RIOC illiteracy is well-known around these parts, but after they hired a new $150K Communications AVP, we hoped for better. Our hopes were dashed last evening when the language-mangling state agency achieved an all-new high in lows.
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
For Just $32 Million a Year, We Get…
There’s a jingle that goes like this: “They said it couldn’t be done. They said nobody could do it.”
But RIOC did, achieving a spirit-crushing pinnacle of nescience no one thought possible. Everyone makes blunders, but this was startling. I almost choked on my wine.
They wrote in an “important message from the RIOC Advisories alert system…”
“Please be advised Verizon has to complete emergency maintenance work along the West Roadway in front of 250 – 300 Main Street will be closed (between North Loop and Tram Rds) from Monday, 11/14 at 9 PM to Tues, 11/15 at 6 AM.”
Try to parse that beauty.
This sent me reeling back to school days when our teachers taught us how to diagram a sentence. It was a little boring and, I thought, unnecessary at the time.
But just because it starts with a word, then tumbles and tangles its way to a period – that does not make it a real sentence. It’s something else. something sublime or surreal. I don’t know which.
“Wait! What?” one resident instantly asked in an email.
But RIOC’s Illiteracy Wasn’t Done
“All North Bound vehicular traffic must utilize the North Loop Rd to access the East roadway to continue North Bound at Tram Rd and Main Street,” RIOC sailed on undettered.
“The Red Bus and Q102 will resume northbound at the Tram.”
Oh, thanks.
“Thank you for your cooperation during this time.”
Still Searching: Transparency Delayed at RIOC
New York’s Freedom of Information Law rests on a basic principle: government records belong to the public unless an agency can identify a lawful reason to withhold them. For Roosevelt Island residents, that right matters because RIOC controls public land, infrastructure, transportation, contracts and development without functioning as a locally elected government.
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