Fay Vass, who co-chairs the Eastwood Building Committee, offered a headline suggestion last week for the latest development in the State's rent-setting proceeding:  "Eastwood Is Really Amazed."

Only a few days before the residents' May 1 conference with the owners and the State Department of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), the agency abruptly canceled the hearing and gave Eastwood another month to come up with information on the Island's Public Safety Department.  Vass, who heard about the decision only indirectly, while making the rounds of the huge building, had to move quickly to cancel arrangements for a charter bus.  The new conference will be June 1.

Vass said she expects the DHCR to approve a modest rent increase, based mainly on the rising cost of energy.  But that's not the committee's main concern in the current round of rent negotiations.  "Our argument at the hearing is that we're paying so much for Public Safety, we want an account of what they're doing."

The Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation is charging Eastwood $485,981 annually for Public Safety, a major share of the department's budget of about $2 million.  The residents, who are pressing for more interior building patrols, want a detailed accounting of where the money goes, in the form of job descriptions of the officers and supervisors, and other information on police operations.  The committee hired a lawyer, Jay Itkowitz, to deal specifically with the policing question at the rent conference, but Vass said Itkowitz has thus far been unable to extract the necessary information from RIOC, even after submitting a Freedom of Information (FOIL) request.

"We want a contract; all we have now is a statement of what we owe," Vass said.

The committee is raising money to pay for its legal efforts, and wants other Islanders to get involved, not just residents of Eastwood.  Vass said checks made out to EBC should be sent to another committee co-chair, Harry De Vine, at 546 Main St.  She said Eastwood will need all the help it can get, especially if it has to take the issue to court in a so-called Article 78 proceeding.