North Adams Council to Reconsider Housing Authority Appointment
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The City Council will reconsider the appointment of a Housing Authority member it rejected two weeks ago.
A special meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 18, to specifically address the reappointment of Colin Todd and the appointment of any other candidate the mayor brings forward.
The council on March 28 voted against Todd's reappointment after a number of individuals, some of whom were not Housing Authority residents, objected.
But on Tuesday, his colleagues, residents and Executive Director Jennifer Hohn were in the audience to support him.
Leigh Harrington-Uqdah, one of only two remaining members of the board, spoke during open forum at City Council of the problems its actions had caused.
"We are without a quorum. We need an annual plan approved. We are close to a RAD conversion and this is putting us in jeopardy," she said. "I think that there was some miscommunication on our end about the meeting or we could have been present for that meeting."
Todd himself couldn't be there, Uqdah said, because he had to be at the meeting of a youth organization of which he is president.
"I should have done more at that time, say, of speaking up to make us realize we were making a mistake that night," said Councilor Keith Bona, who had voted in favor of Todd's reappointment along with Councilor Peter Oleskiewicz. "We based a vote on a one-sided opinion we were hearing and we rushed it. We should have minimally postponed it so that we could hear all sides."
Councilor Wayne Wilkinson, who had voted against the appointment, agreed to bring it forward at a special meeting. A defeated item must be brought forward by an opposing councilor.
"I thought we made a rash decision," said Wilkinson. "I don't know how you undo what we did. We made a vote with only hearing one side. Every place in America — innocent until proven guilty and all we heard was the negative stuff."
When asked if she would resubmit the recommendation, Mayor Jennifer Macksey said, "yes, it is still something that I would like to see."
She added that she might have a second appointment to the authority board, which would leave only one vacancy.
The Housing Authority Board of Commissioners had penned a letter to Council President Lisa Blackmer and Mayor Jennifer Macksey proclaiming their disappointment in the council's dismissal.
"He is probably the best chair we have had in my tenure," Hohn said last week. "I feel terrible that such a good person and such a good commissioner has been dragged through the mud."
In the letter, Harrington-Uqdah noted the council's actions had disrupted the board's work.
"The denial of his appointment has halted business by the Housing Authority's Board of Commissioners. This is troublesome especially when we need an annual operating budget approved this close to a RAD conversion," she wrote.
She noted that Todd completed a training series with the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials to become one of two certified commissioners in the Berkshires. She added that he led the authority with "poise" during the pandemic and was responsive and on the scene during the Greylock Apartment fire. She pointed to his involvement in the Rental Assistance Demonstration conversion, among other things.
"Being a Commissioner for the North Adams Housing Authority is not a glorious fun position and there are few people that want to volunteer their time and take on the responsibility of this position," she wrote. "I am heartbroken for the residents and staff at NAHA who no longer have a functioning board and just lost their strongest advocate."
Hohn said she was surprised that the reappointment was placed on the City Council agenda months after Todd's term had expired. That meeting was canceled because of a snow storm and Todd was never notified of the rescheduling.
"He should have been given the opportunity to be present, and he was not," Hohn said. "He was basically dragged through the mud."
She was concerned that the mayor had suggested appointing herself as a last resort to keep the board functioning.
"Absolutely not. That is a conflict of interest," she said. "I had given her several names who would serve despite all of this drama. No one wants to see what happened to Colin happen to them and some people are still willing to serve people
Hohn reiterated that the the authority is separate from the city and it needs to remain that way.
"We are 100 percent federally funded. We don't take a dime from the city. We pay a [payment in lieu of taxes] to the city, we have assets, reserves, and we a high-performing Section 8 program and a public housing program," she said. "We have had zero audit findings, and we are in the middle of the RAD conversion, which will allow us to do so many things we have not been unable to do in the past."
Hohn thinks the attack on Todd was personal, specifically pointing to Councilor Jennifer Barbeau, who is the council's liaison to the authority, and a dispute about selling produce on the federal property. Barbeau had characterized the authority board's attitude as "hostile" and "intimidating" at the March 28 meeting and said the tenants were "not being represented properly."
Barbeau did not attend Tuesday's meeting.
Hohn also thinks the idea of a tenant organization, which Barbeau said she was "instrumental in implementing," is a good thing but felt this current iteration was only created as a tool to disrupt NAHA.
"A tenant association is a wonderful thing, but this participation comes with chaos and drama. I feel as though meetings have become an arena for constant complaining and it is not what a board meeting is for," she said.
Hohn did address some of the complaints leveled at the organization about drugs, assaults and other incidents. The authority has allocated $100,000 to hire private security firms to monitor properties, she said, and is constantly updating the security systems that feed directly to the Police Department.
As for transparency, Hohn said before she took over there were no open meetings nor a City Council liaison. She added that commissioners have continued livestreaming their meetings for more access.
"There are things I want to get done, and I am not going to be prevented from doing them by people with an agenda," she said. "An agenda not to service residents of North Adams because we service thousands of families. Without us, these people would be homeless."
Staff Write Tammy Daniels contributed to this report.
Tags: appointments, Housing Authority,
