The Hoboken Housing Authority (HHA) Board of Commissioners held its first full meeting under interim Executive Director Robert DiVincent on Thursday. DiVincent, who also serves as the director of the West New York and Weehawken housing authorities, was hired last month to reprise the role he filled from 2004 until 2009. He replaces Richard Fox, the board’s management consultant, who took over as acting director after former Executive Director Carmelo Garcia was terminated on Aug. 4.
The Hoboken Housing Authority manages around 1,300 units of public housing, which are mostly concentrated in the city’s southwest. The projects exhibit a much higher proportion of low-income and minority residents than the rest of Hoboken.
After months of contentious meetings driven by mutual suspicion between Garcia and the board, a majority of which is considered to be affiliated with Mayor Dawn Zimmer, Thursday’s meeting was calm and collegial.
DiVincent appeared to enjoy the tentative support of the HHA residents present at the session, many of whom have lived in the HHA long enough to recall his first term in office. Still, residents continued to complain about issues with their apartments and the sometimes dilapidated state of the projects.
DiVincent’s response to a passing mention of Garcia, a former understudy who took over the agency in 2009 with his blessing, suggested a conscious deflection and omission of the HHA’s recent furor.
“I would like to start our relationship with everyone on board.” – Robert DiVincent
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The housing board took another step Thursday to close the book on Garcia when it approved a bill to pay him the balance of a $61,000 payout. Board Chair Dana Wefer said the payout represents the four months of salary owed to Garcia under the termination clause in his contract, including vacation days. On Friday, however, Garcia said the actual amount he is owed is larger, and that the board’s two-month equivocation before paying him was a form of retaliation.
After taking control of the board in May, Wefer and her allies closely scrutinized Garcia’s financial practices. A HUD review published last month found that the Authority had engaged in over $3 million of “unjustified non-competitive procurement” under Garcia’s tenure. Garcia was elected to the state assembly last November, and some of the firms awarded non-bid contracts later donated to Garcia’s still active campaign fund.
Budget delayed
At Thursday’s meeting, the HHA board tabled a resolution to approve a budget for the upcoming fiscal year because Commissioners Dave Mello, Rob Davis, and David Denning were not in attendance.
Though the four board members present formed a quorum that could have passed a budget, they voted unanimously to wait so their colleagues could have a chance to read the document and cast informed votes at the next meeting on Oct. 9.
The HHA’s new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, 2014 and runs through Sept. 30, 2015. However, the budget must be approved by the state of New Jersey and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provides much of the HHA’s funding, before it can be officially adopted.
As such, the new budget is already late, and a resolution to approve its late filing was tabled along with it Thursday. However, DiVincent said there shouldn’t be any consequences for turning a budget in incrementally later than before.
“I would like to start our relationship with everyone on board,” said DiVincent. “I would have no objection to tabling the budget.”
The proposed budget would install a system of reconciliation in which recorded expenditures are checked against bank statements every month. DiVincent said the monthly updates would allow the board to become aware of problems before the end of the fiscal year.
“There will be times during the course of the year when we’re over budget because utilities come in at different times,” he explained, “but overall we want to make sure we continue to have a balanced budget and that all expenditures fall within range so that every line item is not overspent.”
Problems with Garcia
Garcia’s management of HHA finances was a major point of contention between him and the Zimmer-affiliated board. After his termination, Wefer pointed to an internal audit that found operating losses of $2.5 million in the 2013 HHA budget as evidence of Garcia’s alleged mismanagement.
On Thursday, DiVincent said official numbers on the 2013-14 fiscal year budget would not be available until the next HHA board meeting, but added that “it wasn’t a pretty picture.” He gave a ballpark figure of $1.2 million in funding shortfalls through the third quarter of this year.
One expenditure that DiVincent said went well over its budget allotment last year was the installation of fiber-optic lines. Debt service on that expense will have to be included in the upcoming budget, he said, but the technology should benefit public housing residents in the future.
In addition, DiVincent noted that the HHA is still dealing with the aftereffects of Superstorm Sandy, which must be factored into the assessment of both the current budget and the upcoming one. For example, the authority continues to fix electrical panels that corroded due to seawater contamination.
DiVincent said Hoboken’s public housing had been hit much worse than the projects he manages in Weehawken and West New York. Garcia has often defended himself from accusations of mismanagement by pointing to the strain placed on his agency by Sandy.
DiVincent said his proposed 2014-15 budget includes all contracts and expenditures not accounted for in previous budgets. He characterized the new budget as being “solid” and balanced.
Persistent issues remain
Several residents gave DiVincent credit for trying to solve problems brought up at previous HHA board meetings. For example, LaTrenda Ross thanked the director because he had a dead tree removed in front of her building at 300 Marshall Drive, and replaced her malfunctioning refrigerator. “A lot of times we don’t want to say the good things about the employees here,” she said.
However, other residents brought up a number of problems that remain unresolved after two weeks of DiVincent’s tenure, including mold, water leaks, and unsanitary laundry rooms.
Barbara Reyes, the president of the HHA Resident Advisory Board, said that locks on outer doors that were supposed to have been replaced in May remained broken.
“We’ve been seeing a lot of the drug transactions and the drug dealers, the crack heads, and the homeless in the hallway,” said Reyes of her building, 311 Harrison St. She said the situation would only get worse as the weather got colder.
DiVincent said he might bring back a keycard system for all HHA residents, which had been in place during his previous tenure at the agency. He said specifications for a Request for Proposals were currently being prepared.