HADLEY — Select Board members are being challenged by the executive director of the Hadley Housing Authority for what she contends has been inappropriate interference in the functioning of its board of commissioners.

Executive Director Pamela Rogers, who is also in charge of the Amherst and Belchertown housing authorities, told the Select Board at its Oct. 19 meeting that actions it has taken recently to support tenants, including getting the commission back to almost its full complement of five members, have not been in line with procedures by which the Hadley Housing Authority has to abide.

“We can’t follow your rules,” Rogers said. “We have rules to follow, the rules of the Department of Housing, and there’s been a lot of interference, and we need that to stop.”

The Select Board’s involvement with the public housing properties in Hadley, including the Golden Court complex for senior citizens and disabled individuals and the Burke Way family housing site, began in 2021 following ongoing complaints against management from some residents.

Last spring’s town elections saw two new members join the commission, but at their first meeting, held in June, a police response to the Golden Court community room occurred due to uncertainty about whether the meeting, which drew some tenants, could be held in person.

Rogers said her concerns include the Select Board, as well as a member of the commission, communicating with the state about the commission’s governor’s appointee, which remains vacant, and the board’s August appointment of a tenant representative for the commission.

“There’s been lots of emails,” Rogers said. Rogers added that she is preparing to file a Freedom of Information Act request seeking both town and personal emails from members of the Select Board to learn what email communications have occurred.

There has been advocacy for resident David Moskin to be named by the governor to the vacant position that is appointed by the governor, and Rogers said that some of that has come from a member of the commission, without input from other members or even discussed at a public meeting.

In August, the Select Board appointed a tenants representative to the only vacancy unfilled by town elections. At that time, Rise Smythe-Freed, a Golden Court tenant for the past five years who worked professionally as a nurse, was appointed.

But Rogers said the manner in which that appointment was made, with none of the commissioners present at the meeting, may have been faulty. That was required to be a joint appointment, similar to how a vacancy on the town’s Board of Health was filled.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.]]>