What Happened At Last NIght's Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) March Meeting? Public Purpose Funds Report Approved, Internships With Manhattan DA, Ice Skating & Youth Music Program Planned And More

Synthetic Ice Rink Image From Ez Glide

Last night's March Roosevelt Island Resident's Association (RIRA) meeting was relatively uneventful.

During the opening Public Session component of the meeting Yvie Pryzbyla, the Chief of Staff to Roosevelt Island's State Senator Jose Serrano,

 

 Image Of Ms. Pryzbyla At March RIRA Meeting

introduced herself to the Common Council reporting that Senator Serrano's Roosevelt Island constituent office hours have moved to the first Wednesday of every month from 4 - 7 PM. Ms Pryzbla also offered to provide any assistance Senator Serrano's office can to Roosevelt Island residents though noting that due to NY State budget cuts there probably will not be any funds available from Senator Serrano's office for Roosevelt Island organizations this year.

Following Ms Pryzbla, Linda Jones-Janneh,

 

 Image Of Ms Jones- Janneh at March RIRA Meeting

Community Affairs Officer for the Manhattan District Attorney's office spoke to the Common Council. Ms Janneh reported that internships are available for High School students that include a $100 a month stipend.

The primary order of business for RIRA this month was the work of the Public Purpose Funds Committee.  As reported earlier, the RIRA Common Council approved the report of the Public Purpose Funds Committee and sent their recommendations on to RIOC.

Below are the RIRA Committee reports submitted to the March RIRA Common Council Meeting other than the Public Purpose Funds Committee report which is here.

The Skate Roosevelt Island concept below refers to a skating event using synthetic ice being considered by RIRA. More information on this idea is available from January SC& E  Committee report included here.

Social Cultural & Education Committee
SC&E Committee Meeting Notes February 8, 2011
Present: Shinozaki, Katz, Helstien, Darwish, Marcus

Skate Roosevelt Island:
We discussed next steps and our plan for moving ahead. Shinozaki and Helstien met with Doryne Isley of Roosevelt Landings who loved the idea. We all agreed that venues most likely to be used are within RIOC’s purview. Ms. Isley said she would support ours or RIOC’s efforts to get other building managements into the funding circle. Because RIOC will, by necessity, need to drive this project we hope that they will get the other building managements/complexes to participate, Shinozaki and Helstien will be meeting with RIOC CEO, Leslie Torres, Thursday, 2/23, to discuss possible venues and insurance issues. We were initially aiming for this event to take place in February, but we have now moved to April during the Spring school break.

In terms of fundraising, RIRA wants the fees for skate rentals as well as a percentage from any organization that should provide food and drink. Skating would be is free, but skate rentals would be $12 per pair.

Teen/Youth Issues

Shinozaki, Strong, and Katz met with the Legacy High School President, Sal Ferrara, to discuss RI teen youth issues. We had done some research on the best ways to work with youths and teens and we discussed that two tried and true ways to get them involved was with music and athletic programs. We discussed a couple of possible programs. First, we started fact finding for a music program, working name “GarageBand.” We see this as a long term comprehensive program, involving or including the Youth Center. We need committee members to work on this committee and people to reach out to their industry contacts for mentors in the music industry. We will be looking for contemporary musicians for this project. The second program we discussed was for an evening basketball program. We need to know if RIOC will open up Sports Park for this. Our fall back option would be use the Child School. But we will first present the concept to RIOC. We will also be setting up a sub-committee for this with the working name “Bounce”. We see this as an urgent issue as loitering is a problem. The kids need a place to “hang out” from 9pm – midnight.

“Networkbreakfast” – is the working title for the Welcome Wagon Project where we will be reaching out to the community with committee members. Our goal is to have at least one person from every building represented on the committee. We have asked for fact finding on donations of Krispy Cream and Starbucks and the results will be discussed at our next committee meeting.

Internet Fundraising - we will address the issues brought up in our last RIRA meeting and follow up with Jeff Escobar. We want to review any conflict of interest issues, which were of concern in the last RIRA meeting. We also want to discuss any other passive fundraising sources as a part of this plan moving forward. We will review what it takes to have this as part of our RIRA website and if there are any issues with setting it up. We hope to move forward on this and precluding any issues move forward to presenting a motion to RIRA.

We again talked about Roosevelt Island as the “GO TO Place” and some of the ideas we had had in our earlier meeting to have something going on every few weeks on the island. We talked briefly about:

A Cherry Blossom Festival Celebrating the beautiful cherry trees on Roosevelt Island and also celebrating Japanese Culture.

An Asian New Year Parade with Dragon etc. celebrating Asian Culture.

A Kite festival in the spring celebrating Middle East Culture.

The last thing discussed was to set up informal gatherings to create an opportunity for RIOC board members to interact with RIRA members. We plan to move forward to create several of these events.

ACTION ITEMS:
L. Shinozaki, S. Helstien : Set up Committee for “Skate Roosevelt Island” Set up meetings with RIOC. Continue to fact check and evaluate feasibility.

L. Shinozaki : “Networkbreakfast” reach out for committee members for each building. Move toward setting up first meeting. Follow up with Starbucks for donation. Helen will follow up with Krispy Cream for donation. Need to develop a letter for the management buildings detailing our intent.

B. Darwish : Move forward with meetings to review issues raised at RIRA meeting. Propose motion for passive fundraising using Market America and others.

L. Shinozaki : Set up Committee for “Bounce”; reach out to RIOC for Sports Park as venue. High Priority.

L. Shinozaki: Set up Committee for “GarageBand”; we are asking as a favor from our members to reach out to music industry people they may know and Roosevelt Islanders to see if they will donate time to teach groups of children or be available for one on one mentoring.
Respectfully submitted, Lynn Strong Shinozaki

RIRA – ISLAND SERVICES COMMITTEE REPORT TO THE COMMON COUNCIL MEETING 3/2/11

The Committee didnʼt meet in February. However, here are updates on some of the issues weʼre working on.

Red Bus Schedule – RIOC started the new 15 minute bus schedule in mid- February. Thereʼs not enough data collected yet to tell whether this schedule is achieving itʼs goals. RIRA (President, Chairs of ISC & Planning) will meet with RIOC later in March to review the data and determine if changes need to be made.

Main St. Stores - Weʼre still waiting for RIOC to award the contract for a Master Leaser. We understand RIOC is in final negotiations with the key bidder or bidders. We now expect the contract will be awarded at the April RIOC Board meeting. (Thereʼs no March meeting).

Night Programs For Youth - The Social Cultural & Education Committee has agreed to lead RIRAʼs efforts on this issue. Erin Freely-Nahem will be ISCʼs representative on the joint team.

Pedestrian Safety Barrier On RI Bridge - Weʼve decided to by-pass RIOC on this issue. Instead, we will work directly with the Dept. of Transportation (owner and operator of the bridge) to try and resolve this problem.

Aaron Hamburger, Chair - ISC

To: Roosevelt Island Residents Association – Common Council

From: Constitution and Bylaws Ad Hoc Committee

Subject: Committee Report - - February 17, 2011 Meeting

Members Present: Matthew Katz, Frank Farance, Joyce Mincheff, Helen Chirivah, Dave Evans

The Constitution and Bylaws Committee met on February 17 to continue its review of the RIRA-Common Council's primary documents that govern operations and activities. The objective remains to identify any aspects of the Constitution and Bylaws that could require improvement. The Committee will then submit its recommendations to the appropriate fora for their consent consistent with established procedures. Having already conducted an initial/brief overview of the Bylaws, the Constitution was the focus of this meeting at which there was time for a partial overview. Our next meeting is envisioned for early March.

Respectfully, Dave Evans, Chair

The meeting also ended before 10 PM.