For almost a year now, RIOC CEO Shelton J. Haynes has been suspended as has Chief Counsel Gretchen Robinson. For months before that, state overseers restricted their activities while accusations and investigations piled up. After all that and hundreds of thousands spent, nothing thrown at them stuck. Enough already. Time to move on.
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
Enough Already
I am not Shelton Haynes’s biggest fan. But I’m also not insensitive enough that I believe he deserved the mistreatment he’s getting. For months, RIOC’s hapless board, empowered by Team Hochul, has treated Haynes and Robinson as guilty until proven innocent. That’s never been the American way and shouldn’t be here.
Yet, it is the New York way. Without a single proven charge, for example, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been pushed towards the exit. His closest associates have been kicked to the sidelines under pressure from Governor Hochul. What happened to fair play and giving the accused the benefit of the doubt?
Here on Roosevelt Island, Haynes’s predecessor Susan Rosenthal was publicly disgraced by Governor Cuomo. Yet not a single one of the charges against her were ever proven or sworn to under oath. After her abrupt dismissal, the state has fought tooth and nail against providing evidence. Her federal lawsuit over due process continues.
Management Style
Here at The Daily, we criticized Haynes’s management style and some of his decisions. But that’s opinion, not fodder from firing. We criticized Rosenthal too, as her attorney attested in court. She was never suspended for it nor fired for it.
The offense leading to Haynes’s and Robinson’s long suspension is “creating a hostile work place.”
Well, Hallelujah! Welcome to RIOC. Enough already with this nonsense.
Hostile Workplace
RIOC always was a hostile workplace, rife with grievances and official complaints. According to her sworn statement, Rosenthal was warned by RIOC’s Albany handlers of a “cabal” always undermining leadership. That was ten years ago when she came aboard as Chief Counsel.
Once Rosenthal was out, attention turned toward attacking Haynes. It reached a crescendo with a blistering bill of accusations shared with officials across the state. Titled We Deserve Better, the group filled over twenty pages. These pages contained unsubstantiated and sometimes unhinged charges. The accusations were against Haynes and virtually every member of his leadership team. All of them should be fired immediately, the accusers said.
A source other than the composers met me in Nisi with an advance copy. I grew angrier with every page because it was irresponsible, publicly – and anonymously – defaming at least a half-dozen people. But suspiciously, a handful of RIOC managers escaped all criticism. This hinted at the authors’ identity.
The We Deserve Better missive undermined legitimate concerns over RIOC’s behavior while praising none of it. Worst of all, the letter triggered yet another investigation by the Inspector General. Was any of it true? Well, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
But none of it stuck nor did any the other investigations.
Swift Emergency Medical
The We Deserve Better attackers took special issue with Haynes’s recruiting Swift as operator of the a COVID testing site. Getting a site opened in the center of town met a wish made by many Roosevelt Islanders during the pandemic. Haynes whipped it together fast.
While his enemies focused on Swift, they didn’t notice that Haynes negotiated use of the testing space for next to nothing. Hudson-Related, under David Kramer, chipped in.
No legitimate complaints ever surfaced about operations. Users were happy with the results. Not as many as expected came in, though. In the haze of the pandemic, anyone could have gotten that wrong. No bad intent ever surfaced.
Enough already with the Corruption Charges
Haynes’s critics anonymously insinuated corrupt dealings between Haynes and Swift’s manager. He was, they wrote, a close pal, but that was a lie. Haynes did not know any of Swift’s managers before the contract was considered.
More transparency in the purchasing process would’ve been better. However, during the COVID emergency period, the state waived many guidelines to favor getting things done.
Not in this instance nor in any others was there ever any evidence of Haynes participating in under the table deals. Here at The Daily, in our due diligence, we asked multiple insiders. Not one, including managers fired by Haynes, thought he was a crook.
The Pluses and The Minuses
Haynes was no more perfect nor demonstrably imperfect than other RIOC executives. We would argue, though, that some things that went off the rails should not be assigned to him at all.
First, Haynes did not plan or inspire Susan Rosenthal’s firing. That was all cooked and served from Governor Cuomo’s team. True, a recording made by Haynes was instrumental, but he did not volunteer it. He responded appropriately when approached by a Cuomo operative digging for dirt. But Haynes did not think Rosenthal would be fired nor did he believe it was justified.
Haynes benefited from Rosenthal’s dismissal, but he also took on a burden beyond his training or experience. He was operations manager one day, in charge of the whole carnival the next. He quickly reorganized staffing, although he should have let the dust settle first.
He charged straight ahead with an eye on improving RIOC. No aid came from Albany. He also received no guidance from the board he inherited. Had he gone slower and not riled up the longtime cabal of staff antagonists, results may have been better.
That’s not suggesting that nothing went well. Haynes gets credit for the COVID testing site, of course. But he also got Sportspark reopened, Motorgate rehabbed and the Youth Center refurbished. There’ were’s more, but these are representative.
Personnel Issues
Haynes took flack for firing a lot of people. But a big chunk of those fired were staff members who’d undermined management for years. No one else had the guts to oust them, but Haynes took the hit.
There were times when he went too far. No one, for example, helped Haynes more through all the COVID stresses than CFO John O’Reilly. O’Reilly had the fiscal smarts Haynes didn’t have as an operations manager. He also had the construction experience that aided with rebuilding Southpoint while preserving the Roosevelt Island’s historic lighthouse.
But somewhere, their relationship soured, and with O’Reilly gone, Haynes worked with far less and weaker support. Similarly, retaining Terrance McCauley as public relations director would’ve prevented the fiascoes that followed with Akeem Jamal. Sacking Arthur Eliav on suspicious grounds deprived RIOC of its ethical center.
Finally: Enough Already with Staffing
Here at The Daily, our concerns were about transparency and accountability. We believe Haynes missed chances for uplifting his accomplishments by shutting local media out. We understand, given what he inherited as staff, why he reacted defensively. Better for him, better for the community, if he hadn’t.
What many missed in the cloud of Haynes’s and Robinson’s suspensions is a plain and simple truth. Haynes did some great hiring. Three people – Dhruvika Patel Amin, Gerrald Ellis and Bryant Daniels – stepped into leadership in his absence. He hired each of them. The fourth wheel in the interim leadership team, Mary Cunneen, was promoted into the role by Haynes. Each performed admirably on short notice with staff shortages on all sides.
It’s a sad irony and a another strike against Team Hochul and RIOC’s board. Neither gave Haynes the support or assistance he needed or requested. But when the chips were down, each let Haynes take all the blame.
Enough already. They don’t have enough to end Haynes’s tenure. Give him his job and his dignity back. Get us out of this endless quicksand.
“I Can Ask”
Chair Fay Christian opened the Operations Advisory Committee on February 12th, reading out member names from a prepared sheet that omitted Melissa Wade. It didn’t feel intentional, but it struck me as odd precisely because it came from something prepared. Lydia Tang gently corrected her, noting that Wade was, in fact, a member of the committee. Wade met the moment with grace, or perhaps she simply wasn’t bothered by it.
