To the Editor:

I'm writing to inform concerned residents regarding the public tennis facility on Roosevelt Island. It seems that due to RIOC's recent resolution confining construction in Octagon Park to the footprint of the former insane asylum, it appears unlikely that Becker and Becker will need to put the present courts out of commission for more than one month, and the plan for temporary courts has been put aside, at least for the moment.

This change of plan, however, does not diminish, but in fact raises, the community's need for additional permanent tennis courts. Our growing numbers will not be sufficiently serviced by the quantity of courts that existed when the population of the Island numbered 5,000.

It's imperative that community planning make room and funds available for the additional public courts that the community needs.

Anyone interested in helping with this effort can contact me at joyminch@aol.com.

Joyce Mincheff

Site Director, NY Junior Tennis League

Founder and Past President, RITA

To the Editor:

I live in 575, on the first floor next to the Child School. I have written letters, called 311, and e-mailed RIOC. That air-conditioning unit still roars all night long. This is a serious issue but the abuse of our civil rights is much more serious. To handcuff our neighbors [WIRE, September 11] for documenting RIOC's incompetence is abuse.

Let me suggest a demonstration. As per the New York Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, fewer than 20 people may stage a demonstration without a permit. We cannot use any amplification and must not block building entrances or more than half of the sidewalk. We could all bring cameras and meet at the little park between Island House and Westview at 8:15 a.m. It is also perfectly legal for us to walk over to security, taking photos along the way. We must not disrupt traffic but who would notice with all the school buses clogging Main Street?

Seriously, if you are harassed by Public Safety for documenting conditions on Roosevelt Island, call a lawyer. It is advisable to carry the following numbers: National Lawyers Guild, 212-679-6018; New York Civil Liberties Union, 212-344-3005.

Susan Sinisi

To the Community:

I want to thank The Wire for allowing me the remainder of the available space in this edition to address the revision of the RIRA Constitution.

Mr. Katz has scheduled a wholly illegal Town Meeting for October 12 to attempt to ratify the second version of his new RIRA constitution, willfully ignoring our current constitution's straightforward ban on a Common Council vote on amendments at the same meeting in which they are proposed.

Mr. Katz had sole control of all factors needed to get a timely proposed final revision, which, in the very words of his new version, our current constitution is "deleted in its entirety, and replaced" with the new. He agreed to the necessary special measures that were needed in August to obtain a final version, then simply failed to comply with them.

In order to convince the Council to vote on September 8, he relied on a "parliamentarian" who was no longer a member of the Council, and therefore had no right to even speak at the meeting, who was not at the August meeting, and who missed the point: There was no constitution proposed at the prior meeting, whether in writing or verbally. The final document does not even conform to the points on which there was consensus. Katz deliberately withheld this non-member's status from the Council that night.

Katz intentionally did not list the constitution vote on the pre-published agenda for the September meeting. Had he done so, the votes to stop this meeting would have been present, and he knew that.

There are at least three items in this constitution that are contradictory to the Council votes taken on those items in August.

I had submitted a simple amendment in August to add three seats for Southtown that would have served as an alternative in the event his constitution was not accepted at the Town Meeting. A minority of six votes defeated it. Mr. and Mrs. Katz, Mr. and Mrs. Marcus, Ms. Feinmel, and Mr. Luce.

Katz is, of course, defaulting on his published promise to the community to allow these changes to be debated; instead he and Mr. Marcus will control the "informational" meetings.

He has removed the building committees from RIRA with this constitution; not from the Common Council, but from RIRA itself, without ever speaking with one of them.

It also eliminates the President of RIRA as RIRA's nominee for Resident RIOC Board member.

It allows incumbents to change the rules for an upcoming election. This election, if you go for it.

It also removes Community Board 8, although each and every time he has needed to accomplish something for RIRA in New York City, he himself has gone where you must go first - to CB8. He has many times simply lied in public about the CB8 participation in RIRA. There has been at least one member of CB8 on every Council since 1986. Two and three during his own terms.

He lied outright in his own last column about my own participation. I was elected in 2000, and did not take a RICO seat until May of 2003, and I have never voted in Council since I took that seat on any matter but the constitution.

He says over and over again that the current constitution is outmoded, difficult to work with, obscure. but go try and get him to once be specific and name a particular passage. He won't. There were things he wanted to change, not clarify, primarily to rid himself of those who opposed him. And because he did not like the individuals holding seats in this term, he seeks to change RIRA for all time.

Katz' behavior has been absolutely consistent since he walked out of the Town Meeting on June 15. In fact Mr. Katz has, over the last four years, repeatedly attempted to subvert the democratic processes embodied in the way RIRA works. This community must not allow that.

Karen Stewart