Report From RIRA President On RIOC Board Nominations, Red Bus Schedule, Blackwell Park Input, Blood Drive & Pick Up Softball

Image From March RIRA Meeting

RIRA President Frank Farance sends the following report to Roosevelt Island residents. Mr. Farance addresses issues on the RIOC Board Nominations, Red Bus Schedule, Blackwell Park Resident Input, Blood Drive and Adult Pick - Up Softball games.

1. RIOC Board Nominee Elections. Congratulations to Margie Smith and Mark Shinozaki in the elections. Thank you to Lee Edelman and Tammy Jackson for participating in the election process.

2. Progress on RIOC-RIRA collaboration on red bus schedule. Because of some scheduling anomalies during the week of May 22, we decided to postpone the red bus schedule experiment to the week of June 1. In short, this experiment only applies to the segment #2: late morning, approximately, 9:50 to noon. Although the initial schedule for the Octagon local is for buses to leave at 9:55, 10:10, 10:25, 10:40, 10:55, 11:10, and 11:25, I recommend that you arrive 5 minutes early during this experiment. The goal of this experiment is to see if we can have a reliable bus schedule that also meets the tram departure.

3. RIOC wants your input on the new Blackwell park. RIOC architects to hear from residents on Blackwell Park at RIRA June 17 Town Hall meeting. The RIOC is developing a master plan for the new park and it would like to identify the stakeholders of the park. More to come on this meeting.

4. RIRA Blood Drive on June 6, Roosevelt Island Day. RIRA volunteers will be at the green market on Saturdays, so please sign up!

5. Adult Softball: Unfortunately, given the low turnout, this year looks like it will be informal, pick-up games. Hopefully, we'll still have fun on Sunday mornings at Capobianco field. With Nonno's new sports bar, maybe we'll have a watering hole to better organize.

The RIRA President's message was also published as the RIRA column in the 5/30/09 Main Street WIRE (PDF File).