RIRA President On Roosevelt Island Blood Drive. Lego Robots, Handrails, 311 System, Elections & Future Meetings

Image of Tram Pole From Frank Farance

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

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

2. RI Trambots? The RI Youth Program will be sending a team of 6-13 year olds to the NYC DYCD competition on Lego Robots. We've taken the Tram as our mascot. Wish us well!

3. A better handrail for buses, a better pool for kids. File this in the category of New Ideas From Other Places. I've had to travel recently and I discovered a 3-way handrail pole in a Swiss tram (see photo). Also from Geneva, here's a nice way to arrange a splash pond for kids in the summertime (see photo), the pool is deceptively shallow.

4. RI-311 reloaded. Aaron Hamburger, chair of RIRA's Island Services Committee, RIRA Common Counselor Joe Terranella, RIOC Board Member Jonathan Kalkin, and I will be relaunching the RI-311 system to allow you to report issues about island services. Thank you to Aaron and Jonathan for leading this effort, and thanks to Joe for helping on the web implementation. I'll have more on this in my next column.

5. 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.

6. Upcoming RIRA meetings. The next Common Council meeting is ... well it's summer vacation. The next meeting is on September 15 at 8:00 p.m. in the Good Shepherd Community Center; future meeting is October 6. Upcoming RIRA Town Hall meeting (in preparation for RIOC Board meetings) is on June 23 (note the new date). I am trying to arrange for a Town Hall meeting to discuss the storefronts at the June 23 meeting. The WIRE will announce this if I can get all parties at the meeting.

Splash Pond Image From Frank Farance

The RIRA President's message is also published as the RIRA column in the 6/5/10 Main Street WIRE.