Come Learn What Is Going On At Roosevelt Island and Add Your Voice To The Process -Roosevelt Island Residents Association Meeting Returns Tonight 8 PM At Good Shepherd Community Center
Image of June RIRA Common Council Meeting
After taking the July and August summer months off, the Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) monthly meeting returns tonight, September 7, 8 PM at the Good Shepherd Community Center (543 Main Street lower level). Below is the Agenda for tonight's meeting.
As always, prior to the start of each meeting there is a public session in which any resident can come and address the Common Council Delegates on any issue of concern.
RIRA is composed of members of the Roosevelt Island community elected by their fellow building complex residents every two years. RIRA has no real power or authority other than an advisory role as the voice of the Roosevelt Island community. RIRA's voice of the community role is recognized and encouraged by our elected representatives and the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC).
RIRA is not without controversy. Some residents have expressed an opinion that RIRA does not represent them, that it is a closed, insular group of people looking out for only their own interests.
I think that view is wrong. RIRA represents those people who participate in the process, show up to meetings or if they can't attend meetings, just make their concerns known. In this respect, RIRA is just like every political entity in the United States - if you don't show up and participate in the process, it is difficult to have your concerns addressed.
Responding to this comment from a reader of a previous post:
The executives of RIRA - Pres, VP, Treas, Sec'y - are all from WIRE buildings. Most of the committee chairs - WIRE buildings. The MTG is composed primarily of WIRE building residents. There's nothing wrong with WIRE residents disproportionately represented in executive/chair positions - as long as the same people do not keep popping up year after year. There should be term limits for executive/chair/RIOC board member positions to prevent cliques from forming.RIRA Communications Chair Vini Fortuna wrote:
You are right about the officers (Pres, VP, Treasurer and Secretary). They are all from the WIRE buildings. (Here is the list http://www.riraonline.com/abou...I think that people like Vini and other RIRA members should be thanked for the time and effort they put in to try and improve the Roosevelt Island community in which they live. Sure, sometimes it's a messy and tedious process, some personalities may be more difficult to deal with than others, but that's how a representative political body functions.
However, that's not true for the chairs anymore. You can find the chair of each committee on their pages in our website (www.riraonline.com). Here is the list:
Communications: Vini (me) - Southtown
Gov. Relations: Bill Long - Octagon
Housing: Helen Chirivas - Island House
Island Services: Aaron Hamburguer - Southtown
Planning: Frank Farance - Island House
Public Safety: Erin Feely-Nahem - Westview
Social, Cultural & Educational: Lynne Shinozaki - Manhattan Park
Constitution & Bylaws: Dave Evans - Southtown
What I want to say is that I believe things are changing. Slowly. At least, the committees are changing and the relative proportions of the buldings. I agree that it can be frustrating to see the same people over and over again at the head of RIRA. One big problem is that it's not easy to be the president. It takes a lot of time and effort, and requires a lot of experience on the island, which essentially eliminates new blood.
And if you impose term limits, we may end up with no one in the executive positions! Remember that all the members are voluntary. No one receives anything for that and they dedicate their (sometimes little) free time
It seems to me that's a hard problem to solve, but I would love to hear suggestions to solve it.
On another front, I believe RIRA has a huge communications problem. RIRA doesn't communicate with the community well. People don't know what RIRA is doing. People hear about RIRA on Frank's rants. There's a lot misinformation. The lack of communication doesn't help, and that causes the perception of hidden agendas and secrecy. But that's not the case. Unlike some may think, you don't see deliberate efforts to hide information and act behind other people's back. The problem is just that the information doesn't get out there.
As the Communication Chair, I've been spending a lot of effort to fix that. I've already set up the website (www.riraonline.com), the Facebook (www.facebook.com/riraonline), and Twitter (www.twitter.com/riraonline) to help opening the communication channels with the community. We also have a calendar of RIRA events and meetings (www.riraonline.com/calendar). So the plumbing have been laid out. Now it's time to get the information flowing. My next step is to get RIRA members (specially chairs) to get content online. I want people to know everything that is going on on RIRA. My ultimate (maybe ambitious) goal is to get residents to trust RIRA, and get more involved. If we are able to make the community more engaged, maybe we'll have more volunteers and candidates for the association, and the extra members and diversity will result in better representatives, solving some of the problems you pointed out.
Here's an interesting discussion with RIRA President Matt Katz. Mr. Katz was recently interviewed for the Community Board 8 Speaks program. He talks about the role of RIRA as well as the history, governance and current issues facing Roosevelt Island.
2 comments :
Mr. Fortuna complains that my "rants" are
"misinformation". Everything I said was truthful, period.
Mr. Fortuna himself is part of the problem: it's not just old-timers, it's
newcomers, too, like Mr. Fortuna and Mr. (Bill) Long.
For example, I asked for the list of committee members in two of the committees
because we were taking a vote and I wanted to know who the committee members
were. I sent out my request to the whole Democracy committee. Mr. Long
responded on one committee, but he didn't know the members of the other
committee (he supposedly chairs both committees). Here's the dialogue:
Frank->Bill 08-04 09:15: Any reason the list of members weren't forwarded to
the group?
Bill->Frank 08-04 10:39: They didn't ask for the list. You did. I provided
the information requested to the person who requested it.
Frank->Democracy List 08-04 11:20: I asked a question *to the list*
with the hopes of getting an answer that would be useful to the list.
Likewise, had someone else asked a question to the list, I would expect that
we'd be sharing information with each other, not devolving into private
exchanges. For whatever reason Bill didn't want to share the information
with you. Below, please find the list of the Democracy subcommittee of the
Government Relations Committee.
Vini->Democracy List 08-04 12:33: If you really want it, you can get any
list of any committee you are part of at http://groups.riraonline.com
The people in the committees know who they are from the meetings. Regular member
see no need to have a list (we already have the email group for communication),
so there's no need to bother everyone with emails that are not relevant to
them. Now please stop being ridiculous. The members list was the first email in
the Democracy group. You clearly asked Bill for the list just to troll with
your "transparency" point: http://memegenerator.net/instance/9217763
Vini
Frank->Democracy List 08-04 13:06: First, I didn't know that and it's clear
Bill didn't either, which makes the point that my question was important and
valid. Second, we don't have access to the lists (just tried). Third, the
residents don't have access to the lists. If you're planning on conducting a
vote, you need to know whom the members are, so why wouldn't this be a
reasonable question? Furthermore, just going to a meeting doesn't tell
you the members of the committee, right? I encourage everyone to look at the
link above, which I've saved an electronic copy, so you can see Vini's juvenile
behavior. It's nice to know that Joyce, Margie, and (now) Vini have their
own approach towards disagreements in RIRA discussions.
Mr. Fortuna seems better skilled at using the Rage Generator for making
childish insulting cartoons on the internet. It would be better if Mr.
Fortuna, a Google employee, were more adept at using his own company's web
tools to create the committee member lists -- public information that the
residents have a right to know. Even with multiple reminders, Mr. Fortuna
still has not accomplished this task.
With Mr. Fortuna and Mr. Long, sharing basic information is an unpleasant
interaction -- each of them colored by their emotions.
To the reader: if you were on this committee E-mail list and someone asked a question, don't you feel that you'd have the right to hear/see the answer to the question? Wouldn't you want the answer *shared* with everyone rather than conveyed in a private exchange? Mr. Fortuna and Mr. Long are happy to talk about "sharing" information when they control the sharing. I'm sure they'd be registering my same complaints if the situation were reversed.
As you can see, it's not just the old-timers that act foolish, it's the
newcomers, too.
Frank Farance
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