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Public Housing Spotlight
on NYCHA

Issue 78
Published on March 27, 2001

For a printable (PDF) version of any Spotlight articles, please specify the issue and email us at nychaspotlight@netscape.net


(Click on Spotty for Directory)

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New Chair Hernandez

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We're told that Newsday's Dan Janison was right about current City Juvenile Justice Commissioner Tino Hernandez replacing John Martinez as the Chair of NYCHA. We hear that April 1, 2001 is the proposed date.

Meanwhile, Fink's friends are fighting Finkel's upcoming ouster. Last week, we're told there were enough sightings of Finkel crossing back and forth to City Hall to impress people who had thought Kalman couldn't stay awake that long! But, by week's end, Rudy still hadn't budged and the Fink's chances were diminishing.

NYCHA Big-Wigs also tell us that Joanna Aniello will be appointed to either the NYCHA Board, or as the General Manager of NYCHA. (Spotty will bet on the Board appt.) According to a source who has worked closely with Joanna, this will just add to an amazing run through the ranks by the mother of Giuliani Chief-of-Staff Anthony (Tony) Carbonetti and ex-wife of Rudy confidant Lou Carbonetti. This source tells us that Joanna dropped out of High School and now has a GED. Just prior to Rudy's election, Joanna was working for $32,000 a year. She now bags over $138,000 per annum.
Not too shabby!

Joanna's hubby, Lou, used to be a driver for then Mayor Abe Beame. Based on recent history, if you need to advise someone as to how to quickly succeed in NYC government, tell them to forget schooling or working their way up an Agency career ladder. Driving Rudy has been a great career enhancer for some!


We also received the following faxed query:
"I remember that Spotty had told of how Franco's last NYCHA girlfriend had been living in her mom's NYCHA apartment, and that you wondered if she had notified NYCHA of the raise in shared income that was now part of that apartment. I hear that Ms. Aniello resides on the lower East Side, in either Stuyvesant Town or Peter Cooper Village. Those developments also have pro-rated rent. Has she notified them each time her career rocketed up the pay scale?"

Well, we have no way of finding that out.
So, why doesn't someone just ask her?

Finkel's Folly!

Spotty hears that NYCHA now wants to move the elevator division warehouse and training center from Brooklyn to L.I.C. According to those who know, the place in Brooklyn is in great shape. As NYCHA owns the current location, the taxpayer pays no money to Finkel's Friendsand, according to our source, the current facility is set up just great.

The only reason NYCHA wants to move is to make sure the L.I.C. sinking building begins to look occupied before any upcoming look at NYCHA's fiascos by officials who might question the non-use of the expensive LIC warehouse.

They are facing one BIG problem with this proposed move. If they take all the machines to L.I.C. there is no way that they can supply electric to all of that machinery. Already the people working in the safe area of the LIC Warehouse are being told that they will have to have "rolling blackouts" for the air-conditioning in the warehouse. A section of the warehouse will be cooled, the AC turned off in that area, and then the next area can be cooled.

With luck, the first area will only be uncomfortable by the time it gets its shot at cool air again.

Why move the elevator section into a building that is such a mess already? Could it be a way to try and hide the folly of paying over $100,000,000 on a building that cost under $9,000,000 to wholly purchase a few weeks before?
A building owned by Ruben Schron's group, the same group in which Finkel admitted his son had friends?

The Design Dept. has the
Spotlight on it once again.

Click here to view a 5 page memo written by Anthony F. Palermo, Assistant Director of NYCHA's Design Department. In the memo, which went to all of the Design Dept.'s Architectural Staff (and copies made it to some Field personnel), Mr. Palermo points to some obvious and reoccurring problems in the Design process.

Mr. Palermo states:
In the 2 1/2 years since I began my involvement in the community center program, I've had the opportunity to participate in the construction of over 42 facilities and still counting. Each one of these locations suffered from numerous design and construction issues needing to be resolved, many resulting in change orders and/or delays. Some of these issues tend to be repetitive and the following attempts to catalog the most common ones, so that staff can become attentive to these areas of concern in their work, and in the work of consultants."

Our initial reaction upon receiving the memo was "Why did it take 2 1/2 years and the construction of 42 Community Centers before Mr. Palermo thought to address the repetitive problems? You would think that after problems reoccur on 4 or 5 Community Centers, a solution would quickly be formulated to fix the recurring problems PRIOR TO the building of the next 37-38 Community Centers.

Then we read the memo!

If you've ever been involved in construction or rehab work, you'll be amazed at some of the problems that seem to be "standard" with contracts let through NYCHA's Design Dept.

And, as we leave 90 Church Street, we're handed a Cost Estimate For "Entrances and Related Work" at Glenmore Plaza. (Click Here).

In the breakdown, we find the price of installing the "Steel" doors for Garden Shops and Stair Exits. NYCHA estimates $350/s.f for Stair Exits and $325/s.f. for Garden Shop doors. That's $9,800 for a single Stair Exit door and $9,100 for a steel Garden Shop door.
At least the Stair Exit door gets an EML (electromagnetic lockset) included, while the poor Garden Shop door just gets a regular lock set.)
$9,800 for a SINGLE DOOR! (Once upon a time NYCHA bought their doors ONLY from a California company, so shipping steel doors got kinda expensive. We wonder if they still buy from the same source?)

90 Church Street, fifth floor, is about to under go huge renovations. In Community Operation's an entire wall & three whole units will be displaced next month to make new space! That's right! NYCHA has an office that was remodeled by a Director's girlfriend that, within months, must be remodeled yet again.

John Saggese held a staff meeting for all of op services & vowed that he would not allow people to be kept from promotions simply because they worked in the field & weren't given any opportunity to attend Excel & Access training.

Well, many now wish that Saggese ran the Tenancy Support Unit, where his sentiment could be put to use. People in that unit are being turned down for Clerical promotions for not being acquainted with those very same computer programs.

We also received a fax that gave us an example of how "Nora's jealous paranoia" causes her to lash out at those she perceives as being more prepared to do the work in her job description:

We have many experienced licensed Social Workers who are already on the job. Yet Nora Reissig-Lazzaro, without even a Bachelor's in Social Work, is chosen to lead units in which she has no experience or training.
She's so constantly screwing up that, by my count, she's appeared in over 20 issues of your Spotlight.

Here's another example:
Gary Smoke has over twenty years working at NYCHA. Gary came up thru the ranks the hard way (no political patron), collecting invaluable experience! In addition he just happens to have his college degree AND a Master's in Social Work. He was recently honored as OUTSTANDING employee.
That type of resume can be VERY frightening to anyone who thought themselves to be just an incompetent appendage of her "friend", Ms. Joanna Aniello.

So, Nora has eliminated Mr. Smoke from attending this years social worker ceremony!
He was UN-invited!

Many others are not going in a silent protest!

© 2001 Public Housing Spotlight and John Ballinger. All rights reserved.
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Contact Jack Ballinger at nychaspotlight@netscape.net
for a Real Audio sound clip containing a
conversation wherein DOI Investigator
John Kilpatrick discusses how he learned
that 2 NYCHA execs attended
a Mafia connected contractor's funeral .

Contact Jack Ballinger at nychaspotlight@netscape.net
for a Real Audio sound clip containing
the (3 Meg) confession of Tony DiAlto.
Tony was a member of a group of
corrupt Contract Inspectors working at NYCHA.
Neither Tony nor the person he confessed to
sharing his bribes with (Richard Penesi)
were ever charged, let alone prosecuted, by DOI.


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