Minutes From A Regular Meeting December 19, 2013

MINUTES FROM A REGULAR MEETING DECEMBER 19, 2013

A Regular Meeting of the Board of Commissioners of the Housing Authority of the City of Orange was called to order at 6:24 pm on Thursday, December 19, 2013 at 6:00 p.m., Washington Manor, 340 Thomas Blvd., Community Room, Orange, New Jersey. The Executive Director advised that all of the requirements of the Sunshine Law were met A roll call was taken as follows:

Present

Chairman Coram Rimes

Commissioner Lillie Davis

Commissioner Evelyn Hudson-Dorrah

Commissioner Ernest Williams

Commissioner David Rossi

Commissioner Joseph Juliano

Commissioner Ross – Entered Meeting at 6:45pm

Also Present

Walter D. McNeil, Jr., Executive Director

Angela Guerrero, Esq., Feinstein, Raiss, Kelin & Booker

Several Employees

Several Tenants

Chairman Rimes called for the adoption of the agenda. Commissioner Williams moved to adopt. Commissioner Rossi seconded.

A roll call was taken

All commissioners voted in favor

Discussion

Curtiss Humphrey, Jr. volunteer with Greater Essex Uplift Foundation spoke about his non- profit organization that services the area. He is there representing Keith Pressey. They sponsor sporting events. He would like to have a breakfast of champions with NFL athletes. OJ Anderson will be honored and other notable’s individuals will be acknowledged at that breakfast. The Host will be AJ Callaway. They will provide t- shirts and other superbowl giveaways. He is asking for $4,500.00 for a bus to bring 49 children. It will take place at the Robert Treat Hotel. The children will interact with NFL players.

Mr. McNeil asked how many sponsors do you have so far?

Mr. Humphrey said they have buses coming from Paterson, Plainfield and areas of Essex County.

Chairman Rimes asked how long has the organization been in existence?

Mr. Humphrey replied 10 years. We are trying to get more resources to continue doing what we are doing. The website address is www.QUES-etapi.org. Mr. Humphries continued to explain their mentoring program.

Treasurer’s Report

Mr. McNeil referred the Board to page two the consolidated statement of operations. In summary. Same issues are apparent. The Federal Government decided to make us utilize our reserves for the Section 8 Program. What we have is a small deficit in operations so that we would utilize the $900,000.00 that we had in our fund balance for the HAP program. We collected $5,535,000 as of this point. This is the 9 month report. We spent $5,837,000. We are doing better than we thought we would be doing. We thought we would be a half million dollars down. Mr. McNeil said from our other programs we have exceeded our expectations. He said that we are doing pretty well. Mr. McNeil said if anyone has questions they can give him a call and he can go through it with you.

Public Session

No one spoke

Executive Director’s Report

Since this was the last meeting of the year, Mr. McNeil wanted to take this opportunity to thank the members of the Board of Commissioners, our staff and the residents for fully participating in this organization. Without their participation we would not be here. It has been ten years since he has been here. We have gone from an agency that was deeply in trouble with the Federal Government to one of the agencies they look at for direction when it comes to housing and community development. That can only happen when folks are working together. We did some things over this last month. We presented to the City Council our continued plan for development. We have three developments on the table, Walter G III, Oakwood Avenue Development and now North Parrow Development. They are all kicking off in 2014. Mr. McNeil said we have to capitalize on these things to make things better for the agency overall. Mr. McNeil said you can see from the financial report, our public housing development is in good hands. It is being managed very well. The condition of the building is much better, because of the staff and the residents working together. We are on a really good path making things better going into 2014. Section 8 is doing super good. The challenge we had is that the Federal Government decided to make us utilize all of our federal reserves. We had close to 1.2 million in reserves. The Federal Government has now decided to keep all of the Federal Reserves in their coffers. They made us spend down our reserves. After March 2014, you will see that the program will no longer have a deficit. We will have some changes in the programs. Some significant in regards to staffing, programming. We are applying for a couple of grants for training. In our transitioning to doing training, one of the other things as a result of us doing better as an agency, we put monies into doing a plan to redo this community room. Starting January 2, 2014 we will begin the reconstruction of this community room. No more institutional look. Better floors, better lighting and a training room. The construction will take about one to two and a half months. We will officially close this room January 2, 2014 and we are expanding the store. Mr. McNeil told everyone to have a wonderful holiday and a happy new year.

Resolutions

Chairman Rimes called for a motion to adopt Resolution No. 5263-13 Resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the Housing Authority of the City of Orange Approving Bills Resolution No. 1856 Commissioner Williams moved to adopt. Commissioner Davis seconded.