Roosevelt Island Resident Believes Newly Appointed RIOC Board Director Is Wrong Candidate But Not For Reasons Stated By RIRA - Criticizes Some For Hypocrisy and Double Standards

Roosevelt Island Residents Assocition (RIRA) Planning Committee Chair and former President Frank Farance shares his thoughts regarding the recent Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) Board appointment:

I believe Dr. Salvatore Ferrera is not the right candidate for the RIOC Board, but not for the reasoning stated by RIRA.

To paraphrase Prince, RIRA protests as if it were 1997. The Governor has appointed Dr. Ferrera and we're all in a tiz over no democracy, back door deals, lack of transparency, non resident appointments, colonial rule, and so on. Even the Yankee Doodle parodies sung at the protest are the same, except Pataki is replaced with Cuomo. We have not learned from our mistakes, and keep making them. At least three areas come to mind.

Mistake #1: We Suffer Our Own Hypocrisy and Double Standards

We say we want the Governor to use our RIOC nominee election process, except that we don't want to have elections so our "in" people can have longer terms as directors. Mr. Kalkin opposed RIOC elections last fall, but now he wants differently. We complain about democracy, but we residents don't follow democratic principles ourselves. We complain about campaign contributions to Brooklyn politicians, yet RIOC Board members hold campaign fundraisers in their apartments for our politicians. We complain about the lack of process in Dr. Ferrera's appointment, but RIRA's Government Relations Chair was just "elected" outside RIRA's process. We complain about back-room deals, except when we do the same thing for legislation forwarded on behalf of the residents. We complain about Dr. Ferrera's conflicts of interest, yet we don't see our own conflicts for resident RIOC board regarding privatization.

Nine months ago Maple Tree Group (MTG), the Island's so-called leaders for democracy held secret and exclusive meetings, and excluded members from voting and chose to skip RIOC Board elections for 2010. Afterward, the exclusivity was rationalized by "even if you disagreed, you wouldn't affect the vote" -- certainly not the principles of transparent and informed decision-making. MTG's process and decision was unconscionable. As an entity that promoted "democracy", they wanted elections after terms expired. Who in the world holds elections after terms expired? MTG wanted their "in" directors to continue, future directors would suffer shorter terms, and they geared their process to favor some directors over others.

Their rationale was that the present directors needed to get more experience, i.e., the directors wouldn't really have a full 4 years. When it was pointed out that future terms (2014, 2016, 2018, etc.) with these delayed elections would have these same problems of expired directors with no candidates ready, they said that the next term (e.g., 2016 and 2018 elections) would be shorter for those candidates. In other words, for the present directors a shorter term was unacceptable so they could get more experience, but for the next set of directors a shorter term with less experience is OK. This is why it seemed that MTG was all about keeping the present set of directors. They said there wasn't enough time in 2010, but there was enough time in 2009 to have RIOC director nominee elections in the same time frame.

At the September 2010 RIRA Common Council meeting, members asked: What is the plan if the Governor wants to appoint someone? They said: if it's Fay Christian's or Jonathan Kalkin's seat, then we'll ask for them to be reappointed; if it's David Kraut's seat, then we'll ask for someone else. There were good number of people in the room who didn't like David Kraut, so this seemed acceptable to them -- certainly not a transparent process, not a fair process, not a democratic process.

Although it might have been possible to have 2010 elections, Matt Katz and other MTG members boycotted the elections. In other words, RIRA could have an election, but all the key volunteers refused to participate, thus dooming the 2010 elections.

MTG put forward Take-All-The-Marbles legislation for all RIOC directors to be residents; and they gave the Governor a Poke-In-The-Eye wanting three candidates for new RIOC Presidents (the Governor vetoed the legislation). Meanwhile, resident board members fired the RIOC President (over privatization issues for resident members' buildings), and resident board members did not stand up for their stated principles and accepted Leslie Torres as the sole candidate.

Mistake #2: We Haven't Incorporated What We've Learned

We're still talking colonialism and democracy. We have democratically elected officials. Because of the financing of Roosevelt Island, we're not going to be an incorporated village, we will likely remain a public benefit corporation. We understood this ten years ago, but we don't convey this to the residents and we still use the same rhetoric of "democracy".

Our RIOC board just wrote a letter to the Governor complaining of Dr. Ferrera's appointment (think: the Supreme Court writes to the President complaining of his nominee). Our RIOC board fired the RIOC President. Resident board members now are participating in these "democracy" demonstrations. Do they think this will cause the Governor to want to reappoint them and consider the Island's elected nominees, or will this cause the Governor to ignore our preferences. I'm guessing the latter.

Mistake #3: We Can't Believe Non-Residents Can Help Our Island

The Governor vetoed last summer's legislation for good reason. We don't understand that the State, the Governor, and the Executive Branch all have substantial interests in Roosevelt Island. We don't respect their interests, we don't believe a non-resident can help. An executive will tell you that outsiders can provide necessary expertise, but we just don't listen: only residents will do.

The Governor can appoint a non-resident. I don't understand why we are getting so upset over this.

We (the Island) should focus on How To Best Implement Law for RIOC Directors. The rhetoric should be: our director nominee election process is the best way to mechanize the selection of candidates for resident RIOC directors.

The issue regarding the RIRA and the Maple Tree Group's (MTG) decision not to hold RIOC Nominee elections last year was reported on in this September 14, 2011 post. Here's an excerpt:

... ELECTION CONSIDERATIONS AND OUR CONCLUSIONS

Over the past four months, MTG has been compiling and assessing information about RIOC Board election dates, appointment dates, tenure durations, and term-expiration dates, in order to arrive at what seems the most appropriate timing for the next RIOC election. The following is a presentation of the results of our deliberations, the rationales underlying our conclusions, and the pros and cons of the choices....

... 1. Our first conclusion was that RIOC elections must be held in conjunction with RIRA elections, which are themselves held in conjunction with the even-year November federal and state elections. The rationale for these conjunctions is obvious: the turnout for the other elections optimizes the turnout for our local elections, and thereby optimizes the validity, for the community, of the voters' choices. Our vote was unanimous for this conclusion....

In order to understand better the reasons for delaying the RIOC Board nominee election and before reaching any conclusions on this issue, I would suggest reading the full post.

Also, Mr. Farance sent a letter to Governor Cuomo regarding the new RIOC Board appointment which is included in post earlier in the week as is the letter from the RIOC Board which Mr. Farance criticizes.