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Public Housing Spotlight
on the New York City
Housing Authority

IssIssue 97
Published on July 4, 2002

(Click Here for NYCHA "preliminary" Audit
by NYC Comptroller Alan Hevesi)

(Click Here for Directory of Issues)

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Happy 4th

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Alasia

A resident at Gun Hill Houses tells us that Alasia is not just on CAD Inspectors' nerves, it is also causing severe tenant hardships. Some apartments have been without bathrooms as Alasia sits shielded from default by a crooked NYCHA IG.

Lesson Learned:

If you help the IG protect higher-ups by setting up lower level NYCHA employees, the DOI/IG's office will never let you be defaulted!

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Mike Myers

We heard that Mike Meyers was asked to leave NYCHA. The talk now is that his long time buddy, the former NYCHA General Manager Paul Graziano, has already assured Mike that there is a position ready for him in Baltimore.

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Leroy Sinclair

Leroy (Roy) Sinclair, DGM for Finance, was asked to step down - but not out - of NYCHA. We hear another DGM was also asked to step down. Frank Nu and Naomi Lara (who was still "out sick" at the time this is written) have somehow avoided the ax, this time.

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Nora Reissig-Lazzaro

We still receive complaints about Nora Reissig-Lazzaro. In the last week, the complaints have doubled. Especially galling to her staff is the total lack of respect paid to staffers who actually possess Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Social Work and related disciplines. These people, educated in the specific areas of concern to Nora's unit, are often treated to Nora's tirades and abuse, but are NOT treated to promotions or common respect. With Tino Hernandez's background, you'd think he'd step up and find out what's up with Nora.

Here's a couple of paragraphs on
Nora from our Issue #38

What do Leo Samuels, Pam Weaver, Pat Barnes, Cathy Ruben, Priscilla Lawrence, Morton Rothberger, Helene Robinson, Paulette Shomo, Margaret Davis, Robert Rifkin, Cornelia Radkai, Gary Smoke, Seymour Lapan, Sal Conte, Ron Diamond, Diane Finn, Rachel Fuyer, Jodie Piciano, Nalini Viswanathan, Eve Miller, Michelle Stapleton, Barbara Grant and Risa Gerstein have in common this Holiday Season?

Well, they are all thankful that they've escaped Nora Reissig-Lazzaro's Chamber of Horrors, and they can now hope that their new bosses will play fair with transfers and promotions.

That's a LOT of folks to be exiting from Nora's little group. If this were a private corporation, someone would be looking into why there is such a turnover of talent in that office. And a little research into unfair promotions and a proclivity to "write-up" underlings-only to be forced to remove those counseling memos-would lead one to the conclusion that it is our Miss Nora that needs the transfer. However, with JoAnna Aniello watching Nora's back, Nora has nothing to worry about at NYCHA.

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Here now, the CAD news!

Jerry Basile, the Area Supervisor for Heating in the Bronx and Manhattan, was found guilty of racial harassment at a hearing this week. He was hoping to be named the new Field Chief for CAD's Heating Section. Now that his racism has been brought to light, there is a good chance that he not only will be dropped from any promotion list, he will probably lose his area supervisors position and be bumped to inspector.

(Some employees feel that after being exposed as a racist, public housing may not be a good career choice for Jerry.)

In the second chapter of the Special NYCHA Corruption Issue, I placed a copy of an email that was sent to Bill Russo, then the Director of CAD. In that document (Click Here), I reported on some racist comments I had heard, along with race based job harassment, that a CAD coordinator - Jerry Basile - had been party to.

Although the guy had apologized to me about the incident, I felt the document was necessary in the Corruption Issue. Because I believed his was a sincere apology, I did make sure that his name) would not be picked up by search engines.

After the issue was published, I received a lot of email/calls about this same man, Jerry Basile, running around CAD trying to convince everyone that the story was false and I had lied.

That document was written in 1995.

7 years have passed.

The truth has triumphed!

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More CAD

In our last issue (Click Here), we ran a story about a CAD employee who had a meteoric rise from NYCHA maintenance worker, through Inspector to Area Supervisor, with his main quality being his close friendship with James Gleba. We reported on his suspension due to his loan sharking.
(As we heard the loan sharking was NOT done within NYCHA, we decided to leave his name out of the story.) We've since received email asking that we go light on this person, as he:

  • 1) "Is a decent guy"
  • 2) did not do anything illegal while working at NYCHA and
  • 3) He's NOT one of the crew that extorted bribes and now spends weekends on their boats or flying to golf matches with contractors.)

Well, we'll continue to leave his name out, for now, but he'd be well advised that where he spends his days might cause him future problems and that could become a story needing his name in lights.

Of course, Marietta Piccone, another Gleba favorite, might disagree with our decision. She's been very vocal and loud in her expressions of anger at being Spotlighted in our last issue.

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At a recent awards ceremony for employees whose suggestions were deemed to deserve recognition, Joanna Aniello cast aspersions on all who participated.

"This is a waste of my time!"
she loudly complained.

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Inferior Work
. . . by Design?

One Community Center that has been bid out for modernization during the past year is Richmond Terrace. It took NYCHA (especially the Design Dept.) so long to review and evaluate the low bids, that the low-bidding contractor asked to be withdrawn. The bidding rules allowed the contractor to be released, as it was due to the excessive delay in NYCHA making a decision.

NYCHA/Design eventually decided to award the GC Contract to Omni Construction, which was the third lowest bidder. Omni, which has had other contracts with NYCHA, had performed so poorly that the people who handle contracts for NYCHA's Construction Department just don't want to be forced to deal with them again. (Especially for a project as complex as the one at Richmond Terrace!)

The Construction Department has given Omni very poor performance ratings. Those very ratings are supposed to be used, by the Design Dept., in evaluating bids for awarding contracts. Yet, Design chose Omni to contract with???

Now, Contract Inspectors are justifiably wondering why the Design Dept. decided to award such a contract to Omni - who is well known to operate as just a broker of other sub-contractors. With NYCHA Inspectors fully aware of what happens when one finds contract problems (ask any of the CAD Inspectors who foolishly trusted NYCHA's IG), Omni will probably find little problem in getting approvals from the Inspectors for anything it desires!

So, Richmond Terrace tenants' can expect just another $4 million NYCHA disaster.

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Franco's "Friend"!

Rumor has it that at NYCHA's OEO, a staff petition listing complaints about their boss, Sonia Martinez, has performed a miracle!

Ms. Martinez, whose claim to fame was her open affair with NYCHA's past Chair Ruben Franco, was bounced from NYCHA!

(If you need a petition printed, just let me know! Editor)

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Chicken?

After our last issue, NYCHA removed SOME of the employees from the dungeon/office in the old Roy Rogers place.

But others are still suffering
in that hot (no AC) horror.
Why?

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© 2002 Public Housing Spotlight and John Ballinger. All rights reserved.
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Links to all Issues are at page bottom

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.


For a great source of general tenant information,
visit the Tenant Net Home Page |

And for a great source of New York City news and
policy information, visit our friends at the Gotham Gazette

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NYC Housing Authority's
(NYCHA) own site

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U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development

451 7th Street S.W.,
Washington, DC 20410
Telephone: (202) 708-1112
TTY: (202) 708-1455

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Public Housing Authorities
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