RIRA President On Community Participation In Common Council Discussions, RIRA Elections, Blood Drive, Future Meetings & More To Come

Image Of Heated Discussion During May RIRA Meeting

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

1. Comments in last WIRE about heated RIRA discussion. We welcome the residents to speak at the public session, which is the beginning of each RIRA Common Council meeting (note: RIRA Town Hall meetings are completely for the residents). I recognize that, to some extent, we all need to vent our frustrations. But to make your suggestion/complaint/topic more constructive, the Common Council would like to hear your suggestion on what we (RIRA) should do about your concern. Obviously, some things are outside of our control (e.g., store leases and enforcement), but we do gather input and work with the relevant parties (RIOC, government, building owners, etc.) and express your concerns. In the last RIRA meeting, the discussion went from a complaint about a particular merchant to a general discussion about leasing store fronts. I'm hoping to have a RIRA Town Hall meeting on June 16 to inform the community about the discussion -- no decision-making, just information-sharing for all of us.

2. RIRA elections this November. We reach out to the community to become more involved. You can volunteer to be a RIRA Common Council member. We have building-wide representatives (several for each of the housing complexes) and Island-wide representatives (President, Vice President) -- all are directly elected positions. If you'd like to see what this is like, please come to one of our meetings. It's rewarding, you get to know your neighbors and community, and you can have a positive effect on things around you.

3. RIRA Blood Drive on June 19, Roosevelt Island Day. Don't forget to donate blood. Thanks to Matt Katz for organizing this.

4. Upcoming RIRA meetings. The next Common Council meeting is June 2 at 8:00 p.m. in the Good Shepherd Community Center; future meetings are on September 15 (no planned meetings over the summer) and October 6. Upcoming RIRA Town Hall meeting (in preparation for RIOC Board meetings) is on June 16.

5. A short column? A good number of things are in progress and not yet ready to report. Hopefully more by the next column.

The RIRA President's message is also published as the RIRA column in the 5/22/10 Main Street WIRE.