Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) June Committee Reports For Island Services, Planning, Government Relations & Mosque Seeking Space

Image of June 2010 RIRA Meeting

Below are the Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) Committee Reports For Island Services, Planning and Government Affairs presented at the June RIRA meeting by their respective chairs. Subjects included

• Public Library Improvements
• Main Street Stores
• Roosevelt Island 311 System
• Main Street Parking
• Blackwell Park Master Plan and
• Future RIOC Board Appointments as well as others
  

RIRA – ISLAND SERVICES COMMITTEE (ISC REPORT TO COMMON COUNCIL MEETING – 6/2/10

RI Public Library improvements
ISC met with representative of RICLA (Janet Falk & Lorraine Lasker) to discuss what and how to improve the services of our RI branch New York Public Library (NYPL). We developed a priority list of needs. The highest priority need is to relocate the Library to a substantially larger and more suitable space. Other high priority needs are to provide a bathroom, make the Library more accessible to the disabled (including automatic opening doors), more outlets for computers and other electronic equipment, and a meeting room for public gatherings, lectures, book group events, and showing of films. We will continue to expand the “needs” list.

We are encouraged by a report from RIOC (at the Real Estate Committee meeting) that NYPL is very interested in 504 Main as a future site for the Library. Personnel from the NYPL Capital Fund group inspected 504 Main last week. Also, relocating the Library to Southtown Bldg. #7 may be back in play if Bldg. #7 construction begins by early 2011.

Main Street Stores
The RIOC Real Estate Committee is still working on the Master Lease Agreement. However, itʼs expected that the document will be completed and approved by mid-June. If so, the Real Estate Committee will then initiate the bidding process before the end of June.

RI-311
ISC has committed to RIRA President Frank and RIOC Board Member Jonathan Kalkin that we will work to reinstall the RI-311 system on Roosevelt Island. RI-311 is a computer reporting system for residents where various service problems (needed road repairs, safety incidents, bus problems, lighting outages, etc.) can be relayed to the appropriate RIOC department and follow-up reports made.

Joe Terranella has accepted the assignment of making RI-311 happen. He will work with Kalkin and Farance (both are knowledgeable about the “guts”, software and such, of the system). When completed, the system will be presented to RIOCʼs Operating Committee for implementation.

Main St. Parking
Members of ISC are spot checking vehicles parked on Main St. Over the last 3 weeks, we observed that the more aggressive enforcement of parking regulations by Public Safety seems to be working as evidenced by the number of parking tickets issued and the low number of illegally parked vehicles. However, on one day, 5/25/10 afternoon, there were an unacceptable number of illegally parked vehicles – 3 in Southtown and 2 in Northtown. Weʼll continue to monitor the situation thru June.

Aaron Hamburger, ISC Chair

Planning Committee Report – June 2, 2010

RIOC Vice President, Rosina Abramson, has made available an artist’s rendering by landscape architect, Lee Weintraub, which conforms to the RIRA Resolution vote on last January. We shared it with the Blackwell House sub- committee members for their consideration and comments. There being no substantive objections to the drawing, sub-committee chairs, Judy Berdy and I have sent the following comment to Ms. Abramson:

Blackwell Park Sub-Committee of the RIRA Planning Committee Response to the Recent Artists Rendering June 1, 2010

We have shared the Weintraub drawings with the sub-committee members along with a copy of the RIRA Resolution that codifies our expectations for the conceptual planning phase of Blackwell Park. We received no negative comments or requests for clarification or more information. Based on that, we believe that the rendering conforms to the general preferences of the participating community members. Of course, we understand that the conceptual plan encompasses only broad strokes and that the practical details will be found in the design elements to be considered next. Until we understand what those design elements are, where they will be placed and what they (and the entire project) will cost, our support may be construed only for the overall conceptual plan. We look forward to working with you to develop and cost-out those design elements.
Respectfully submitted, Matthew Katz, Chair

GOVERNMENT RELATIONS COMMITTEE – JUNE 2, 2010

Government Relations Committee (GRC)

Ashton Barfield (Chair)
Erin Feely-Nahem
Russell Fields
Sherie Helstien
Matthew Katz
Ellen Polivy

Maple Tree Group (MTG) subcommittee

Ashton Barfield
David Bauer
Linda Heimer
Sherie Helstien
Matthew Katz
Dick Lutz
Nurit Marcus
Joyce Mincheff
Margie Smith

There hasn’t been much GRC or MTG activity in the past month.

We’re still waiting for additional information from Assemblymember Micah Kellner’s office about the term expirations for the RIOC Board seats and the appointment dates for the current resident occupants, to determine when elections will be needed for each Board member, and to evaluate how to coordinate RIOC Board elections with the even-year-November Common Council elections.

There hasn’t been any need to meet.

From now on, I'm going to include the non-MTG members of GRC (Russell Fields, Erin Feely-Nahem, Ellen Polivy) in MTG news, in the hope that they’ll find themselves so interested in its activities that they’ll become involved with it.

Margie has passed along a few updates to the elected-officials contact list, but I haven't yet had time to input them, or to contact the offices (other than Micah’s) to notify them that I'm now the chair.

The only other GRC-related matter is that both Margie and Matt have forwarded to me the East Side Democratic Club endorsements of various candidates. I'm distributing the list to both MTG and all Common Council members via this report (on the second page).

East Side Democratic Club endorsements
May 27, 2010

Senator
Chuck Schumer
Kirsten Gillibrand

Governor
Andrew Cuomo

Lieutenant Governor
Robert J. Duffy

Attorney General
Eric Schneiderman

Controller
Tom DiNapoli

65th Congressional District
Carolyn Maloney

State Senate, 26th District
Liz Krueger

State Senate, 28th District
Jose Serrano

Assembly, 65th District
Micah Kellner

State Committee, 65th Assembly District
Jim Clynes
Ruth Halberg

It was pointed out during the meeting that RIRA does not endorse political candidates but will provide a forum for any candidate wishing to inform the Roosevelt Island community of his or her views.

At the June meeting, RIRA also passed a resolution supporting a request made by members of Roosevelt Island's Islamic community (approximately 200 families they say) seeking premises for the location of a Mosque although the resolution did not state where that might be. (Will post the resolution when I receive a copy of it). The residents seeking space for a Mosque expressed frustration at the slowness of the process with RIOC in trying trying to secure space but were repeatedly assured by RIRA members as well as RIOC Directors present that this was typical with all seeking space from RIOC. 503 Main Street in the Rivercross Building was mentioned as a site being considered for a Mosque.

It will be interesting how any future private sector Master Leaseholder for the Main Street Retail premises accounts for the Roosevelt Island non-profits, (Gallery RIVAA, Thrift Store) including religious institutions, as the Master Leaseholder attempts to bring new retailers to Roosevelt Island.