MORE: BMHA, Williams, Rogers & West

Former Council Chief-of-Staff Mike Williams is gone as director of troubled "RCC" after a mere two months. He was apparently accused of misappropriating $50 . . . as Rogers has served an $800 dinner to her good friend BMHA Exec. Sharon West, paid with RCC funds (see below).

Housed in the new Martha Mitchell Community Center at BMHA's Kenfield-Langfield Housing Projects, RCC (Resident Council Corp.) is in deep trouble. But mismanagement by tenant-elected Commissioner Mary Rogers (for 22 yr.), including likely theft of funds, has been repeatedly covered-up. Promised investigation, removal of 'boss Rogers', reform, & new elections for the advisory board have all not occurred.

Rogers runs the RCC like a personal fiefdom. The rules change constantly. She recently demanded drug testing for board members, as her hand-picked Williams has had high profile drug problems himself. (He left Council under suspicion he stole checks from co-workers. Other examples abound. Roger's two letters to RCC employees Carol Kelley & Tara Lynch:

• Nov. 5: "staff layoff due to lack of funding; employee will be called back . .as soon as funding is available"
• Dec. 5: "As a former employee you may apply for any position that matches your qualifications"

A scheduled RCC board meeting on April 3 was suddenly canceled. Another meeting was quietly scheduled a week later. The other Tenant-elected BMHA Commissioner, Aqiel Quidir, absent to attend the funeral of activist Mujahid Rashada, was removed from the advisory board.

Accountability at BMHA is very illusive. Clearly investigation of RCC is needed. Since HUD's Inspector General is notoriously lax, often covering-up, rather than exposing or prosecuting, corruption . . perhaps investigation by the US Attorney would be more effective.

And the upcoming elections in June for the two tenant-elected BMHA Commissioners raise other questions:

• Should there be term limits after 22 years? AND . . .
• Should folks capable of supporting themselves live in public housing forever?

COPY: BMHA WatchFeb28: West & Rogers 'Do Dinner' . . . taxpayer' tab $800

It is an open secret among tenants that BMHA Exec. Sharon West & tenant-elected Commissioner Mary Rogers "do dinner" every Sunday. It would usually be considered a conflict-of-interest for an elected tenant representative to be so cozy with 'management'. But after being a Mun. Hous. Auth. Commissioner for 22 yr., & a BMHA tenant for over 35 yr., the usual rules don't apply to Mary Rogers. Nor to Sharon West. Public housing, with predominantly black families, is known to work like a 'federal plantation', complete with 'house' & 'field slaves'. Add generous funding, plus lax supervision provided by corrupt & wasteful US Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD), & public housing becomes a lucrative "poverty industry". Add virtual demise of the civil rights movement, & predominantly black tenants become tokens in a cynical charade of "housing the poor" while making politicians, developers & 'civil rights bureaucrats' rich . . all at incredible cost to taxpayers, as most urban poor get little or nothing, while living in squalid housing in dangerous neighborhoods.

The 'plantation' is deeply corrupting . . . because black (or Hispanic) tenants are persuaded by staff who "look like us" that skin color (or 'color of ethnicity') . . . not "content of character" (proposed by ML King to be the measure of human worth) .. make them trustworthy. It went so far as to have staff speak to Hispanics at West Side Lakeview Homes in Spanish to overcome resistance by English-speaking whites & blacks to the costly $105 million HOPE VI bonanza that will make connected (to Clinton, having 'Coffee in the White House' in 1995) Phila. developer Israel Roizman very rich. While HOPE VI builds flimsy apartments for the poor costing up to $1/4 million each in a neighborhood having the lowest rate of home ownership in Buffalo.

The $800 Dinner Apparently Mary Rogers goes grocery shopping on Saturdays to prepare whatever dish Sharon West fancies on Sunday. On a Saturday last August Rogers asked Kenfield resident Carol Kelley, the program director Rogers had hired for the new Martha Mitchell Community Center to drive her in the BMHA van to shop at Galleria Mall. Being insecure driving in unfamiliar suburbs, Kelley asked a friend to drive the van. The friend backed into another car at one of several stops. Rogers immediately asked Kelley to say she was driving so BMHA insurance would apply. But for some reason, obviously known to both West & Rogers, it didn't. So the fiscally mismanaged RCC, (Resident Council Corporation, which pays staff at Mitchell Community Center) totally controlled by Mary Rogers, secretly paid the $799.20 bill (8/9/01) for damages instead. The menu for Sunday's dinner is unknown, but it cost taxpayers $800. . plus gas . . . & wear-and-tear on the BMHA van. And most important, the cost of 'corrupting the morals' of BMHA's poor & downtrodden, who know that some poor are MUCH more equal than others.
Comments? Corrections? Call 882-23888; Richard Kern, MSW, Feb 28,2002

WEBSITE: www.kernwatch.com email: Kernwatch@AOL.com