It looks like a long campaign for a new job for Shelton Haynes. Why else would anyone push this nonsense? Quote from his latest promo: “Given a problematic task nearly 50 years ago, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation established and slowly grew a small-town community in the middle of New York City – until Shelton Haynes took over as CEO.”
Echoes of “Only I can fix it.”
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
Any New Job Should Not Demand Groveling
When we saw the latest promo pushing RIOC President/CYA Shelton J. Haynes into a spotlight he hasn’t earned, it was a little sad. Just a little though, just until I remembered Susan Rosenthal, Terrence McCauley, Arthur Eliav, Amy Smith, John O’Reilly, etc… all with careers clipped and damaged by Haynes.
Business Mole, a UK and European-based (?!) website is where the newest effort landed. And the article featured the usual, plus the startling “…until Shelton Haynes took over as CEO” claim.
There was the standard stuff, like “I cannot wait to get shovels in the ground to unveil our latest investment…” about Riverwalk Building 9, known in this careless article as “…the final project in the Riverside development, the Riverside 9 apartment building.”
And in case you haven’t been around for the last year, the shovels have been “in the ground” and far above it for months. About seven floors of the core structure have been built after the shovels went back in the tool shed.
And sadly, Haynes had very little to do with it.
Truth Squad
We conversed with our full staff and a well-informed advisor about giving Haynes’s achievements an objective appraisal. Here’s what we came up with.
- Crime is up.
- The roads are still a mess.
- The Tram can’t cover its operating costs, and he failed at getting OMNY set up.
- Community events were reduced.
- Sportspark had a 9 month delay because he couldn’t get his act together.
- Few visit The Girl Puzzle, and no one talks about it – like they do about Shelton Haynes.
- Or the lighthouse.
- AVAC is frequently down with no long term plans.
- The Palace of Versailles Bike Ramp and Trail are a joke, just a waste of design money.
- Former CEO Susan Rosenthal and former CFO John O’Reilly negotiated the Riverwalk 9 deal. Haynes was always on the sidelines.
- He set up an ADA non-compliant executive suite in Blackwell House.
- The Youth Center was shut down because it ran for months without proper licensing.
A close observer asked for comment blurted, “What the hell has he done?” In three years at the helm, not much he can brag about.
There’s more, of course, but overkill won’t help him get a new job.
Finally
With new blood coming in with three new board members at RIOC, we hope that will provide the leverage for helping Haynes find a new job – that is, set him free from those long days with so little to do, bunkered in Blackwell House.
Susan Rosenthal, a Sacrificial Lamb?*
After Susan Rosenthal was fired, David Kraut would talk about almost anything except Susan. This was unusual because David could discuss a subject long after everyone else had exhausted both the subject and the available oxygen. When her name entered the conversation, however, he became careful. At first I mistook that restraint for discretion; later, I began to recognize guilt.
