When fresh forces push for necessary change, tensions always rise. The burn is proportional to the level of resistance. In the case of RIOC’s board, it’s hot. The September 19th board meeting shows how and, maybe, why.
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
Table of contents
Tensions Even Before
Before every RIOC board meeting, a public session allows comments from residents and others who make their issues known directly to the members. It’s often benign but less so in recent years.
Kicking off, Rosanna Ceruzzi, executive director of the Wildlife Freedom Foundation (WFF), began the session. She laid her frustrations at the feet of the board members. Ceruzzi has provided animal control and protection services to RIOC and residents for years. RIOC has rewarded her with a contract that renews annually, but this year, CEO Shelton Haynes was suddenly suspended. WFF had an agreement in process with Haynes and Chief Counsel Gretchen Robinson. Her small nonprofit depends on it, but the interim management team rejected it – without explanation.
Among Ceruzzi’s complaints is that – more than six months later – no one told her why. She is left without funds or any basis for appeal. Adding to her frustrations are alleged incidents of harassment by RIOC employees. Those have been confirmed privately.
The most apparent but undisclosed issue, though, is current management’s fight with Haynes over his survival.
Berdy Speaks Up
Historical Society President and resident activist Judith Berdy made a case. She argued that New York Community Trust contract for distributing Public Purpose Funds should not be renewed. She repeated complaints heard from multiple nonprofits applying for funds about NYCT’s detachment and bureaucracy. Berdy advocated a return to a community based approach. (The board later approved the contract despite the complaints.)
Berdy’s second comment was more dramatic, and it was barbed. She excoriated the board over maintaining suspended executives, Haynes and Chief Counsel Gretchen Robinson, at full pay and benefits. “Make a decision,” Berdy pleaded.
The so-called investigation of Haynes and Robinson has gone on for nine months. There has been no confirmation of wrongdoing by either party. Nor has there been any explanation of why the costly investigation should go on so long. It’s harmful to RIOC, Haynes, Robinson and for the frustrated community footing all the bills.
This possibility remains unacknowledged. The board may be scapegoating Haynes and Robinson as a way of deflecting its own incompetence. After all, both worked for the board, not vice versa. And it remains true that a majority of the board consists of old timers who can’t get over themselves. They’ve fumbled many things and never accept blame.
This topic grew heated during the official meeting.
Tensions Flare
A sharp dichotomy is evolving at RIOC. The board has a hard right majority. They resist change inspired by reformists Lydia Tang and Ben Fhala. Both joined the board in 2022 intending to make it creatively functional after years of negligence. Major points of conflict are the corporation’s bylaws. Another issue is the absence of a legally mandatory Governance Committee.
We learned earlier from Fhala and Tang that the RIOC’s Governance Committee had not functioned for over a decade. This committee is a key legal requirement. We learned last night, without objection from the conservatives, that RIOC’s bylaws are so out of date that they are no longer relevant.
That is, RIOC has functioned – or more correctly, malfunctioned – without a guiding core document for years. Board members Howard Polivy, David Kraut and Fay Christian sat through all of it. Representatives from the State Budget Office and Homes and Community Renewal were also there.
Obvious misconduct exposed usually humbles, but not.with RIOC. Instead, it’s hubris.
Attacking the Fixers
As the full board is aware, Tang devoted this summer to a project of reviewing the bylaws and fixing them. The majority of the sitting board let the bylaws wilt over a decade, but Tang took the task on. In long, focused meetings, she ran the changes through a revitalized Governance Committee. The topic is dry as a moonscape, but Tang along with Fhala poured countless volunteer hours into the job. They compared old, decayed content against new models.
Even in disagreement, their meetings chugged along without unnecessary tension.
Board member Conway Ekpo also pitched in with expertise as did community members Margie Smith and Audrey Tannen. Staffers, CFO Dhruvika Patel Amin and Associate Counsel Lada Stasko, participated actively in the meetings. They contributed countless hours in support. It was a team effort, and it succeeded.
While the team got a “thank you” from Budget Office surrogate Morris Peters, it dripped with condescension. In the same breath, he demanded information on “the process,” extensive details and an outside lawyer review.
Peters’s department participated completely in the debacle Tang is trying to fix. Moreover, it has annually approved flawed RIOC budgets leaving the agency in perilous fiscal straits. Now, he insists that Tang and the reformers meet his conditions.
Carry On Regardless
Tang patiently walked the board through how the work of arriving at new bylaws happened. Of course, Peters wasn’t satisfied. In the end, he insisted on investing untold thousands in outside counsel reviews. Amin’s concerns about adding more to the massive burden of outside counsel bills was whisked aside. RIOC outstanding staff lawyer, Stasko, had already reviewed the documents and approved them, but Peters remained unhappy.
Kraut and Christian, though, vied for most offensive, worse than Peters. If arrogance and bad manners were the main criteria, Kraut won handily. Kraut, since his term has long ago expired and who no longer lives on Roosevelt Island, should be replaced. As in the past, using a video screen and speaker, participating remotely, Kraut repeatedly screamed over others, especially Fhala. He objected not just to content but that anyone would actually introduce content he didn’t like. His rants were often as indecipherable as a Trump word salad. And just as bellicose. The definitions of offensive bloviating.
But for sheer disrespect and gall, Christian topped him
Christian sat idly by for over ten years while the corporate bylaws wilted like orchids in October. Without embarrassment, Christian accused Tang of “rushing” the new bylaws. She demanded that the board not be controlled “by your vacation plans,” whatever the hell that meant. Christian could not even rise to the occasion of complimenting Tang. He also did not thank Tang for a summer full of work fixing the neglect.
The vengeful hubris of the hard right board conservatives was, by then, in full swing.
But tensions were already in play…
… because Christian, Peters and Anderson went after Fhala on the first issue of the day.
Tensions hung in the air like a piñata waiting for a whack. Fhala proposed a resolution. This resolution defined Howard Polivy’s roles as board liaison with RIOC staff. This proposal inspired a right wing attack. It seemed a logical move given the ambiguities recognized so far.
Polivy played a pivotal role in getting Haynes and Robinson suspended, but his motives have been suspect. In his sworn statement in a lawsuit brought by the suspended executives, Polivy admitted that he’d previously sought an investigation. His goal was to exonerate Haynes from staff and media criticisms.
A snail’s pace reversal occurred. Five staff members came to him with concerns about Haynes’s and Robinson’s conduct. These issues persisted over six months. He then sought their suspensions.
But wait a minute. The Daily and others are aware of multiple managers turning to Polivy in prior years. In one case, an insider claims that Polivy ratted out Chief Counsel Don Lewis. This led to his firing a few days later by then CEO Charlene Indelicato. (Lewis sued RIOC over it and won.)
Why now?
Polivy offered no explanation why, after three years of supporting Haynes, he suddenly changed his mind. Rumors swirled that Polivy coveted Haynes’s position, and some alleged activities tended to support the charges. Polivy, Fhala said, became involved in RIOC’s daily activities and was reporting back the Visnauskas without advising the board.
Whether true or not, these were activities Fhala’s resolution sought avoiding.
Curiously, though, Christian attacked, not on the merits but on Fhala’s style of making his concerns public. The board covets operating out of public view, and here it was out in the wild. For their parts, Peters and Anderson rejected the resolution on technical grounds. They argued that it was not old business. Secondly, it was not appropriate in public session. Kraut just screamed incoherently.
In the end, as tensions rose, the board made a decision. They decided to move the question to executive session. The issue could be hidden behind closed doors there.
But before that door closed, Fhala added to public applause that he would also pose a resolution that Haynes’s and Robinson’s statuses be changed to “unpaid leave.” The hard right majority was almost apoplectic. For the record, while such discussions may legally be hidden within “executive session,” nothing bars anyone from reporting their intentions.
Positives play against the tensions
Throughout and despite the board tensions, RIOC’s professional staff performed well. Acting COO Mary Cunneen scored well with a detailed presentation of Red Bus challenges and partial successes. We learned some new things, among them that RIOC needs eight functioning buses for proper operations. (They have 4 and 1/4 now, but only a mini-bus younger than 7 years old.)
And the almost inexhaustible expertise of Lada Stasko came in handy on multiple occasions. No one had to coax her. If Stasko saw a chance to contribute, she volunteered. CFO Amin kept a level head while chaotic tensions swirled. She could not be knocked off balance, a quality that has critical during her twelve plus months at RIOC.
It grows clearer by the day. RIOC’s board cannot keep up with its staff. It tangles the hardest workers into knots. Worst of all is chair RuthAnne Visnauskas who plays ostrich while sidestepping responsibilities.
The Public Purpose Fund Increase
CFO Amin recognized the needs and contributions of Roosevelt Island nonprofits. For the first time in nearly a decade, the amount was increased. Former board member Margie Smith has pushed hard for it. The total jumped from over 60% from $150K to $250K.
That said and acknowledged, it was in reality something like the warden making an announcement. He was telling those living on bread and water that they’re getting another slice of bread. As Amin noted, years ago, legislation allowed Public purpose funds of up to 3% of RIOC’s operating budget. That would more than 4X the increased amount.
The jaw drop moment
We learned something else. When board member Michal Melamed asked for clarification concerning Cunneen’s statement that she took over management of the buses in December 2023, Cunneen reported something stunning.
Until December, when Haynes’s suspension started, the executive in charge of buses was not the COO. Instead, it was “the AVP of Human Resources.” Without any known expertise in the field, Tajuna Sharpe was assigned oversight of Island transportation. Another little bit of spit in the face of residents footing all of RIOC’s bills.
Sharpe left RIOC earlier this year without any explanation.
In Closing
After the regular business ended, the board went into executive session, discussing legal issues for three hours. The public, of course, was never updated.
AVAC Is Working. The Model Is What’s Aging.
Roosevelt Island’s AVAC system is often discussed as if it were either a miracle or a menace. In truth, it is neither. It is functioning infrastructure that has reached a point in its lifecycle where how it is maintained matters as much as whether it exists at all.
