NORTHAMPTON — A new acting executive director has been appointed to the Northampton Housing Authority, as the investigation into suspended Executive Director Cara Leiper continues and both staff and tenants raise additional complaints.
Sharon Kimble, who according to her LinkedIn profile has served as the chief accounting officer for the Housing Authority since 2012, took over Sept. 25 from Matthew Mainville, the Holyoke Housing Authority director who had been serving as the NHA interim director since Leiper was placed on paid leave in March.
More than six month since that decision, Leiper continues to be on paid leave amid an investigation prompted by a whistleblower complaint delivered to the NHA and the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities in January.
The complaint states that Leiper, who has been executive director for nearly a decade and also serves in the same capacity for Easthampton and Hatfield, allegedly engaged in “nepotism and favoritism” by giving housing to close friends and family members and allowing them to skip waitlists. The complaint also accuses her of creating “an unprofessional work environment,” displaying favoritism toward staff members, engaging in retaliatory measures against those who disagree with her, and sexually harassing staff members.
In one case cited in the complaint, a tenant with whom she had a personal relationship was allegedly transferred to a two-bedroom apartment in the Florence Heights family housing complex, despite the tenant not being eligible for family housing. It states the tenant then moved into the home of Leiper and her husband, while continuing to lease the Florence Heights apartment.
Leiper has denied any wrongdoing. Messages left to Leiper and her attorney requesting comment were not returned on Tuesday.
Also named in the complaint is a family member of Maureen Carney, the current president of the Housing Authority board. The compliant alleges that the family member was given housing without being placed on a waitlist, and that Leiper had unilaterally decided to house them despite Carney filing a conflict of interest form, requiring Leiper to instead forward the application to the EOHLC.
Since Leiper’s paid leave, the investigation into the allegations has been conducted by Greene & Hafer, a Boston law firm specializing in employment law and workplace violations. The firm did not respond to repeated requests for comment from the Gazette regarding the ongoing status of the investigation. The EOHLC also did not immediately respond to request for comment.
On Monday, the NHA board met to enter an executive session “to discuss a third-party investigation of complaints or charges brought against a public official.” The board did not provide any information to the public regarding the status of the investigation.
Staff, tenants raise concerns
While Leiper remains on paid leave, both tenants and staff members have continued to raise concerns about the current state of the Housing Authority. The NHA oversees 567 units across seven properties in Northampton, and the executive director also oversees housing authorities in Easthampton and Hatfield.
One NHA staff member who with others filed the whistleblower complaint, told the Gazette that Leiper has continued to be involved in NHA affairs while being on paid leave.
“There are several of us that are concerned about this,” said the staffer, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. “The staff here at NHA are on edge.”
The staff member provided testimony by a service technician that on May 21, nearly two months after Leiper was placed on paid leave, the technician had received a call about a smoke detector at the Walter Salvo House that needed changing. Around half an hour later he received a call from Leiper asking why he had not yet fixed the smoke detector. The technician responded that he was in transit from the Florence Heights housing development to address a prior call about a leak and that he answered calls in the order in which they were received. The technician stated that Leiper told him that was “the wrong answer.”
While Leiper remains on paid leave, tenants have also voiced complaints against Carney in her role as NHA board president. Those complaints stem from an NHA board meeting held virtually on Aug 18. That meeting was disrupted by a pornographic video which played for several seconds before being removed.
In a letter to Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra dated Oct. 6, members of tenant organizations for Cahill Apartments, Forsander Apartments and the Walter Salvo House called for Carney’s resignation for letting the video play for approximately 20 seconds and for accusing Paul Borneo, a member of the Cahill Tenants Organization, of being responsible for the video.
“Ms. Carney created and spread a false narrative by ejecting the Cahill board while the pornographic video played and then accusing Mr. Borneo of broadcasting the video,” the letter states.
In an email to Robin Hicks, president of the Cahill Tenants Organization dated Sept. 4, Carney stated that Borneo was the “assumed name of the person who attacked our 8/18 meeting.”
“I made no accusations, and expressed to the police my fear that a resident may have been phished, or may be being framed by an adversary because the person attacking the meeting used the same name,” Carney wrote in the email, a copy of which was shared with the Gazette.
Carney did not return requests for comment regarding the incident. The mayor’s office declined to comment on the matter, citing that it had referred the incident to its legal team and that it couldn’t comment on an outside investigation.