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Commentary
When the Phones Die, Who Has the Responsibilities -
Before and During?
by Raye Schwartz
Island-wide phone outages on November 18 – with a repeat on November 30
– raise very serious concerns for the safety of residents and workers on
the Island. Both outages were caused by construction workers, who simply
severed cables as they were doing work related to the new buildings in
Southtown.
The first issue is the Verizon response. As many of us who have cell
phones discovered when we called, Verizon has no process in place to let
the workers in their repair call center identify an outage, such as a
cable break. Thus, each of us was told, when we called November 18, that
someone would have to be home the following Monday between 8 and 5. When
we pointed out that the outage was Island-wide, we were told that they
can’t declare an outage until three calls come in from the same
location. Yet they admit that the folks in their call centers have no
way, such as a GPS system, to tell where the cell-phone calls come from,
or even how many called. Worse, because Verizon is now no longer just a
local phone company, the person we reach can be anywhere. One worker I
spoke to said there was "no record of an outage on Staten Island." She
was in Massachusetts. Even when some of us told repair people that we
have two hospitals and two senior-citizen buildings with people cut off
from access to emergency services, we were given the same runaround.
And, apparently, each of us was told we were the only ones to call.
Worse than the Verizon response is that RIOC has let this happen. It
appears that there has been no line of accountability built into any of
the construction projects. There should have been stipulations that no
project shall be service-affecting. If there were such provisions, they
are certainly not being enforced.
RIOC is not only responsible for generating revenue in the form of new
development, but it is also responsible for the operation of the Island.
It even says so on its website: Its mandate is to manage, develop,
and operate the 147 acre Roosevelt Island...
RIOC therefore has a fiduciary responsibility. Webster’s dictionary
definition of fiduciary does not mention managing money or generating
revenue (even though RIOC seems to think that’s its reason for
existence): Fiduciary – adj. 1. Of, relating to, or involving one
that holds something in trust for another.
Generally, the law recognizes three major fiduciary duties:
- Duty of loyalty, i.e. a fiduciary must not
place his own interests ahead of the beneficiary’s interest;
- Duty of care, i.e. a fiduciary must exercise
an amount of care appropriate to manage the beneficiary’s interest;
and
- Duty of disclosure, i.e. a fiduciary must
disclose certain information to the beneficiary.
It’s clear that RIOC, in not acting in a way to prevent both the
occurrence and then reccurence of these outages, has abdicated its
fiduciary responsibility to this Island. What if a child in one of
our schools became ill or had an accident? What if one of our
disabled residents or senior citizens, many of whom do not own cell
phones, had a medical emergency?
I call on RIOC, as well as our elected officials, to take the
following steps to ensure that there are no further outages:
- Immediately halt all construction activities
which may impact on phone service;
- Conduct an objective investigation into the
cause of the cable breaks, identify all parties responsible, and
develop an action plan to ensure continuous service during future
construction, even if it means delaying the opening and occupancy of
new buildings;
- Impose penalties on the companies which
caused these outages;
- Engage in negotiations with officers of
Verizon and the Residents Association to remedy the poor
communications and processes for addressing such outages;
- Assess the companies involved for any cost of
overtime incurred during the outages for police, fire department,
Island, hospital and building personnel.
- Develop a line of command and contacts so
that personnel from Verizon are on-site during any and all future
work that potentially could affect service.
Finally, these events further illustrate how
vulnerable and unprepared this Island is when it comes to handling
emergencies. I think that RIOC doesn’t even know they had two when
the phones died here. |
