The holidays are done and your RIRA Common Council is back at work, meeting just three days into the New Year.  My best wishes to everyone for 2001 (as significant a year as 1984, to my mind), especially for our Roosevelt Island Space Odyssey.

Much of our January meeting was spent hosting representatives from Becker & Becker Associates, a Connecticut-based firm of developers, architects, and historical preservationists who have responded to a RIOC RFP (request for proposal) to build housing on the site of the Octagon landmark.  (WIRE report.)  The team had presented a similar plan to the Common Council in June 1999.  This plan differed in that it included two eight-floor wings of fair market housing (pre-sold through the Council of Biomedical Research to post-docs and junior faculty in training) rather than low-cost housing offered to students, artists or as a half-way house.  As in the previous presentation, the site would include an ecological park and renovated picnic area.  The Octagon landmark itself would be restored and used as a museum, a library or possibly as a home for our Historical Society.  Bruce Becker's presentation was, again, professional and attentive to our questions, and their portfolio of past developments was impressive.

Although it received the presentation warmly and attentively, the Council had many questions and caveats.  Some thought the original plan for six-story wings more aesthetically in keeping with the proportions of the Octagon building.  Many asked why this development, like the Southtown development, was being offered to a medically-oriented, essentially transient population, with few apartments (just 22 of 361) larger than one-bedroom and little opportunity for present Island residents to rent or buy.  The Council was united in defining this community as family- and affordable housing-oriented.  Some wanted the park area to retain an element of wildness and not be as manicured as BBA's slides suggested.  Others thought that any for-profit use of the area north of Octagon Park a violation of our General Development Plan.  The BBA reps said that many of these ideas were still on the table, but also warned that final approval could be on the RIOC agenda as early as next month.  Watch for RIOC agendas, everyone, and if you can, attend the RIOC Board meetings when Island-transforming questions are to be debated and/or voted upon!

Other business included the election of a Legal Action Fund Committee under the leadership of my very own wife, Sherie Helstien.  Sherie has begun meetings to address the question of fund-raising for both a legal war chest and for general RIRA needs.  PS/IS 217 PTA representatives, under the leadership of Mosud Mannan and Jim Tendean-Luce, asked for RIRA support for a grant to purchase musical instruments with Public Purpose Funds.  Questions were raised that will require additional information at our next meeting.  Patrick Stewart asked why it was necessary to chop down four trees just north of the subway station, apparently as part of the widening of the West Promenade service road for the Southtown development.  Later, Rob Ryan told me that the loss of the trees was part of the Nurses' Quarters demolition, and was always included in this phase of the plan.

I know that, along with many of you, I've mourned every one of the stately trees that we've lost since we moved here.

On other fronts, you may recall that I have discussed RIOC's assurances regarding our street lights in the last two RIRA columns.  These are the responsibility of ConEd and their sub-contractor, Wellsbach.  Over the last two months, the Eastwood Building Committee has sent two letters to RIOC (with copies to every pertinent politician with the possible exception of the president-elect).  I understand from Fay Vass that 31 of the lights on the covered sidewalk in front of Eastwood (only four of which are Housing Management's responsibility) are still not functioning as of last Sunday evening.  The problem seems to be replacing inappropriate step-down transformers, and I wonder why, in these first days of the twenty-first century, the responsible agencies can't provide the necessary technical expertise to keep our streets adequately lit.  The mind boggles.

I've learned from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that they released the final draft of the Roosevelt Island Seawall Report to RIOC on December 21.  RIOC purchased this report from this federal agency for some $100,000, and made their final emendations last June.  Mr. Smythe of the Corps of Engineers made it clear that RIOC has authorized no one to release the report to the public (read: Roosevelt Island community).  I've now learned from Rob Ryan that RIOC's changes were not incorporated into the body of the report, but attached as a letter, with tape stuck on the cover to change "Draft" to "Final." The bottom line is that RIOC will not release the report until it is completed to their specifications.  They have requested Smythe to complete these changes in two weeks.  Given that it has taken one year to go from a draft to an unacceptable final version, the two-week demand seems unlikely.  I spoke to Smythe last Monday, and he took responsibility for some discrepancies in costing out repair work between Phase I and Phase II of the project.  He wouldn't commit himself to a time frame for a final product, but said that the report had "been put on the shelf" until pressure from RIOC to complete the report revived in the last few months.  If I were a suspicious bloke, I might be tempted to think someone didn't want the Seawall Report to see the light of day.  However, I'm a trusting sort, and will wait for the powers that be to enlighten us.

And finally - I had a cordial two-hour meeting with our State Senator, Olga Mendez, last week.  She is foursquare behind the effort to provide Roosevelt Island with an elected RIOC Board and a professional community manager hired by that Board.  She and her staff are busy arranging a meeting for advocates of this legislation, approved by the Common Council in several iterations, to meet with the Governor's representatives in Albany to negotiate a version satisfactory to our politicians and to us.  This effort reflects three years of work to make Roosevelt Island responsible for its own destiny within the context of New York City ownership and continued operation by a New York State Public Benefit Corporation.  Maybe we can fix our own street lights.