Did you see the posters that RIOC hung on the Main Street kiosks publicizing the City and State Offices of Emergency Management (OEM) meeting on April 21?  Apparently very few Islanders did see the undistinguished green signs as fewer than two dozen of us attended.  Both RIOC President Berman and I mentioned the meeting in our last WIRE columns.

The meeting was a major disappointment in that it failed to speak to any of the considerations specific to Roosevelt Island.  RIRA (and many of you) have asked RIOC to create a contingency plan ever since last August’s blackout.  The speakers made reference to the Ready New York preparedness guide that we all received in the mail months ago, and offered a generic PowerPoint presentation on the steps we can all take to protect our families and ourselves.  They discussed fires in the Adirondacks, floods in Oneonta, and general New York City issues, but had nothing to say about the unique problems that our Island home entails.

That we are connected to emergency services by one moveable bridge, years overdue for overhaul, left them unmoved.  That we have a special senior and disabled population, less mobile than other City communities, failed to impress.  That Roosevelt Island, unlike any other community in New York City, has an on-site State public-benefit corporation with some 70 employees, a private State peace officer, force and an annual budget of over $12 million, whose sole function is to administer and manage this Island, was not a consideration.

Most disturbing, the one RIOC exec present stated that it was not RIOC’s job to provide emergency services to this community, merely to “facilitate” other emergency responders.  If that is so, why has Public Safety (a RIOC department) taken on the role of providing defibrillator emergency service?  Uniformed peacekeepers are expected to provide first-responder emergency care everywhere, and in fact Public Safety officers were critical to the total response during last August’s Blackout.  Many City neighborhoods may need to create volunteer organizations to plan for and respond to emergencies.  Roosevelt Islanders have (and pay for) RIOC to provide these critical services on our behalf.

Two Rivercross residents, Mary Camper-Titsingh and Marianne Russem, interrupted the hours-long lecture (quite rightly, in my opinion) to state that we had been led to believe that the purpose for the RIOC presentation of OEM was to consider contingency planning specifically for Roosevelt Island.  They cited Herb Berman’s last column, in which he stated, “A study of the Island and its needs was also performed by the State and City.  Now that the study is under way, I am pleased to announce that I have additional information about the emergency-planning meeting… scheduled for Wednesday, April 21.”  However, it was obvious that the City and State OEM reps were not prepared to present or discuss the issues specific to Roosevelt Island.  The small audience clearly had come with the expectation of learning what planning RIOC had undertaken with these agencies to anticipate blackout, transportation, or communication disruption, or worse.  And clearly neither the speakers nor the RIOC staff reps were prepared to meet those expectations.

It was interesting that not one RIOC Board member or a single RIOC technical staffer attended the meeting.  Operations VP Sari Halpern Dickson, and Public Safety Chief Jim Fry represented RIOC.  Mr. Fry had nothing to say, and Ms. Halpern suggested that discussions had been under way with community leaders to address the unique contingencies that are part of life on Roosevelt Island.  I have been a part of no such meetings and, in fact, understood that we would be informed only after contingency planning was completed.  For that reason, I was looking forward to the OEM meeting on the 21st as the culmination of site-specific planning for Roosevelt Island.  The actual presentation was anything but.

Roosevelt Island has exceptional conditions of geography, location, infrastructure, population, and yes, political and administrative oversight, that make our situation a one-of-a-kind contingency problem.  Yes, we should all have battery-powered radios, a landline telephone, a flashlight, a modest first-aid kit and minimal stores of water and food.  I read and acted on that advice when I received the Ready New York pamphlet in my mailbox months ago.  It was RIOC’s responsibility to adequately publicize this meeting and act on its promise of information for our circumstances, not Watertown’s or Syracuse’s.  We all recall that, two weekends ago, RIOC failed to post a single advisory on the Tram outage anywhere on Main Street.  Until RIOC makes an attempt to anticipate our needs for timely information, to anticipate our need for contingency planning targeted to this unique community, and to work with us prior to setting policy in stone, there will be bad blood and shouting matches like the one on April 21.  I’ve offered my services as your elected representative to OEM and to RIOC to start the process of anticipating and planning for emergencies and then communicating that information to you.  I hope my offer is accepted.

Did you attend either of the Insurance Fairs?  These RIRA Housing Committee events were major successes, with terrific speakers, large turnouts, and the dissemination of valuable information.  Every Islander should have apartment insurance and should be knowledgeable on the details.  My thanks to Committee VP Mark Chipman and his minions, to the speakers from Housing Management, the Police and Fire Departments, and the Insurance Information Institute, and to the insurance agents who allowed us to comparison shop under one roof.  This project was on a back-burner for years and took a group of committed volunteers to bring it to fruition.  Thanks, guys.

So, what was your Dark Water filming experience?  I’ve heard everything from pleasure at the proximity of Hollywood glamour to rage at the disruption of everyday life.  Some folks have been barred from entering their buildings, some hallways in Eastwood have been temporarily trashed, other residents have had their cars towed, and still others found the backup bus for the Tram inadequate.  Said one neighbor, “They turned a four-minute ride into an hour’s journey over the 59th Street Bridge.”

I have some experience in renting space to film companies (my old employer’s headquarters/mansion), and it is a given that payment is rendered not just for space rental but to compensate for inconvenience.  I hope that RIOC negotiated a pretty penny to rent out the Island to the production company.  However, the recompense for nuisance value, frustration, and disruption should belong to the community whose lives were altered, and not for the better, by this experience.  And to the best of my knowledge, no such reimbursement was ever discussed.

Island old-timers have informed me that when Nighthawks was filmed on the Tram, the Youth Center and other organizations shared in the film company’s largess.  This was not the case with Dark Water.  I’ve been in contact with the producers to see if they might, after the fact, consider giving us an outdoor screening of a movie from their film library, similar to the ones RIRA presented last summer.  Also, I asked if the Disney Company, distributors of the finished movie (whenever that might be) would consider a special screening of Dark Water for the Roosevelt Island community.  I’ve been given no guarantees or even encouragement, but I will persevere.  Should you run into location producer Diane Pokorny (or any other production company honchos) while they are still on Roosevelt Island, you might ask them about givebacks directly to the community they impacted.  We’ll have to wait and see whether they will comply with a reasonable request even when RIOC has not obliged them to.  Stay tuned.