Posted by Ricardo Kaulessar , Urban Times News on July 09, 2003 at 18:38:21:

By Ricardo Kaulessar
E-mail: HACKSMITH1872@aol.com

June 17, 2003

The Jersey City Housing Authority Board of Commissioners meeting on June 11th can be summed up in two words – SPEAK LOUDER! While the meeting itself tackled many important issues on its agenda from an account of payments to various contractors and lawyers to a status report on the JCHA HOPE VI programs, it would be anyone's guess what was said since none of the commissioners are miked individually or as a group to be heard by those residents of Jersey City public housing who attend every Housing Authority meeting. (In a bit of personal disclosure, this reporter left the June 11th meeting after an hour because of the frustration of notating what was being said.)

The meeting was miked for the tape recorder that records every meeting that takes place but no microphones for sound to a speaker that would broadcast every word to the public sitting in the conference room. When the question was posed to Louise Terrell, who works in the Housing Authority, about the commissioners being miked to be heard by those in attendance, she said she would discuss the matter with interim director Robert Graham. But those public housing residents who attend these meetings regularly say that this is how these meetings have always been conducted and that it is intentionally done in order to stifle the information that the public needs to know.

Some of those residents, however, were the ones heard loudest as they addressed the commissioners in an open mike session, which opened the meeting. One of those was Rose Simmons, a resident of the Curries Woods housing complex since 1979 who lashed out against the One Strike Policy, and social and personal damage that it has caused in her life and the lives of many of her fellow residents as well as friends.

Simmons, a tenant active in public housing issues who has several grandchildren living with her, spoke to the Urban Times News regarding her address during the open mike and the state of affairs at Curries Woods. She was recently denied the opportunity to take part in the Tenant Board elections in her building due to her near eviction under the One Strike Policy as a result of her granddaughter Keisha's arrest on a drug charge in 2002.

"I told (the JCHA commissioners) how I've gone to court, how I've finalized my documents, and I've almost guaranteed them that Keisha would not be returning back to the site. That I had to make arrangements for her children to go out and visit her once she was released from her jail sentence. But I'm serving a sentence too. And I've committed no crime."

Another resident who spoke during the open mike session was community activist Virginia Miller, who railed against what she saw was the "racist" and atrocious hiring policies of the Housing Authority as epitomized by a recent encounter with Grace Malley, coordinator of the HOPE VI development project, inside the Housing Authority office after the June 4th meeting. She received a loud ovation from the tenants in the conference room.

"I was engaged in a conversation with one of the tenants from the Curries Woods housing complex as she passed. (Malley) looked at us as if we were dirt, she looked at us with disgust in her eyes. Did not speak and went out the door into the rain. I was very upset and I said to the tenant, "Gee, she did not speak, did not say goodnight, and she's supposed to be a part of the HOPE VI, representing the tenants', said Miller as she went on to detail confronting Malley about her rudeness.

"But I went out the door and I said to her, "Is there a problem?" I said the way you looked at us like we were dirt and you were leaving and you didn't say goodnight. And she said abruptly to me, "I don't have to speak to anyone I don't want to speak to" and she said, "And who are you to tell me that I have to speak." So I said to her that she was a racist and I told her that people like her were the reason that tenants of these public housing have so many problems, especially with the One Strike Policy."

Also in attendance at the meeting was the widow of the late director of the Jersey City Housing Authority Robert Rigby. She told this reporter that she was observing the meeting as a promise to her late husband. But she did not want to comment any further or even agree to an interview because of problems she had with the overall editorial content and agenda of the Urban Times News.

In other matters, the June 11th meeting was a rescheduled meeting due to the lack of a quorum in the June 4th meeting. In other words, not enough commissioners to have a majority vote on issues addressed in the agenda. However, there was still life at the party as executive director Robert Graham and commissioner Annemarie Uebbing engaged in what could only be called sparring practice, as Uebbing demanded clarification on several points regarding the meeting especially the One Strike Policy issue. Graham was patient enough to address Uebbing's "concerns", but it was more restraint of his frustration at what some observers at the meeting saw as her usual stalling tactics, and a lack of respect and caring for the thousands of tenants in Jersey City public housing. Uebbing was not in attendance at the June 11th meeting as she cited at the June 4th meeting that there would be a scheduling conflict and would not be able to attend.

The tension between Graham and Uebbing can also be traced to the many written correspondences to the Executive Director that have transpired since he assumed office. In three separate letters all dated May 12, 2003, Uebbing registers a complaint against those speakers during the open mike session at the May 7th meeting, asks Graham for a legal opinion on whether or not the JCHA Board of Commissioners Annual Reorganization Meeting was in violation of the Sunshine Law, and inquires about the search and hiring for a permanent Housing Authority Executive Director.

The latter subject is a sore spot for many of the tenants who have been attending these Housing meetings and are unanimous in their praise of Graham's conduct at these meetings and particularly his tackling of the flawed One Strike Policy, and would like to see him the title of Permanent rather than Interim. Although his term will only last until August 14th, some insiders believe that he will get a one-year extension. That remains to be seen as even he has insisted that he only knows of his four month term and will not know of his future until the Commissioners decide in early August.

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