Roosevelt Islanders will get a new cast of management characters when the Board of Directors of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation meets Thursday at 4:00 in Good Shepherd Community Center.

Chairing the meeting will be Deborah vanAmerongen, Governor Eliot Spitzer’s Commissioner of the State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR). She has a strong housing background and can be expected to ably represent DHCR’s interests on Roosevelt Island. On the other hand, Islanders are likely to be monitoring her chairing of RIOC Board meetings, and the activities of RIOC itself, before making a judgment on her abilities to manage the affairs of a Board of Directors that is supposed to supervise the management of a community.

Waiting for formal confirmation as President of RIOC will be Stephen Shane, who was the subject of an extended interview in the March 24 issue of The WIRE. (It’s on line at nyc10044.com.) Shane does have a Roosevelt Island background though his, too, was from the perspective of DHCR rather than from the broader perspective of community management.

If matters go according to precedent, the RIOC Board will appoint Shane to the post with a round of welcomes. (There’s an editorial on this subject on page 2.)

Then, after a long period of seeming RIOC inactivity that began even before the November election, RIOC will get on with the business of running Roosevelt Island, and Shane will face a series of challenges that arise day to day, but have also been accumulating. They range from major directional decisions on budget and resources through simple vexations that continue or crop up like seconds ticking off a countdown clock that never reaches zero.

VanAmerongen and Shane together will face the matter of pending changes at Rivercross, Island House, and Westview. As last year ended and then well into this year, the transition in Albany led to near-stagnation in moving the last two toward resident ownership, and the first toward an exit from Mitchell-Lama for its residents, who own the co-op. Governor George Pataki abruptly dismissed a RIOC Board member, Deborah Beck, who was a key member of the Board’s real-estate committee. Another member oriented to real-estate concerns, John Mannix, dropped out after the November election. A remaining member of the real-estate committee, Westview resident Alberteen Anderson, soldiered on with the help of two other resident Board members, but those efforts were shut down unceremoniously when there was a threat of actual progress. That made it clear that further action on Mitchell-Lama conversions will have to wait for DHCR’s stalled wheels to labor into motion once more. As Anderson put it, "We’ve been asked to wait and let the new [DHCR] commissioner review the projects, and I think it’s fair that she reviews these proposals. Who knows? She might be able to bring more to the table than anyone else can. She’s been doing this for years."

The building committees trying to make things happen feel, though, that they need more than a review. They need advocacy. Rivercross, for example, has been rounding up political support for its efforts – an effort to make sure officials understand that, without the ability to tap the value of their properties, the buildings will quickly become unaffordable housing when they starting facing up to deferred repairs, the need to stem energy leaks and – in the case of Island House and Westview – long punch-lists of problems.

In each case, the stumbling block is RIOC lethargy – the kind government is famous for. Ground-lease extensions are needed, along with decisions on payments that stand in for property taxes. Every dollar added on to each of those costs drains the blood of affordability from the buildings and, without knowing what the future holds, planning is stalled.

But housing is not the only area needing serious attention from RIOC. Housing was on a list of concerns Margie Smith, a recent Residents Association Vice President and its current Chair of Government Relations, handed to Steve Shane when he met with a contingent from RIRA. Here are more items, many of them from Smith’s list (but paraphrased here):

• Public-Purpose Funding for the Youth Center: Director Charlie de Fino, who left last year, has still not been replaced, and it can’t happen without money in the Youth Program’s treasury. Once that’s done, some longer-term security is needed for the Youth Program.

• The Main Street retail crisis: Empty shops are a direct and harmful disservice to the Island’s disabled population and its growing body of elderly, let alone the rest of the Island’s residents. RIOC has been stymied by the Public Authorities Accountability Act, passed in Albany to prevent borderline-corrupt deals like George Pataki’s Erie Canal giveaway and the West Side Railyards fire sale. Somebody at RIOC fears jail time, apparently, if a merchant needed in this community is given a lease at the kind of rental numbers Roosevelt Island can support – a fear that has led to a move toward a mall approach in which one master tenant would choose all the retailers. At least a few residents fear a flood of cookie-cutter chain outlets rather than the mom-and-pop kind of operations that can make the Island unique and a reasonable place to visit for folks trying to escape the cookie-cutter stuff.

• Evening and weekend staffing. The community doesn’t close down at 5:00 or earlier when most RIOC staffers flee to off-Island homes.

• RIOC’s staff mix. Herb Berman replaced a number of staffers who left as the Pataki regime wound down; it’s not yet clear that the newbies have what it takes, or that the breakdown of positions and responsibilities makes sense.

• RIOC has ignored, for years, the opportunity represented by the Steam Plant that sits behind the Tram station. Co-generation there would hold the potential for income to RIOC and cost savings for the Island’s buildings. Millions have been lost already, and each day of inaction is a further drain.

• Public Safety – about which a book might be written. There are other options that should be explored carefully. But while that happens, stronger supervision and discipline among the officers would be a good idea. They might be asked to enforce stop signs, parking rules, and U-turn regulations, for example.

• Transportation needs attention, too. The Red Bus will remain a daily irritant until the current scheduling, which has grievous shortcomings, is revised. But that’s a minor matter compared to the severe overcrowding on the F train during morning rush. With more buildings and more residents coming, RIOC needs to get down-and-dirty with the MTA about how people are going to be moved on and off the Island – and that’s doubly true if RIOC goes forward with a plan to take the Tramway out of service for over a year to replace key components.

• For that matter, RIOC needs to address the question of whether the Tramway is actually in such bad shape that it needs key components replaced – and address it without taking the word of only the company that would do the work.

• Resident involvement must be encouraged rather than actively discouraged and ignored. The old RIOC seemed to fear suggestions from Islanders more expert in various functions than members of its staff; the new RIOC should tap resident expertise in a way that makes it clear the help and advice is welcome and will be acted upon.

• The Motorgate mess needs to be fixed. That includes getting tough about the north-end elevator and addressing the question of the quiescent escalator.

Any alert Islander could produce a similar list, and it need not end there. Add these items:

• RIOC needs to learn how to communicate with residents – to use its WIRE column in a serious way, but also to release far more information than it’s been accustomed to sharing.

• Speaking of communication, the RIOC Board should schedule all its meetings when residents can attend, or schedule sessions on a separate day to hear from residents.

• The Good Shepherd Community Center, which suffers from unnecessary restrictions on when it can be used for community events, must be freed of unreasonable constraints, so that all users – including religious organizations – can get their fair share of time and schedule.

• The street and many sidewalks need to be fixed – and preferably not with a coating of asphalt over the traditional zee-bricks that contribute to the Island’s special character.

• RIOC needs to get active with regard to Southpoint Park, to support the efforts of the Trust for Public Land, and to make some needed decisions about the direction the park will take – "wild gardens" or a formal Louis Kahn tribute to the Roosevelts.

• Now that insurance claims have been settled regarding the seawall at Lighthouse Park, it needs to be repaired; it’s been far too long in damaged condition. While they’re at it, RIOC crews should work on the rusted and damaged fencing, too.

• Elimination of playing field fees for Island groups; this is supposed to be an affordable community.

There is no end to this list. It’s always something is more than a cliche here.