Response To RIRA President Slamming Maple Tree Group On RIOC Nominee Elections – Come See Discussion at Tomorrow ‘s RIRA Meeting

Image of June 2010 RIRA Meeting
After a summer layoff and big changes on Roosevelt Island including a new RIOC President , the Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) Common Council will be holding it’s Monthly Meeting tomorrow night, September 15, at the Good Shepherd Community Center’s Lower level beginning at 8 PM.At some point during the RIRA meeting, perhaps the entire meeting, we can expect some RIRA members to express dissatisfaction with RIRA President Frank Farance. The reason for this dissatisfaction is due in whole, or part, to two recent columns Mr. Farance wrote for the Main Street WIRE and this blog in which he criticized the decision made by members of the Maple Tree Group to recommend that elections for nomination to the RIOC Board be held in November 2012 rather than November of 2010. Mr. Farance also criticized the process by which the Maple Tree Group arrived at it’s decision.Mr. Farance’s columns are here – August 27 (item 10) and September 11 (Item 5). Please read them in order to understand the substance of this disagreement.Several RIRA and Maple Tree Group members, some members overlap both groups, objected to Mr. Farance’s comments. In fact, they took strong exception to put it mildly. I offered those who I knew objected an opportunity to present their views and they are below. A version of all these comments also appeared in the Main Street WIRE Before we get to the critical comments concerning Mr. Farance’s statements, here is an email message from Maple Tree Member and RIRA Government Relations Committee Chair Ashton Barfield to RIRA Council Members providing some background on the Maple Tree Group and explaining the RIOC Board Nominee election decision making process. A version of this message also appeared in the August 28 Main Street WIRE (PDF File) Page 12. From Ms. Barfield:

Dear fellow Common Council members,

In advance of our September 15 meeting, I’m writing to you, on behalf of the Maple Tree Group subcommittee of the Government Relations Committee, about RIOC Board elections. This is a long, complicated email, and I apologize for that, but we want to give you everything you need in order to understand the issues, and to be able to discuss them before, as well as during, the meeting.

BACKGROUND ON THE MAPLE TREE GROUP (MTG)

As most of you know, MTG has been working since 1997 with our successive Assemblymembers and State Senators (and met once with then-Governor Pataki) to have the members of the RIOC Board be residents, and be elected by the community. To the extent presently possible, those goals have been achieved: per the 2002 Open Spaces law, at least five Board members must be residents; and although the Governor still appoints the Board members, he now considers recommendations from the community based on our election results. The first elections were held in February 2008 (resulting in 4 of the top 6 vote-getters eventually being appointed) and May 2009 (resulting in the top 2 vote-getters eventually being appointed). MTG developed the election framework, produced the elections, and followed the progress of the winners through to appointment. MTG continues to work for legislation to guarantee direct election of the Board members; achieving this last step will be difficult, since the Governor will have to sign a bill reducing gubernatorial authority. (MTG has been a subcommittee of the Government Relations Committee (GRC) since 1999. The present membership is Ashton Barfield, David Bauer, Linda Heimer, Sherie Helstien, Matthew Katz, Dick Lutz, Nurit Marcus, and Joyce Mincheff.)

ELECTION CONSIDERATIONS AND OUR CONCLUSIONS

Over the past four months, MTG has been compiling and assessing information about RIOC Board election dates, appointment dates, tenure durations, and term-expiration dates, in order to arrive at what seems the most appropriate timing for the next RIOC election. The following is a presentation of the results of our deliberations, the rationales underlying our conclusions, and the pros and cons of the choices. (We included the three non-MTG members of GRC and Frank Farance in our discussions, but ultimately not in our vote, since they were less familiar with all the issues and since they will have the opportunity to express themselves fully with the rest of the Common Council. Their opinions were split on the only disputed issue, and their votes would not have changed the balance.)

1. Our first conclusion was that RIOC elections must be held in conjunction with RIRA elections, which are themselves held in conjunction with the even-year November federal and state elections. The rationale for these conjunctions is obvious: the turnout for the other elections optimizes the turnout for our local elections, and thereby optimizes the validity, for the community, of the voters’ choices. Our vote was unanimous for this conclusion.

2. Another conclusion was that we should seek regularization of the start/end dates of the RIOC Board terms. The term dates are inherent to the seats, not the incumbents — the term dates aren’t determined by the election dates or the appointment dates — and although each term lasts four years, the start/end dates are all over the place. (See the attached grid of detailed data for current Board members and their seats.) As a result, although the candidates in the first RIOC election were theoretically running for four-year terms, in practice they were appointed to the remaining portions of the four-year terms of vacated seats: 1 year, 1.9 years, 2.6 years, and 3 years. We hope, through Assemblymember Kellner, to get the terms fixed so that they end uniformly in odd-numbered years, at an appropriate interval following RIOC elections in even-year Novembers. But this regularization will not happen soon, and so we must devise a workable interim system for the existing mess. No vote was needed/taken on this issue. (During the discussions, Frank Farance said that he’s considering a referendum for the November RIRA election that would encourage RIOC and the Governor to establish a regular cycle.)

The attached grid, which I referenced above, will help you understand the factors that we’ve wrestled with. One thing that you need to keep in mind, while evaluating the various issues, is that candidates are not running for particular seats; a group of candidates is running for a group of seats. As the seat-terms expire, the Governor can do any number of things with our recommended winners: appoint all of the top vote-getters to the available seats in order of their votes; skip over some of the winners and appoint candidates with fewer votes (as happened to Frank Farance and Erin Feely-Nahem in 2008); or ignore some/all of them completely and appoint people who were not even candidates (and possibly aren’t even residents).

Here’s a summary version of the grid data that shows the durations of service, since appointment and since seat-term expiration, that will exist at election time in November 2010, 2012, and 2014. (Since members serve until replaced, an incumbent who doesn’t run or isn’t re-elected could continue in office past seat-term expiration until a newly-elected replacement is appointed.)

NOV 2010
2.3 yrs Christian — expired for 0.4 yr
2.3 yrs Kalkin
2.3 yrs Kraut (plus 14 yrs, 6/94-6/08)
2.3 yrs Grimm (re-appointed without re-election after 1 year)
1.4 yrs Polivy
0.75 yrs Shinozaki (plus 4.4 yrs, 12/04-5/09)
0.75 yrs Smith

NOV 2012
4.3 yrs Christian — expired for 2.4 yrs
4.3 yrs Kalkin — expired for 1.3 yrs
4.3 yrs Kraut — re-expired for 1.3 yrs
4.3 yrs Grimm (won’t re-expire for 0.7 yr)
3.4 yrs Polivy — expired for 0.8 yr
2.75 yrs Shinozaki
2.75 yrs Smith

NOV 2014
6.3 yrs Grimm — re-expired for 1.3 yrs 5.4 yrs Polivy — expired for 2.8 yrs
4.75 yrs Shinozaki — re-expired for 1.3 yrs
4.75 yrs Smith — expired for 1.3 yrs

3. The third conclusion that we eventually reached, by a 7-1 vote (see end of paragraph), was that 2010 is too soon for the next RIOC election (the earliest appointees having served only 2.3 years), that it should therefore take place in 2012, and that the seats to be filled then would be those of the four members appointed in 2008 (Christian, Kalkin, Kraut, Grimm). Subsequent elections would be every two years, with a three-four alternation of the seven resident seats to ensure that there would never be complete Board turnover following an election. Thus, the 2014 election would be for the seats of three members appointed in 2009-2010 (Polivy, Shinozaki, Smith). The 2016 election would be for the seats of the four members elected in 2012, and so on. Our vote on this conclusion was framed as 2012 versus 2010. Barfield, Bauer, Heimer, Helstien, Katz, Lutz, and Marcus voted for 2012; Mincheff voted for 2010.

As you can see from the attached grid and from the summary list above, there are numerous problems associated with fitting the seat-terms and tenures into the even-year-November framework (see section below). There is no simple choice. Some of the problems are the same whether the next election is in 2012 or in 2010. For the problems that are different, there are tradeoffs for each. (Unfortunately, some of the problems won’t go away even in the very best scenario, of direct elections and regularized seat-term expirations.)

PROBLEMS OF FITTING THE SEAT-TERMS AND TENURES INTO THE EVEN-YEAR-NOVEMBER FRAMEWORK

* VULNERABILITY — Although the four members appointed in 2008 will have served only 2.3 years in November 2010, one of their seat-terms is now expired (May 2010), and two of the other three will expire in June 2011. (The fourth was re-appointed by the Governor in June 2009, when the seat-term expired after only one year’s tenure.) Also, the member appointed in May 2009 (only 1.4 years of service in November 2010) will expire in December 2011. Since Board members continue to serve after seat-term expiration until replaced, there’s no automatic vacancy created by the expiration, but there could be increased vulnerability to having the member replaced by gubernatorial whim prior to our next election. To protect against this, we are seeking State confirmation of the precedent established by our elections.

* OVER VERSUS UNDER — If we wait until 2012, to avoid severely undershooting the four-year tenures that are premised in the elections (and preferable), we will overshoot by some months (indeterminate because of the numerous factors involved, such as the irreducible minimum of time for the State to vet non-incumbents, and unrelated delays by the Governor or the Senate, which must confirm the appointments). Most of us felt that, forced to choose, we would opt for extended tenures over foreshortened tenures, since the member’s most productive years of service to the community will be after the initial adjustment and learning period. (It was also felt that 1.4 or 2.3 years in office was an insufficient basis for re-election evaluation.)

* STALE CANDIDATES AND LONG LAME-DUCK PERIODS — If we were to have elections in 2010, to avoid the problems of expired terms and/or longer-than-four-year tenures, we would be holding elections for seats whose terms will not expire for 8-14 months (31 months for the reappointed member). If an incumbent is not re-elected (possibly because of an insufficient basis for evaluation), that person is still entitled to complete his/her term. There are several possible nightmare scenarios, including: an electee who is no longer able to serve by the time an incumbent’s term expires; un-re-elected incumbents who leave their seats early, creating long vacancies while prospective members are vetted by the State (and possibly rejected, causing even longer vacancies and a crisis of how to fill the seats — possibly with people who got fewer (too few?) votes, or with non-electees in disregard of our electoral process).

* INHERENT STRUCTURAL PROBLEM — The hypothetical melodrama presented above in STALE CANDIDATES AND LONG LAME-DUCK PERIODS is an exaggerated version of an unavoidable problem: As noted in OVER VERSUS UNDER, after our elections, it will take time for the State to reappoint incumbents, and even more time to vet non-incumbents before appointing them (if at all). This vetting will be required even if we eventually get direct elections and regularized seat-terms, because Board members are appointed to a State governing body.

Again, sorry that this email is so long and so complicated, but as you can see, the issues are complicated, and their importance is such that they deserve your fully-informed and thoughtful consideration — so that we can have an electoral system that serves our Island well over the years, as Board members come and go.

Looking forward to seeing you all in a few weeks, and hoping that you’ve had a wonderful summer,

Ashton Barfield

for the Maple Tree Group subcommittee

of the Government Relations Committee

Here’s a link to the RIOC Directors term chart in the 10/28/10 Main Street WIRE RIOC Directors Term CHART Again, for reference, here are Mr. Farance’s columns on subject – August 27 and September 11. A version of the comments below in response to Mr. Farance also appeared in the September 11 Main Street WIRE (PDF File).Here we go.From Mathew Katz, former RIRA President, current RIRA Planning Committee Chair and current Candidate for RIRA President in the 2010 RIRA Elections:

My Websters Third New International Dictionary defines a whopper as a monstrous lie, and that is what RIRA President, Frank Farance, has accused the Maple Tree Group of perpetrating in his August 28 RIRA Column. When you think of how long RIRA and MTG have worked together towards common goals, this is a sad thing. However, Frank has been using intemperate language regarding friends, allies and colleagues for almost two years now.

He declined to define what this lie might be, and so, we cant respond. He accuses us of a secret meeting in which a vote on when to pursue a RIOC Board election was decided; a meeting that never took place. The debate among the RIOC Board elections core group has been long and involved, and conducted entirely by email, with the interested members of the Government Relations Committee (including Frank) included. The same August 28 WIRE issue in which Frank fulminates against our closed discussions, goes into several pages of detail on what the issues are, what data was analyzed and what our findings were. This material had been shared by email with the entire Common Council (well in advance of our next meeting on September 15, I might add) and the resident RIOC Board members, thus compounding the secret.

The central area of disagreement focuses on whether to hold RIOC Board elections this November or to wait until 2012. This is not a simple decision, and Ashton Barfield presented considerable discussion as to what criteria we considered to reach our 7 to 1 vote in favor of delaying until 2012.

Frank insists that he is on the MTG Committee, but in fact, has not participated in the decade-long rewriting of the legislation that created RIOC in 1984 nor has he participated in the 2007 work that devised and produced the first RIOC Board election. He notes, correctly, that he could not engage in our work while a candidate for the Board (he garnered the third highest vote count, but the Governor declined to appoint him), however, in the 26 months since the Board appointments resulting from that election, he has not participated in the well-documented work of the MTG Working Group or in the second election we organized for the community. Frank was a RIRA member during those years and, as RIRA President, was ex officio member of every RIRA committee, and could have included himself in our activities at any time.

MTG began in 1997 as noted in Ashtons comprehensive article and at one time, boasted almost one hundred members. Our group has been whittled down over the years by weariness, attrition and frustration, leaving nine core members to accept the challenge of devising and producing RIOC Board elections without any guarantee that the Governor would appoint any of our choices. We recently solicited new members to bolster our group (including Frank) but withheld from them a vote on our deliberations until those folks had declared their commitment to the process. We believe that decisions are made by those who show up. At this writing, the current core group are the only shower uppers.

RIRA is not part of government and what influence we have is dependent upon our powers of persuasion. It is unfortunate that Frank has spent much of his term as president alienating many of those whose good will we must have to further our issues. When you are as powerless as any residents association is by definition, burning your bridges with the powerful is profoundly counter-productive. SPEAKING ONLY FOR MYSELF, I WISH that Frank would consider what is best for RIRA and for this community before indulging himself as he has.

Matthew Katz

RIOC Elections Working Group

Maple Tree Group

Chair, RIRA Planning Committee

RIRA President, 2000-2002, 2002-2004, 2006-2008

There’s More!