Letters to the Editor (7/3/04)

To the Editor:

There were two articles in the May 29 WIRE about the state of the stores on the Island.

Sadly, the merchants are to blame for most of their predicament. Look how clean, fresh, and well-stocked the stationery store is now. Alex and his staff have turned this dark, dirty, and dilapidated store into a showpiece of what can be done on the Island. I am sure the investment is well worth the return in new business.

Our other storekeepers have not gotten the message. There is no reason for me to go into the grubby hardware store, when I can get what I need at a clean, well-stocked store at Second Avenue on my way to and from the Tram. The owners of the hardware store are always reading the paper; maybe they should be looking around their store and see it from a customer’s perspective. It looks like Canal Street. It is completely disabled-unfriendly, and our wheelchair residents cannot get past the boxes and displays.

The fish store/deli does not have dumpster service and routinely leaves trash on Main Street. The store is dirty.

The deli is a disaster. The staff ranges from great to some surly youth who do not add to the ambiance of shopping there. This store has been open over 27 years, and not a cent has ever been spent in decoration.

My biggest complaint is that our stores are neglected and filthy. It is easy. Clean your stores, spend some time and money refreshing the stock and decorating the windows, and you might see new customers.

If our stores want customers, stop being cash only, accept credit cards. Our merchants seem to want to be cash only and therefore cannot look forward to higher spending in our way of shopping. This is one reason they do not want low-interest loans, the responsibility of putting all the business “on the books.”

I suggested to Bonnie Sherk [of the Living Library] and RIHMC that a great project for Roosevelt Island Day would [have been] to have a giant Main Street window-cleaning and decorating project. Every store, office, organization on the street would clean up their space and show some pride in our community.

Judith Berdy

The Common Council voted Wednesday night to withdraw their amended Residents Association constitution from consideration at another Town Meeting. It is, at this point, very unclear what will happen next. What should happen is that the constitution should return to committee, especially now that there is a wider audience ready to participate in a committee.
It seems that this is not going to happen, nor is the debate of these issues before a Town Meeting.

For 27 years, the Residents Association has imposed upon itself the same rigorous standards and restrictions as all other serious elected bodies.

Individuals come and go, Common Councils come and go, RIRA officers come and go, and RIRA stays RIRA because RIRA is the RIRA constitution. The constitution defines RIRA and the rules within which we operate.

RIRA has had saints and it has had sinners. The constitution controls how much damage they can do while they’re in office. Historically, when the Island has been in real trouble, the real saints have shown up. Hopefully, that will continue to happen. When things are relatively quiet, being Islanders, we create factions and squabble amongst ourselves. It’s been the unofficial Roosevelt Island sport for 27 years. Reasonable people pay little attention, and that’s what it usually deserves. But this time it matters.

I have no argument with the Council’s operational details being moved out of the constitution into by-laws that can be changed by the members of each Common Council as they are elected. Why not? It’s only fair.

I have no strong feelings either about whether the resident members of Community Board 8 or School Board 2 or the RIOC Board should remain on the Council. I believe the residents should make that choice, and personally prefer an inclusionary RIRA, but either choice is legitimate.

And rather than “fighting to keep my seat,” it was I who proposed removing the Roosevelt Island Council of Organizations (RICO) from the Council in the committee meetings.

I do have strong feelings, passionate feelings, about Mr. and Mrs. Katz, Mr. and Mrs. Marcus, Ms, Smith, and Ms. Feinmel continuing to give speeches and write proudly about the radiant purity of an all-elected Council when they have chosen to insert in their new Constitution the right of the Council to appoint, and I quote Mr. Marcus, “whoever they choose,” to the Common Council, with no restriction.

At the May Council meeting, when the original vote was taken, not one of these champions of democracy batted an eye at Mr. Marcus’s response to my protest to this move. Mr. Katz said, “Next speaker, please,” and they proceeded with the vote. The vote won, they broke out champagne (I’m not kidding), and chatted happily about the unlikelihood of anyone caring enough to come to the Town Meeting.

A constitution by its very nature is designed to be difficult to change. The very basic rules that define RIRA and what it can do and can’t do should remain very hard to change.

The structure of building representation should remain inviolate within the Constitution.

If all that this new Constitution were doing were adding representatives for Southtown, we, the Council, would have proposed an amendment to do so, voted on it, posted notices, had a Town Meeting to which few would have come, then at the next Council meeting voted the change. That’s all it has ever taken to make a reasonable, necessary change.

This Constitution moves building representation itself under the control of the Council. Let’s say these guys are all saints and they won’t change a thing. What about the next group, or the next? Nothing would exist to stop them from deciding, for instance, that the Council should be like the U.S. Senate, with two members from each building. Well, Eastwood has as many apartments as Island House, Westview, and Rivercross combined.

Never happen? Here? The point is that it can’t happen if building representation is left in the constitution where the residents have to approve any change. By-laws are far too easy to change.

The most basic structure of the Common Council and its most senior officers should remain defined in the Constitution.

Let individual presidents and individual Councils decide what other committees, subcommittees and ad hoc committees they may want and let them create chairs for them all, so long as we know that the issues that are really important to the Island are covered. That can be guaranteed only if these things continue to be defined in the constitution, not Council-controlled by-laws.

The same is true if the minimal requirements for the Council members’ performance are left in the constitution. Along with safeguards on how the money you donate is spent. And restrictions on elections. These new by-laws put all decisions on campaign rules in the hands of the incumbents. That’s laughable.

Mr. Katz and Mr. Marcus say that the 27-year tradition of an equal playing field for everyone running for RIRA office is unenforceable. No, it’s not. Before personal computers we did it with a spending cap. Today, a workable alternative is to restrict advertising to 8½ x 11 paper or smaller and prohibit election advertising in the WIRE. Done. With today’s computers, all it would then take is individual effort, which is what it should take to get elected.

But what I think does not matter. My every effort in all of this has been to get the demonstrable facts of these matters in front of the residents for you to decide for yourselves. That is all that is important. I may sometimes be over-passionate, but I have not been misleading.

Go back and check the last WIRE. Count all the different names I was called for the terrible, unforgivable crime of asking the community to come to a meeting and find out for yourselves what was going on. Your coming has made all the difference. It always has, and it always will.

I hope we can now all focus on some of the more important issues facing the Island for awhile. I will, of course, stay involved with this one. I promise to let you know if I think it needs your attention.