January 2010 Election Ballot
For
New York Co-chairs of the Citizens Advisory Committee
of the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary Program
Each eligible voting member of the CAC may cast one vote for a New York co-chair.
New York Candidates
Zhennya Slootskin, Going Coastal Inc.
Roland Lewis, Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance
Citizens Advisory Committee Candidate Bios
Zhennya Sloostkin, Going Coastal, Inc.
Zhennya Slootskin is co-founder of Going Coastal, Inc., an educational nonprofit dedicated to connecting people and coastal resources. The group has been working on issues of water quality, water access and maritime heritage in the harbor estuary since 2003 ( Zhennya has researched and created waterfront access maps covering the entire NYC shoreline for the book “Going Coastal NYC” Fordham University Press, 2009. In 2008, she developed the city’s first Water Trail map. Her current projects include research and GIS data analysis of subsistence fishing on the coast of Brooklyn; mapping the 2010 NYC Water Trail for human-powered boating in the five boroughs; establishing pumpout boat operations in Little Neck Bay this summer; expanding the Going Coastal Center in Hudson River Park; and building Going Coastal's water pollution prevention campaigns such as monofilament fishing line recycling, pumpout maps for boaters and clean marina programs. Zhennya obtained Graduate Certification in Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) at CUNY Hunter, where she is pursuing a MA/PhD in Geography/Environmental Science. She holds a BA in International Business and Economics from Franklin College Lugano, Switzerland and before founding Going Coastal spent 10 years as a financial analyst and equities trader on Wall Street.
Roland Lewis, Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance
A lifetime New Yorker, Roland Lewis has worked in the field of community development since 1984, when he began as a program associate at the Trust for PublicLand. A graduate of ColumbiaUniversity, he then went on to earn a Masters of City and Regional Planning and a Juris Doctor from RutgersUniversity in 1988. This was followed by nine years as a partner in the law firm of Dellapa, Lewis, and Perseo, whose clients included not-for-profit corporations, civic groups, churches, cooperative corporations, and private real estate developers. Starting in 1997 Roland became the Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity - NYC. Roland led the organization for ten years, guiding it to become one of the top producers in the region and a nationally emulated model of Habitat urban success. In the spring of 2007, Roland took the helm of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, a newly incorporated not-for-profit dedicated to the improvement of the New York and New Jersey harbor and waterways. In addition to his professional experience with community development, Roland has also been active with many non-profit community organizations. He served as Co-Chair of Housing First! and is now on the board of the New York Foundation. Roland also currently serves as Co-Chair of the Harbor Estuary Program Citizens Advisory Committee and serves on the Freight and Maritime Advisory Board of the Center for Advanced Infrastructure & Transportation at Rutgers, The Hudson River Estuary Program Management Executive Committee, Hudson River Park Trust Advisory Council, and the Professional Advisory Committee for the New YorkHarborSchool. Roland lives in Flatbush, Brooklyn with his wife and four children.