Welcome New RIOC President B.J. Jones To Roosevelt Island, There’s Much Needed To Do

As reported last August 7, former head of the Battery Park City Authority and Executive Director of Making New York Work for Everyone, B.J. Jones was apppointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC).

Mr Jones began working at his new job of RIOC President today. I spotted him entering my afternoon office at the Cornell Tech Café and we had a brief, cordial conversation.

I welcomed Mr Jones to Roosevelt Island and asked for a future meeting and interview. Hopefully, that will happen soon.

Mr Jones then had lunch at the Cornell Cafè with RIOC Chief Operating Officer Mary Cunneen, Chief Operating Officer Dhru Amin and Deputy General Counsel Lada Stasko.

RIOC has not had a President/CEO in charge since January 2024 when former RIOC President Shelton Haynes was placed on paid administrative leave pending investigations into charges of various improprieties. As reported in April 2025:

Since January 2024, an Interim Leadership Team has been nominally in charge of Roosevelt Island running RIOC with no single person in charge. Before he left RIOC for private practice in June 2024, former Deputy General Counsel and Leadership Team member Gerrald Ellis told me the problem of not having a permanent President/CEO for RIOC:

… this interim situation is very difficult…. There are all kinds of challenges that just flow from that alone. That’s at the top of my list …. There are certain hiring decisions that we cannot or should not make while we’re in this interim position. There are big projects that we can’t explore or don’t want to explore while we’re in this position. Basic day-to-day repairs we’re obviously doing and they are big priorities for us….

… The Master Lease discussions are a major priority right now… An extension of the Master Lease. We have had conversations with the City of New York about this but we can’t really make progress on those discussions or on that negotiation until we have more certainty internally about our own governance structure, about our own direction. There are internal/external all sorts of things that flow from that one issue that we don’t yet have permanent leadership…

In addition to fixing Roosevelt Island’s crumbling infrastructure and re-negotiating the Master Lease between NY City and NY State, residents hope Mr Jones will support the proposed Roosevelt Island Tram Quick Pass idea and listen to the concerns expressed by community members.

Welcome to Roosevelt Island Mr Jones.