PHA Board Steps Down For One Year

PHILADELPHIA - The Philadelphia Housing Authority's board met on Friday and decided to dissolve itself in the short term and comply with a request from HUD.

Estelle Richman, a former city managing director and state welfare official now working at HUD, will serve as the receiver in Philadelphia, HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims announced at an afternoon news conference.

Michael Kelly, recently appointed as interim executive director, will continue in the job.

"This is an important moment for an important agency," Mayor Michael Nutter said. "The focus has to stay on the residents, the families, the children, the tenants."

City Controller Alan Butkovitz, who controlled two of the five board seats, took sharp aim at Greene, long praised as a visionary who transformed much of the city's public housing stock.

"He came to Philadelphia with such high hopes, and failed so spectacularly," Butkovitz said.

The other board members resigning are City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, labor leader Patrick Eiding, elderly tenant representative Nellie Reynolds and Debra Brady, the wife of U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, D-Pa.

Board chairman John Street said last weekend that the board had no intentions of quitting after getting the request from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

But member Jannie Blackwell said in a statement this week that she was quitting.

The board then approved a resolution to shut itself down on Friday afternoon. But the act may only be for a year, as HUD tries to resolve some problems it has with the agency.

"I always want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem, or perceived to be part of the problem," Blackwell said on Wednesday.

The other board members were Street, Debra Brady (the wife of local politician Bob Brady), AFL-CIO leader Patrick Eiding and tenant representative Nellie Reynolds.

Last Friday, officials at HUD called for the entire five member PHA board to quit  to clear the way for changes at the embattled agency.

Executive director Carl Greene was fired after the board learned he secretly settled almost a million dollars in sexual harassment lawsuits.

HUD, the FBI and a federal grand jury are investigating the FHA.