RIOC’s abuse of WFF – the Wildlife Freedom Foundation – continues as founder Rossana Ceruzzi struggles to keep her animals alive. The state agency that never makes a mistake routinely rebuffs her appeals.
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
History of RIOC’s Abuse of WFF
On a sunny morning in 2018, I found Rossana Ceruzzi in tears, talking with a friend outside PS/IS 217. As a print reporter, I’d known her as an animal rescue expert. Riding her bicycle, which was later stolen, its basket filled with medicines, she volunteered, going place to place, helping animals in need.
I followed her down the road where she treated an injured female goose on the grass beyond Goldwater Hospital. To ease her patient, she’d persuaded a groundskeeper to stop mowing nearby, giving her time for the frightened animal. The medications used on a damaged wing were donations from supportive veterinarians.
After my first story, Rossana expanded her work, carrying a commitment from Island Cats into a sanctuary in Southpoint Park. There, she provided safe harbor for cats, geese, possums and more as the needs arose.
The 2018 Incident
Although Ceruzzi resisted news coverage, I soon learned that the cause of her sorrow was a full out effort by RIOC to shut down her animal sanctuary. As the heat of summer approached, the grounds crew cut off her water supply. Then, challenged by The Daily, the group went off on a wild frenzy of excuses, mostly lies, about its reasons.
After weeks of stress, RIOC relented – without apology – and restored the water supply, but it wasn’t over yet.
In 2020, the Next Incidents
While the anti-animal landscaping and grounds team continued harassing WFF in minor incidents, even COVID couldn’t stop the abuse in 2020. After a clash with then-CEO Susan Rosenthal, RIOC forced Ceruzzi into making a hasty relocation as Southpoint’s ill-fated reconstruction started. But Shelton Haynes, Chief Operating Officer at the time, came to the rescue, quickly building a larger, better supported animal shelter in the parks interior.
Opposed to the park’s reconstruction on environmental grounds, Ceruzzi then organized Save Our Shores, a grass roots effort aimed at getting RIOC to reconsider its plan. By now, Rosenthal was gone and Haynes promoted, and although Save Our Shores failed, it dented RIOC’s facade.
The result: An all-out effort to shutdown WFF for good.
The ill-conceived method amounted to – for the first time – demanding rent that WFF had no way of paying. All the money went for animal care and feeding. Our FOIL request found that RIOC had never made any such demand on any other nonprofit using their properties.
But Chief Counsel Gretchen Robinson played hardball. Refusing any negotiation, she demanded that WFF pay up or she would shutdown the sanctuary in Southpoint and release the animals to other nonprofits within 30 days.
Intervention by State Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright put that to an end, but RIOC was not done abusing WFF.
A Public Purpose Fund Kick in the Face
While the abuse of WFF grew more subtle, it didn’t end. In 2021, RIOC’s board made the curious decision to turn the community-oriented distribution of Public Purpose Funds over to a disconnected and biased third party. WFF saw its 2022 funding slashed to a virtually useless $1,000.
Desperate, Ceruzzi appealed to CEO Haynes, who agreed that the funding decision was unfair. In a meeting that included Robinson, Haynes agreed to award a contract to WFF that would award it $15,000 – a paltry sum for RIOC but a lifesaver for WFF – for its services to the Island.
But the Abuse of WFF Continued
With Haynes and Robinson suspended on unrelated grounds, RIOC’s “interim leadership team,” headed by Deputy Chief Counsel Gerrald Ellis and CFO Dhruvika Patel Amin, refused to honor Haynes’s commitment to Ceruzzi’s vital nonprofit. They demanded new, hard to meet terms and, essentially, treated Ceruzzi like an enemy aligned with Haynes.
WFF, though, included the money in its budget, and the interim leadership’s intransigence left a big hole.
To the Rescue?
Recognizing the problem, board member Ben Fhala asked committee chair Howard Polivy to give Ceruzzi an opportunity to address the board in an appeal.
Ceruzzi was, he wrote in an email, “…distressed over the sudden reneging by RIOC on providing the critically needed funds for the animals under her care, which were already accounted for in her budget. At the end of that meeting, we asked Dhru to work with the team to update the full board on this matter and to invite Rossana to speak to the full board.
“As the weeks progressed,” Fhala wrote to Polivy, “I learned that you had thoughtful conversations internally with legal and decided not to invite Rossana to speak with the board. I fear you have mistakenly not updated the full board on the matter—not publicly, not via email, and not in executive session.
“While I hope your intentions are honorable…”
Lost in the Mix
“The work she does is hard enough—she doesn’t need to deal with internal politics,” Fhala added in a follow up email.
“RIOC spends millions of dollars with very limited accountability. It’s never too late to show leadership. Will someone step up and fix this very small issue from a budget perspective and a massive issue for the quality of life of the animals under Rossana and her team’s care—or at least respect her enough to invite her to speak publicly in front of the board and allow the board to discuss this issue publicly?”
Now alerted and with Ellis having moved on, Amin responded thoughtfully.
“In regard to WFF, that needs to be addressed with the Board. I will add that to the Agenda at the next Board Meeting pending no legal issues,” she offered.
But she then added, “I would also advise Rossana to sign up for the public purpose funds as we no longer provide grants to non-profits directly.” Amin is apparently unaware of the PPF snub that initiated her appeal to Haynes and Robinson.
The Abuse of WFF Adds One Last Ingredient
While the funding issue awaits resolution, RIOC’s grounds and landscaping crew, headed by Matthew “Cut ’em All Down” Kibby and Tom Imperato – “two cat haters” – cut off water cat access to WFF’s northern shelter. Nostalgia doesn’t cover it. The pair were also recently implicated in the carless pesticide poisoning of at least 10 small animals in Southpoint.
“But while we wait for leadership to take action, can we at least provide a water source to the animals?” Fhala pleaded. “It is literally just a matter of pulling a cable and connecting them to water.”
Amin stepped up again: “As for the water source matter, that can be handled by the Grounds Team by providing the hoses. I will connect them with Rossana.”
Even with the water supply returned, we have not heard the last of this or, probably, RIOC’s years-long abuse of WFF.
The Five Amendments That Sold Out Roosevelt Island
Roosevelt Island did not lose control of its southern waterfront in a single deal. It happened in five quiet steps. Five amendments. Five missed chances to renegotiate.
