Houses of the holy. (Skyscraper Page)

Is the media to blame for NYCHA’s problems? Or, more specifically, the Daily News? That was certainly the impression given by a handful of pols on the steps of City Hall this afternoon.

Led by Rosie Mendez, chair of the City Council’s housing committee, the group applauded the New York City Housing Authority’s recent improvements over the past months and years. While it was widely acknowledged that the state of public housing in the city was far from perfect, the situation was indeed improving in the view of those huddled under the portico of City Hall as it drizzled on the steps just beyond.

"NYCHA's problems are profound," Queens Councilman LeRoy Comrie said. "They cannot be explained away in a newspaper article that simply says they are not doing their job."

The reps told stories of strategic plans embraced, security cameras installed, roofs repaired and rapid response teams deployed, and took great pains to explain the difference between maintenance and capital funds. The former fixes a leaky pipe or a broken stove gasket, the latter replaces an entire complex’s plumbing or appliances.

After screaming headlines about $1 billion of mismanaged funds (for capital projects), the News then ran stories for days decrying moldy apartments and rat infestations—travesties, but travesties none of that money could be spent on. "They cannot mix their capital and their expense, they cannot take their capital money that is meant for roofs and go and fix leaky faucets, because then the federal government would go and completely defund them," Councilwoman Mendez said. "They have a way to do it, and they have to use the money in the way the federal government and HUD oversees them to do it."

There was also criticism of the fact that the media had suggested NYCHA was sitting on the $1 billion, ignoring the fact that it was held up in the bureaucratic process of seeking approvals from numerous agencies both in New York and Washington. "More of this money has been spent than they are letting on," Councilwoman Letitia James said, with the oft-cited amount being around 60 to 70 percent of the funds targeted by the News as having been allocated if not yet spent.

Another major factor was the money had been frozen for administrative reasons. Part of this is that NYCHA was engaged in a strategic revaluation after Chairman John Rhea took over in 2009. "NYCHA is 2,602 buildings," Ms. Mendez said. "This is not a one-size-fits-all solution, and that's why when they froze the money I wasn't happy, but it's because they realized this isn't a one-size-fits all solution. You have buildings, you have developments that are one building, you have developments that are 40 buildings, you have developments that have six stories, and you have developments that are 25 stories. You have to analyze it; you have to figure out, if you're gonna do it, how you're gonna do it."

The council was also partly to blame, in that many of its members had offered up their own funds to fix issues at various developments in their district. When the slush fund scandal hit in 2009, just as Chairman Rhea was coming on board, that held up many projects throughout all city programs, including those in the works at NYCHA. "That slowed down the pipeline," Ms. Mendez said.

The politicians’ greatest frustration was not simply the misrepresentation of NYCHA. Their biggest concern was the impact it would have in Washington, where the agency draws more than 90 percent of its funding any given year. "The problem is in Washington, when they see we are one of the few places that did not get rid of our public housing like so many have, they do not see the political will to keep that intact into the future," Upper West Side Councilwoman Gale Brewer said. "We know that the repairs are taking too long, that the kitchen will not be fixed until 2015, but when that is all they read about in Washington, they are not going to give us any more money."

Indeed, a day after the News reported on an unreleased $10 million study of the agency, Republican Senator Charles Grassley attacked NYCHA in a letter to HUD (which was then reported in the News). The names Romney and Ryan were invoked repeatedly during the press conference, a portent of an even darker future.

"At a time when the housing prices are at a point where they are, our affordable housing stock is so important to maintain," Queens State Senator Jose Peralta said. "It is at this time, this is the exact wrong conversation to have, to cut funding from the federal government."

What seemed to bother the electeds more than anything was the indignity of it all—whatever their opinion of NYCHA, the conversation seemed to hurt the residents the most. "Like Councilwoman Mendez, I am the product of NYCHA, I came out of the South Jamaica Houses, and now I have the pleasure of representing them," Queens Councilman Ruben Wills said.

"We don't care about the free family days at NYCHA, we don't care about the scholarships it gives out, these are the things we aren't hearing about," he continued. "A lot of the negative-type attacks without any corrective measures is nothing but counter-productive. You can't just keep advertising, advertising, advertising the negative. People live in these houses. These aren't just buildings. People live and work in these communities."

Will you protect this house? (Matt Chaban)

Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries convened a press conference yesterday calling for a federal investigation of mismanagement of the New York City Housing Authority. Mr. Jeffries and about 50 of his constituents were lined up in front of the Farragut Houses, wedged between the BQE and the luxury lofts of DUMBO.

Throughout the half-hour event, while away from the podium, the would-be Congressman, dressed in a navy suit with subtle pinstripes and geometric red tie, would dip his hand into his pocket and withdraw a blue handkerchief that matched his shirt. He would duck his head and swiftly dab at his brow before returning the hankie, to do it all over again a few minutes later.

Assemblyman Jeffries looked as though he wanted to hide the fact that he, too, was human, and thus susceptible to the heat. But the thought that crossed our minds was imagine having to live in one of these brick-and-concrete monoliths on such an unbearable day. It turns out that is the unfortunate case year-round.

“They are suffering from rats, broken doors, mold, broken elevators, inadequate heat and criminal activity that is far too rampant,” Mr. Jeffries scolded, the crowd uh-huhing along. “These conditions are unsanitary, unsafe and unacceptable.”

On Friday, Mr. Jeffries sent a letter to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan—Mayor Bloomberg's Housing Preservation and Development commissioner until President Obama spirited him back to Washington four years ago. The assemblyman wanted a full accounting of nearly $1 billion in federal funds that the city's housing authority had failed to spend or misspent as public housing residents suffer through a maintenance backlog stretching for years. The Daily News revealed the problems on August 1 and has been hammering on the agency every day since, often with multiple articles and editorials per issue spanning a range of alleged infractions and misdeeds.

Whether the problems are as serious as the paper contends is a matter of debate—some housing watchers have said they are not, and that in fact the News is itself engaging in the sort of obfuscation the tab is accusing the city of. At the same time, these people say, the Housing Authority, which accommodates as many residents as the entire city of Atlanta, remains rife with problems, just not exactly the ones that are currently drawing headlines.

This is part of the reason Mr. Jeffries is calling for his investigation. “This mismanagement shocks the conscience and requires immediate federal intervention,” he said. “There are tens of thousands of hard-working, decent families who live in this community and throughout the city in public housing. Many of these families are subjected to conditions that are inhumane.”

He said that the housing authority was no better than “the boy who cried wolf” because for years the agency had pleaded poverty, only for it now to be revealed that it had hundreds of millions of dollars lying around unspent. (This is not necessarily an accurate assessment, since much of this was capital money, dedicated to large projects, rather than the maintenance accounts, which are effectively broke.)

Mr. Jeffries said he wanted three things from the federal investigation: “What happened, why did it happen and how do we prevent this type of massive financial mismanagement from ever happening again.” HUD had yet to respond to Friday's letter, and representatives could not be reached on Sunday.

(After the press conference, Politicker asked Mr. Jeffries if he had any specific solutions to offer himself, but he demurred. “We have to figure out what went wrong first,” was all he would say. When it was pointed out that a federal issue like this was a smart campaign move for someone running for Congress and trying to look the part, he said that had nothing to do with the decision to take on this cause. “The campaign is largely over, notwithstanding the fact there's a general election, but that's not why we're here,” he said. “We're here because there's an urgent need, and the most obvious way for it to be addressed is through an investigation by the federal oversight agency that provided the resources that are being wasted.”)

Following Mr. Jeffries was Mark V.C. Taylor, pastor of the nearby Church of the Open Door—many in the crowd actually came from the congregation, and following the press conference, they rushed off to services, leaving few behind. Reverend Taylor, who was wearing a yellow Men of God Ministry T-shirt, was the most eloquent of the speakers, but also the most incendiary, giving a sermon on the demerits of the public housing system and the city's development over the past decade.

“Our mayor is on record as being against gun violence; he's one of the loudest critics in the world,” Rev. Taylor intoned. “But what about economic violence? If you hold $950 million, that is the same as holding a gun to the heads of this community. If you hold up $1 billion while you build up skyscrapers for rich people, that is anti-democratic, it's paving the way for the development steamroller.”

He spoke out not only against bad conditions within the apartments but also those surrounding them. In the Whitman Houses, nearby in Fort Greene, there has been a fight for four years to have the community center reopened, and the Farragut Houses are about to lose its day-care center. “It was lumped in with DUMBO,” he said. “Now there's another question: how can you lump Farragut in with DUMBO?”

Mary Andrews, president of the Farragut Tenants Association, marveled at the changes and challenges she had experienced over more than half a century in public housing. “There have been a lot of things that Housing has told us they didn't have but did have,” she said, leaning against a walker for support. “I know Housing and their board are making $200,000-a-year salaries. They can't take some of that and help us repair our apartments? Every time we put in a ticket for a repair, it's not repaired.”

“We're not trying to bash this one or that,” she added. “We just want to know where the money is, and what it's used for. Because we need it.” This drew the loudest applause of the morning. Ms. Andrews then mentioned that this was her first time speaking at a press conference and thanked everyone for listening.

Dominique Bryant grew up in the Ingersoll Houses across from Fort Greene Park; now 27, she is president of the tenants association. She gave a speech peppered with the declaration “Accountabilty,” equal parts exclamation and question: “I walk around the playgrounds and the basketball courts. On one side, there are no nets. On the other, there is a basketball court that does not have the metal piece that creates the court itself. Accountability.

"We were told that everything that needs to be done in terms of the basketball courts and the playgrounds has to be placed on a wish list. And I stand before you and I stand before NYCHA, and I tell you, I wish you had the money. I wish the money can be found, I wish the money can be utilized to replace our playgrounds. Our kids have nowhere to play, so they are playing with guns. Accountability.”

If the community seems especially enraged by these transgressions, it is not that this is a new situation—as indeed, it has unfortunately been this way for a long time. Not that this is just the way it is would ever be an acceptable answer or excuse for the abysmal situation at many Housing Authority properties. The reason the public housing community appears to be so incensed about these latest revelations of mismanagement is not because it really comes as a surprise—it does, but only because the Bloomberg administration has been so successful in so many other areas. Now more than ever, these people feel cast off and dispossessed.

“There is a lot of distrust between tenant and landlord, NYCHA and its tenants,” Rev. Taylor said. “We have a lot of distrust because we live in a neighborhood that is heavily gentrified. We see that the city has helped to build new skyscrapers, we see that the city has helped to build new neighborhoods in the 22 years that I've been here, and since, our community has changed its hue, and we're seeing services that we never saw before. So we have to wonder, where is the priority of the city, particularly to its people of color? Does the city really have a democratic stance in terms of its economic resources, especially if $950 million is being withheld?”

According to two people present at the meeting (The Observer had other commitments, tonight, in addition to closing the paper—more on that tomorrow), the plan presented by the city’s Economic Development Corporation, with 900 apartments and nearly a million square feet of commercial space, was unanimously approved by Community Board 3. The linchpin, announced by Councilwoman Margaret Chin, was that the city had agreed to make half of those units permanently affordable, rather than a possible sunset 60 years out.
Read More

It is unlikely that the Rent Guidelines Board harbors any illusions about its popularity at this point, but this year looks to bring unprecedented animosity. It’s only April and insults are flying,  months before the board inevitably makes its rage-inducing decision.

“We need to move away from the days of a kangaroo court,” shouted City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who took to the steps of City Hall Monday morning to call for reforms to the hated board. “Regardless of the data… the rents go up!” Read More

"I could get used to this." (Esquire)

By the end of the month, Chris Ward, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, will be out of  a job. Some of his aides and allies—and even possibly the big man himself—think they have a good position lined up for The Man Who Saved Ground Zero: mayor of New York City.

“Mayor Bloomberg has changed the public perception of what it means to be mayor, and that is a good and a bad thing” one Ward aide involved in the recruitment efforts told The Politicker. “People think this is a job for someone outside of politics. Chris kind of fits that bill. He is a chief executive, and chief executive of a huge municipality. Do we want to revert to form after we’ve broken the mold?”

While most of the pressure has come from those in Mr. Ward’s orbit and a few outsiders (call them the Wardens!), the lumbering, loquacious life-long civil servant would not pass up Gracie Mansion if the opportunity presented itself. Over the past few months, since things started to go south at the Port Authority under deteriorating relations with Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mr. Ward has been saying in private that he would not mind running for political office, in particular mayor, according to a person present for some of those conversations.

So long as the political—and financial—support is there, there may well be a Chris Ward candidacy.

The Port Authority boss has frequently professed his love of public service, and he has said on numerous occasions that he would run the agency forever if he could, just like his hero Austin Tobin, the mini-Robert Moses who led the Port of New York Authority from 1942 to 1972, its golden age of public works construction. But Governor Cuomo has shown little interest in this arrangement.

Though he reappointed Mr. Ward in January, they have had limited contact. Mr. Ward tried to arrange a peaceful transition out of the job, as he had grown frustrated as a powerless lame duck, but the Cuomo administration was anxious about letting him go until it replaced Jay Walder, the head of the M.T.A., who is departing for Hong Kong over similar frustrations. Two weeks ago, The New York Times got wind of Mr. Ward’s plans to leave by the end of October.

He could handily get a job atop a consultancy or construction firm, making many times his already considerable $350,000 salary. He would be satisfied by such work, but would he be fulfilled? “Chris is a big believer in public service and the transformative nature of government,” the aide said. “He wants to help, he wants to make things better. If you’re that guy, what better job? He doesn’t want to be President Ward, he doesn’t want to be Senator Ward. But Mayor Ward? You’ve got a real budget and a real profile without all the bullshit.”

Mr. Ward, for his part, declined to comment for this article.

The Wardens believe that his track record at the Port Authority, particularly his experience righting a listless World Trade Center redevelopment, gives him the management experience and exposure to claim the mantel of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He may not be a household name, but if he can successfully link himself with the project, which almost gave a certain mayor White House aspirations, his supporters believe he can portray himself as a technocrat with enough political know-how to navigate both the public and private sectors.

“Chris took over probably the best known construction project in the world when it was going nowhere, when it was stuck in litigation and political turmoil and was in fact a black eye to the city and the state,” said a former high-ranking mayoral official who supports the idea of a Ward administration. “Within a year, he turned it around. He’s the reason the tallest office building in the Western hemisphere is halfway complete, he’s the reason the relationship with Larry Silverstein, and by extension the business community, has been restored. He’s the reason why on 9/11, the city, the nation and the world were able to pay there respects at a functioning memorial.”

“The World Trade Center is like a miniature New York,” the Ward aide said. “What more experience do you need?”

How about all he has done to update and improve the airports, ports, buses and bridges controlled by the Port Authority? He has promoted a public-private partnership to replace the Goethals Bridge, and sought plans to revamp not only the reviled Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42nd Street but also the one at the foot of the George Washington Bridge. In addition, he led a dredging campaign in the harbor, to deepen it for the new super ships that will soon traverse a rebuilt Panama Canal. He has brought new business and new terminals to the busy airports, and even suggested LaGuardia should be torn down—a hallmark of his bullish yet convivial manner. The comment was at once a joke and dead serious.

All of these projects put him in touch with the real estate and business interests that make up the core of the city’s donor class. Further, there is the possibility that he may be able to gin up support with the construction unions—of whom he is the largest employer in the city, thanks to the World Trade Center reconstruction. Built like a foreman, Mr. Ward’s gruff voice belies a professorial and progressive air—the guy graduated from Harvard divinity school, after all, and his father was the president of Amherst, meaning he could reasonably move between the city’s different political spheres. He could get on in Park Avenue as easily as Sheepshead Bay—at least compared to some of the other potential candidates.

“Somebody who can talk about the economy and jobs and public safety has a good shot,” Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf told The Observer. “It’s an intersting way to start that conversation, it’s what most people care about right now, and he’s an expert on all these issues. He still has to build a constituency, but then again, so does everybody else.”

While the World Trade Center has moved ahead of schedule thanks to Mr. Ward, complaints of cost overruns still bedevil the project, something that could create challenges during these austere times. And there remains the squirrelly matter of those recent toll increases (but that mostly hurts his chances of running a statewide campaign, something in which he apparently has no interest). That has put him further at odds with Governor Cuomo, though the Wardens home such animosity might push him into the arms of Mayor Bloomberg, a long-time backer, though one who is also increasingly unpopular. Who, if anyone, would be his political patron remains unclear.

Mr. Ward has been raising his political profile recently, speaking out against a system he feels has hobbled his agency, and even the country, over the past few years—from New Jersy Governor Chris Christie canceling the trans-Hudson ARC Tunnel to the heat Mr. Ward took from both governors over toll increases.  “If we are again to become a nation, a City, of builders, current politics cannot endure,” Mr. Ward said at a New York Building Congress luncheon on August 30. “We will not only lose the public works that made us great, we will lose our democratic center that has bound us as a nation.” He then proceeded to attack “the darker strain of politics” ushered in by Reagan and deepened by Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist and the Tea Party.

The speech was so uncharacteristic for the normally conciliatory Mr. Ward that reporters asked him after if he planned to run for office. “Never,” he responded, a statement he now regrets. He wanted to keep the focus on the speech, he later told confidants.

The Wardens are not naive about their guy’s prospects, but they firmly believe that with no clear front runner, especially one with the decisive executive credentials of Mayor Bloomberg, they may be able to leverage that space on the ticket, even if they lack a more traditional Democratic base like progressives or one of the dominant minorities. “The fact is, the business community and the centrists in the city are not yet convinced there’s a candidate for them,” the ex-mayoral official said. “There’s no Ed Koch, there’s no Rudy Giuliani, there’s no Mike Bloomberg. So far, they tend to be your standard-issue, liberal-minded candidates.”

One real estate insider who is a regular at City Hall was circumspect about the possibilities of a Ward administration. “If you tell Chris to get through a wall, he’ll get through the wall, and not necessarily by bulldozing it,” this person said. “But I don’t think that helps in politics.”

Yet the Wardens point to one other non-candidate as a model for theirs, one who consistently tops polls even though he said repeatedly he is not running, one who is decidedly more divisive: Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. “If Kelly could do it, I see no reason Ward couldn’t,” said the aide.
mchaban@observer.com

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC