January 14, 2006

Youth Program’s Charlie DeFino
Leaves After 15 Years in the Job
Programs Will Continue; Funding Efforts Start Now
by Dick Lutz
with Elly Stanton

Charlie DeFino, who has headed the Roosevelt Island Youth Program for 15 years, is leaving Roosevelt Island.

"Labate won. Beck won. Patrick Stewart won. You can tell them they can dance on my grave," DeFino told The WIRE late last week. (Mary Beth Labate was, until recently, chair of the Board of Directors of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation [RIOC]; Deborah Beck and Patrick Stewart, both Island residents, are members of that Board.)

DeFino, who has talked of leaving for some time, made a final decision to leave when the Youth Program (RIYP) failed to secure use of the building, most recently occupied by the Lilies Christian School, at the south end of Eastwood. He had plans for a new Youth Center and had secured funding amounting to nearly $2 million. But a major part of the money was made available by City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, who represented Roosevelt Island until term-limited off the Council. (Jessica Lappin, who was on Miller’s staff, was elected to the 5th District Council seat in November and took office this month.) With Miller gone, the funds are in jeopardy and may be gone, as well, though technically they remain in the City budget until summer.

DeFino will become the District Manager of Community Board 12 in northern Manhattan. Temporarily, Rivercross resident Steve Kaufman, Vice President and Treasurer of the Youth Center Board who had worked on the program’s request for the Lilies space, is running the Youth Program while a successor is sought. In a statement, the Youth Center Board said, "The Board of Directors of the Roosevelt Island Youth Program wishes to thank Charlie DeFino for all he has done for the youth of Roosevelt Island for the past 15 years. His departure is a real loss for the community, and Charlie will be very much missed."

The statement continues, "The Board of Directors also wish to reassure the community that the Youth Program will continue to operate through at least June 30, 2006.  As is always the case, the longer-term viability of the Youth Program will depend on the continued willingness of RIOC, the housing companies, and the City of New York to provide the necessary financial support."

DeFino’s quest for better space for the Youth Program dates back almost to his arrival on the Island. He has often cited a "promise" made by RIOC that the Lilies space – even before it was given to the Lilies Christian School by RIOC President Jerry Blue – would be given to the Youth Center. City funds for the Center have been held in City budgets for a number of years but, under City regulations, could be used only for space on which occupancy was assured for an extended period.

When the current RIOC Board asked for more data to support the Youth Center’s request for the Lilies space – "for the 15th time," DeFino said – the Youth Program declined to provide the information, saying in a letter that over the years, it had been provided repeatedly. In a RIOC Board meeting, Kaufman said that RIOC President Herb Berman had told him flatly that the Youth Center would not get the Lilies space. When the RIOC Board considered the matter, members cited the failure to provide the requested information in refusing to consider awarding the space to the Youth Program. DeFino and Kaufman expressed a feeling that the request for data asked for an extreme level of detail; they felt the request was designed to discourage a response, at best.

With DeFino leaving, Youth Program Vice President Steve Kaufman sees an immediate need to line up funding for the coming year – beyond summer – in order to make the Youth Center post attractive to a good candidate. "I’ve made the calls," he said, indicating that he’s already begun to work on the money. The Youth Program is supported with roughly a half-million dollars from the City, and major contributions from RIOC (about $65,000) and the Island’s housing companies (about $70,000).

"I can’t predict the [long-term] future," Kaufman said, "but I want to dispel the impression that if Charlie DeFino goes, the Youth Program goes, too. That’s not the case." For now, he said, residents can be confident that "everything will continue. The Youth Center will be open tomorrow as it was yesterday." Nonetheless, he said, "Let’s not kid ourselves that this is a good thing. This is a real loss for the community. I say that as a member of the [Youth Center] Board and as a member of the community."

Kaufman added, "Charlie had a goal of building a beautiful Youth Center for the kids, and spent ten years raising the money. That’s no small feat. And when he got that done, the building he had been promised didn’t exist anymore." Kaufman acknowledged, as did DeFino, that DeFino would not be leaving were he able to build the Youth Center he has worked toward for years.

On Tuesday, DeFino sat down with The WIRE for a 35-minute interview that ultimately ran over 95 minutes. A full transcript of the conversation is available on Website NYC10044, at nyc10044.com, with this issue of The WIRE.

Asked "What went wrong?" DeFino responded, "Everything went wrong," but he wasn’t referring to just the loss of the Lilies space. "There wasn’t one person or one situation where I wasn’t lied to from the beginning when I got here, to the end when I’m leaving."

DeFino described his first year at the Youth Center when, for example, he was confronted with a ten-year IRS audit within his first few days on the job.

More recently, he has come to feel that it’s impossible to work with RIOC and its Board of Directors – or at least most members of that Board. "You can’t beat RIOC. You’re never going to beat RIOC. It’s an institution that... It’s like talking to someone who’s dumb. Dumb. Low IQ. They’ll never really totally get it... The Island clamored for years to get control of the [RIOC] Board and they have control of the Board [now]... But do they really have control of the Board? What are the Island residents [who constitute a majority of the RIOC Board] doing for the Island residents?"

Resident RIOC Board member David Kraut responded to this comment, when asked by The WIRE. "RIOC’s role and effectiveness is certainly debatable and always on the table for criticism. But to say we are dumb or low IQ is the kind of gratuitous insult that we prefer to hear from Island residents and perhaps some elected officials. For an off-Island employee to show up around here and say stuff like this is just kind of trashy and, worse, ignorant. Charlie’s vision of himself was that he was some kind of savior for the community, but he tended to have blinders on in terms of his own constituency and never really saw the Island as a whole. Those of us who live in these buildings and greet each other in the hallways and sleep here at night and exchange information in the laundry rooms and so forth have a much bigger picture of this place than Charlie ever got."

But Kraut evidenced a soft spot for DeFino: "I’ll miss him, because he did his basic job extremely well, and I’ll even promise here to write him a recommendation sometime even though I – who hired him, supported his agency financially, and even paid his actual salary – have been called ‘dumb’ by him."

DeFino says he sees some of the problems here as structural: "On the Island, you have something that’s very unique. It doesn’t exist anywhere else. I can’t really go to a [City] Councilman, the Assemblyman, the State Senator, the Borough President, or even the Mayor for help. Because even Mayor Bloomberg will be told by RIOC, ‘Stick it. I’ll call you when I need something.’ Who else is in that kind of situation?" Asked if the political structure is a real handicap, he responded, "Is it handicapping? It’s like putting you and me in the saddle on a $5,000 claim horse and asking him to run a mile [with that weight]. The horse’d be dead out of the gate. It’s like trying to win the World Series of Poker and the best hand you get are deuces. It’s almost impossible here."

DeFino says, "I wish the Island and I wish the kids well." But he is concerned about the chances for its longer-term survival. "I just hope the people making the decisions going forward make better decisions than I think they’re going to make. I really am not confident that the [Youth Center] board members and members of the community including RIOC are going to make those decisions [properly] going forward."

In particular, DeFino has specific ideas about the physical properties a youth center should have – ideas which Kaufman describes as "brilliant." At one point in recent years, the Youth Program negotiated with Charles Lucido, then the sole decision-maker for the corporations that owned Island House, to take over the Day Nursery space at the southwestern end of Island House. But that space was not taken. DeFino described the decision-making process this way: "I had decided several years ago that RIOC was not going to live up to their agreement [to provide space for a Youth Center]. So when [the Day Nursery] left its space, I saw the opportunity to grab it up. We thought it was a good area. We’d get rid of the so-called ‘Youth Center mentality’ where it was all minority, because it’d be more of an open space – people could see in. It would have become a more integrated situation. But the major mistake was made by my [Youth Program] board. A board member sat on the deal for close to a year. Chuck Lucido [ultimately] decided he was going to sell [Island House] and, as long as they’re negotiating with RIOC, you’re never going to get the space."

The Youth Program’s attention turned to different space – the former Lilies School, on two floors at the south end of Eastwood – but efforts to secure that space from RIOC failed. Speaking of two residents who serve on the RIOC Board, DeFino said, "Patrick Stewart and Ms. [Deborah] Beck should be ashamed of themselves as [RIOC] Board members. Quote me. They should be ashamed of themselves. Ms. Beck came to us, to Steve Kaufman, and told us she wanted to work with us to get that building. I met with her extensively over a two-week period. [She] was so convincing that she was going to get us [that] building. And she’s probably now the most fervent person on the Board against it, outside of Patrick Stewart in his lucid moments."

DeFino is admired by members of the Youth Program Board for his off-Island politicking and his ability to secure funds for the Youth Program and Youth Center. When asked about where his weaknesses lie, or what he might have done differently, he talked about his passion for the job. "When I finally realized 9 or 10 years ago that the deals [for space] weren’t done, I became very fervent and I alienated a lot of people by bringing the same point [repeatedly], because there’s no historian now... In the beginning, I don’t think they understood what was passion and what was arrogance. I think my passion was mistaken for arrogance. And then my passion did become arrogance, at some point... I just kept going on and on and, as the years went on, I was really the only one who knew the history. I was the only one who knew that [resident RIOC Board member] David Kraut presided over the meeting that gave away the first Youth Center and now makes believe... He has a letter that Jean Lerman gave that said we [would] get the building, and sits there at a [RIOC Board] meeting and acts like he doesn’t know what’s going on... Eventually, you keep saying to somebody, ‘You know, you promised us the building,’ and they’ve heard it five thousand times and they tell you, ‘No, just forget that; let’s talk about the new deal.’ [My reaction is:] What new deal? There is no new deal."

Kraut told The WIRE that he has been a strong supporter of the Youth Program, presiding over RIOC’s Public Purpose Funds Committee while it directed over $250,000 to RIYP. "And I have continued to defend him despite his tendency to shoot his mouth off in all directions. As an example, I led the charge to approve over $60,000 in RIOC funds as an administrative grant essentially to pay Charlie’s salary for the year, after which he got upset over the space issue, said something insulting to us who had just approved his salary [funding], and stalked out." Kraut also disputed DeFino’s rendering of the facts surrounding the Lerman letter. "I did not preside over the meeting. Jean Lerman did, in fact, promise him the Blackwell School building if he would accept the Eastwood space in the interim. I certainly supported this move, as one of my greatest concerns was that the Youth Center get out of its basement environment at the time."

Kraut added, "I have not kept the existence of the Lerman letter a secret. In fact, I mentioned it at a RIOC Board meeting a few years ago and made clear my belief that RIOC had in fact promised that space to Charlie. At that time, then-President Robert Ryan pooh-poohed the letter with a sniff and a comment, effectively repudiating the agency’s promise. So that part of Charlie’s statement is the bunk."

Still on his own shortcomings, DeFino said, "In more recent years, my big failure has been communication skills. It came down to, anger is one thing, passion is one thing, and just total frustration and anger is something else." DeFino said the job made him sick for almost a year and half. "I could barely function," he said. At another point, in talking about leaving the job, he said, "Everything turns to anger eventually. I don’t want to work on anger any more. I really don’t. Who wants to work being angry?"

Asked if he just "ran out of patience" in waiting for Youth Center space, DeFino shook his head. "Patience would mean something’s going to happen and I’m not willing to wait, so that would be overstating [it]." He went on to characterize his current feeling as "hopelessness."

DeFino expressed pride in the services the Youth Program has provided for the young people of Roosevelt Island. He regretted that his programs could do little to reduce the rate of teen-age pregnancy, but added proudly that through programs worked out with his friends and with Eastwood resident Ron Vass and former resident Lou Carbonetti, he has been able to "get jobs and careers" for young parents – an accomplishment that might break the chain of poverty.

"You look at your drop-out rates, your drug addiction, your unruly teens, your families that would have left" Roosevelt Island were it not for the Youth Center’s programs... "A lot of families on this Island [are] barely getting by, but they stay because they want their children to be in a safe environment. We have helped to maintain that. It would have been completely non-existent here" without the Youth Center, DeFino asserted. Speaking of the value he feels his programs have added to the Island, DeFino added, "I think every housing company on this Island has not realized the effect we have had on their ability to privatize."