City Misses Deadline On Appointing New NYCHA Chair
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – The city misses a midnight federal deadline to appoint a new chair to oversee the troubled city housing authority, breaking a deal made on fixing issues in managing the agency.
In January the mayor struck a deal with HUD Secretary Ben Carson agreeing to have a chairperson named for the New York Housing Authority by midnight this morning, reports CBS2’s Aundrea Cline-Thomas.
HUD imposed timelines to repair crumbling apartments and hire a new head for helping the more than 400,000 people living in NYCHA residences.
De Blasio says running NYCHA is a big job for a particular person.
“We’ve looked at dozen of candidates already, an intensive day by day process,” he said. “We all agreed we want to take a little more time here. We think there are some other candidates that would be really important to consider, so this is going to stretch out a little bit longer.”
Kathryn Garcia, the former head of the sanitation department, continues to serve as interim NYCHA chair.
Lead paint, rats and broken plumbing are just some of the many pressing problems a new agency chair will have to deal with.
In February, HUD’s Regional Director Lynne Patton spent a month living in various NYCHA buildings across the city and called the conditions “nothing short of a humanitarian crisis.”
Patton accused the city of mismanaging federal funding and said she thinks criminal charges should be pursued.
She also questioned why finding a new NYCHA chair was taking so long.
MORE: HUD Head Patton, Malliotakis Blast Mayor De Blasio For Further NYCHA Neglect
De Blasio accused Patton of playing politics and said her claims were not true.
As for naming a permanent chair, the mayor stresses it’s a big job and his office has been working in cooperation with the federal government in what he called an intensive process.
De Blasio addressed missing the deadline on New York 1’s “Mondays WithThe Mayor.”
“It’s like being a mayor of a city of 400,000 people,” he said. “The NYCHA chair has responsibility for 400,000 people and their domain.
“It’s a big tough job,” he said. “It takes a particular person to do it.”
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April 02, 2019 at 03:37PM
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