Is she a crusader for beleaguered public housing residents, or a tormentor of staff members entrusted to serve them?
Morristown Housing Authority (MHA) Chairwoman Maureen Denman pledged to improve the transparency and performance of the embattled agency when she was appointed to her unpaid position last year.
Supporters, including Mayor Tim Dougherty and MHA Commissioner Michael Schmidt, praise her efforts on behalf of residents who complain they can’t even get anyone to fix their doorknobs and lights.
But the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) contends Denman has gone too far, injecting herself into the authority’s daily operations and prompting staff complaints of harassment. HUD also is questioning her screening of applicants for the post of MHA executive director.
“Substandard physical” issues identified last year at Morristown’s public housing complexes also have not been addressed, HUD says.
Failure to resolve these matters could lead to suspensions of housing authority commissioners and staffers and banishment from federal programs, and even threaten the MHA’s ability to “remain operational,” according to a letter obtained by MorristownGreen.com from HUD Field Office Director Maria Maio-Messano to Mayor Dougherty.
LETTER ‘INAPPROPRIATE AND OBNOXIOUS’
The Mayor defended Denman–who declined to comment for this story–and said HUD’s contentions seemed curious because “all decisions made by the MHA are done in consultation with and approval by HUD.”
“So the letter is clearly wrong and in fact contradicts itself. I hope it is not the function of one part of HUD not knowing what the other part is doing. We have scheduled a meeting with HUD and will get to the bottom of these issues” next month, the Mayor said on Sunday.
He voiced “full confidence in the abilities of the Chairwoman,” who also chairs the town environmental commission.
“I think [Denman] has done a good job of keeping things together at the MHA after a few tumultuous years” of high turnover by authority commissioners, and an extended medical leave by former Executive Director Roy Rogers, Dougherty said in a statement.
Invoking whistle-blower protections for himself, Rogers pressed investigators to probe whether people had bypassed a closed list to obtain rent subsidies.
He died last October, weeks after being fired from his $160,000 job. He had missed 77 days of work in 2017 without documenting the absences, Denman said at the time.
The Morristown Housing Authority manages 470 public housing apartments and 184 Section 8 rental vouchers. Douglas Priester, an MHA official nearing retirement, is serving as acting executive director.
Calling HUD’s letter “inappropriate” and “obnoxious,” Schmidt, from the MHA board, described Denman as “the glue keeping the organization together.”
“This has been a difficult endeavor for her. Clearly she has the residents’ interests in mind. She gets calls on weekends from residents not getting what they need. She does all she can in her role,” Schmidt said.
‘RUBBED PEOPLE WRONG’
While the mayor and council appoint MHA commissioners, the housing agency largely is free from town control.
However, HUD reminded town officials they have power to remove commissioners. The letter cited Denman’s “actions on procurement activities including, but not limited to, improperly directing MHA staff. This poses a significant impediment to day-to-day operations.”
“Maureen tried to get involved on a day to day level, and it rubbed people wrong, and that’s why HUD’s involved,” said MHA Vice Chairman Angel Vega, who has clashed with Denman.
“Commissioners are not supposed to get involved in day to day operations. You don’t get involved with employees in any way, shape or form,” continued Vega, who was raised in public housing in Morristown’s Manahan Village and works for the Morris County Housing Authority.
Vega said he shared HUD’s doubts about the search process for an executive director. HUD is “greatly concerned” about whether there is participation by the full MHA board, Maio-Messano wrote.
HUD now insists on approving all MHA contracts–a “Zero Procurement Threshold”–and so the federal agency will oversee the search and must sign off on the commissioners’ selection, the letter states.
Schmidt said the job was posted per HUD guidelines, and he and Denman have narrowed the field to 10 candidates.
Priester and MHA Attorney Joseph Manfredi will help them winnow some more, using a scoring system. Finalists will be presented to the full six-member board (a seventh seat is vacant) as early as next month, Schmidt said.
“I don’t agree with statements in [HUD’s letter], other than we can do better for our residents, and we need the right leadership to make it happen,” Schmidt said. “It all starts at the top in this kind of organization. Having a good person in the role of executive director is most important.”
Maio-Messano’s March 1, 2018, letter came to light at last week’s council meeting.
Saying she had obtained the document only moments earlier, Councilwoman Alison Deeb unsuccessfully urged council members to table an MHA appointment until they could read it, too.
“The council has every right to know what is going on before making any new appointments,” Deeb reiterated on Sunday, asserting that the Mayor should have shared the correspondence.
MHA commissioners were copied on HUD’s letter. Vega said he asked Councilwoman Hiliari Davis, council liaison to the MHA, to forward it to council members but received no response. Davis could not be reached for comment on Sunday.
Accomplishing anything at the MHA is difficult, said Vega, appointed a year ago.
“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “It’s so dysfunctional, I want to throw my hands up and just walk away.”