RIRA President On Roosevelt Island Red Bus Problems, Parking Enforcement, Octagon Field Trees Cut Down & Future Common Council/Town Hall Meeting

PSD Officer Issuing Tickets In Southtown

Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) President Frank Farance sends the following report to Roosevelt Island residents.

1. The Red Bus problems. I spoke with Mr. Martinez (RIOC VP of Operations) and we've agreed to try again on a variety of fronts. RIOC Board Member Jonathan Kalkin has offered his assistance in working with the Nextbus GPS system.

2. Recent Complaints about PSD Parking Enforcement in Southtown. I think y'all know how loud I've complained in the past about parking enforcement. I've heard there are two letters in this issue of the WIRE. What's weird about this transaction is that RIOC asked one of the RIRA committee chairs (not the one responsible for PSD and its parking enforcement) to write a public letter in the WIRE to complain about the parking problems. RIOC asked RIRA to write public complaints about RIOC. Yeah, my eyes squinted on that one, too. According to Shane, he needed the letter that was critical of PSD for political cover (for normal parking enforcement), but that doesn't make sense. Meanwhile, after the Blackwell Park Committee went through painstaking efforts to make sure all the trees in Blackwell Park are preserved, you'd have thunk RIOC might ask its directors or RIRA before cutting down 20+ trees near Octagon, but they didn't consult with anyone -- lost trees and a firestorm of criticism for RIOC. OK, so RIOC's motivation can't be political cover. And all this ignores PSD Director Guerra's efforts and the real story. Geof Kerr studied PSD and parking favoritism circa 2004 and published it in the WIRE; I did the same circa 2007. In both our studies PSD was confronted with the problems, but they stubbornly refused to fix them, i.e., favoritism was PSD's policy. When Guerra arrived in 2008, he fixed the parking problems: there were no bogus placards, no favorites, and even enforcement. Guerra has been true to his word. Since then I've heard a couple complaints and Guerra has been on top of correcting the glitches. I call them glitches because there has been nothing as bad and as pervasive as it was in 2004 and 2007. Presently, Roosevelt Island parking enforcement is about the same as Astoria: no officer minding every parked car and, thus, it is necessarily imperfect: you might be lucky to get some extra time. The operative word is "luck". Guerra has had an open door policy on this: if there is a problem with enforcement, he really wants to do something about, and his response is certain to be swift. Public Safety has been understanding of extraordinary circumstances (e.g., had to park in front of a hydrant because my child urgently needed to use the bathroom). So the issue at hand in the WIRE's letters column was already addressed before the letter-writing started. I have no idea why Shane asks for public criticism and Hamburger obliges. For the residents, your main RIRA point of contact for PSD parking enforcement issues (or anything related to PSD), is the RIRA Public Safety Committee, chaired by Erin Feely-Nahem (efeelynahem@aol.com). In summary, I agree that we should have consistent parking enforcement; the current letter writing is about something else.

3. Upcoming RIRA meetings. The next Common Council meeting is May 5 at 8:00 p.m. in the Good Shepherd Community Center; future meetings are on June 2, September 15, October 6. Upcoming RIRA Town Hall meetings (in preparation for RIOC Board meetings) are on April 28 and June 16.

The RIRA President's message is also published as the RIRA column in the 4/24/10 Main Street WIRE.