Usually, we don’t waste time on lightly attended public meetings. The PSD window dressing engaged in on Tuesday is a good example. But we got emails from normally sensible Roosevelt Islanders, saying we missed an engaging event. We checked. We didn’t miss anything, and here’s why.
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
With all of RIOC’s hair-raising dysfunction pulling attention away from the normal news we prefer covering, we pick and choose which screwups and posturing we cover. The current campaign aimed at convincing Albany controllers that Seldom Seen Shelton really believes in “community engagement” is especially galling.
And after last month’s poorly attended PSD event, why waste resources?
Although one Roosevelt Islander who usually knows better claimed there were 50 people in attendance, there were even fewer than last month’s 30.
We counted a dozen or so along with many more empty chairs. Catch it on RIOC’s own website here.
But that wasn’t the only reason for staying away…
Why It’s PSD Window Dressing and Nothing More
If RIOC’s Public Safety Department wants recognition or engagement, a good place to start would be by doing their jobs.
On Tuesday, hours before this meeting, I grabbed a seat at the Red Bus stop outside Bread & Butter Market. It was chilly and raining, and I was also too lazy to walk.
Then, shortly after I took shelter and indulged in some people-watching, a PSD vehicle pulled into the lot behind me. Two uniformed officers were in the car, which the driver angled around to directly face the crosswalk.
Optimist that I am, I thought they were actually monitoring traffic through the crosswalk. In recent years, multiple people were struck by cars here, and e-bikes regularly terrorize pedestrians venturing out.
In – being generous – ten minutes, four e-bike riders and two cars raced through without stopping. Realistically, it was probably more like five minutes, but regardless, the officers never budged once.
And after their brief stint at not doing their jobs, the officer drove quietly away.
That’s the ongoing negligence that makes monthly public meetings nothing more than PSD window dressing. We showed this and another video to PSD Chief Kevin Brown years ago, but the misconduct never changed.
This has been persistent throughout Brown’s management at PSD.
PSD’s yearslong failure to protect residents in plain view on Main Street renders this monthly window dressing nothing more than an exercise, an effort to create a false front for a deeply disengaged, malfunctioning department.
The Women Who Held the Ground
The recording arrived before RIOC posted it. On this island, that usually means they’ll release it when they’re confident nobody still cares. ArchRI simply made a copy available, the way people here tend to do once they’ve stopped waiting for institutions to keep their word. It was the first meeting of what is now meant to be a monthly community advisory group (CAG).
