As a new heat wave raised temperatures yesterday, RIOC rushed out an advisory and set up a cooling center in the Good Shepherd Community Center. RIOC now is a settled, efficient operation despite inherited turmoil.
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
Criticisms of RIOC will continue, but a closer look shows some remarkable work and steadiness.
RIOC Now: Facade Removed
The truth is that the team now leading the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation gets its work done despite being left with a heap of debris from years of fiscal and physical mismanagement.
Dangling by a thread of who-knows-what, an interim leadership team took over running the business when RIOC’s hapless board suspended its top two executives. Without a clue about how long that would last, Deputy Chief Counsel Gerrald Ellis, Chief Financial Officer Dhruvika Patel Amin and Acting Chief Operating Officer Mary Cunneen waded in.
Add an unofficial salute to Communications Director Bryant Daniels who’s contributed well above his pay grade.
The idea that they did so well may be attributed to the contrast with what they replaced, but that’s only part of the story…. because they’ve steadied a leaky, damaged ship without all the traditional drama.
The Team
The original leadership team lasted just six months. In June, Ellis accepted an offer outside RIOC. He had a lot of internal and external support for a promotion to CEO, but with the current top exec still under suspension, no opportunity existed.
Now filling out the leadership team is longtime staff attorney Lada Stasko. Sturdy, smart and assertive, Stasko has avoided the drama that swirls through RIOC. But part of an extremely short legal staff, she has to dig through a daily pile of files and paperwork just to stay above water.
Dhruvika Patel Amin
Better known simply as Dhru, Amin settled in at RIOC in the midst of turmoil. Legally mandated preliminary budget figures were due in weeks and her predecessor was already gone. The boss who hired her was in trouble with lawsuits flying back and forth. But with impressive clarity and calm, she got the budgets out on time and approved in Albany.
Since then, Amin evolved as a steady hand guiding the state agency, keeping staff performance steady and high. Her integrity and good intentions are beyond question. She has a lot on her plate, though, including a legacy of fiscal mismanagement, purchasing issues and a need for infrastructure investment.
Acting COO Mary Cunneen
RIOC now has a mystery on its hands. Cunneen’s loyalty to suspended CEO Shelton J. Haynes put her in the spotlight after some bad decisions and questionable conduct. It resulted, just before Haynes’s suspension, in the board’s declining a motion to remove the “Acting” from her title.
But supporters say that Cunneen “was the employee most abused by Shelton.” Without disclosing details with multiple investigations pending, they suggest that he used her as cover for his own questionable conduct, dangling unjustifiable pay raises and job protection in return for loyalty.
We don’t have enough evidence to confirm or refute, but what we do know is that Cunneen has perform well since Haynes’s departure. She worked with Amin in getting approval for expensive new buses and resolved a years-long dispute over payments for work done at McManus Field.
Less visible, though, is her commitment to transparency. However challenging, in person or in emails, she answers journalists’ questions fully and without blinking.
RIOC Now
Despite a feuding and largely dysfunctional board of directors, RIOC’s interim leadership has done a great job of keeping the operation doing what it’s supposed to do – operate.
- Despite a deeply reduce fleet, Red Buses are running, if with some limitations.
- A plan for repairing a broken down Main Street is well underway.
- The grounds are clean and a plan for summer beautification has flowers setting a tone along Main Street.
- Behind the scenes, bills are getting paid.
- There have been no new lawsuits nor any of the drama that always weakened RIOC.
Operations are not perfect, but they are, so far, much better than Roosevelt Island expected, based on past experience.
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.
