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Public Housing Spotlight
on NYCHA

Issue 69
Published on November 24, 2000

(Click Here for NYCHA "preliminary" Audit
by NYC Comptroller Alan Hevesi)

(Click Here for Directory of Issues)

Unbelievable!

We've had $50,000,000 being spent on contracts that weren't listed in the computers of the Department charged with Inspecting and assuring that such contracts were carried out legally, safely and to the benefit of our residents. (Click Here for a look at our Corruption Issue)

Nobody cares!

No investigations, and only a failed promise of one City Council member to have a meeting on this.

We've had Ruben Schron, an admitted friend of the son of a NYCHA Board Member get a no bid $100,000,000 20-year lease on a property, A property that he and his crew purchased for a little over $8,000,000 a few weeks prior to NYCHA's holding a meeting to sign that lease. A lease that is very landlord friendly for Finkel's friend the landlord Schron and his other buds in the Limited Liability Corporation they formed weeks before the NYCHA deal. (Click Here for related Issue.)

Nobody cares!

No investigations, and only a failed promise of another City Council member to have a meeting on this.

Well, try this new NYCHA idiocy on for size.

Would you believe that in
just one of NYCHA's projects
we have 427 empty apartments?

Would you believe that in order to
get one of those apartments up to code,
NYCHA needs to spend $83,133!
(Click for memo.)

Instead of continuing to sound like Agent Maxwell Smart stuck in Groundhog Day, let's just tell the story.

It seems that NYCHA wanted to take 5-8 NYCHA employees and move them from their offices in Manhattan out to the Edgemere Development in Far Rockaway, Queens. NYCHA, through the office of Michael Kramer, Director, Operations Services Department, wanted an Assessment of Needs done on an apartment at Edgemere that had been used a Hope VI Outreach Center operated by Telesis. So one might expect that having a staff of 5 people move from one NYCHA office in Manhattan into a Hope VI office in Queens would be rather simple.

Nope, not in NYCHA-Land!

The Official memo on the Assessment (Click for memo) came from Richard Daronco, a NYCHA Property Manager for the Office of Facilities Planning & Administration (FPA). Mr. Daronco writes that "FPA recommends the proposed use of space, provided that the space is brought into compliance with all codes."
(The underlining is on the original memo.)

Sounds like a done deal, right? How much could it cost to bring a NYCHA apartment "up to code"? Especially one that was being used as a Hope VI office.

$83,133! That's how much!

And what would the $83,133 be used for. Not for computers and desks! According to the memo, the apartment wouldn't pass the ADA guidelines. But we feel the most worrisome items in the FPA memo states that before NYCHA could move the employees in, work must be done on the electrical wiring, hazardous materials testing and a certificate of occupancy is needed.

Why they let the Hope VI people work in an environment with poor electrical wiring, no certificate of occupancy and without testing for hazardous materials is beyond us. I guess that the health and safety of Hope VI people is less of a concern than the health of Nora's people?

(Almost forgot to mention, the memo I received was Nora Reissig-Lazzaro's copy. Tom O'Brien had faxed a copy to Nora on November 3. So, once again, Nora graces this newsletter!)

Now it shouldn't take much imagination to do a down and dirty extrapolation from there. Just the 472 vacant apartments could need $39,238,776 just to be brought into a safe condition.

472 vacant apartments in a single development . . . what a waste!

And City Hall probably still has homeless people spending nights on the floors of NYC offices.

Wanna know the best part.

Nobody cares!

© MM Public Housing Spotlight and John Ballinger. All rights reserved.
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Contact Jack Ballinger at nychaspotlight@netscape.net
for a Real Audio sound clip containing a
conversation wherein DOI Investigator
John Kilpatrick discusses how he learned
that 2 NYCHA execs attended
a Mafia connected contractor's funeral .

Contact Jack Ballinger at nychaspotlight@netscape.net
for a Real Audio sound clip containing
the (3 Meg) confession of Tony DiAlto.
Tony was a member of a group of
corrupt Contract Inspectors working at NYCHA.
Neither Tony nor the person he confessed to
sharing his bribes with (Richard Penesi)
were ever charged, let alone prosecuted, by DOI.


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