City hearing on BSHA board members set

The City of Big Spring has announced a Public Hearing for June 13 to consider “...possible revocation of one, two, three, or four commissioner appointments (out of five total commissioners) to the Big Spring Housing Authority for inefficiency, neglect of duty, and/or misconduct in office.”

The meeting is scheduled at 1 p.m. in the City Council Chambers, 307 E. Fourth St.

The announcement from the city goes on to say that commissioners subject to the hearing have been notified by letter.

Commissioners will have the right to present evidence, witnesses, and testimony for consideration in regard to the charges against them.

Commissioners appointed to the Housing Authority's board have not recognized BSHA Director Sharon Fritz's authority to call meetings of the board, and have skipped the past two meetings she's called, one May 18 and the second May 27.

Mayor Robert Moore attempted to correct the issue by appointing six new board members, bringing the total number of board members from five to 11, a move which may not be legally valid.

During the interim, former mayor Shannon Thomason sent out a press release indicating that Board President Linda Blankenburg had appointed him the organization's secretary and parliamentarian, and that the May 27 board meeting was canceled. In the release, Thomason quotes Blankenburg as declaring Moore's appointments “illegal”.

Fritz has said Thomason's goal is to close down the BSHA and transfer its clients to be overseen by the Abilene Housing Authority.

“I just want people to know that they're trying to transfer this, and I think they need to be contacting their representatives, they need to be contacting whoever they can to keep this program in this town,” she said. “Abilene's a good organization, but it's not local, and you don't want to close it down because those vouchers will eventually go away.”