New Haven Independent

Posted by: MORRIS COVE MF | August 27, 2008 1:45 PM

So it's still pass-the-buck, as usual. No one could or would tell Thomas what was going on, or better yet, why. Wow, can I work for the Housing Authority? No personal accountability, and no need to follow the law. Sounds really great. Keep digging Thomas, we all need to know why things like this happen.

Posted by: Section 8 Working Mother | August 27, 2008 2:11 PM

Yes, I'm on Section 8. Figuring out who my leasing officer every time I have a question is beginning to wear me thin. Leasing officers (or whatever the hell they call themselves now) never, ever return a call. If my landlord doesn't want to fix anything, she doesn't have to because apparently Section 8 doesn't care if people live with mice and squirrels in their walls. The only time I get to see my leasing officer is when my lease is up. If I have a question, I pray to God to find me an answer in the Heavens because it's the only one I could ever realistically get.

New Haven Housing Authority needs to be completely overhauled and better management needs to be implemented. When a very important audit/survey by the government went out to the Housing Agencies in Connecticut, why did every other agency in the state have 100% compliance, yet NHHA couldn't come up with half of that? Because they don't know what they are doing.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | August 27, 2008 2:14 PM

Bravo on this story Tom. Smelling something fishy here! I would insist on the out come of that event!

Posted by: JP | August 27, 2008 2:37 PM

Sounds to me like a bottom level worker had no idea what to do when someone who was technically allowed to be there but had no real business being there showed up. This inset news it's just a guy trying to get his job done. It's not like Paul pulls up in a van with the WTNH logo plastered on it. My guess is if you had called from the beginning and asked to show up and do an interview it would have gone over better.

Posted by: jawbone | August 27, 2008 4:46 PM

BTW, check out the truck door in the article's photo.
The New Haven Housing Authority has bar none the ugliest logo ever designed.

Posted by: Paul Bass | August 27, 2008 5:14 PM

JP -- Thanks for your comment -- and keeping us honest!

Here's our thinking in doing a story like this.

First off, Thomas, the reporter, did call the housing authority in the morning. And he actually reached a human being! He inquired about the event and informed them he was coming.

Even if he hadn't, I think the story was legit. How government reacts to any member of the public showing up at a public event is newsworthy, I believe. Especially in New Haven, where, when it comes to freedom of information, the government is run by outlaws with utter contempt for public accountability. There are lots of well-meaning public servants in City Hall who care about the public's right to know. But their hands are tied; they operate in the bureaucratic equivalent of a First Amendment criminal enterprise.

Close readers of this site are familiar with this. Fire Commission? They were conducting public business under false pretenses of an executive session; only when our reporter listened at the door and filed a state complaint did they at least promise to stop. They change commission meeting times at will at the last minute and then refuse to offer information of what happened. (I experienced that personally.)

The zoning board? Made all its votes in private until reporter Melissa Bailey exposed the practice.

Perhaps you remember the story when an assistant corporation counsel (!) illegally barred an Independent reporter from a public hearing of parking ticket appeals.

Or the case in which the director of elderly services sought to fire an employee in part because she spoke to the press on her after hours. She was cited for violating a written city policy, an unconstitutional policy, that bars city employees from speaking to reporters with advance authorization from the mayor's spokesperson. That policy has put a chill through all of government; I know of high-ranking officials who care deeply about openness to the press who won't answer routine questions for fear of getting in trouble.

You mentioned low-ranking employees. Without this kind of reporting, I believe, there's no chance that employees in government will get the message to follow the law. In fact they're getting the opposite message. The city has done a good job of communicating, through that new policy, that people risk losing their jobs for talking to reporters. Yet somehow the message to obey public information laws doesn't get out. We have seen no evidence that the employee responsible for barring the reporter from the traffic hearing, for instance, or the department head who tried to fire the employee for speaking out, were disciplined or even talked to.

This is a pattern that goes back to the beginning of the DeStefano administration. It has always fought routine freedom of information requests. It fought efforts to make the records of a quasi-public slush fund run by a mayoral appointee public in the '90s; fought an appeal hard and lost. We found out why: the appointee was spending hundreds of thousands of tax dollars helping businesses move OUT of New Haven!

Similarly, City Hall wasted five officials' time, and money on trips to Hartford, to fight having to make performance evaluations of top officials public. (The law was clearly against them.) They lost -- and then responded by deciding to stop doing real evaluations, so there'd be nothing to make public! That's what I mean by "outlaws."

The DeStefano administration and its appointees in government agencies aren't interested in reasoned argument when it comes to following the letter and spirit of public information laws. They respond, when they do respond, only to being challenged, embarrassed, exposed.

Reporters are the only real cops on the public accountability and freedom of information beat in New Haven. The cops certainly aren't the cops. Ask any reporter who's tried to obtain routine crime information after hours or on weekends. Or who has filed freedom of information requests for material clearly covered under freedom of information law.

And when someone in government threatens someone with arrest for showing up at a public event -- and a supervisor seconds the position -- I think that's dangerous. Dangerous, and newsworthy.

So JD, that's why ran that article. We won't stop running them; we won't back down. Otherwise we would forfeit our right to practice our profession; we would abandon our commitment to the public trust that sustains our mission. There is no freedom without freedom of information.

Postcript: I also thought the story captured the outrageous incompetence of the housing authority in dealing with the public. I know firsthand what it's like to reach a human being by phone at the housing authority -- only to spend 10 minutes holding, then getting cut off or sent to a non-working extension. Many tenants and landlords know about this too. It's been the case for years. There's no excuse for any agency, especially a government funded public agency, to operate that way. Thomas showed up in person when he couldn't reach anyone by phone at the moment of being threatened with arrest; he saw firsthand how the agency can't deal with the phones.

Posted by: fac Chek | August 27, 2008 6:13 PM

Thank you for the clarification Paul.

Can we get a comment from Bob Solomon?
Solomon, we know you're there, what say you?

Posted by: cedarhillresident | August 27, 2008 8:15 PM

Viva la PAUL!!!!!!!!!

And we as citizens of New Haven THANK YOU AND YOUR STAFF!!!! for being the only real news source in the state (I am including News Junky our Hartford link). But I must say that your list above is scary when all put together. Hmmmm

http://www.onyasoapbox.com/talent/bio/newspaper_mama

Posted by: omerta | August 27, 2008 9:44 PM

Mr Bass

A prebid meeting is for any contractor interested in bidding for city work. The exclusion of ANYONE indicates bid rigging.

Send your investigation results to Biden. He seems like a free speech guy.

Posted by: Gary Doyens | August 28, 2008 9:35 AM

The concept of Sunshine Laws is not hard to understand - every meeting, every file, everything that government does should be open to the scrutiny of the public with the exception of personnel matters or contract strategy sessions. Period.

The DeStefano administration just doesn't believe in Sunshine Laws or Freedom of Information. The record is replete with examples. When its not fighting to hide information from the public, it's intentionally misleading the public on everything from property tax increases (off by more than 5%) to the quality of its bond rating.

I think it's time for real and significant sanctions including personal liability for fines, not paid for by taxpayers to this intentional, willful violation of law and principle. Maybe if DeStefano and other city employees had to write a check or two for $500, they might remember who they really work for, and to whom they're responsible: THE PUBLIC.

Posted by: Margaret | August 28, 2008 9:51 AM

Small gripe: I don't feel like I am reading objective journalism when the NHI refers to the city's press policy as "unconstitutional." How about "controversial?"

Posted by: jackie | August 28, 2008 10:56 AM

nice work, tom and paul. this city wouldn't be the same without you guys.

Posted by: Bob Solomon | August 28, 2008 12:29 PM

Hi, Fac Chek -
how are you/
The Housing Authority was wrong. Pam Rosenblum accepted responsibility (contrary to someone's comment, she did not pass the buck), and said "i apologize." That's more than we hear from most people, and certainly more than we hear from the many commentators on this list, who never admit a mistake.

Posted by: Red Scare | August 28, 2008 1:02 PM

Margaret: Have you heard of the First Amendment to the United States constitution? You might find it in a New Haven library.

Posted by: Alphonse Credenza | August 29, 2008 9:31 AM

The best solution is dismantling most of the apparatus. How do we go about making New Haven city government SMALLER.

Less government is always better.

Posted by: Dawn | August 30, 2008 8:43 AM

Attempting to deal with the Housing Authority is a nightmare! I have no sympathy for those on Section 8 or the slumlords who perpetuate this horrible system of fraud! To try to register complaints or file accounts of fraud is truly a laugh. This department is nothing but a corrupt branch of government.
Is there no authority in the city or state that can force accountability? How much longer do we as TAXPAYERS have to endure this money pit???? When do landlords have to be accountable and when do Section 8 violators and the illegal tenants in their apartments have to get jobs ????

Posted by: Fedupwithliberals | August 30, 2008 9:17 AM

ALPHONSE

There's something called the Republican Party. It's a great way to toss out the machine. You couldn't find enough Republicans in the city to fill all the patronage jobs it would vacate should they win, so the system shrinks to boot!

Posted by: cedarhillresident | August 30, 2008 11:47 PM

Hmmm good point how many are there??? I will figure out who you are sooner or later :)

Posted by: gotchernumber | September 1, 2008 12:29 PM

Paul, you call it a criminal enterprise. Is this conversational hyperbole or are you suggesting the city is conspiring to violate people's civil rights (First Amendement?) in violation of criminal laws?

To Bob Solomon, I am tired of reading blog posts from an educated Yale Law School professor, (and head of the school's community outreach law clinics too by the way) they come off as sarcastic swipes at the public. Sorry, but Bob, for peat's sake, grow up. You remind me of the scene in gatsby where the beleagured snob utters "riffraff" at the passing car that clips him.

Your employee's frank and unconditional apology for the access difficulty showed more character than you do in your nearly always defensive posts.

Apparently, she knows how to think and has no need to display the high Yale nostralitis that you think passes for accountable enough for the dumb sots who post on this site, show up at your agency's meetings or seek to view documents, or, I dare say, petition your law clinics? etc etc.

Another example of that yale 'Brilliance' we keep hearing about!