This appointment continues the longtime role of BMHA as haven for patronage & bonanza for developers, instead of being an engine to reduce poverty & increase access to truly safe & affordable housing in an impoverished city.
AV readers may recall Geoff Kelly's report in April 2010 on Crystal Peoples' new husband George Stokes being appointed as one of two BMHA "crime prevention specialists". Lacking any qualifications for the years'-vacant spot last filled by the parking enforcement director's son, but now expanded to two positions, Stokes was 'being trained'. And he is just one of a long list of political hires at BMHA.
However, a major problem in Bflo is the lack of monitoring of BMHA's incredible cost & endless HUD millions by concerned citizens & advocates for the poor, who have long concluded that BMHA (& HUD) is 'unreformable'. Consequently serving on BMHA's board has no status or appeal to housing or poverty advocates or experts, so the Mayor simply resorts to purely political appointments, perpetuating the problem.
Brown is filling a long-vacant position on the board, as there have been continued vacancies over several years for the five of seven positions appointed by Byron Brown. Donna Brown's predecessor served briefly before taking an appointed job in City Hall.
Indeed, according to the city website, the board VP's term expired in Oct 2009, as the president is dubiously independent, working for Byron Brown in City Hall as well as heading BMHA's board.
Having failed miserably in her assignment to develop a "Poverty Plan" while deputy mayor, Donna Brown is now agreeing to put her name on the flagship of Bflo's infamously-failed "poverty industry". I made repeated efforts to learn if she had any contact with BMHA as Bflo's massively funded "welfare agency" whie she was developing her 'plan' There was no response, as then-BMHA atty Paul Wolf told me he had no knowledge of any working contact between Donna B & BMHA.
Why does she want to hang out at BMHA now?
COPY: April 22, 2010
Patronage at BHMA?
On Tuesday we learned that the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority has hired a new “crime prevention specialist”: George E. Stokes—husband of Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes, vice-chair of the Erie County Democratic Party, and uncle to basketball hero Leonard Stokes, one of the lead characters in the One Sunset boondoggle.
Asked about Stokes’s qualifications for the job, a source at BMHA tells us, “He’s in training.”
Read more: http://artvoice.com/issues/v9n16/week_in_review/seven_days#ixzz1kaJMWKPt
COPY: http://www.ci.buffalo.ny.us/Home/CityServices/Buffalo_Municipal_Housing_Authority/Leadership
Leadership
BMHA Commissioners for Year 2010 (NOTE: this is 2012!)
Michael A. Seaman - Chairman
(5-year term expires October 19, 2015)
Ronald Brown - Vice Chairman
(5-year term expires October 19, 2009)
Hal D. Payne
(5-year term expires October 19, 2016)
Joseph Mascia - Resident Commissioner
(2-year term expires June 30, 2012)
Elaine Diallo - Resident Commissioner
(2-year term expires June 30, 2012)
Jason C. Shell
(2-year term expires October 19, 2013)
Donna Brown Heads Back Downtown |
by Geoff Kelly |
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Remember Donna M. Brown? Brown was second deputy mayor of Buffalo for a spell, occupying the suicide seat next to First Deputy Mayor Steve Casey, Mayor Byron Brown’s chief political officer.
Prior to being named deputy mayor in January 2008, Donna Brown spent five years as director of community relation for LP Ciminelli, Inc., working as a liaison between the development firm and elected officials on the Joint Schools Construction Project. Her job in the Brown administration was to address the city’s ever-deepening poverty issues. In April 2009, after more than 15 months—during which Buffalo fluctuated between second- and third-poorest city in the country, according to the US Census Bureau—her plan finally was released. It was a 77-page document, nearly a third of which was a list of poverty-fighting accomplishments claimed by the Brown administration, and the rest of which comprised dire statistics cribbed from other studies and a laundry list of existing programs and not-for-profit organizations that serve the urban poor.
In a city that is regularly deluged with plans, and plans to mark plans, this one—compiled quickly in an election year, delivered late—was memorable only for its embarrassing lack of substance. There were no new ideas offered, no concrete steps advocated; it remains a placeholder buried on the city’s website, representing work that has yet to be done. The task force of community leaders it recommended has never been heard from publicly again.
But Donna Brown has returned. Last spring Brown left the mayor’s office, as second deputy mayors are wont to do, and took a job at Erie County Medical Center, overseeing “patient satisfaction and cultural awareness.” On Tuesday, the Common Council confirmed her as the mayor’s appointment to the board of commissioners of the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority.
Reader Comments
Richard Kern 26 Jan 2012, 13:41
TUUTT
28 Jan 2012, 10:43
After working in City Hall for many years I can tell you Seaman is a joke.
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