A simmering four-year rivalry in Residents Association politics turned into an acrid wound Tuesday night when the organization’s president, Matthew Katz, declared a RIRA Town Meeting “null and void” for lack of a quorum.

Katz made the ruling at 8:12 p.m., after acceding to a second quorum count called for by residents who had gathered to vote down proposed revisions of the organization’s constitution. A number of residents objected again, pointing out that people were still arriving in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd.  Some who support the proposed changes were simultaneously leaving the hall to avoid being counted toward a 100-person quorum; others were reportedly waiting outside to avoid being counted.

“There will not be a third count,” Katz announced.  In response to a question, he then read language from the current RIRA constitution governing the process by which amendments to the constitution are made, but few heard him.  A chant, “Now... now... now,” had broken out, overpowering Katz as those opposing the proposed new constitution realized that more than the required 100 residents had arrived.  But Katz refused an additional recount.

As voices of protest rose in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, Island House resident Judy Berdy stepped forward and took the microphone from Katz.

“Excuse me.  Excuse me!  Shush!  Shush!” Berdy demanded, shouting, and the crowd, now at 107 according to the count being taken by opponents of the proposed changes, quieted.  She then suggested that residents unhappy with Katz’s ruling write to “every official, every politician” in protest, before calling for a count of those present who were there to vote against or for the changes.

At some point during this process, Katz left as Berdy continued to manage use of the microphone.  He later said, “I had no reason to stay.  My work was done.”

Opponents of the changes Katz and the current Common Council favor objected to Katz’s “null and void” ruling because, under the constitution in force since 1991, the lack of a voting quorum at a Town Meeting causes the matter under consideration to go back to the Common Council, where a two-thirds vote can ratify the changes.  In a vote on presenting the revised constitution to a Town Meeting, there had been 75% approval.  Opponents, who hoped to vote down the change Tuesday night, wanted the decision made then rather than in a future Common Council meeting, where approval would be more likely.

The rivalry over leadership of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association was first joined in a major way in the 2000 election, when Katz ran against incumbent president Patrick Stewart and won the office.  In the 2002 election, Katz’s First Vice President, Byron Gaspard, opposed Katz with the backing of Stewart and his wife, Karen.  Katz, running as a team with Rivercross resident Steve Marcus, retained the presidency, but the political rivalry continued to sizzle beneath the surface, sometimes breaking into the open in meetings of the RIRA Common Council.

Marcus took on the job of heading a committee drafting constitutional revisions.  Changes were needed to provide representation for new residents in Southtown, at a minimum, and a number of additional alterations became part of the constitutional revision process.

One change the Marcus committee proposed was elimination of non-elected voting seats on the RIRA Common Council.  Those seats are available, by the terms of the 1991 constitution, to resident members of the Board of Directors of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, Island representatives to Community Board 8, and notably, to five delegates appointed by the leadership of the Roosevelt Island Council of Organizations (RICO).  Though RICO had reduced its activity on the Island considerably while led by Susan Whitaker and later Shirley Margolin, when Karen Stewart took over the leadership of RICO, she filled most or all of the five constitutionally mandated seats, controlling enough voting power to thwart some initiatives favored by the Katz-Marcus administration.

Marcus says that neither Karen Stewart nor Patrick Stewart objected in committee deliberations to the elimination of non-elected delegates, and says he felt that both Stewarts had given up their objection to elimination of non-elected Council seats.

Joan Christianson and Karen Stewart made clear their intentions to oppose approval of the new constitution on Monday, when Roosevelt Island Housing Management distributed their flier headlined, “June 15th will be your last chance to choose.”  It read, in part, “The current RIRA administration has moved to strike the current RIRA Constitution and move its key components into a set of Bylaws entirely within the Council’s own control...  All matters of substance have either been eliminated or transferred to the new Council-controlled Bylaws.”
It added, “The current RIRA administration is confident that this matters so little to you and to all RI residents that you will fail to show up at the Town Meeting scheduled for June 15th to vote against it.”  The two-sided flier listed among its “signatories” five past presidents of RIRA – Lou Carbonetti, Nellie Negrin Finnegan, Sandra Neis, David Kraut, and Patrick Stewart, along with nearly 40 other Islanders listed as former RIRA vice presidents or holding other leadership positions.

Points of change listed in the flier to turn out a quorum included a provision under which Council members would retain their seats after moving from one building (voting district) to another, removal from the constitution of dollar limits on campaigns for RIRA offices, and the removal of voting Council seats for non-elected delegates from CB8 and School Board 2.

Supporters of the constitutional changes responded Tuesday with a flier urging a yes vote, saying that shortening the constitution and moving such items as the number of delegates from new buildings to a set of bylaws were intended to make the Residents Association “lighter on its feet” and able to respond to changes in the community and the political climate.

Another flier distributed Tuesday was headlined, “Keep Democracy in RIRA,” with the exhortation, “Vote No Tonight.”

Tuesday night’s assembly of a quorum or near-quorum surprised Marcus, who had remained convinced that few would show up to vote on the constitutional proposal.  But Karen Stewart and Eastwood resident Joan Christianson, working with others, recruited enough opponents to register a quorum, leading to Tuesday night’s rumble in the Chapel.

Once Katz left, speaker after speaker took over the microphone and, for over an hour, turned him and his administration into a political punching bag.  Even some who had been expected to support the change in the constitution deplored his “behavior” in not waiting longer to do the quorum count and in refusing to do a third count.  Speeches were interrupted frequently by applause or supportive comments; attitudes ranged from finger-jabbing anger to bewilderment.

Karen Stewart made specific accusations: “I want to make sure that each of you understand what has happened here...  What we have now is that Mr. Katz will decide how many people your buildings get to represent them.  Mr. Katz will decide who gets to stay on the Council and, if he chooses, who he may appoint to the Council.  When the matter was voted on in the Common Council, I was able to demonstrate that he had shortchanged Southtown by over a third in representation, and had to force him to change that...  I think what has happened here is simple malfeasance.  I think his getting up and walking out when he knew, in fact, that he had a quorum, is something that, under the old constitution, he could be removed for.”  Stewart defended a flier she had created, saying only one or two “signatories” had been put on the document without their explicit permission.  Others claim the number is nearer a half-dozen.

Margaret Gaspard followed Stewart at the microphone and said she would resign from the Common Council on Wednesday, in protest.

Debra Mount Cornet said, “They’re using residents of this Island as a steppingstone to get more political power, more personal power.”  She proposed residents start a petition to disband RIRA.

Richard Wade saw a conspiracy of Rivercross residents intent on destroying Roosevelt Island’s supply of affordable housing through privatization.

Four supporters of the constitutional change also rose to speak, including Marcus, Rivercross alternate delegates Vicki Feinmel and Ethel Romm, and David Bauer, who heads the Maple Tree Group, an activist group seeking to turn the RIOC Board into a body of elected Island residents empowered to hire professional community management.

Marcus, in particular, spoke at length, defending the work of his constitutional committee.  His arguments are summarized in a letter to the editor.  Click here to read a series of letters regarding the proposed constitutional revision and the handling of the Town Meeting.

Ethel Romm, a Rivercross resident and alternate delegate who recently moved from Island House, implied much of Karen Stewart’s allegations were smoke and mirrors.  “Not one word I’ve heard reflects what’s going on in that [new version of the] constitution.”  Speaking of the old version, in force since 1991, she said, “I never saw a more clumsy instrument for us to work with than the constituion that we were working under.  It was reflected in the absolute paralysis of what we tried to do.  We couldn’t fix a light bulb.”

She continued, “Dr. Wade called us ‘activists.’  I like that word.  I wish we could get all of you out when it’s a positive thing, rather than getting you fired up about things you may not be aware of.”

After the meeting, residents had various comments.  “I think he cut his own throat,” one said of Katz’s handling of the meeting.  Another said he had gone to the session expecting an explanation before voting, and was there to learn and make up his mind, but the meeting descended into chaos and the learning process was impeded by political vitriol.  “The Stewarts played along in the committee,” said another, reflecting comments Marcus made during the meeting, “and all the time they were lying in wait, in the grass, looking for revenge or something” – a reference to Patrick Stewart’s 2000 loss to Katz in the RIRA presidential election.

Click here to read a partial transcript of the June 15 meeting.

Click here to read the latest RIRA Column from Matthew Katz.