May 1, 2004 |
| RIRA-RIOC Liaison Meeting |
|
Following is a complete transcript of the RIRA-RIOC
Liaison meeting held Thursday, April 22, 2004, in the Rivercross Community Room. Participants included: Resident members of the RIOC Board of Directors: David Kraut (Eastwood) (DK) Mark Ponton (Rivercross) (MP) Patrick Stewart (Island House) (PS) From the RIRA Common Council: Bubu Arya, Rivercross (BA) Mark Chipman, Manhattan Park (MC) Frank Farance, Island House (FF) Byron Gaspard, Eastwood (BG) Matthew Katz, President (MK) Margie Smith, Rivercross (MS) James Whalen (JW) Click below to link directly to the discussion on specific topics: Youth Center Space Senior Shopping Buses Emergency Planning Island Signage Online Problem-Reporting System Island House/Westview Sale (and Privatization) School Bus Pickups on Main Street Carillon for Chapel of the Good Shepherd Park at Southpoint Margie Smith [Residents Association Vice President for Government Relations, chairing the meeting]: Can you tell us what’s happening with the Youth Center grant? 
Mark Ponton [resident member, RIOC Board of Directors]: I’ll tell
you what I know. Here is the situation with the Youth Center as far
as I know it, as of two days ago. There is money from [City Council Speaker]
Gifford Miller that has been and continues to be held. How long it’s
going to be held, I don’t know. There was allegedly a meeting that
was going to take place between Herb Berman and Gifford Miller this week
at which Berman was going to try to ask Miller to keep the money somewhere
until the location for the Youth Center could be decided upon by RIOC. One of the locations being considered is what used to be Miss Lilies School, also known as the Blackwell [mini]-school. There is some opposition to that, because some members of RIOC think that is a very rentable property, and can in fact provide the Island with needed income. The last time that we took a poll, there were five members of the Board that were in favor of giving the Youth Center what used to be Miss Lilies School, and they were in favor of doing that at no cost to the [Youth Center] for a period of 30 years. That has not been officially [unintelligible] and it has not yet happened. My fear is that with every day that goes by we are closer to losing that money. That’s the status as I know it. MS [to late-arrivals]: OK. You guys probably missed the beginning of that, but basically Mark was telling us about the Youth Center grant. Do you guys know any more than he does about that? Patrick Stewart [resident member, RIOC Board of Directors]: I only heard two minutes of what he said. MS: OK. It sounds like there is a discussion about where the Youth Center can go, but there appear to be at least five people who think, who want to get the money for the Youth Center, and I guess... What can you three do, or four, present Board members? Can we ask you to put it on the agenda and get a vote, if there really are five people who are willing to... David Kraut [resident member, RIOC Board of Directors]: Yes. MS: How does something get on the agenda, by the way? Do one of you need to take that as an action item to put it on? Can we request that... MP: I can tell you exactly how. I have it in writing. I was going to send something to David the other week about that. The way things get on the agenda is that they are proposed to the chairperson, who then decides whether or not they’re going to be on the agenda. If she says yes, they’re on; if she says no, they’re off. MS: Will you propose that this be on the agenda? MP: I will propose that. MP [to Kraut]: I have that as an official document, by the way, which I will be happy to forward to you. DK: I gather they’re by-laws or something like that? MP: No, this is just an e-mail that I have in response to a question that I sent [asking] how things get on there. Do I, as a Director, have a right to put things on there, and the answer came back, “No.” Pure and simple. DK: There’s an ancient set of by-laws floating around which I haven’t seen in many years, which – various by-laws have been kind of ignored or counsel would opine that this was illegal so we can’t follow this by-law or that by-law any more, but there has never been a time when the by-laws were ruled to be no longer in effect, as a group. And if I can find them maybe it’ll say more about that very thing. If not, we’ll have to do politics. 
(left to right) Patrick Stewart, James Whalen, Bubu Arya, Byron Gaspard, David Kraut, Margie Smith, Matthew Katz, and Mark Ponton. [Mark Chipman, Residents Association Common Council delegate and Vice President, Housing, arrives and is introduced.] MS: Next thing I have is the seniors’ bus trips to Queens. We used to have two; we’re down to one. I don’t understand why the second one never got put back on. I asked at a meeting [and] we kind of discussed it last time, but we never really talked about an action about doing it. DK: Is there a need? MS: Dolores [Green, President of the Seniors Association] says there is. 
Bubu Arya [member of Residents Association Common Council]: There
are too many people with carts for once a week. It’s not enough. You
should see those seniors fighting.DK: I love it. [Laughter] BA: Go on a trip with them and enjoy it. [Unintelligible, covered by laughter.] Their carts don’t fit. They fight. It’s really bad. MS: And is it one or two handicapped-accessible seats on there? BA: Yes. MS: It’s one or two, whatever it is, so that limits... BA: Exactly. MS: ...the handicapped. So can I ask one of you to... BA: If the weather is bad, nobody goes. But you can’t depend... DK: We’ve had nothing but bad weather recently, and they say, “Well, nobody’s going, so why do we...” BA: Well, now they’ve started and you should see them. The bus barely comes and they push... There’s a line to start with, and they push everyone to get in... MS: OK. David, can I put you down for that one? DK: Excuse me? MS: Can I put you down for that one for an update for next time? Yes. DK: Don’t put my name down for anything. I’ll put my name down for that. MS: OK. Did you put your name down for that? DK: Yes. MS: OK, update of the disaster plan. I was going to take that off the agenda, but I left it on because I wanted to see what was going to happen last night at the emergency [planning] meeting. Matt, I’m going to let you take the floor on that one to give everybody an update... Matthew Katz [President, Roosevelt Island Residents Association]: Well, the signage that was up was kind of camouflaged, I guess, because there were fewer than two dozen people there. The OEM [Office of Emergency Management] guys came from City and State, prepared to do a PowerPoint presentation on everywhere in New York State except Roosevelt Island. They were utterly unprepared to discuss any of the contingency plans for this place... The first guy, the City guy, spoke for an hour, the State guy started talking; it looked like he was on for an hour. I mean, they were going to a level of talking about the organizational charts for these organizations, as though this was the critical information Roosevelt Island needed to hear. Until someone who lives in this building [Rivercross] finally said, “Look, we came here 
because we’re concerned about Roosevelt Island and because [RIOC] President
[Herbert E.] Berman’s column in the last issue of The WIRE said that
there was a plan forming – a contingency plan for Roosevelt Island. Are
you prepared to discuss that? They weren’t. There was not one
word about Roosevelt Island. The only two people there from RIOC were Mr. [James] Fry [Chief of Public Safety], who said absolutely nothing, and Sari Dickson [RIOC Vice President, Operations] who said that it was not RIOC’s responsibility to provide any emergency services, which I thought was somewhat strange, given that Public Safety is a department of RIOC, provides defibrillator service now, as a matter of course, and as uniformed professionals, you would think would be the first responders to any kinds of emergencies on the Island, the Blackout last summer being a case in point. But no, RIOC was a “facilitator of emergency services, not a provider,” and I’m not sure what that means, and I was really sorry that, after the meetings that I know had taken place between RIOC and OEM, and the promises made after the Blackout last summer by Herb, that there was nothing on this agenda to discuss contingency plans specific to the needs of Roosevelt Island. I was insulted. I felt I had utterly wasted my time. What they wanted to talk about was the “Ready New York” thing that we got in our mailboxes months ago, and that I’ve acted on. I mean, I’ve got my little radio with the batteries, and the flashlight, and the water in the refrigerator. I did all of that stuff. What I want to know is, if the bridge is out, how emergency services come to Roosevelt Island, and they said, “No, we can’t talk about that.” So I was very disappointed, and I don’t know if any of this was discussed at the Board, but I would have thought that at this meeting last night that [there would have been] someone from the technical side to talk about the bridge, to talk about the Tram, to talk about services on this Island, at least insofar as those are available to the community. There was some talk at the end, after the meeting was completely disrupted, to say that there would be meetings forthcoming between the Office of Emergency Management, RIOC, with RIRA inclusion in the process, and I hope you folks can help make that happen, because – what is it, eight, nine months – and we’ve been waiting for some kind of contingency [plan] to rear its head, and now we’re hearing, “No, RIOC has no responsibility.” I’ve got a problem with that. MS: I guess the question is what, if anything, can the Board do about it. I don’t know that there is anything you can do about it other than urge Herb and [unintelligible] to get together with us on a plan. PS: Well, I think you mentioned, Matt, or someone did, that Herb said there was a plan forming. Did I hear correctly? MK: Well, what a lot of people expected last night was based on this single line in his column [in The Main Street WIRE], “I am also pleased that as we head into Spring...” I’m sorry, that was... “A study of the Island was also performed by the State and the City. Now that the study is under way I am pleased to announce that I have additional information about the emergency planning meeting to be held by the New York State and New York City Offices of Emergency Management,” and then he went into the details of last night’s meeting, and there wasn’t word one last night about Roosevelt Island. No one there from RIOC or OEM was prepared to discuss Roosevelt Island. I mean, we heard a lot about fires out on Long Island and in the Adirondacks, but nothing about Roosevelt Island. MS: And I asked Sari at the end, “Are we still in the midst of doing a study, or is this an update, or is this it; is this the last we’re going to hear?” And she said, other than from time to time these guys would come back and do this same thing for us, that’s it. So there is, in effect... I said, “What we need to know are just the specifics, when the Tram and the subway are down, do people stand at 60th Street and Second Avenue and expect a bus to come. If you can’t get 
over into the City should they wait in Queens?” The OEM guy said
buses are not allowed off the Island. I said, “Sari, you want to
explain to him that we’ve been through this and that they are?” and she said,
“No, they’re not.” So now people are confused because we thought they
were. We don’t... We said we want to have a shelter designated here, if you can’t get off the Island and if you have to go somewhere for information, what’s the control center? Can we get that to be the school? [We were told:] Well, maybe you can, maybe you can’t, there’s a lot that goes on with that, you have to have people who are qualified. We said, “Great, let’s let Public Safety – you have to be qualified, you have to know what’s going on – let’s let that be the place.” Sari didn’t seem to want to get in the middle of it. She seemed to think that RIOC should not play that role, that the Office of Emergency Management should do whatever. I asked if the residents themselves could do it as a citizens group – could we just get together and we were told, “No, we’ve got to go through RIOC.” So our hands are kind of tied, and we’ll be more than happy to go ahead and put together some kind of plan and work but OEM won’t talk to us; they have to talk to RIOC, so we need somebody, hopefully you guys, to bust that logjam for us. We’re very happy to do the work. We just have to be able to get to the table and do it. Patrick, you want to take that one? PS: Yes, I will. MS: Signage on the Island... We kind of got an update from, I think... But I think that the update is that there really isn’t any information available right now. I’m wondering if we can get some kind of temporary signs, at least. I was walking down the street the other day, and some guys in baseball uniforms came and asked me where the pony field was, and I told them where it was, and they said, “You know, you really should have something when you get off the Tram there because people don’t really know where to go.” I said, “I hear you, I know...” Can we just get something? They don’t have to be beautiful, just some kind of a laminated map of the Island by the bus shelter, or something by the subway, at least until there is some kind of signage plan, and, I guess, do you guys know, how far is the signage program for the Island, or is it under way? MP: I have no knowledge of it at all, of anything, or plan. BA: I came out of Rivercross. Three people stopped me and said, “Where do we get the subway from?” They hadn’t a clue. So I said, “Just keep going on the sidewalk...” It doesn’t help them. They don’t know the area. They were wandering up and down, so we need some sort of signage. MK: It was my understanding when RIOC joined NYC & Co. two years ago and reinstated their dues a year ago, that the purpose of that was to make the Island more accessible to off-Island visitation and tourism. I’ve been at half a dozen meetings about signage, some generated by Island residents, artists, and some of it not, and it’s gone absolutely nowhere. I mean, there’s enthusiasm by one person or another at RIOC, and then there’s a void. Byron Gaspard [member, RIRA Common Council]: It affects the businesses on this Island in a negative way. They’re not really getting a lot of patronage from these people who are coming [from] off-Island and haven’t a clue what is on the Island or where... DK: Not even a sign like when you get off the freeway – gas station that way, restaurant that way... I have a question: What are the addresses of the two new buildings in Southtown? Multiple voices: 465 and 475. DK: Thank God. I gave the right directions. I was asked by someone who was looking for one of those. I didn’t know. BA: I don’t know the numbers. Somebody says, “How do you get to 40 River Road?” All those buildings are in front of Gristede’s. I don’t know which is 40 River Road. 
MP: There’s a long-term effect about the signage, and I wrote
something. I’m not sure where it stands, whether it went to RIOC
or not, but I put myself in the shoes of a first-time visitor, and if
you do that, and you start right from the other side of the Tram, the
first you’re greeted by is the homeless guy sitting outside the elevator,
the elevator not working, and then up the stairs with the pigeon droppings,
then when you come over the top and you begin to come down, you get that
construction area that kind of looks like a battle zone, and you get off
the Tram and you’re greeted with two soda machines, and that’s probably
the last intelligible signage, and the problem with that is that, when
you come here and you leave, you ask yourself, “Why should I ever go back
there again?” That’s the long-term residual problem with that. And
not only that, but if I feel that way, I’ll tell him, and I’ll tell him,
and he’ll tell you, like there’s nothing there, it’s a funny place, you
can’t figure out where you are and all that. Right now, Roosevelt
Island is a place to be looked at from the FDR Drive, because of the cherry
trees. When they go away, it’s a hard sell, and the problem is there
is no one in charge of the imagery of the Island.PS: Let me ask another question. Do the RIRA representatives here representing the RIRA Common Council and therefore the people, believe that it would be a desirable thing for Roosevelt Island to be a destination? Various voices: Yes. Other voices: Why? MS: Yes, with certain caveats. We’d like it to be a place where people come so the merchants would get some business. It’d be nice if there was a park or something that caused people to come over and have a look at it, but it’s not something that we want to have a circus set up on the street so we’re not able to cross the street because there’s so much traffic here, so within reason, a destination point would be nice to make it a more vibrant community. Frank Farance [member, RIRA Common Council and Vice President, Communications]: So, in terms of... I get a lot of phone calls because I do the Roosevelt Island Information Service thing, and when, I think most of you know this, that I do this, and when the... directory assistance doesn’t have a phone number or a specific name or whatever, I’m going to get the phone call that says, “What’s the phone number for the parking garage on Roosevelt Island?” because directory assistance doesn’t have a clue that it’s called Motorgate, so I tell them the number and a variety of other things. I get questions... I get on the order of anywhere from 15 to 30 calls a week, okay, and a good percentage of them, easily one out of five are asking for 
directions. And people come here. I get a lot of calls
from people who come here because they want to see what Roosevelt Island
is. How many people here have been to City Island? The first time you
heard about City Island, you thought, “I’m not sure I want to go there,
but I see it’s an exit on I-95, or whatever, on the way to New Haven, and
then you go there and you discover Roosevelt Island’s sister island, or big
brother, has a lot in common with Roosevelt Island, except it’s maxed out
on restaurants, which is not a bad thing for City Island. But the point
that I’m making is that, is that people outside of this community have a
curiosity of this. Now one of the things I’ve been working on this, and thank goodness for Island organizations that support this, I sen... So, what is there to do on Roosevelt Island, okay? So I ask, “Is it adults or kids coming? What are they interested in doing? Do they want to walk? Do they want to see just one thing, or what?” So I give them a summary of what to do if they’re here for one hour or two hours, or an afternoon, you know, a lunch or a walk or whatever, and a lot of the times what I’m doing is I’m guiding them through a couple of the websites on Roosevelt Island, so NYC10044 [www.nyc10044.com], I point them to the TimeLine, which has... It’s a good starting point. It gets people curious about, there is a history on this Island, there are things here that are worth seeing, and that most people want to come and do just one or two things, but that’s something... they’re going to spend any time here more than an hour, and that puts them into, you know, we have maybe three places to get something to eat right now, and so the church is therefore the major landmark that people orient themselves to other than the Tram or the subway here, so this is really, you know, the center of town here, is really the starting point. We used to have maps. People have asked me many times, “Can we get a map of the place?” I said, “They used to sell them a while ago for fifty cents,” what is his... Don – I forgot his name over on the north side of Island House, used to... DK: Sinisi. FF: Sinisi. That’s right. Don Sinisi did that, and that was, that was wonderful as a starting point. I would almost say that that’s something like in a lot of ways that you can go and pick up The WIRE in a variety of places, I don’t see why the cost, or the minimal cost of photocopying or something like that, why we can’t have available at a regular place, and a thing on the Tram itself, have a little holder so it’s there in the sense that there’s an attendant sort of looking out so that people don’t take them and throw them all over the place and stuff like that... MK: Doesn’t RIOC have a cartographer on the staff? FF: Cartographer is not, it’s really, I... Cartographer would be great, but it’s not going to really tell you what you want to know. What you want to know is, you come onto the Island from three, maybe, places, the Tram, the subway, and the bridge, those are the entry points here, and where do you go from there? Okay? The... You know how they have those things in almost every city in the country now, you can find them in the local bookstore, but some local artist has done that variant of, what was it, the old New Yorker... DK: Steinberg’s... FF: Yes, yes. But there’s a variant of that where they sort of show all the local merchants, the Island expanded and distorted in a way that makes it, you know... Actually, there’s the issue, but it’s more of an artistic issue in terms of expressing it. Those are the kinds of things, and it would be good to highlight, you know, the Southpoint, or you know, the promenade. The promenade is an excellent walk, I mean, we all know this. It’s just, I wind up spending the same amount of time every week telling people this. I don’t mind doing it, and I certainly don’t mind pointing people... you know, the Historical Society is another good source of stuff... It’s just for people coming to the Island, they’re coming here, at least from what I hear from the ones that call up, they’re coming here for a short-term visit. I do get a couple of calls every once in awhile, “Is there a bed and breakfast here?” Most of my responses through e-mail, though, are requests about apartments. I just give them the information on who’s the management agents on the Island... MS: Mark, you had something? MP: Two things. In answer to Matt’s question, yes, there is a cartographer on RIOC’s staff. What that person does, I don’t know, but that job position is there and it is filled. I’m in favor of Roosevelt Island being a destination with certain restrictions. For instance, there are various kinds of destinations, like The Meadowlands is a destination. The problem is the demographic it attracts, the tailgate party and the rowdies in the middle of the night. It would seem to me that if we could get this to be an area with things where the demographics fit what we want, like, for instance, an art and antiques center, at one end of the Island or the other, where [unintelligible; cell phone ringing] are side by side, and antiques dealers are side by side – the type of people who do their business from about 10:00 in the morning until about 5:00 at night. They go home after that time; their transaction is held inside the shopkeeper’s location itself, and it generally is a nice thing to see if you are walking by. That’s the kind of destination that I would favor the Island to become. MC: Well, we used to sell maps at the Tram station. I don’t know what happened to that program; they disappeared. I think the greatest... also as a destination on the Island. I think the Historical Society here has done a heck of a job putting up signage, some explanations of what was here and what is now here and there are those little green signs all over. A couple of them got destroyed, but that was more... I see more people walking around on Saturday and Sunday who have come over to walk around, who stop at the signs and say, “Oh, this was such and such, and this was the...” MP: The difficulty is you have to find your way to the sign on your own. FF: What you need is like what they have over in Long Island City, the Mile Walk, or whatever those... You need something on the Roosevelt Island Bridge to get... 
MC: Well, like the market. But that type of destination
station... You were talking about the people who walk around to
look at historic stuff is exactly the people who do the antiquing, which
is exactly a good point to bring them to the Island.MS: Which gets the Tram revenue up, and gets them to the destination point that they are looking for. MC: Absolutely. MS: Well, that gets us right back to what happens to signage on the Island. I had thought, maybe I’ll talk to Arline Jacoby and maybe we get the local artists to design something and if we can get RIOC to agree to pay for the printing. FF: Why aren’t we using the space, just out of curiosity, like everywhere else in Manhattan does on the weekends, which is like, every parking lot becomes a flea market on Saturday and Sunday. Why aren’t we doing that? Multiple voices: [Unintelligible.] FF: No, no, because the flea market has a very short start-up and knockdown time. We have some space between the Tram and the subway, and... PS: I think I can probably help a little bit with that in terms of, yes, there are a lot of good parking spaces, school yards and so on. They are volunteer operations, usually, neighborhood street associations and so on. They are permitted by the Community Board and the City of New York, are the street fairs and stuff like that. MK: Fees attached. PS: Fees attached, yes. FF: If you want to get people to come to Roosevelt Island on a very temporary basis you can do it, do a couple of advertisements in The Voice or whatever, the local paper. PS: There are, as I was saying, very active block associations, street associations. FF: That’s something that is a RIRA function... MK: Could be. MS: Are you talking about the space... FF: Well, I’m saying, I’m just running with your idea. If you’re saying it’s a block association and the only thing we have here equivalent to that is RIRA. BA: You are right, because Goldwater Hospital once a month has flea markets in their auditorium, and they get people from Brooklyn, from outside, from all over to come over and sell... MS: Should we make that a RIRA item...? MK: I can see... FF: I think one of the problems that they had in the past was, for example, they had an issue with potentially using the space by the Tramway because RIOC said, in terms of doing a carnival or whatever it was in the summer, because that’s a several-day set up and knockdown, or tear down, kind of thing, which are very short, put it say, between the two main transportation... MS: That’s what I see as the perfect spot. But I don’t think we can touch that ground. Doesn’t Hudson-Related have control of that entire area? DK: Well, let’s not find reasons to not go forward. PS: Actually, one, I think it’s a very good idea. Two, I think that if RIRA or a responsible group of citizens, whoever they may be, are interested in it, there probably would be ways found to do it. As an example, probably not a very good example, are these sales that are done outside the church. But that’s the idea, sort of. Now that stuff goes on all the time, and the seniors do it and the various organizations do it outside. As an example, the idea clearly does work and has worked on the Island, so if you expand that to other things, let’s say, it makes great sense to me. FF: Well, I think it’s the case that, with the exception of the Amish farmer here, the vendors outside the church are all local residents. Vendors at these things are not local to the neighborhood; they’re people who are searching for a place to put down a table for a flea market. Now, what they need is they need traffic, and that’s where as a community we have to, I don’t want to say it’s a chicken and egg thing, but we have to work with them. MS: As a matter of fact, that was an issue. Vicki and I had talked about a street fair and contacted a couple... DK: Excuse me, this is not on our agenda. I’ve had one two-hour meeting tonight... James Whalen (member, RIRA Common Council): This has nothing to do with... FF: I’m sorry... MS: OK, let’s go back to the signage then... 
BG: We have these posts that are on the Island that could be
very advantageous, in terms, if they had someone in the posts for anyone
coming on the Island who needs directions, who needs to know maybe where
the restaurants are, or a restroom, or whatever, that we don’t utilize
at all. Is there any way that RIOC can in some way see if that’s
feasible, to man these posts, because it’s very advantageous in a number
of ways. It’s good for monitoring the people that are coming on and
off the Island, which a lot of the housing developments have, and I think
that if we could begin to utilize those posts again, have the manpower
for it, if we could begin to utilize those posts again it would be very
advantageous for people coming on the Island.FF: I would like to see a... One [or]two very small improvements to the Island in terms of signage. I would like to see standard DOT signage on the ramp, the traffic coming down to the ramp, because people still get confused by... It’s a weird... I call it the helix, but I don’t know what everyone else calls it, but people get confused on that, and there needs to be a green sign on the foot of the bridge that says you’re going to have the choice of a straight turn, a right turn down to Roosevelt Island, or something like that, and then when they get there, you’re going to have to see little yellow things – I think that’s a Barry [Cheifitz] relic or whatever, those are non-standard signs that people don’t really think are there for them. And then the other things is the big yellow sign, which is underneath, when you get to the T, that’s another thing, and also, something that’s very important, I’ve been in many cars... people don’t realize that that road, that ramp is two-way, okay? I’ve seen people going up and down it... whatever we need to do to make the line clearer. It’s not practical to put the posts in the middle because you have long loads on that or whatever, but it’s extremely dangerous when you’ve got a car... I was in a taxi the other night. You tell them to make a left at the bottom and he’s in the left lane. You say, “Hey, get over, get over, this is two-way,” and they don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s like... totally unaware. And why that happens is because it’s all non-standard signage because they don’t have the usual visual cues to tell them this is a two-way road. BG: One other thing in answer, is it possible that we can get those booths manned, because there’s nothing more effective than having a person directing people. MS: I’ll send an e-mail to Sari and tell her that we would like to do that and I’ll tell her, Arline Jacoby, about the signage, and then I’ll come back to you guys... PS: I think it would be helpful with regard to what Byron was saying, that, not just, that it would be nice if we had those things back but why we want them back and the uses they would be put to. MK: Just as an FYI, when I was at the DOT meeting on the [Roosevelt Island] Bridge, [RIOC Vice President for Engineering] Vinnie Kopicki brought up the question of those booths, and if they could be removed as part of the overhaul, that they would be in favor of that, just so you can be aware. FF: Put a DSL connection in there and air conditioning, and you’d find ten volunteers. Online Problem-Reporting System MS: The next three items – the tram elevator, the elevators at Motorgate, the street lights, I’m going to hand over to Frank because these are all maintenance kinds of issues and we wanted to talk about the system. He’s got some ideas about that. Otherwise, it’s the same old thing. The Tram elevator is out, the street lights are out, and so, if you could explain to everybody the ideas you have.FF: Let’s see. In Westview/Island House Task Force a couple of years ago, we had surprising success in dealing with a maintenance issue, and it’s affected the place positively, long-term. What we did was we started keeping track of all the maintenance issues on things... There’s three spaces here on the Island. There’s your personal space within the apartment, there’s the public space within the building, and there’s the space outside the building, and so that’s personal space, controlled by the managing agent, public space, controlled by the managing agent, and then, RIOC. Okay. We’re talking about in those buildings, in the public space, there were things like marks on the wall, there were rips in the carpeting, all the kind of, you know, complaints. Well, what we did was we made a list of complaints. This is commonly called a problem-tracking system or an issue-tracking system, but you get a one-line summary, then maybe three to five sentences of a problem description, telling the usual who-what-when-where-why-how, and for Island House and Westview, it was either 7 feet to the left of door 1702, or something like that, but anyway, the residents became pretty good at tracking things like that. So, anyway, initially, the handymen got really pissed off, because they felt they were being picked on, it was all out to get them and residents were just doing whatever... It turned out that after about a month, which was what we expected in this scenario, everyone really liked it, because there was agreement on what they problem was, and it was also clear that things were getting fixed, things were... new problems were coming up, and it was clear where the problem areas were, which meant that for the residents and for Housing Management, in this case, we were able to get agreement on the problems, and then the issue was simply, discussing priorities, and at times there was agreement, and at times not. But I would say that generally there was agreement on the priorities, generally. It worked so well that, initially, you had to have a person from the Task Force and a person from Housing Management go side by side to see that we were reporting honestly, to make sure that... It finally ended that everyone took turns because everyone trusted us on this. And the end result was that all of those issues on maintenance and stuff, really, I don’t want to say went away, we recognized... there were things, in fact, Housing Management made some changes in terms of the staffing because it was obvious to them... in fact, they incorporated this formally into their own work process. So what I’m suggesting for us, and I already have the software to do this and I’ve used this in a variety of environments, is simply to have people write down what the problems are, so they can say, right over here, for example, the manhole cover that’s cracked and needs repair, it’s in the walkway between Rivercross and the Island Kids school [sic; actually, former Day Nursery space] school, and if necessary someone takes a picture with their digital camera, uploads it to the site. This is something that anyone on the Island can do in terms of reporting a problem. Problems will automatically get fed, then, to RIOC through e-mail. They’ll be tracked in the sense that they’re formally delivered to them in a way that’s very convenient for them. My expectation is that, as residents, whatever, we’ll be able to put the stuff in. We’ll at least have a list of problems and, I think, at that point if we ask about this, maybe one month, two months, three months down the road, what the status is of things and, like I said, the same with Housing Management, we might not agree on priorities, but at least we’re arguing then, at that point, about just what the priorities are. They know what the workload or the issues are, and at some point the problems get closed, and new issues come, so we shouldn’t have the expectation that everything is done; we shouldn’t have the expectation that everything gets done overnight. Okay? It allows us to communicate better by discussing what’s going on, and expressing our points of view. Now, when I talked one-on-one with Sari a couple of weeks ago and asked about, after we had the fliers with the bus, why didn’t she really talk to RIRA after that in terms of reviewing, she said she felt that, because residents had communicated with her directly, that RIRA was giving the message that they didn’t want to be involved in this, okay? And somehow I couldn’t imagine it was possible to get that message but, fine, that’s what she said. Now what we will do is we will be able to convey it to her and Herb directly in a form that’s very convenient for them. Rather than get ten complaints about everything, if it’s a duplicate complaint, it’ll be one complaint and people could add their comments to it, and you can improve on it. It’s... And I think you can improve upon it. I think everyone’s worked with this kind of system in their job or whatever, and staff like this. It’s an excellent way of communicating this, it’s a concise way, it’s a concise way of getting what the priorities are, and what progress is being made. And what the... And this is something that RIRA will be rolling out at some point... I’m... MS: Let me just stop you for a minute, because what I think you’ve described is the residents’ part of it, and I think what we’re asking you three guys is there’s a second piece of it, and that’s RIOC’s, which is they have to look at it and then close things out so that a resident can get online and look and see this has been reported – I don’t have to report it because there’s a status here that it’ll be done in two weeks, or that it’s already closed and I just don’t know about it... That’s the part that we’ve got to get agreements on doing. What we want is for you guys to get comfortable with backing us up with saying that you’d like to see it. And what would it take to get you comfortable with it? Put a demo in place, show it to you? What would make you comfortable with it enough to say, “I endorse this, and...” FF: I brought my wireless with me but it’s not working, otherwise I would have given you a demo right here. MS: We don’t want you to just blindly say, “Yeah, go ahead, we support this.” Obviously, we think you want to see what it is that you’re supporting. So what will it take to get you comfortable enough to support it or not support it? 
PS: As I see it, I see it as a great advantage, simply because
you will be doing things that RIOC cannot do in terms of you will be having
a sort of ear to the ground, you will have numbers of complaints, you
will have numbers of issues, you will maybe prioritize them as far as
RIRA or the community is concerned, and then help RIOC prioritize them,
as well. And on the basis of what I just said, it seems like a great
advantage. To get RIOC to report back on it should not be a great
difficulty, quite frankly, because if there is a person at the other end
with a computer who can say, “Ah, yes, item number 148 is out, report back.”
As I say, on the face of it, it sounds like a very good idea that
works to the advantage of both RIOC and the community. But your point,
Margie, yes, I’d like to see it, to see, quite frankly, how workable it
is. For your part, you’re the expert in these matters, it may be a momentous
undertaking be... Well, I won’t editorialize on that, but it might
be that, but if it were real problems, timely, in reporting, in some sort
of priority, answerable in the same spirit, [it] makes great sense.MS: Mark, what do you think? MP: I don’t even care if it’s the right thing. I’d like it to be easy to use, but I’m not going to fight about that. Just to get RIOC to adopt something that’s quantitative and disciplined is worth trying for no reason more than that, as far as I’m concerned. Anything else beyond that is gravy. MS: David? DK: Hmmm? MS: What do you think about it? What do you need to get comfortable with it, with supporting it or not supporting it. DK: I have no interest in it for several reasons. First of all, it’s an operational issue, and it’s beyond the purview of a Board member – we have too much to implement – and beyond it’s certainly the purview of this committee here. If your complaint is that work isn’t getting done, keep hammering until the work is done. It’s not up to us to figure out how to do it. That’s my view. MS: OK, so that’s a no, and then we’ll get back to you guys to let you know and see if you want to support it. FF: Actually, I can show you one here... PS: Keep it simple, Frank. FF: You’ve seen this already. I’m showing you the one... This was the old one, it’s not... This is just the list of problems themselves; you’re not seeing the entry, but it’s basically in a one-line summary and a... PS: To Frank’s point, though, that was used in Island House and it was used fairly. On the other side of that coin, however, in the real world, the residents were aware of it, whatchamacallit, the Housing Maintenance Corporation was aware of it. In the real world, it took eight years to get the rugs replaced, so it’s a good system, but we have to be [understanding], in our heads, [that] built into that is an understanding that certain things are doable within a time frame, and certain things take... MC: I think that’s what the reporting back from RIOC would be. If we put in a complaint about something, that something’s not working – the elevator at the thing is not working – they can come back and say what they’re doing about that. FF: And like I say, [if] it’s going to take three months, okay, tell us that. [Showing the screen of his laptop computer:] Okay, so we have here at the top, it says current problems outstanding, 110, problems fixed since the last walk-through, 63, new problems, 57, unresolved problems since the last walk-through, 47, problems increased or decreased, in this case it was decreased by 7, and then this is the list of the outstanding problems. You just see one problem here – 555, outside 315, carpet repair, 555, stairwell 3B, left near vent, clean wall, and something like that. So that’s the – you’re just seeing the one-line summary – so that’s the kind of thing, if they wanted to look at this, and then the detail would be at this place where there’s a picture or something like that. MK: Frank, who would be the keeper of this system? Would that be somebody at RIOC, or...? FF: Keeper... I’m actually the database administrator for it. This is a communications committee... MK: They would simply provide you with updates of the data. FF: Yes, they’d have a special account that... It’s to their advantage to use this because they can let us know that they believe they’ve fixed something. Sooner than waiting to get it out they can say, “We told you, because we checked the box off saying we’re done.” 
BG: I think that... I just want to make a comment on what
David says when he says it’s an operational issue. I completely
agree with him. I mean, this is a situation that has been resolved
on this Island for a little over six years, so, in comparison to some of
you here, and I think that there are ways of really putting pressure on
them, really coming to a resolve of these situations which have not been
resolved – the Tram elevator, elevators at Motorgate have not been resolved,
the street light situation has not been resolved. We’ve been complaining
about these situations – I have – for at least six years, and you know,
there are several things that residents could do in terms of empowering themselves
to take some responsibility for some of these... Just take pictures. You
know, when we have problems in Eastwood, the Eastwood Building Committee,
is we go around, in Eastwood, and we take pictures of the problems. We
then present those pictures to DHCR management to let them know that these
are some situations that have not been resolved, that management has failed
to resolve them, and could you give us a timetable as to when these situations
will be resolved. So at that point we – this is a two-way situation
here – we continue to provide the evidence by putting things in writing
to RIOC, in terms of requesting a timetable for a final resolve of these
situations.FF: Well, that’s... I’m saying exactly that. It’s just... I’m in complete agreement with that, and that’s the advantage of that, which is that, if you’re on vacation or someone else is at least centrally here, someone else is going to be able to advocate or at least keep an eye on your problems, so you’re not just relying on one person, you’re part of the Island community, and, and you may discover that your problem is not as determined by the community and RIOC, or whatever, is high priority, or low priority, or whatever it is, but at least you have, you can at least get a better sense of expectation through this. Now in terms of being an operational issue, I would say, yes, that is true, but the deeper insight into this, as was discovered in the Westview/Island House Task Force, is that, ah, I mean, everyone is saying, it’s an operational issue, or there’s something outstanding. We got a much better picture on this on the maintenance issues in management in focus when we realized what the problems were and what the priorities were, it made everyone more agreeable and it used the limited resources much better because they were focused on the priorities that people wanted, largely. MS: We’re not suggesting that you do this and just file it and go away, just to keep the pressure on. But at least this gives us more facts, and... FF: If Margie has the same problem, then at least one of you know that Margie can advocate it or vice versa, you can advocate it, and then follow up. BG: [Unintelligible.] PS: If I could just make a critical observation that, one man’s problem is another man’s opportunity, so I try to look at problems as opportunities, and we’ve done this and you guys do it in RIRA, and we’ve tried to do it in RIOC and in other places, that if there is a problem, somewhere there’s a solution. Part of the coming to that solution is the guy who states the problem. So it’s easy enough for me to say, “Brick #446 is out.” It would also be helpful if I had an idea how to get brick #446 replaced, to also be at least philosophically obliged to put that possible solution forward. I think that if the people who get the complaints could get potential solutions along with them they’ll respond better. FF: Part of this is “recommended solution,” you can say, “Replace the brick,” or, I don’t know, whatever it is. BG: Replace the lights if it has to be replaced. FF: Whatever. So basically we got two in support, and one undetermined; we’ll leave it at that. MS: Frank will get a demo together and we’ll show you... 
James Whalen: I haven’t the foggiest of what you’re talking about.
It seems to me that you’re talking about a complaint website.FF: Effectively, yes. JW: OK. You set up a complaint website, we’ll put an ad in The WIRE saying, “If you have a problem, state the problem, leave a name and address, if you choose.” FF: You can do this anonymously. JW: Now, who’s going to implement it, once a month or once a week we take the website complaints and we send it to Mr. Berman. FF: You got it. That’s exactly it. Timing may be sightly off, or whatever, yeah. JW: When will we have the website? FF: About a week. I’ll try this weekend, but... JW: About a week. FF: Yes. I’ll try this weekend, but... JW: So instead of discussing this situation, put it on the web, Mr. Berman will hopefully look at it. If they don’t, we just renew, renew, renew, so in time it’s going to be... How long can we talk about the street lights? You can keep it on that list, if it keeps moving up... Maybe there’s no solution to some problems. I don’t think there’s any solution – the street lights, the Tram elevator – that’s history, it’s another problem. But there are other problems which can be solved in 24 hours if they’re on that website. FF: Exactly. So if you see that there’s 100 problems and 20 are unresolvable, long-term, you may have 80 that are resolvable, and that’s good for, to acknowledge that we had a problem, it was resolved, and we should be thankful for the resolution. BG: And also we leave it open to people who are not computer literate, who... MS: We were thinking we’d like to designate somebody in RIRA, and get them in that way. Island House/Westview
Sale PS: What I can tell you is that I have recused myself from those discussions as a member of the Board, so I can tell you nothing. MP: Let me tell you what I know. Excuse me, David, did I interrupt... What I know is that there is a two-person subcommittee of the Board that’s chaired by John Mannix and is participated in by Deborah Beck. They... the last time that I was informed about it they were advocating, I think it’s a fair statement to say, minimum involvement by RIOC. That’s all I know. MS: David, were you going to say something? DK: Minimum involvement by RIOC? MP: Yes, by RIOC. DK: Well, in terms of the Island House/Westview sale, [unintelligible], unless we have to approve the new purchaser or whatever. MS: And I guess ground lease. MP: I think we have to approve the ground lease, and that I don’t know for sure. DK: Well, that’s probably not a “minimum involvement by RIOC.” MP: I’m pretty sure that was the statement, David. DK: Well, that is important. MS: We just want you to know, and I’m sure this is redundant... DK: To answer your question, nothing more has been brought forward on it. PS: Certainly, as a resident of one of those buildings... DK: Why did you recuse yourself? PS: Because I have a potential conflict of interest. Voice: [Unintelligible.] PS: Let me finish, sir. DK: Yes, let him finish. PS: If I have knowledge that could benefit me as a resident of Island House that the other residents of Island House don’t have, then that puts me in a position of straight serious conflict of interest potential. DK: Uh, uh. PS: It certainly does. At least the... DK: Look at it this way. The sale and possible conversion of Westview or Island House, and in the future, Eastwood, in which I live, and Rivercross, from a Mitchell-Lama co-op to a privately held co-op, is the most important single action facing this Board in its history and in its future. PS: No question. Absolutely. DK: Nothing else will have more effect on the shape of this Island and its future than this vote. And I don’t understand how you can be a Director of this corporation and not vote that issue one way or the other, because in terms of conflict of interest, we all have conflicts of interest. Any Board member who lives on this Island... Eastwood may be in play – isn’t that what they were talking about, why they couldn’t give Charlie [De Fino, Director of the Youth Center] the lease there because they may want to present that part of Eastwood as unencumbered? And I live in Eastwood, Mark lives here [in Rivercross], Debbie lives here, new guy lives where... MK: Manhattan Park. DK: I don’t know what his interest is. But in fact, every one of us has an interest in this Island. I would give you the analogy of a corporate director. A director of a corporation who might have an interest in ownership of the product, or something that the corporation provides, has exactly the kind of conflict of interest that you’re referring to, and yet, the General Motors Board makes decisions which affect the price of the General Motors car they themselves buy. And the Merck directors make decisions on behalf of the corporation that affect the price of the drugs which they and their families use. And this is true of every corporate board of every 
corporation, and the fact that they might profit is not at issue in a conflict
of interest. What is at issue in a conflict of interest is if they
so arrange things that they get their cars at a special low price because
they knew something on an insider basis, or they get their drugs at a special
low price because they did something on an insider basis, or they get to
buy their apartments at a low price because they knew something on an insider
basis. In the State of New York, corporate law for the Board of Directors says that the basic principle is fairness. You are always going to know more as a director about the actions, about the interior operation of the corporation on whose Board you serve, and you are always in a position to profit from your decisions. What you may not do is profit in a way that other members of your buying public don’t have access to. If you make a vote to take your building private because you happen to want to buy your apartment, you are allowed to do that, and it is not a conflict of interest unless you get a better price than other people. If other people in the building get apartments on the same terms as you have voted for then it’s not a conflict of interest. Likewise, if you feel very strongly that the building should remain a Mitchell-Lama rental building and not allow that lease to go forward because of your interest, you can do that even though it’s your interest because you don’t have $100,000 for a down-payment, you want to continue to pay rent. You vote that way, and everybody else living in the building has the same right to continue paying rent. It is only a conflict of interest when you do something to your own benefit which is not equally shared among others. That is not a conflict of interest. You are setting up a hypothetical situation in which you will not vote on a Westview/Island House, and I’m not going to vote on an Eastwood conversion, for or against, and Mark and Debbie can’t vote on a Rivercross conversion, and it’s not what we’re on this Board for. We’re on this Board to take a stand one way or the other for or against based on our best assessments of what’s best for the community, and if in fact I might profit from an Eastwood conversion, so be it, so long as all of my neighbors have the same chance to profit. And if I think we shouldn’t privatize, because I want to continue to rent, then all my neighbors will continue to pay rent and not have to come up with the money. And that’s the basis on which we decide. The fact that we might benefit? I will always benefit. I will never do a vote on this Island from which I don’t think I’m going to benefit. [Unintelligible] General Motors. I think what’s good for me is good for this Island. But I also think what is good for this Island is good for me. I don’t see the distinction between them. I don’t see how you or anybody can not vote on the most compelling issue this Island faces. PS: I appreciate and thank you for sharing. JW: This whole conversation is out of order. It’s not on the agenda... DK: Sure it is. It’s right here. MS: Jim, it’s right there on the agenda. JW: You’re talking about something that is... PS: Just a goddam minute here... DK: Talking about why we’re having these meetings... Can I just back up for a minute, Pat? We’re having these meetings so I can tell my neighbors what I think and I can listen to what they have to say in response. I’ve been as open and honest as I can about what I think, and on this issue, this is how I feel. 
PS: And I appreciate that. And I appreciate your sharing.
I do not happen to share that opinion. I do not read the State
code of ethics law that way. I do feel this is a conflict of interest
[and] until someone proves to me otherwise, in writing, from the State code
of ethics, as long as I have a piece of information that my neighbors do
not have and that I am not able to share, I do not have that piece of information.
It gives me an advantage, real or otherwise, real or perceived advantage,
and I’m not going to put myself in that position, nor do I think that the
oath that I took as a director of this corporation or an officer of the
State of New York, that I should do that. Now that is my opinion;
you’ve give your opinion; anybody else sitting around this table is welcome
to share their opinions with regard to that. It’s a personal matter
more than it is a...JW: Yes. Therefore, could we return to the agenda? PS: Jim, be quiet, please. JW: We’re not here for that. PS: I love you, anyway. FF: I enjoyed listening to your comments because I think they are clear and they presented the issues very well. I think the distinction between what the actual conflict of interest is versus the hypothetical one, I think you illustrated that, I think your recognition that this is probably one of the most important decisions is, I [am] very much in agreement with that. I would say, you know, with respect to having knowledge of things... I mean, you guys go into executive session and there’s a lot of stuff that you don’t share, and I’m not necessarily saying you should share, but there’s a lot of stuff that you guys... and you know what, and it would give you some advantage on certain things over residents. PS: It certainly would. FF: Right, but I, but since I’m not in the meetings, are you then recusing from all decision-making... 
PS: The information, as an example, the information that comes
to me in an executive committee meeting, which normally has to do with money,
normally have to do with financial, real estate-related, and so on. My
understanding of that information, and my take of that information, is
that I will give my opinion on that as long as my special interests are
not involved. I will give you my opinion as regards the Island as
a whole. That information, given to me, does not ever go out of that
room as far as I am concerned, because I am bound by being in that room
by the State – my own ethics, through the State. And that’s what it
is. And that’s how I look at it. Now, do I have information that is important... Do I have information that will, if given out, adversely affect the well-being of this Island? Yes, I do. And therefore if I give it out it will adversely affect the welfare of this Island, so I don’t give it out, because I am precluded by law to do that. FF: I’m not suggesting you do anything unlawful... PS: No, I’m not saying you suggest it. I’m saying... I’m giving you my take, Frank. BG: I respect both opinions, but I think that even though you [three resident RIOC Board members] are an officer of the State, you are also a resident of this community, a representative of this community on behalf of the State. You know, it’s sort of like... DK: You’re making an assumption, Byron. You’re making an assumption [that] what’s best for you as a resident of this community is always going to be antithetical to what’s best for the State. BG: No, I’m not saying that. DK: Then it doesn’t matter. BG: No, what I’m saying is that as a representative of RIOC who also represents the community, how do you differentiate. DK: Well, like I say, it’s not necessary to differentiate if RIOC’s best interest and the community’s best interest are the same. It’s necessary to differentiate when they differ. That’s a decision every time. Every time. And we do hear things in executive session which don’t make it to the community, which might be of advantage to a Board member or not of advantage to a Board member, or might be an advantage to a developer, or to another developer if they heard what this developer was coming up with. Of course we’re not permitted to say that. But when the time comes to vote, we vote. We don’t have to give our reasons. If I give a reason... If I vote a yea or a nay because I know something from executive session that I cannot share with the community, I still have to vote. PS: Let me... JW: Gentlemen, this has been going on. I object once more. Let us go back to the agenda. MS: Your objection is noted. Go ahead. PS: There is one more issue that is just for general information, that I am also an officer of the City, which complicates my life even more, so not only do I have Roosevelt Island, the City of New York, and the State of New York, so it, it creates some study time. DK: How are you an officer of the City? PS: I’m a member of Community Board 8. MS: And, I think, taken to an extreme you’re talking about a building-specific issue or an Island-specific issue. PS: If it’s an Island-specific issue, I’m for the Island, period. If it’s a building-specific issue, which in this case is the privatization of these buildings, which I live in, then I have to take myself out of it, and hope to God that my representatives in RIRA will speak for me and speak to RIOC for me, because that’s what democracy is about. FF: That’s not the process that we have here. The process is, is that we have a Board, like in any company, the Board is setting the direction here, and the executives and the operations staff are the ones that are executing that direction, so it’s really... as residents, we’re a bunch of whiners – we’re not even shareholders, okay, you know, in that sense, and so it really is the Board, so it’s the residents, really, coming to the Board and asking them to represent their issues, which is – that’s what this meeting is... PS: Well, if there are minutes of this meeting, I think what David Kraut said is very clear and concise and short, and what I said is very clear and concise and short, that’s how he sees it, that’s how I see it, so be it. JW: Wonderful. Can we move on? FF: Are we about to go on to the next agenda topic? MS: Yes. FF: I thought on the street lights here I just wanted to warn people that the bridge lights – we have these sodium lights – the sort of pinkish, orangish lights, there’s a real hazard on the [Roosevelt Island / 36th Avenue] bridge with them because you don’t have side-lighting, you only have overhead lighting, and really, if we can get that replaced to the regular white light, we have that on the street here... The problem is that it makes everything monochromatic, which means that people are walking on the bridge, you can’t even see them, or even bicyclists, and because it’s over dark water, with nothing on the sides to give you any definition, so I would recommend that we, that the lights on the bridge... DK: It’s a DEP issue, not really ours. PS: That’s why I don’t ride my bicycle on the bridge at night. FF: I almost hit someone the other night. I saw him pass me, and fortunately I was away, and... I mean, I’m a pilot, I have my eyes tested, so I know it’s not my eyes, I know it’s the sodium lights. PS: You just don’t see. FF: Right. School Bus Pickups on Main Street MS: The next item is the school bus situation.DK: You’ve got pictures. MS: I’ve got pictures, yes. I have talked to people in RIOC; I’ve sent e-mails to Sari, I’ve sent e-mails to Berman, I’ve talked with Deborah Beck, and the situation still exists, and they’re not great pictures, but I’ll show you. The buses line up here [in front of Blackwell House]. The kids come up this way. They’re coming from [the river side of] Rivercross [531 Main Street] and they go across this way [west to east across Main Street]. See the kids crossing the street in front of these [other] buses? They’re in front of these buses. These guys [in cars behind] are now annoyed because they had to wait, they’re beeping, the kids are there, and that’s the way the situation goes during the day. And the kids cannot get onto the sidewalk, even, because those yellow chains are here, so they get to the middle of the street, the bus is here, they have to enter from around there [to the door side], and they’re standing in the middle of the street while these guys are pulling around. It happens 3:15, every single day. Some kid is going to get hurt bad. There’s no crosswalk, there’s no crossing guard. Public Safety has driven by, and in fact Public Safety has come around this way [passing] into the oncoming traffic, and they... DK: Are the buses, the one that’s loading, using its [do-not-pass warning] lights? MS: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. DK: Is he going around that? MS: Yes. DK: Let’s get a picture of that. MS: I wished I had my camera one day because it was Public Safety and the red RIOC truck right behind it. He had to go into this next lane, because he couldn’t get around. PS: I wish you guys had been out there yesterday. Yesterday was a catastrophic event, the likes of which one sees only in Manhattan. The [Dark Water] movie people were there, the buses were there, there were trucks coming down, and there was not a cop – any kind of cop – in uniform, in sight. Now... DK: ...who wasn’t an actor... PS: There were actors in cop uniforms. MS: I just don’t know what else to do. Some kid is going to get hurt. There’s always the beeping. PS: Of course. What I did, and I don’t think I carry any more weight than anybody else around here, I went to RIOC, and said, “You know, if for no other reason than it makes it look like you’re doing something, please put some Public Safety people out.” They were there today. Because Patrick Stewart said that I don’t think made a damn bit of difference, but it made sense to somebody, I think, they did it. But it was, having a cop out, you could have 40 cops out there, that is not going to alleviate that situation, and what I hear you correctly saying is, “How are we going to fix that?” MS: Yeah... PS: I don’t know. MS: ...it’s the wrong place for the buses to stop, there’s no crosswalk, there’s no crossing guard. MC: That’s the problem. If they put a crosswalk and a crossing guard, it’d be fine. MS: Probably further up the street, because even then you can’t do it, because the kids can’t get on the sidewalk when they get across, because those chains are there. MC: Well, there’s a hole in those chains, in the middle of it there. MS: It’s still not the right place to... MC: No. There should be a crosswalk there for taking them across, and a crossing guard. DK: And a crossing guard, certainly. Was there a... Last time we talked, you talked about them being on the promenade. MS: They stopped that. DK: So, in other words, they were doing the same kind of maneuver on the promenade, now they’ve moved it over here. MS: The promenade – they were coming out the back of the school, and the bus drivers were driving down the promenade and stopping right... They didn’t get into the street. But now the ones that were on the promenade are down by Southtown. DK: We need a better idea. MS: We need a better idea, for sure. PS: Added to that, the hospitals were out, so that added to the melee out there. MP: The danger that I see is the danger that comes from familiarity. I go across the street the first time, I’m looking all directions. I make it. The next time, I kind of look in both directions, and I make it. And the tenth time I go across the street, I only look one way, and I make it. And then I quit looking. FF: And then you go to London. MP: And that’s the problem, right there. Once I quit looking, I continue to make it safely. Once I quit looking, that’s when the problem is going to happen. PS: And you’re a pretty good target. MP: I am. MS: These kids are turning around, calling to one another, paying no attention. DK: Kids are being kids. MS: That’s right. They’re being kids. And because of the line of school buses, the cars have been sitting in back of them, thinking they’re going to move, and they’re not. They sit there for a while, they see nothing, and then they’re going around and the cars overtake them. BA: I’ve seen... DK: We need a better idea. MS: We need help. We need something. MC: Well, the school crossing guard, that part of it may not even be RIOC’s problem. It may be a part of the NYPD school... BG: But they have school crossing guards out, provided by the Island, for... DK: Yes, but they’re crossing kids at PS217. MS: Yes, they’re doing them at the right spot. MC: And they have school security, presumably part of NYPD, is in every school. They’re in this PS217, there are armed policemen at the door. There’s nothing for these [kids who attend the Child School]... Why is that? MS: Obviously the kids are going to get hurt, and the problem is, RIOC’s going to get sued, and will not have a leg to stand on. BA: Not only kids. Adults cross there. MS: Absolutely, [but] adults tend to go to the crosswalks because they’re not running to get to the school bus. The kids are just running over to get to the buses. DK: We need a better idea there. Carillon for Chapel of the Good Shepherd MS: Last thing, carillon bells, for the Chapel of the Good Shepherd. Does anyone know where that stands? RIRA passed a resolution asking RIOC to accept the bells. I haven’t heard anything about them. Anybody here know anything?DK: I know nothing. PS: I don’t know anything. DK: What are some issues about that? Are people complaining about the potential noise from that? MC: We talked about it in the RIRA meeting when we passed the resolution, and much like any other church in the county or anywhere else, what we were saying is, take the bells because it’s a nice gesture [by] the Fire Department. DK: It is a nice gesture. MC: Yeah. I mean, come on, guys... DK: So this is actually an electronic thing. It’s not... MC: Yes, it’s not... DK: I understand they’ve already been purchased. MC: They’ve already been purchased. All they’ve got... As far as when they ring and everything else, almost every church, every – in a community there is a community board or whatever that tells them when they can ring. I mean, there are laws on the books. DK: And they do the nine-tailers. MC: Because there was on the news the other day about some place in Minnesota, they were going to have Muslims called to prayer with loudspeakers... DK: Right, which they do in their countries. MC: ...which they do in their countries five times a day or whatever the heck it was, and they were asking for a permit to do that, and they were going to get it, but everybody was complaining because... and they came back and said, well, you ring your church bells 15 times a day... DK: Whatever it is, it’s the Jews that suffer. MC: There it is. MK: I spoke with Father Miqueli on Tuesday. It’s his thinking that Herb Berman is behind the project, and it’s simply a matter of fine-tuning it... DK: Oh, well put. MK: Sorry about that... MS: Oh! DK: I was a bell-ringer back... MS: ... so that it conveniences the largest number and inconveniences the fewest number, and with an electronic system, that’s easy to do. JW: Frank is writing a system, by the way, of ringing the bells. PS: That’s not a bad idea. MS: That’s the last thing we have on the agenda. Thank you very much, everybody. PS: Thank you. Thanks for inviting us. DK: Who wants to help create the park at Southpoint? MS: Help create it? DK: Any volunteers? Okay, good. Stewart and I will do it. You guys didn’t hold your hands up fast enough. [Laughter.] PS: We’ve already done it. MK: I’ve been meeting with [unintelligible under multiple voices] on a regular basis. DK: Who else? He needs the broadest... I told him that I have very strong feelings about what that park should be. JW: Who’s him? PS: The Trust for Public Lands guy. MS: Charles McKinney? DK: I also told them... What they’re doing is, they are people who make parks happen. That’s the best way I can describe it. And they’re going to try to figure out what the best kind of park to have here, and present us some choices, which is not just the park but also how we maintain it, which means we might have to put a restaurant in there or some other kind of concessions to help underwrite it, and so forth and so on. But they should talk to the broadest possible number of people in the community, and I mean people who we don’t normally talk to, and if you guys have any suggestions, let me know or let Sari know, or I’ll pass them on to Sari. MK: Andy Stone, the New York City project developer, organization heads around the Island gave ideas... DK: Well, see, what I’m afraid of is we’ll have input from all the organizations again... MC: And nothing from the people... DK: We hope we’re representing the people, but we don’t know that we are. I came up with names like... Tony Vita, who’s an artist we know, and [unintelligible], who’s going to be a much greater artist in his day than Tony has managed to be yet. We’ve seen his stuff around. And who can also put us in touch with a whole sub-population of Island teenagers who were going down to Southpoint before that fence was ever open, and have their own views on what that space should be. So I gave him that name. There are other names like that which perhaps, and Akira is very creative – you’ve seen his work... PS: José Baca, who’s done... DK: José Baca, yes... Just people who might otherwise get overlooked. We know he’s going to talk to all the heads. PS: This is kind of rough, tough kind of information, but as an example... JW: Is there pressure against housing down there, is that your statement? PS: We’re going to put a hotel down there, Jim... A bed and breakfast down there... MK: Jim, as you reminded us, this is not on the agenda. MS: The meeting is officially over, so you can... PS: One of the things that was discussed was maintenance, as an example, and this will take one minute. As an example, to maintain Bryant Park is $70,000 an acre. The cost to maintain Central Park is $35,000 an acre. And so on. So... DK: There is one even smaller that cost even more per square foot, but that had to do with the fact that... economies of scale. FF: You’re buying in bulk. DK: Right. PS: So it ain’t cheap. MS: We have been in touch with Charles McKinney, too, and I have given him a couple of other names... Multiple voices: [Unintelligible.] |