The October 5 Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) meeting was, to put it mildly, contentious, angry and controversial. There was even a brief, less than a minute, altercation between two Council Members. Fortunately, both Council Members realized quickly that their tempers got the better of them and they quickly made peace with each other.
Tensions were raised due to several Agenda Items scheduled to be addressed during the meeting - a censure motion against one RIRA member and a Housing Committee report which, as reported in this previous post was:
... critical of RIRA President Matt Katz's recent testimony during the LATFOR Redistricting Hearings and seeks an apology and retraction for an article in the most recent Main Street WIRE....
Mr. Katz's LATFOR redistricting testimony was criticized in the
Housing Committee Report as being disrespectful to
State Senator Jose Serrano and to the entire Senate District he represents, including Roosevelt Island. Roosevelt Island elected officials including Senator Serrano, Assembly Member
Micah Kellner and NYC Council Member
Jessica Lappin wrote a letter
published in this Blog criticizing Mr. Katz's redistricting testimony to which Mr. Katz replied. State Senator
Liz Krueger also signed the letter criticizing Mr. Katz's testimony.
Mr. Katz raised the issue of his redistricting testimony and addressed the charge that he insulted Senator Serrano in his October RIRA Meeting President's Report. Mr. Katz denied that he intended any criticism of Senator Serrano, apologized to Senator Serrano for any misunderstanding and told the RIRA Common Council that the letters from elected officials critical of him (Mr. Katz) were withdrawn.
Here's the video of Mr. Katz's President Report. Mr. Katz's statement regarding his redistricting testimony and Senator Serrano begins at approximately the 1 minute 5 second mark.
Did the elected officials withdraw their letter criticizing Mr. Katz's redistricting testimony concerning Senator Serrano as asserted by Mr. Katz during the RIRA meeting? I was not aware that this occurred and since I published their original letter, I wanted to have Mr. Katz's statement confirmed. I sent the following email, or one very similar, to Senator Serrano's office, Assembly Member Micah Kellner and NYC Council Member Jessica Lappin's office:
During last night's RIRA meeting, Matt Katz said that the letters from elected officials criticizing his testimony at the Redistricting hearing about Senator Serrano was withdrawn.
Is that true?
Here's You Tube video of what Matt said. At about the 3 minute 30 second mark Matt talks about the letter being withdrawn.
Mr. Kellner replied:
The WIRE informed me and Councilmember Lappin that they didn't have space to run Mr Katz's testimony, our letter, and his response to our letter. Based on that information, the WIRE asked if would withdraw our request to print our letter and we agreed.
I received a similar reply from Ms. Lappin's office and sent the following inquiry back to Mr. Kellner and Ms. Lappin's office.
Just to clarify what happened.
As you know, I published the letter from the elected officials criticizing Matt Katz's testimony during the redistricting hearing.
Are you now saying that the criticism of Mr. Katz in those letters is being withdrawn by those elected officials? If so, should I update the post with a retraction?
Or are you just saying that you withdrew your request to publish the letter in the recent WIRE because the WIRE editor advised you that he didn't have space in that edition and that your criticism of Mr. Katz's testimony has not changed?
As I mentioned, I am preparing post which includes this issue and want to make sure I get it right.
Ms. Lappin's office replied:
We are confirming that we withdrew our request to publish the letter in the recent WIRE because the WIRE editor advised us that he didn't have space in that edition.
I then asked the Editor of the
Main Street WIRE newspaper:
Is it true that Roosevelt Island elected officials, Lappin, Kellner, Serrano, asked the WIRE to publish their letter criticizing RIRA President Matt Katz's testimony during the recent redistricting hearing and you declined to publish it in most recent issue either because the WIRE lacked space for their letter and response by Matt or for any other reason?
I am preparing a post which includes this subject and, if you wish, am happy to include any comment you may have.
The Main Street WIRE Editor replied:
The letters were withdrawn, by their writers, at the request of Senator Serrano.
I insisted that I would need emails from the writers, rather than simply Senator Serrano's request to me, to take them out of the paper.
He arranged for them to write said requests and, when those requests were received here, their letters were removed from the edition.
There is no remaining issue between Matt Katz and Senator Serrano, but if you keep working at it, you may succeed in efforts to stir one up.
That would be fun for your blogging, and bad for Roosevelt Island, but, of course, we all know that, for you, the blog comes first.
Shortly after receiving the response from the WIRE Editor, I had a conversation with a spokesperson from Senator Serrano's office who told me that the elected officials did not retract their letter concerning Mr. Katz's redistricting testimony and that any impression that they had done so was not true.
The spokesperson also said that they want to move on to other more important Roosevelt Island issues. Regarding the issue of whether the WIRE did not publish the elected officials letter because of lack of space, the Serrano spokesperson said that was not the case and that it may have been a misunderstanding as was Mr. Katz's statement that the letter had been withdrawn.
As reported in
comment to this post, the Housing Committee report was rejected by the RIRA Common Council and sent back to the Housing Committee. There will be more on the Housing Committee report and the October RIRA meeting.
UPDATE 10/21 - Senator Serrano adds:
I am writing to clear up any confusion that may exist regarding my decision not to publish my response letter in the Main Street Wire. Since the Wire did not print the recent redistricting testimony given during the LATFOR hearing, I did not think it necessary for that publication to print my joint letter with Senator Krueger. For this same reason, my office also informed Councilmember Jessica Lappin that there was no need for her to publish her joint letter with Assemblymember Kellner in the Wire. We hope this clears up any confusion, as we are all eager to move on to much more important issues facing Roosevelt Island.
