Acting Mayor Dawn Zimmer said the City Council will vote to fill two vacant seats on the Housing Authority board at Wednesaday night’s meeting.
The seven-member board oversees policy for the federally funded 1,383 units of public housing in Hoboken. There are varying manners of appointment: One member is appointed by the state, one by the mayor with council approval, and five by a council vote (one of the seven must be a council member and another must live in the projects).
The members get five-year terms.
Some of the board decisions are seen as political, as the projects are a source of votes at election time.
Zimmer, who is also the council president, said the process of choosing new members will allow members of the public — applicants or otherwise — to speak before the council. Then the council will take an internal vote for the first seat, followed by a nomination and public vote. Then they will repeat the process for the second seat.
“I want it to be a very public process,” she said last week. “It’s extremely important.”
The board received information from 13 applicants for the two seats. Some are resident activists in the projects; several others are former mayoral or council candidates in the recent elections.
They are: Rami Pinchevsky, Jake Stuiver, Timothy Occhipinti, Patricia Waiters, Michael Lenz, Joseph Garcia, Arlette Braxton, Robert W. Phillips, Lynda Ann Walker, Eduardo Gonzalez, Marianne Camporeale, Philip Cohen, and Ryn Melberg.
The two appointments will replace vocal board member Perry Belfiore, whose term expired in May, and Hector Claveria, who resigned his seat after being arrested on bribery charges. Belfiore can ask to keep the seat if he wants to.
The governor’s representative, Dominic Lisa, who also chairs the Zoning Board, was up for re-appointment last November. Lisa was appointed to the housing board by then-Gov. Richard Codey and will stay on as a hold-over status until the governor’s office makes a decision.
Applicants may also have applied for other board seats, according to Daniel Bryan, the mayor’s special assistant. Applicants ranked their preference and some ranked the housing board seat as low as their priority. — TJC