Thieves Steal PHA's Bobcat In Snowstorm

PHILADELPHIA - The Philadelphia Housing Authority can't catch a break, after a Bobcat front loader owned by the agency was stolen in a snowstorm.

Tuesday night's big storm couldn't stop a group of thieves from ripping off a very expensive Bobcat front end loader at the Philadelphia Housing Authority's maintenance yard in South Philadelphia.

It happened in the middle of the night as the snow fell and it's not the first time thieves have struck the huge PHA maintenance lot, just a few hundred yards away from the PHA's own police headquarters.

The Bobcat would also come in handy for snow removal.

Earlier this week, the PHA found itself in another embarrassing situation when it became known that former director Carl Greene spent $15,000 on designer gym bags for some employees.

New interim head Michael P. Kelly has told employees to return $800 gym bags given them by  Greene, or pay for them.

"The public was rightly outraged by the recent disclosure that PHA managers were given Tumi carry-on duffel bags costing $796 a piece at the PHA annual strategic planning conference in September 2009," Kelly said in an e-mail. "Please understand that I am not criticizing you for accepting this item, but I do want to make a statement that the gift was not an appropriate expenditure of PHA funds."

Kelly said he will attempt to return the bags to Nordstrom and put any money back into the PHA's general fund.

Also, five current and former maintenance workers have filed a federal lawsuit against PHA saying it eliminated their jobs after they reported a contractor's complaints about alleged extortion