This is The WIRE's Fourth of July issue, and once again, we Roosevelt Islanders find ourselves celebrating our nation's release from tyranny while continuing to fight against tyranny at home.  As you know, Roosevelt Island is owned by New York City and leased for ninety-nine years to the State.  We are governed by a public benefit corporation (RIOC) that treats us like the fourteenth of the original colonies.  We are dependent upon a Board of Directors and President, all political appointees, who serve at the pleasure of the Governor, not an electorate.  We have been denied effective local government while our City, State and Federal representatives are powerless against the all-pervasive hegemony of RIOC.

Over three sessions of the New York State Legislature, a group of Island citizens has labored to construct legislation that would enfranchise this community.  We have tried to incorporate language that would satisfy the need for representative balance among the diverse forms of housing, and allay the fears of fiscal intemperance.  Most crucially, we've tried to devise a bill that both the Assembly and Senate would pass and the Governor sign.  We have been thwarted by political intransigence, internecine bickering by our elected representatives, and other issues that have little to do with serving a constituency of voters.  The State Senate adjourned on June 20 without considering any version of our bill.  We are told that they will be back in mid-July and that our cause is not lost for another season.  However, for a bill to be presented, much less passed, requires a capacity to negotiate that seems sadly lacking in our Statehouse.  I'm not ready to despair or give up, but I do wish our elected reps would remember for whom they work.

What makes this year's attempt to acquire community control of our future so important is the big blue fence surrounding our Blackwell Field, and all that it implies.  While the State decides whether we are to be masters of our own fate, the developers of Roosevelt Island are lining up to build – what?  Apparently, anything they want that enhances RIOC's bottom line.  Yet, there is a General Development Plan (GDP), part of the Master Lease that defines the relationship between City and State.  The GDP calls for a clear division between residential areas and open-space/park areas with clear guidelines for the affordable housing that is supposed to be this planned community's raison d'ˆtre.  These needs, spelled out by Philip Johnson and John Burgee in 1969, are, if anything, scarcer and more in demand by New Yorkers today than they were thirty years ago.

RIOC's assertion that they can ignore or amend the GDP with impunity has never been tested until now.  Three community groups, including the Roosevelt Island Residents Association, have argued in Court against constructing the first three residential buildings of Southtown on Blackwell Field, our Common and the planned buffer between Northtown and Southtown.  The appeal hearing was less than three weeks ago, and by the time you read this, there may be a ruling.  I thought the Island attorneys made our case well, but I'm neither a lawyer nor one of the five Appellate judges, and your guess is as good as mine.  Much rests with this verdict.  May RIOC build residential housing surrounding the Octagon landmark?  May two hotel towers be built on Southpoint Park if RIOC says it's appropriate?  Should an eldercare facility be sited virtually under the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge?  Anything is possible if the GDP becomes an amorphous pawn in the politically-charged, big-money world of Roosevelt Island development.

The only advocates for restraint, for balance and for community values are the residents of Roosevelt Island.  Unless and until we, the residents, are empowered as a new RIOC to negotiate with developers, we will be barred from the table.  We must be free to hire a trained, experienced, competent, responsive leader for RIOC, divorced from the colonial politics that currently complicate our lives.  Without that freedom, we will continue to find ourselves, hat in hand, begging for a level of government that other communities take for granted and yearning for the stewardship of our Island infrastructure that other towns and villages of our size simply demand.

Happy summer – and Happy Independence Day.