ten-net-logo.gif - 5895 Bytes


no-post.gif - 5505 Bytes

Click here to send mail to Spotty

public housing spotty gif - 1000 Bytes

Public Housing Spotlight
on NYCHA

Issue 70
Published on December 6, 2000

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

(Click Here for Directory of Issues)

Unbelievable II

Thank you, Kalman Finkel and the other two stooges. You've done us an unexpected and quite ironic favor.

As a result of the outrageous manner in which you trumped up charges against Frank Rogers, Spotty now has new sources in the Departments under the Development flag (Design, Construction, QCC, CAD).

As a result of the nearly transparent attempt to keep occupancy levels low in some projects (See Edgemere in Issue 69), we now have doubled our list of tenants and prospective tenants who will let us know what's happening on NYCHA's front lines.

Kalman, your untiring work in behalf of a corrupt group of real estate barons has earned you a Spot-thanks! Future issues of Spotty, not just this one, will owe much of their content solely to the manner in which you denigrate both employees and tenants. We only hope that we still owe you thanks when some honest prosecutor has you sitting across her/his table!

Here's a couple of Finkel generated stories:

In our last issue, we showed, by way of a NYCHA memo, that 427 apartments in the Edgemere Houses were vacant. As Edgemere contains only 1,395 apartments, that means that one out of every three apartments are sitting empty.

Does that mean that there is no demand for those apartments?

Hardly!

Since running that story, we've been contacted by many people who say that they have their families entered onto NYCHA waiting lists

for a long time, yet they were never offered any apartment at Edgemere.

Here's just one example:

My name is Latisha Rogers and I live with my mother in the Red Hook (West) Housing Projects. I applied for housing in 1993. I didn't get called for a interview until 1996. I went through the whole process and I understood that I was going to be called for a two-bedroom apartment within two years. But that was wrong. It has been four years and I am still waiting to be called. As I'm on a waiting list at Red Hook, I finally went to see the Manager of Red Hook. I spoke with her about the problem. She pulled my file and found that the last Housing Asst.(HA) had made mistakes with my file. The HA didn't file that I was working and had listed my priority wrong.
The Manager had me bring a yellow form to my boss and bring four pay stubs. That was two months ago. I've heard nothing as to my status with NYCHA.
NYCHA has not treated me fairly. And my two little boys (ages 6 and 7) should not have to be a victim of NYCHA's neglect. All I've asking for is help on the matter.
Thank you for just reading this.

Next up, we have some interesting figures from NYCHA's Development Division:

(Click Here to view Sites in Survey Phase document. The report is generated by Anthony Palermo, Asst. Director of Design.)

Note the vast difference in the figures for the "Budget" column and, directly next to it, the more recently compiled "Estimate" column.
(We here in Spot-land refer to the line separating the Budget from the Estimate as the "Oops Line." When you see the startling difference in many of the two large amounts of money, you just know that there's an Oops here!)

At first glance, you might think there's no big deal here. As construction/renovation projects progress, minor additions to the budget are not unheard of.

But this is different. Here you have disparities as large as Wyckoff Gardens Budget figure of $950,000 and the revised Estimate of $7,400,000. That's a six and a half $MILLION$ dollar difference.

How can that be?

Simple.

As Paul Newman said as "Cool Hand Luke", "What we've got here is a failure to communicate." The Design Department takes it into its collective (including consulting architects from private firms) head that it will perform a renovation on some NYCHA edifice. Later, after much work has gone into the process and a budget is established, Design deigns to get suggestions from the very entity they intend to renovate. That's what causes the "Oops" line on the Survey.

In the far right Notes column you can often find some justification for the increase beyond budget. In this case, fully half of the Community Center's have responded with further suggestions, after they had finally been brought into the loop. If Design would have visited the Centers, they could have gone over any suggestions with the Community Center's staff and Design would have sped the process along.* Then you wouldn't need to have a Budget column that totals $17,250,000 right next to an Estimate column listing the total figure at $35,077,850. And the Estimate total failed to even consider over 5 Million dollars from the Budget column that had not been raised yet by anyone and so didn't get reflected in the total.

(*Okay, Field people, let's calm down that laughter. Suggesting that Design's engineers actually visit projects before drafting blueprints and letting contracts might be hilarious to those who know how things actually work in the Authority. But if we were to tell stories of how many times major mistakes can be traced back to a engineer in NYCHA's Design Dept. who, aside from taking a train from New Jersey and being dropped in Manhattan in the morning, hasn't visited a public housing site in years, we'd have little time left to keep an eye on Finkel.)

Be back with more, soon . . .

© MM Public Housing Spotlight and John Ballinger. All rights reserved.
Search
for
Get a Free Search Engine for Your Web Site

Issue links are at page bottom
or click here for a Directory page with Issue overviews.


Click on the mailbox to send us your thoughts!
Or Message/Fax us with info at 718/745-0170

Links to all Issues are at page bottom

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.


For a great source of general tenant information,
visit the Tenant Net Home Page |

And for a great source of New York City news and
policy information, visit our friends at the Gotham Gazette

City Limits GIF graphic- 3573 Bytes
Click here to view City Limits Magazine

nyc housing authority (public housing) symbol jpg - 5961 Bytes
NYC Housing Authority's
(NYCHA) own site

public housing authorities directors association - 4956 Bytes
Public Housing Authorities
Directors Association site

Public Housing
Spotlight

Directory page with Issue overviews. |
Current Issue of the Public Housing Spotlight |
Special NYCHA Corruption Issue |
ATIS (Timekeeping System) Issue |
Spotty's Home |

Issue 1 | Issue 2 | Issue 3 | Issue 4 | Issue 5 |
Issue 6 | Issue 7 | Issue 8 | Issue 9 | Issue 10 |
Issue 11 | Issue 12 | Issue 13 | Issue 14 | Issue 15 |
Issue 16 | Issue 17 | Issue 18 | Issue 19 | Issue 20 |
Issue 21 | Issue 22 | Issue 23 | Issue 24 | Issue 25 |
Issue 26 | Issue 27 | Issue 28 | Issue 29 | Issue 30 |
Issue 31 | Issue 32 | Issue 33 | Issue 34 | Issue 35 |
Issue 36 | Issue 37 | Issue 38 | Issue 39 | Issue 40 |
Issue 41 | Issue 42 | Issue 43 | Issue 44 | Issue 45 |
Issue 46 | Issue 47 | Issue 48 | Issue 49 | Issue 50 |
Issue 51 | Issue 52 | Issue 53 | Issue 54 | Issue 55 |
Issue 56 | Issue 57 | Issue 58 | Issue 59 | Issue 60 |
Issue 61 | Issue 62 | Issue 63 | Issue 64 | Issue 65 |
Issue 66 | Issue 67 | Issue 68 | Issue 69 | Issue 70 |
Issue 71 | Issue 72 | Issue 73 | Issue 74 | Issue 75 |
Issue 76 | Issue 77 | Issue 78 | Issue 79 | Issue 80 |
Issue 81 | Issue 82 | Issue 83 | Issue 84 | Issue 85 |
Issue 86 | Issue 87 | Issue 88 | Issue 89 | Issue 90 |
Issue 91 | Issue 92 | Issue 93 | Issue 94 | Issue 95 |
Issue 96 | Issue 97 | Issue 98 | Issue 99 | Issue 100 |
Issue 101 | Issue 102 | Issue 103 | Issue 104 | Issue 105 |
Issue 106 | Issue 107 | Issue 108 |
Secret Santa Issue | Extra Issue 1 |
2nd Anniversary Issue |