Wednesday, June 18, 2003 | 9:44 a.m.
One day after replacing three-fifths of the Las Vegas Housing Authority board, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said Tuesday he is no longer seeking the resignations of the other two members.
Elaine Sanchez, spokeswoman for Goodman, said Goodman will not try to oust Beatrice Turner or Christopher Hoye "as long as they both take the HUD training" that Goodman has requested.
The Las Vegas Housing Authority oversees a $65 million operating budget and handles 6,822 housing units for 16,500 low-income and senior Las Vegas residents.
The board has come under fire from a Department of Housing and Urban Development report that questions contracting and oversight procedures by the agency. Goodman has called for a full HUD audit of the agency and has written HUD asking that his new housing board receive training that the federal agency makes available to housing authority boards.
Turner is the board's vice chairwoman and has three years remaining in her first term, and Hoye has four years left in his second term.
Although Goodman has declined to discuss any private conversations he has had with any board member, Turner, a longtime housing activist who figures to become chairwoman when the board meets June 27, and Hoye, a Metro Police lieutenant, confirmed last week that Goodman asked for their resignations in private.
On Monday, Goodman replaced board members Robert Forbuss and Dewain Steadman, whose four-year terms expire this month, with commercial developer Don Davidson and Federal Public Defender Franny Forsman. Each will serve a four-year term.
Las Vegas Constable Robert "Bobby G" Gronauer was chosen to fill the unexpired term of former City Councilman Michael McDonald, who resigned. That term will expire in June 2004.
They should have been part of their first board meeting Tuesday, but Goodman canceled the Housing Authority meeting late Monday because the three new members needed time to study the issues and be briefed on the workings of the board, officials said.
Gronauer was in Carson City on a peace officer training assignment through today and said Monday he had told the mayor he would not be able to make the meeting originally scheduled for Tuesday. Davidson said Monday he was not aware there was a meeting scheduled for Tuesday, but said he would have attended if he was asked to do so by the mayor.
The late cancellation left a handful of people standing in 100-degree-plus afternoon heat outside a locked commission chambers at the Howard W. Cannon public housing offices on North 11th Street.
"I wish they had given us some notice," about the cancellation, said Barbara Johnson, who was to appear for an item that had taken her several months to get on the agenda. "I guess I'll just have to wait a little longer."
Turner, who had steadfastly refused to resign claiming she has done nothing wrong since Goodman appointed her in November, was not surprised that her commission job is secure, at least for the time being.
"They would have had to prove malfeasance to get me off the board," she said. "They couldn't do that."
One of the items on Tuesday's agenda was to choose a chairperson. Turner said the job should be hers because the tradition is for the vice chair to replace the chairman. McDonald had been chairman.
LVHA officials on Tuesday confirmed that the standard procedure over the years has been "to rotate" chairmen, with the vice chairman following the chairman to the top post.
Turner, who like Hoye has said she would willingly take whatever training HUD offers, said she made her best effort to work with the old board and will do the same with the new members.
"We have a tough year ahead of us with this audit hanging over our heads," Turner said. "It is going to be a very trying period for the Housing Authority."
Turner and Hoye were the driving force behind attempts to fire the authority's Executive Director Parvis Ghadiri, who had been appointed in January after a nationwide search.
A special hearing was called last week to consider ousting Ghadiri. However, those plans were halted when McDonald and Forbuss did not attend the meeting and Steadman walked out after roll call, leaving the board one member short of a quorum.
Steadman, a longtime dissenting vote on the panel, said he walked out of the meeting because he was "not going to stand by and watch an innocent man be railroaded."
Hoye and Turner had been critical of Ghadiri's performance in his five months on the job. Ghadiri, who has been with the agency eight years, had served as interim director since LVHA Executive Director Frederick Brown died of a heart attack last June.
Brown was criticized in the HUD report for his alleged mishandling of more than $158,000 in contracts, including a highly publicized $36,000 public relations contract to former Clark County Commissioner Dario Herrera in 2001.
Critics of Ghadiri say he was Brown's right-hand man and did know or should have known that his boss was not following procedures and should have reported it. However, Ghadiri's supporters, including many housing authority tenants who have spoken publicly on his behalf, say he cannot be blamed for the actions of his predecessor and that Ghadiri should be given reasonable time to prove himself.
Turner said her low opinion about Ghadiri's performance has not softened, but said she does not plan to immediately bring up the issue of forcing him out again because "the new board needs time to get its feet wet."
"We'll see where they will be coming from on this (Ghadiri matter)," she said.
Attempts to reach Ghadiri were not successful. On the advice of an attorney that he had retained in the wake of efforts to oust him, Ghadiri has not commented on recent events.
Turner said she does not know any of the new board members personally, but she has seen Forsman at a number of civic events. Turner said her mother once met Gronauer when he was called to evict tenants from rental property that her mother owns.
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