Is RIOC giving away community assets? Favoring one group over all the others? Or does the PTA have some special right to all the revenue from the Farmers Market? We asked. Here’s how many answers we got: ZERO. What’s with all the secrecy?
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
“This was always my market,” Israel Wengerd told Time Out New York. His family’s produce fills tables with bright-colored fruits and vegetables in Good Shepherd Plaza. He also brings in organic yogurt and breads. He’s been at it since 1998 when he was twelve. He inherited the business from his father.
But not so, according to the PS/IS 217 PTA.
“Thanks to the support and collaboration with the Roosevelt Island Operating Committee (RIOC), the PS/IS 217 PTA is proud to manage the Roosevelt Island Farmers Market.”
They’re in such a tizzy of appreciation, they couldn’t even get RIOC’s corporate name right.
Farmers Market regulars may not have known that because the PTA doesn’t really manage the market. Mostly, they just collect the cash. No strings attached. No accountability of any kind? Where does the money go? Your guess is as good as anyone else’s. The PTA doesn’t say, and RIOC, which gives it away, has no idea.
“Our volunteers are primarily responsible for visiting the market on Saturdays and collecting rent payments from vendors,” the PTA said in 2017, appealing for more volunteers. Enough PTA members – that is every parent with a child in the school – couldn’t be scraped up to collect the money. “So if you live nearby or regularly shop at the farmer’s market, PLEASE HELP your community and school by getting involved today,” it concluded.
What’s with the secrecy?
The lack of transparency and accountability poisons trust in American government. It’s everywhere. The public, which pays all the bills, fights for its right to know. Roosevelt Island is no exception.
All those things we don’t know about the Farmers Market…
- How much does the PTA collect? An informed guess is a minimum of $25,000 a year. It’s probably much higher, but the PTA refused an emailed request for details.
- How is the money spent? For what?
- Why does RIOC give away the space for nothing?
- Why doesn’t RIOC at least monitor or audit compliance? Why don’t they check how much money gets collected? How are the public assets spent?
- Who determines charges for the market and which vendors get in and which don’t?
Pretty much everything about operating the Farmers Market is shrouded in secrecy. But why? People with nothing to hide don’t hide anything. So, why did the PTA answer our request for information with “Please direct your inquiry to the DOE Press Office at: press@schools.nyc.gov…?”
The “DOE” – Department of Education -plays no role in the Farmers Market or the deal with RIOC. It’s a misdirection tactic, but why?
A little history
The “support and collaboration with the Roosevelt Island Operating Committee” is longstanding. It may have started with good intentions, but nobody knows. The PTA executives churn as their children pass through the grades at PS/IS 217. And RIOC? RIOC has the institutional memory of a sump pump.
Back in 2017, RIOC’s unorthodox Chief Counsel Jaci Flug answered a question from the Roosevelt Islander blog. ” RIOC does not operate the Farmer’s Market, we have simply given permission to the PA to use RIOC land for this. We have no other role in the Farmer’s Market.”
Why, though?
Jaci apparently just felt like it.
Why “Managing” The Farmers Market Matters
“The License Fee/Access Control Fee is hereby waived.” That is, RIOC gives the space away for nothing, but Good Shepherd Plaza is public property? How do they get off giving exclusive rights – for free – to a single organization?
As far as anyone knows, there was never an approval process that went through the board. No other, likely more needy nonprofits got a shot. It’s a RIOC giveaway of considerable public value without any hint of explanation from either party.
The PS/IS 217 PTA also gets a hefty chunk of RIOC’s Public Purpose Funds, but that goes through a process. Others get a fair shot.
In perspective, Public Purpose Fund recipients go through a rigorous process layered in useless, bureaucratic paperwork. For some, it’s like groveling. In other instances, as seen recently with Wildlife Freedom Foundation, RIOC resists paying even for services rendered.
Is it just an infinite loop of “We do this because we’ve always done it because we’ve always done it because…?” You get the picture. Is RIOC simply careless?
Why the PTA is also an issue…
Astonishing as it is that the PTA rakes in cash that should be public revenue, that’s surpassed by RIOC’s never requesting any accounting. (We asked.) Worse yet, there are no records as to how the money get used.
This matters because the PTA was instrumental in ousting the Roosevelt Island Youth Program. RIOC has its own reasons for that sour deed, but according to RIYP head Charlie DeFino, the PTA was suspect. The PTA, supported by school principal Mandana Beckman, wanted incoming revenue used for teacher benefits. In DeFino’s argument, he pissed them off by insisting that all the money go directly to the kids.
Moreover, there have always been questions about the PTA budget. How did it support the cause of children’s betterment? Was it well-accounted for? Nobody outside the school knows. RIOC gives the value away but, then, never looks back.
Was Farmers Market Income Misused?
According to an informant, in 2023, $6,000 turned up missing from the PTA’s funds. We asked, “Sources tell us that there was a theft from your accounts within the last year and a half. Please provide a summary of the incident, your policy report and how the lost revenue was accounted for.”
The PTA’s Co-Presidents, Amanda Brown and Jessica Setton, did not answer, flubbing a clear opportunity to deny it happened.
Has this happened before? Who’s watching? Where is the public record accounting for the Farmers Market money collected?
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Finally…
The greater question is why has RIOC been so careless with public resources? None should be dished out on a whim or because “That’s the way we’ve always done it.”
The PTA and all other well-meaning organizations are run by people. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that people are always flawed. That’s why we have audits. Especially where public resources are in the mix, accountability should be mandatory. But here, it is not.
Neither RIOC nor anyone else outside the school knows how much the PTA reaped over the years from Farmers Market collections. Similarly, details on how hundreds of thousands of dollars got spent are not known. This not a responsible way of overseeing public resources by any government entity.
Before resigning from RIOC’s board, Ben Fhala struggled with the state agency’s opaque financing. The hard right board majority resisted transparency as if it had something to hide. Is this another example? And who will stand up and demand answers now that Fhala has that weight off his shoulders?
A Vote in the Shadows: When the Public Record Disagrees with Fay Christian
There are two truths in public governance. Timelines do not lie. And silence is often the loudest answer.
