David Stone
Founder & Euro Editor
Navigating Apps with Changes in Memory: Join Our Study
December 2, 2025
Weill Cornell Medicine seeks older adults with mild memory loss for a study on improving navigation apps. Participation is valuable,...
Cracks in the Island: Public Purpose Funds
The resignation of RIOC board member Ben Fhala spotlighted transparency issues surrounding public purpose funds on Roosevelt Island. Investigative articles revealed favoritism in fund distribution, a lack of accountability, and the troubling influence of groups like RISA. The community’s voice is essential for reforming the funding process and ensuring public oversight.
Is RIVAA Double-Dipping the Public Purpose Funds?
The Public Purpose Fund plays a crucial role in supporting essential services on Roosevelt Island, yet concerns have arisen regarding the distribution of funds, particularly to the Roosevelt Island Visual Art Association (RIVAA). RIVAA received $40,000—more than any other nonprofit—while others, like the Wildlife Freedom Foundation and iDig2Learn, received significantly less or none at all. The lack of transparency in the funding process raises questions about fairness and accountability. Calls for reform include clarifying funding criteria, ensuring equitable distribution among nonprofits, and fostering transparency in applications and awards. The goal is to maintain artistic support while prioritizing community needs.
2025 Public Purpose Fund Recipients
The Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation and the New York Community Trust announced the 2025 Public Purpose Fund grants, totaling $250,000. These grants support various community initiatives, focusing on education, elder services, and the arts. Selected by a resident committee, recipients include Island Kids and the Roosevelt Island Historical Society, among others.
CBN Takes High Road After Being Nearly Skunked by NYCT/RIOC
It won’t change the botched allocations squeezed out by a strange group of supposedly unbiased, yet well-informed individuals cooked up between RIOC and the New York Community Trust, but the Carter Burden Network‘s Executive Director rose above the insult. by…
Update: What Went Wrong? Bungling Public Purpose Grants Again
Understanding what went wrong – again – with distributing public purpose funds starts with a single point. It’s an aggravating factor that’s existed for years. RIOC knows it but won’t fix it. While showing extraordinary generosity to its executives, the…
NY Community Trust Does the Impossible: PPF Grants Worse Than RIOC
The New York Community Trust (NYCT), allegedly brought in to straighten out RIOC‘s badly compromised public purpose granting process, pulled off what many thought impossible. That is, they made things worse. Some of their grants, in RIOC spirit, seem openly…
RIOC Gently Knocks Down a Common Council PPF Appeal
A PPF appeal aimed at overturning RIOC’s decision to give the task of awarding Public Purpose Grants to New York Community Trust was rejected on Friday. In a letter posted on their website, President/CEO Shelton J. Haynes gently said, “No,”…
Spurned in PPF Shakeup, Common Council Goes On Attack
The Common Council, led by Frank Farance, launched an unbridled attack on the Carter Burden Network as well as this newspaper yesterday. The Roosevelt Islander blog firmly stood by the attacks, allowing a misleading, falsehood laden screed to be distributed…
Ethical consideration of RIOC’s Public Purpose Grants
This year, RIOC funded Public Purpose Grants finally get the ethical consideration they deserve. Through an undisclosed intervention, the New York Community Trust earned responsibility, rescuing PPF grants from the brink of disaster. by David Stone The Roosevelt Island Daily…
Never give up, Roosevelt Islanders. You can make things better…
You can make things better in our community, I realized recently, when two developments proved that awareness and action pay off. Sometimes. Life under the peculiar arrangement with RIOC ain’t easy, but it isn’t hopeless either. By David Stone The…
David Stone
Founder & Euro Editor