the RIOC Board of Directors:

The writer is a former secretary of RIRA and Chair of its first Energy Committee.

While your plan (December 2 WIRE) appears on its face to have some merit, is it not just mostly last year's hash lavishly slathered with today's mashed potatoes – cloaked in the language of "democracy," and designed to wring our sympathy regarding Island financial difficulties – all to gull us into head-nodding assent?

Greed is the key word here. We will have a true say in matters only when the RIOC/State/City building program has been rammed through to the extent that every square inch on this Island has been built upon. True, we live on ultra-valuable land much needed by the City to be developed, but whatever happened to the population target, set forth in the City/State Lease, of 20,000 residents (later revised to 16,000), which was supposed to be realized with the building of Southtown? Does your planning "expertise" not recognize what history and laboratories have always shown? – With overpopulation of a small area comes diminution in standard of living.

Much is said by you of "open spaces" vs. "parkland." As a resident of over 25 years here, the first ten of which were spent in heavy political activity, I beg to differ with your interpretation of such words. I full well remember the circumstances during those early years. All residential building here was to finish after Starrett and Southtown were put up, period. They were to bring us to the population target. Among others, we were promised the following (I believe the Master Lease map will show these – for sure they were on the large-table-scale model of the Island at the Roosevelt Island City renting center in 1975): The FDR Memorial Park to the South, contiguous to which was to be a concert-sized bandshell; an Octagon Park to the north, contiguous to which was a large picnic area with grills, with a substantial area just to its south slated to be a wildlife refuge. "Open spaces" meant gardens, ball fields, tennis courts, picnic areas, wildlife refuge, the bandshell. "Open" means no buildings. It did not, in this case, mean open to interpretation. "Parkland" referred to the actual parks – trees, grass, benches, bugs – for the quiet enjoyment of residents.

So you fly in the face of history, Mr. Kayser, when you pronounce that "open spaces" were for the erection of more buildings. You weren't here then; a number of others and I were.

No mention has been made of what will happen to Mitchell-Lama here under your plan. And why are more luxury buildings going up here when by rights they should be Mitchell-Lama (hopefully, newly resurrected)? What the City needs is more affordable, not luxury, housing! Won't selling the land under our buildings just to bring in quick cash enable the building owners to take them private into the astronomical heights "enjoyed" in the City? Where has the mandate gone to provide "safe, affordable housing?" How soon the State forgets, and how soon it finagles around, all which was promised, enticing us in the beginning to come here to live! Bait and switch.

Be honest, Mr. Kayser, while you claim a balance, your whole outlook is obviously money-driven, not people-driven. You want to scrape up money to run this Island? Better you look right here at what we already have, rather than putting up luxury second floors, eldercare facilities, Octagon residential buildings, convention center and ad nauseum.

We know RIOC has given Southtown away shamelessly. But aside from those buildings bringing in added, albeit ridiculously low, revenue as well as saving on salaries not having to be paid to RIOC, you might do well to consider two other areas already here which could also bring in money – perhaps enough so that we would be completely self-sufficient. That was, after all, the original building goal – to break even each year, through self-sufficiency, not to additionally unjustly enrich those in power at our expense through overbuilding overkill.

Motorgate: Put management of this presently unsafe and unsecured facility in the hands of residents, including Island youth. Rates could be somewhat lowered with profits going for Island use, not Edison Parking. Security there should be tightened up by plugging up access points.

Cogenerate our Steam Plant: No, the State does not own this facility. While the plant belongs with the City land on which the hospitals sit and it was built to supply hot water and steam heat to its two hospitals, reference to it was omitted in the Master Lease. RIRA's first Energy Committee (set up 20 years ago) obtained permission from the City's Health and Hospitals officials to cogenerate and supply power for the Island's residential buildings. We found the plant is a gem, excellently-run and maintained, and it has been running at ten percent capacity. It is fully capable, when retrofitted with extra generators, of being converted to cogeneration. It could supply the entire Island with hot water and electricity (hence the name co-generation). Twenty years ago each residential building on the Island was paying $1 million a year to ConEd in energy costs. Think of what that figure must be now!

Twenty years ago, the committee's plan was to:

• Interest an investor in buying the necessary generators;
• Have as overseers of the plant an eminent City engineering firm with expertise in handling cogeneration facilities;
• Have a clause in the investor's contract limiting it to ten years, after which the investor would be required to sell us the equipment at vastly depreciated value. We would then run the plant ourselves through the engineering company.
• No additional infrastructure would be necessary since a large steam pipe (into which we would tap) already runs from Goldwater to Coler.

We ascertained that under such a plan, for the first ten years each residential building would save at least one-third in energy costs per annum. Thereafter, with the debt fully discharged and the steam plant completely ours, savings would be even greater. Such savings could allow our buildings to be fixed up, rents lowered or stabilized, and could contribute significant amounts going to Island expenses.

Around the time the plan was developed, the energy crisis abated. However, interesting an investor in this present oil-crunch climate would be relatively easy through putting out an RFP. Or we could run the plant ourselves from the start by taking out a low-interest ten-year State, Federal loan, or even a bank loan.

So do not do as you said you might, Mr. Kayser, and sell the Steam Plant. Let's use it because we need it.

As for our never having had true democracy on Roosevelt Island, a furtherance of that cause by George Pataki would be a feather in his cap as he seeks a third term as Governor. Is he going to allow an opponent to get ahead of him on that issue?

Barbara Potts