Latest news with #Rockovich
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Housing Authority faces uncertain staffing, finance questions
A Meadville Housing Authority meeting this week highlighted a staff running at approximately 50 percent capacity and financial disarray beginning to set in four weeks after board members placed the agency's executive director on temporary paid leave. While significant progress is continuing on a multimillion-dollar renovation of Holland Towers, the Wednesday board meeting left it unclear whether approximately $167,000 in upcoming bills for the project would be paid in a timely fashion. 'There are going to be consequences coming from the inability to do anything in terms of the renovation project, so you need to be aware that's coming,' acting Executive Director Jon Ketcham told board members during the meeting. The board's decision to place Vanessa Rockovich, Ketcham's predecessor in the executive director position, on leave left him without access to the capital accounts being used to fund the renovation and spreadsheets tracking the spending, he told board members. Looking to papers arranged on the table in front of him, Ketcham added, 'I do have the change orders here. I have the pay requests here, but I'm not signing them.' Ketcham said he couldn't be sure which accounts to draw funds from without access to the accounts. When board member Marcia Yohe asked later in the meeting if the authority has the money to pay the bills, he said he didn't know. 'I haven't seen the spreadsheet,' he said. 'I can't answer that.' Bills for the project were paid appropriately in early April, Ketcham noted, but 'some of the amounts — the documentation I needed and requested from Vanessa on April 16th, there were some variances, there were some things that were missing and I couldn't account for the full amount that was drawn down or the allocation of it and I've never been given that. 'She has told me that that is not available to me,' Ketcham said regarding an extensive spreadsheet Rockovich maintained tracking the federal grant funding for the Holland Towers project and how it was being spent. 'I was told that I would not understand it.' Ketcham told board members that he also couldn't access other authority spreadsheets, including one for figuring Section 8 payments. 'She has password-protected all those, locking me out,' he said. Still unable to access the files Thursday, Ketcham told The Meadville Tribune that the authority's lawyer would attempt to work out a resolution with Rockovich's lawyer. At the Wednesday board meeting, Christopher Ferry, the authority's attorney, acknowledged the urgency of the situation but also sought to add additional context to Ketcham's report on the difficulties encountered with the capital funds that are being used to pay for the $6.2 million renovation project at Holland Towers. 'I would want to make it clear, nobody's making any allegations here. We don't know enough to be able to say somebody's intentionally doing this or that,' Ferry said. 'There may be innocuous explanations for why he doesn't have access to it right now, so we want to sort that out initially before we make any allegations about anything.' Contacted by phone Thursday, Rockovich did not respond directly to Ketcham's comments. Instead, she expressed concern that commenting on the meeting could add to what she described as 'a lot of misconception.' Rockovich then said she has been in frequent communication with Ferry since being placed on leave. 'I have had numerous conversations with the solicitor on several matters and have asked him to make Jon aware that I was very willing to help with things,' she said, 'and I have never received a request.' Ultimately, board members did not vote on whether to approve the two pay requests related to the Holland Towers renovation during their two-hour meeting. When Ketcham asked board members what to do about them, board member Cena Kneubehl requested the board move to executive session to discuss 'a personnel matter.' Executive sessions allow public agencies to discuss in private certain specific topics outlined by Pennsylvania's Sunshine Act. As the approximately 10 audience members departed and the board prepared to move to executive session, Ketcham was asked what the lack of resolution means with regard to the renovation of Holland Towers. 'I don't know,' he said. Board Chair Joe Tompkins was more optimistic immediately following the meeting. 'I'm confident Chris and Jon will get it resolved,' he said. 'Still running severely understaffed' When discussion at the Wednesday meeting turned to staffing at the agency that operates nearly 350 units of low-income housing and manages more than 180 units of Section 8 housing, Ketcham first looked back to September. At that point, the authority had a full complement of employees with 10 administrative staff members and eight maintenance workers. Today, the staff is down to six administrative and four maintenance employees and some existing employees might be considering leaving, Ketcham told the board. The losses to the maintenance staff included an employee who was licensed as a pesticide applicator. Ketcham said a remaining staff member would test for his license in mid-June. There is some cause for optimism on the staffing front: Two former members of the authority's administrative staff, both of whom retired last fall, were hired on a per diem basis after the board held another special meeting earlier this month. A new Section 8 coordinator is expected to start next week, filling a vacancy of approximately six months, and Ketcham has plans to meet with a potential addition to the maintenance staff. 'But,' he added, 'we are still running severely understaffed right now.' The three most recent appointees to the five-member board, who in recent months have pushed for action on a variety of longstanding issues facing the authority, continued their efforts to develop a formal housekeeping policy and pest management plan as well as to address a backlog of Section 8 applications that has topped 800. Ketcham presented draft versions of the housekeeping policy and the pest management plan, both of which were added to the authority's website, on Thursday for a 30-day period of public comment. Progress on the pest management policy in particular brought a positive reaction from Tompkins. The board was directed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which funds and oversees the authority, to develop the policy in August 2023. 'I'm delighted we have a plan in front of us,' said Tompkins, who joined the board in November. 'As long as I've been on the board, we've consistently been told that it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, but it never came.' News on the actual pest treatment front at first appeared positive as well, but Assistant Maintenance Inspector Kyle Lynch was quick to temper the optimism. Lynch reported that nine units at Holland Towers were currently being treated for pests, two for bedbugs and seven for cockroaches. For a building that has struggled to bring down active infestations, particularly bedbugs, for more than three years, the figures at first seemed a significant step forward. But Lynch said recently completed quarterly inspections were likely to reveal additional infestations. 'There will be more, I'm sure,' Lynch said of bedbug problems. 'I don't think it's going to skyrocket more than the roaches, though.' Ketcham similarly tempered optimism regarding staff efforts to address the Section 8 waitlist, which includes years of applicants who have likely moved on to other options. 'Right now we are running literally at half staff. If we could get back up to a full complement or even three-quarters of a full complement, it would be easier to consider,' he said. 'Right now, I think everybody is overwhelmed.'
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Housing Authority calls special meeting for vote on executive director
Eight days after the executive director of the Meadville Housing Authority pointed to the resignation of a board member as an 'easy resolution' to a conflict of interest that could result in sanctions for the authority, board members appear poised to move in a different direction. After months of simmering tensions, board members will vote on whether to place Vanessa Rockovich on a temporary paid leave of absence effective immediately, according to an agenda for the meeting that was posted to the authority's website. The vote is part of a special meeting that takes place at 4:30 p.m. today in the Holland Towers community room. The meeting was announced in a legal advertisement in Wednesday's edition of The Meadville Tribune. If the leave of absence is approved, the board also will vote to appoint an interim director and to amend the list of people authorized to sign for the authority in its banking transactions. The special meeting comes after board members met in executive session Sunday afternoon to discuss 'a personnel matter,' according to the agenda. Executive sessions take place when a government agency meets behind closed doors to discuss topics that the state's open meetings law allows to be kept secret from the public. The special meeting also comes after conflict between members has become increasingly evident at the authority's monthly meetings, with the three newest board members on one side, pushing for a variety of changes, and two more senior board members and Rockovich on the other, counseling patience in some cases and arguing that proposed changes are unneeded in others. Board member Joe Tompkins, who was elected chair at the board's monthly meeting last week, has led the charge in the push to make changes and has repeatedly clashed with Rockovich since joining the board in November. A conflict of interest affecting Tompkins has also been a focus of attention for the board and a source of apparent frustration for both Rockovich and Tompkins. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) determined last fall that a conflict existed because the authority had a contract with Meadville nonprofit Common Roots for three housing choice vouchers, also known as Section 8 vouchers. Tompkins' wife, Julie Wilson, is the executive director of Common Roots. The number of vouchers is expected to soon be down to two, according to Rockovich. HUD directed the Housing Authority to propose a course of action to resolve the conflict. 'The next step is to put together a proposed resolution of the conflict to submit to HUD for review and hopefully approval,' attorney Christopher Ferry said after Tompkins joined the board in November. Last week, with Tompkins recusing himself, board members split 2-2 on two proposed resolutions to the conflict: either canceling the Common Roots contracts or seeking a waiver from HUD for Tompkins' conflict of interest. With both motions failing due the tie votes, the future was left up in the air for both the affected tenants and the authority's relationship with HUD, which funds the authority. 'We'll find out,' Ferry said regarding the question of how HUD will respond to the board's inaction with regard to Tompkins' conflict of interest. 'I need to talk to HUD office to see what I'm allowed to do,' Rockovich added moments later. There's no guarantee a waiver would be granted, but without one, the authority could face repercussions from HUD. Ferry estimated the likelihood of the waiver being granted at about 50 percent. Marcia Yohe and Richard Zinn, the senior board members who have been in the minority for multiple votes over the past few months, proved unwilling to even ask for a waiver. Yohe argued that votes on matters related to the authority's Section 8 program had led to multiple conflicts since Tompkins joined the board. 'Just because you're saying it's a conflict does not mean that HUD thinks it's a conflict. The choice before you was clear,' Tompkins responded. 'HUD will sanction us, so we want to know what the sanctions are,' Yohe said. 'That's what we've asked.' In seeming disbelief, Tompkins replied, 'You're willing to risk the sanctions rather than simply request a waiver?' Immediately after the meeting, Rockovich made her preferences clear regarding Tompkins' conflict of interest. 'As long as Joe remains on the board, then we're stuck,' she said. 'Easy resolution is, he could resign. HUD offices have been asking him to, so I don't understand the reason why we're going through this.' After Rockovich's comments appeared in Friday's edition of the Tribune, however, Tompkins said in an email that her statement was untrue. 'HUD never asked me to resign,' he wrote in part. Rockovich, in turn, reiterated her position but also revised her claim: She had emails in which HUD officials told her 'they have suggested it to him,' she said on Friday. Asked to share the emails in question, Rockovich said she would seek permission from HUD to do so. In a follow-up phone call Monday, Rockovich said she would need an additional day to consult with HUD officials or find another document that would back up her statement. On Tuesday, she referred the matter to Ferry, the authority's attorney. In an email Wednesday morning, Ferry said he would check 'to see what I have.' By Wednesday evening, neither Rockovich nor Ferry had provided evidence to support Rockovich's assertion that HUD officials had asked Tompkins to resign. The Meadville City Council members who appointed Tompkins to the Housing Authority in September have repeatedly expressed their support for his continuing on the board both in communications and in person during the public comment portions of authority meetings. In November, council members sent a letter of support for Tompkins and in March Councilwoman Autumn Vogel read from that letter to stress council's continuing support. Councilwoman Gretchen Myers was in the audience last week when the board voted against seeking a waiver for Tompkins' conflict of interest. As she stood to leave the meeting after the vote, she summed up her reaction in a single word: 'Disgusting.'
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Frustrations evident at Housing Authority meeting
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.
