Thomas MacMillan Photo
Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton will continue to helm the Housing of Authority of New Haven over the next three years. HANH’s Board of Commissioners unanimously approved her new three-year contract at its regular meeting Tuesday night.
DuBois-Walton took over as executive director in July 2008 when Jimmy Miller stepped down to focus on structuring HANH’s real estate transactions. During her tenure, HANH’ has successfully competed for $22 million in federal “stimulus” funding. That money has gone towards rehabbing HANH’s citywide and aging housing stock and to projects such as making more wheelchair-accessible units. She has also led an effort to “rebrand” HANH as “Elm City Communities” to attract more residents and increase the number of contractors bidding on the agency’s many ongoing development projects.
DuBois-Walton said she is particularly proud of the authority’s growth in minority and female hiring and contracting.
Her new contract will run from August 2010 through 2012, with an option to renew for a third year. The salary is $162,067 annually.
Executive Program Manager Gary Hogan said DuBois-Walton is not only highly competent, but also a motivator. When he and his team had secured a $1.4 million arrangement in natural gas and electricity savings for the agency, he said, she emailed each member of the team “job well done.”
“Not in every organization do you get that [individual] top down appreciation,” he said.
After the vote, HANH Board Chairman Bob Solomon (pictured with fellow commissioner Louise Pearsall) told DuBois-Walton, “The regard with which the community and staff hold the executive director is extraordinarily high.”
He thanked her for accepting to continue to perform a tough job.
DuBois-Walton said among her goals in the next few years is the promotion of more self sufficiency among residents, including more training and scholarship opportunities for young people who live in the Elm City Communities, as they are now termed.
On her immediate plate are negotiations with two HANH unions, whose contracts are outstanding.
Re "DuBois-Walton said she is particularly proud of the authority's growth in minority and female hiring and contracting": I hope this doesn't mean race, ethnicity, and sex are considered at all in deciding who gets awarded a contract (or hired). It's fine to make sure contracting (and employment) programs are open to all, that bidding (and hiring) opportunities are widely publicized beforehand, and that no one gets discriminated against because of skin color, national origin, or sex. But that means no preferences because of skin color, etc. either--whether it's labeled a "set-aside," a "quota," or a "goal," since they all end up amounting to the same thing. Such discrimination is unfair and divisive; it costs the taxpayers money to award a contract to someone other than the lowest bidder; and it's almost always illegal—indeed, unconstitutional—to boot (see 42 U.S.C. section 1981 and this model brief: http://community.pacificlegal.org/Page.aspx?pid=1342 ). Those who insist on engaging in such discrimination deserve to be sued, and they will lose.