Frustrations evident at Housing Authority meeting

Yahoo

20-02-2025

The introduction of the newest Meadville Housing Authority member at the board's meeting last week coincided with an explosion of frustration from authority officials as well as board moves that raised potential Sunshine Law questions for one member.
With the appointment of Jane Osborne last month, three of the board's five members have been appointed since January 2024 by the current makeup of Meadville City Council. The other two members, Richard Zinn and Marcia Yohe, were appointed by previous councils.
Frustration grew over the course of the 90-minute meeting during back-and-forth discussions on several topics largely featuring Joe Tompkins, who joined the board in November, and Executive Director Vanessa Rockovich. While Tompkins pushed to follow through on several minor changes discussed at a special meeting late last month, Rockovich told board members that Christopher Ferry, the authority's attorney, had requested that the decisions be postponed until next month since Ferry could not be present for the meeting last week.
'As a board, my understanding is, we don't have to do what Chris says — we're essentially doing him a favor by not discussing these items today,' Tompkins said. 'It's up to us as a board to set the agenda. It's not Chris's agenda, it's not the executive director's agenda.'
Part of Tompkins' frustration stemmed from the seemingly simple question of how board members could have topics placed on the agenda for discussion or vote.
Tompkins also aired concerns that the understaffed authority could be growing numb to longstanding problems.
'I've seen the bedbug problem persist for years at this point. I'm worried that we're getting comfortable with this status quo where we've consistently got anywhere from eight to 15 units with infestations pretty much every month,' he said. 'I would like to see us do a better job.'
Thirteen units at Holland Towers on Market Street and nine at William Gill Commons on Walker Drive were actively being treated last month for infestations of either bedbugs, cockroaches or both, according to Assistant Maintenance Inspector Kyle Lynch. For Holland Towers, the number was up from 10 the previous month while William Gill was down from 14.
Like the bedbugs themselves, frustration over the seemingly intransigent problem is nothing new to Housing Authority meetings, and Rockovich responded to Tompkins with a position similar to one she has stated before.
'The only way to do that, Joe, is to start evicting the tenants because the tenants are the problem,' she said. 'The problem is the hoarding and the keeping of items.'
Rockovich has also in the past stated her unwillingness to evict the seniors and disabled people who reside in Holland Towers over repeat bedbug issues. As recently as November, in Tompkins' first meeting as a board member, she decried the catch-22 situation facing tenants most in need of social services: Such tenants, Rockovich said, need the help of social service agencies to overcome the issues leading to bedbug problems, but local agencies decline to send caseworkers to apartments with ongoing infestations.
Last week, Rockovich said that when the authority did evict one person responsible for repeated recurrences of bedbug problems, the 'services kicked in initially but then they don't stay on top of it.'
As the meeting progressed to new business, board members voted on two seemingly minor items Tompkins proposed bringing to the table: including reports from the authority's three resident councils as a recurring feature of the monthly meeting agenda and posting either an audio or video recording of the monthly meeting to the authority's website.
Board members voted unanimously in favor of the former and 3-2 in favor of the latter, with Yohe and Zin in opposition. Both said they supported the concept but cited procedural concerns as the reason for their opposition. Zinn specifically cited a lack of clarity on the details of how the recording would be made and posted. Yohe's concern grew out of the appearance of a lack of transparency.
'It makes me nervous without Chris (Ferry) being here because we didn't tell folks that we were taking this (vote) when we started this week,' Yohe said.
Pennsylvania's Sunshine Law prohibits public agencies from adding action items to meeting agendas during meetings or less than 24 hours prior except under very limited circumstances.
Contacted via email Wednesday, Ferry said that he was unaware of the board's actions at the meeting. He added that both issues had been discussed before the public at the board's special meeting late last month and that neither actually required formal votes for implementation
'We take great care to avoid any Sunshine Law impropriety,' he said. 'Part of the reason for the special meeting in January was for the public to learn the views of board members on those topics. They had a robust discussion at the special meeting about that.'
Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, noted that while not emergencies, the items in question might qualify as exceptions to the agenda requirements due to their minor nature and the fact that they did not involve the expenditure of funds.
'They seem to be de minimis and made to increase transparency, so that's encouraging,' Melewsky wrote in an email. 'If the agency would have added a contract or controversial issue to the agenda under 'new business' my answer would be very different.'
As the focus of the meeting turned to two staff positions that have remained vacant since — Holland Towers manager and Section 8 housing program manager — Tompkins again returned to frustration over the seeming intractability of the challenges facing the authority.
'Every time I'm proposing to do something new, I'm told you don't have the capacity to do this, give me another month, give another month, give me a couple of months,' he said. 'I can't get firm timelines on anything.'
'You're not going to get firm timelines on anything, Joe,' Rockovich responded immediately, her insistent tone and rising volume revealing frustration of her own. 'You don't understand Housing Authority business, and I am to the point that I'm tired of you badgering, tired of you calling me a liar and tired of you saying that I'm making excuses. I am doing the best that I can.
'If you had a better understanding of what goes on,' she continued, 'you would take a step back and say let the staff do their jobs.'
As Rockovich concluded, Zinn announced, 'That's it,' indicating that he was ready to adjourn the meeting. Tompkins, however, was not, and told Zinn, 'I'm not finished.'
'You are finished,' Zinn replied. 'I've heard enough.'
'No, I'm not finished, Dick,' Tompkins continued, momentarily shouting. 'She does not get to interrupt me and then you interrupt me and then I'm cut off. … You're going to cut another board member off after she just patronized us?'
'I'm tired of this discussion,' Zinn replied.
Despite the fatigue, the meeting continued another 10 minutes or so, much of it back and forth discussion between Zinn, Tompkins, Yohe and Rockovich.