Winding down RIOC sounds drastic, right out of the gate, but it isn’t. The Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation isn’t a native species here. It is a political creation targeting specific goals but most are already completed.
The rest have been so badly diluted by Albany interference, their usefulness is limited. Today, RIOC is mostly a self-serving drag on Roosevelt Island, a weighty encumbrance soiled by incompetence. It‘s not so much a “public benefit corporation” anymore as it is an employee benefit swamp.
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
Ending RIOC: What Would It Mean?
Surprisingly, in effect, not much changes if we time out RIOC. The state agency is an invention, after all, a tool created for a purpose.
The Urban Development Corporation built the original structures and the WIRE buildings, then handed further development off to RIOC, which was created out of thin air. Its assignment was to “plan, design, develop, operate, maintain and manage Roosevelt Island,” overseen by NYS Housing & Community Renewal.
They’ve done that, with varying levels of success, but with only one building left for construction, RIOC’s reason for being is hazy, at best. And expensive as hell.
Roosevelt Islanders cough up $30 million a year for operations that largely benefit outsiders and politicians in Albany.
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Planning
RIOC finished the planning stage, years ago. When Hudson-Related finishes Southtown Building 9, execution will be too. Yet RIOC keeps growing, chewing up resources like a cartoon monster on a feeding frenzy.
Executive staffing increases and salaries bloat with no rational explanation. The work’s mostly done. Shrink or go home, we say.
Successes that look like planning in the rearview mirror never were, at least in terms of RIOC’s involvement.
Four Freedoms Park, one of the most impressive green spaces in the city, came about with sparse RIOC involvement, for example. And Cornell Tech was pure serendipity, the fallout from Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s commitment to technology innovation.
Other plans, like the disastrous remaking of Southpoint Park, are markers of incompetence with hints at corruption seeding the results.
Design
The general development plan for Roosevelt Island was set before the first resident moved in, leaving only tinkering on the fringes. Ending RIOC won’t change that. In fact, it might help.
Because RIOC now serves as a buffer against community involvement, a direct route to engagement can open up once RIOC gets out of the way. The people who live here know better than the upstaters now running the show.
Put simply, for the first time, residents could vote for those directly guiding its future with RIOC out of the way. Today, city council representatives, assembly members and state senators serve only advisory roles, and Albany-based controllers ignore them as they wish.
Accountability is not built in, and neither is transparency. That’s un-American and singularly a feature of Roosevelt Island.
The only hint of design born out of RIOC was former President/CEO Susan Rosenthal’s “Island of Art” idea. But that got its crowning touch with The Girl Puzzle in Lighthouse Park two years ago.
The administration replacing her has been bereft of new or follow-up ideas.
Ending RIOC: Development
What’s left to develop? Only a single building awaits finishing construction, and that’s already contracted. With little left to do, RIOC surrendered development to pals’ directing moneymaking alterations.
Southpoint Park, for one onerous example, went from a community refuge into a sparse venue bordered by the Shelton J. Haynes/Langan Rock Farm.
As presently constituted, it is clear that the insulated RIOC executives, largely established through political patronage and nepotism, cannot be trusted to develop anything. The superannuated RIOC board, charged with maintaining guardrails, left its collective spines at the door when Haynes slipped in past a racially attacked predecessor.
Operate
Now the core of its responsibilities, this is where RIOC does best. Red buses provide valuable service on reliable schedules as does the Tram. But keeping the grounds clean and mowed is barely adequate.
Check out the lawns at Rivercross or Firefighters Field and get a taste of RIOC’s regard for quality of life issues.
But many services – the Tram, Office Cleaning and Infrastructure – are already farmed out to third parties, and the rest could be.
Take as examples Cornell Tech and FDR Four Freedoms State Park. Each cares for its own groundskeeping, and each is well-maintained and clean.
New York State Parks looks after Four Freedoms. Why not extend that through the rest of the Island? The money and crew are already there. Why not just replace the shoddy RIOC management?
By far, RIOC’s biggest operational expense is the Public Safety Department, and it is largely a bust. No need to elaborate on the failures since Chief Jack McManus retired – we’ve been there, many times – PSD operates effectively only as limited school crossing guards and modern-era meter maids.
Replacing the $4 million annual expense is a classic no-brainer.
Ending RIOC: Maintain and Manage
These last two items are catch-alls gathering up any loose ends left from real responsibilities.
Yes, RIOC maintains the Island with varying degrees of success, but there isn’t a single thing it does that couldn’t be done better through outsourcing or using state resources already in place.
Manage?
RIOC essentially invests resources in managing itself and the millions collected from residents in the hidden RIOC tax.
This makes Roosevelt Island very likely the most highly taxed community in the country.
RIOC pulls in the majority of its $32 million annual budget from residents and visitors, and for what?
All of the above? That’s not worth it.
Conclusion: Ending RIOC
The sad thing is that RIOC could have done so much more with the freedom that being a public benefit corporation brings. What was left out of the original charges, what was implied but never picked up on, the most vital element – was community engagement.
While some leaders did better – Shane, Indelicato, Rosenthal – too many did far worse. The current Haynes/Hochul administration is the most bunkered and resistant to community influence of all.
But embracing a vibrant, eager-to-be-engaged community could have made RIOC feel as vital, as much a part of the bloodstream, as treasures like the Tram. But the state blew it.
Nothing kept RIOC from hooking up securely with Roosevelt Islanders, but political patronage and Albany remote control blocked it. Governor Cuomo made it worse – make that much worse – and Hochul has done no better.
At this point, the damage is done, and it’s too extensive for repair.
Details, details…
Ending RIOC seems drastic until you recognize that, in essence, it is nothing more than an extra layer of bureaucracy… On top of an already outrageous pile. And it has been done before.
When the Urban Development Corporation handed off to RIOC, started from scratch, it was a blip on the New York radar. Responsibilities, including contracts and finances, were simply moved from one bureaucratic orbit to another.
It wasn’t complicated, and it shouldn’t be now.
Sure, vested interests, especially the crowd that has long seen Roosevelt Island as a patronage dump, will howl. That should not be an obstacle to doing the right thing for people who live here.
State Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright and Senator José Serrano sponsored legislation that would alter RIOC, bringing more local control. Hochul, who controls patronage and management here, vetoed it out of political self-interest.
But why not go the whole way? Ending RIOC isn’t just feasible, it’s advisable. So, muscle up.
And it’s the right thing for Roosevelt Island.
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On naming, neglect, and the quiet work that keeps things standing
About twenty years ago, there was Harbor Police activity near the water, just south of the subway entrance. At the time, no one really thought of it as a pier, though technically there was a small boardwalk there. Of course it wasn’t a pier. A pier implies intention.
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