RIOC Board member Leo Kayser put out something of an ultimatum on Tramway advertising to City Councilmember Gifford Miller at the Board's July 12 meeting.  On Wednesday, after a query from The WIRE, Miller responded in kind.

Speaking of the RIOC Board's difficult choices on how to cope with Tramway losses, Kayser urged his fellow Board members to "be bold if required and go ahead with looking into advertising whether it's authorized by the City Council or not..."  Kayser had reference to a ban on Tram advertising inserted into the City Council's terms for the Tramway franchise.

Miller told The WIRE, "I'm surprised and a bit shocked...  I think it's an enormously irresponsible position for a member of the Board of a State corporation to advocate breaking the law."  He added, "The problem here is that RIOC is totally out of step with the importance of the Tram to the Island.  At a time when they're trying to promote development, for them to send a signal that the Tram is in jeopardy is inane and unacceptable."

In the July 12 meeting, Kayser sought to cast his position on Tramway advertising as a defense of Island residents, saying "[the RIOC Board should let] people on this Island know that we are prepared to stand up for them, even if their own elected representatives on City Council aren't, and [we should] look into the advertising contracts we might have, and bring the money in, so that some of these choices we're being faced with can be alleviated."

The full text of the RIOC Board's discussion of possible service cutbacks, as well as Miller's response to Kayser's proposal, are available on Website NYC10044 at www.nyc10044.com.

Kayser, who practices law, told the RIOC Board that the legal remedies available to the City Council are limited, should the Board defy the ban on advertising.  "The realities are that the remedy, in the event we were to proceed with advertising... is that we are technically in violation of our franchise agreement...  The remedy is limited to injunctive relief, and the injunctive relief would only arise out of revoking our franchise and saying we can't operate the Tram.  I suggest that's not going to happen, because Mr. Miller would be in a position of preventing it from happening, because he could go back... and get us authority [to put advertising on the Tram cabins], and if he didn't, he would be responsible for the shutdown, and he would be responsible for our not having the revenue to keep up the safety requirements, and for our having to prune back service, and the political accountability would be where it ought to be."

Kayser asked RIOC staff to prepare a resolution - to go ahead with advertising - for consideration at the Board's September meeting.  "I think we should proceed whether or not the authority is there with respect to the [franchise] agreement," he said.

Miller told The WIRE, "I'm willing to discuss [advertising] with them, and I have.  They haven't been able to come up with the follow-through on any of the discussions we've had, which I find disappointing.  Shrink-wrapping the Tram?  I'm not sure how much money they're going to make on that.

"They need to remember the value that the Tram has to the Island in general, and that is the problem with proposing to eliminate evening hours.  If the Board of Directors of Roosevelt Island knew anything about the Island at all, they would understand that the Tram's importance to the Island transcends its dollars and cents and the bottom line of its operations...  It's just flat-out unacceptable for them to be talking about jeopardizing their franchise and eliminating operations on the Tram."

Miller continued, "Leo Kayser has never had a conversation with me about this.  I have not been approached by the Board or by Rob Ryan directly in months.  I had a brief conversation with Rob the other day when I called [him], and I suggested to him again that they need to come forward with a reasonable proposal to use the [advertising] revenue to improve services for the Island."  Among other things, Miller wants RIOC to make the arrangements necessary to make the Tramway part of the free-transfer MetroCard system.  At the RIOC Board meeting, Ryan had said, "We had meetings last summer [with Miller and Walter McCaffrey, the Chair of the City Council's Franchise Committee].  We are the only form of transportation... that is not allowed to have advertising.  I think it's sort of discriminatory...  We could stand to raise... somewhere in the neighborhood of a half-million dollars a year... and when you have a Tram system that is losing $1.7 million a year, every $500,000 counts."  As for putting the Tramway on the MetroCard, Ryan said, "The capital cost of putting in the MetroCard system is going to be about between $700,000 and $800,000, and then the MTA takes about 40-50% of the revenues, so we would be losing $700,000 to $800,000 a year.  We would be getting the advertising... but we'd be in a worse position than we are now."

Miller responded to that comment by pointing out that he has brought capital funding to Island projects in the past (most recently, $600,000 for the Youth Center), "but these people are too inept even to have basic discussions.  It's unbelievable.  It's unbelievable."

The RIOC Board will consider its alternatives for coping with Tramway losses again in its September meeting.  At the July 12 session, there was no discussion of seeking a mass-transit subsidy from the State, which subsidizes virtually every other mass-transit operation with tax dollars.  The Tram is subsidized only with on-Island income which otherwise might be used for other purposes, were Tram operations to be funded in some other way.  Leo Kayser pointed out in a Wednesday conversation with The WIRE, however, that State tax breaks given to the Island amount to an indirect taxpayer subsidy of Tramway operations when Island-derived income is used to cover Tram losses.

In its July 12 meeting, the RIOC Board also authorized approval of American Tramways as contract operator of the Tramway, replacing Intefac, whose contract had been extended to the end of July.

The full text of the Tramway discussion at the RIOC Board meeting, as well as Councilmember Miller's remarks, are available with this issue of The WIRE on Website NYC10044 as supplementary coverage.