NORTHAMPTON — City Council President Ryan O’Donnell’s plan to dramatically scale back a proposal intended to add more tenant representation to the Northampton Housing Authority is moving ahead to the City Council Thursday.
O’Donnell’s original home rule petition would have added six new tenant members elected by the tenants to the authority’s five-member board of commissioners. His revision, however, would instead add one tenant member and one member from the Northampton Housing Partnership, both of whom would be appointed by Northampton’s mayor. If approved, the authority would have seven members — six of whom are appointed by the mayor.
To become law, a home rule petition originating from Northampton must be approved locally by the council and mayor and at the state level by the Legislature and governor.
O’Donnell said that he changed the original home rule petition so that it would have a better chance of becoming law.
“This is something that’s a political compromise,” O’Donnell said.
However, the discarding of the elections portion of the petition was disappointing to a number of people at Tuesday’s joint forum of the council’s Legislative Matters and Community Resources subcommittees.
“The initial proposal actually had me pretty excited,” City Councilor At-Large William Dwight said.
“There’s no balls to that amendment at all,” said Roy Martin, a resident of Walter Salvo House.
“Electing people is core to the success of this,” said Tom Burton, another Salvo House resident.
Burton also criticized that Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz would appoint the new positions.
“The mayor is part of the problem,” he said.
Currently, Narkewicz appoints four members of the housing authority board, including its one required tenant member. The fifth member is appointed by the governor, and this appointee is currently a tenant.
Jeffrey Jones, who chairs the board, said that he wasn’t consulted about either version of the proposal and that the current two tenants serving on the board provide sufficient tenant representation. He also said that the board is making progress, despite “bumps in the road.”
“I think both of these proposals … are a rush to judgment,” Jones said.
Another board member, however, recently appointed tenant representative Emily Laufer, supports more tenant representatives.
“If I had just two more (tenant representatives) I think that would make a huge difference,” she said.
A motivator for O’Donnell’s proposal was a decision this year by Northampton Housing Authority Executive Director Cara Clifford to ban window air conditioning units in both Salvo House and McDonnell House. This decision was made without consulting the board, and was rescinded after significant public outcry.
Edgardo Cancel, who heads the tenants association at Hampshire Heights, said that while he was supportive of the first version and would like to have seen elections, he felt the new version is “much more realistic.”
He also praised O’Donnell, and took issue with Jones’ characterization of the situation at the authority.
“They’re not doing a good job,” said Cancel. “It’s almost abuse what’s going on at the housing authority.”
The idea of having more tenants represented on the board got the support of Jo Comerford, the senator elect for the Hampshire, Franklin and Worcester District in the Massachusetts state Senate.
“We need more voices of those most effected by public housing,” she said.
One woman who spoke was critical of the idea of elections because she said that they could threaten the anonymity of those who use rental assistance through the housing authority, although O’Donnell said that no confidentiality laws would be broken. She also said that those who reside outside of Northampton but get rental assistance through the authority should be eligible to be appointed to the board as tenant representatives. Even some who were supportive of elections said that they felt that there could be issues with them.
“We have a situation here where the fox will be guarding the hen house,” said Kenneth Pratt, a Salvo House resident, on the prospect of the authority running elections.
“We have no faith in the system, we have no faith our leaders, we have no faith in our city councilors, we have no faith in our mayor, that something’s gonna change,” said Cancel, on why an election might not work.
In the end, both councilors who expressed issue with the original proposal, such as Ward 1 Councilor Maureen Carney and Ward 5 Councilor David Murphy, as well as those who were excited by the original version, Dwight, Ward 4 Councilor Gina-Louise Sciarra and Ward 7 Councilor Alisa Klein, voted to advance the home-rule petition to the full City Council. The council will take it up on first reading on Thursday.
Bera Dunau can be reached at bdunau@gazettenet.com.