Feds auditing city housing agency

HUD investigators eye Woonsocket Housing Authority after director Christine O’Connor placed on leave

WOONSOCKET – Federal authorities are conducting a financial audit of the Woonsocket Housing Authority after the local agency placed its executive director, Christine O’Connor, on administrative leave more than three months ago.

WHA Chairman Marc Dubois said the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sent personnel from its Office of Inspector General to look through records at the WHA’s Social Street headquarters after learning of O’Connor’s personnel status.

O’Connor – the WHA’s third executive director since 2014 – was placed on paid leave from her $106,000-a-year job on June 4. The WHA’s five-member board of housing commissioners held a closed-door personnel meeting that day indicating that the sole order of business was to launch an “investigation into allegations of misconduct,” according to a published agenda.

Because the investigation involves an ongoing personnel matter, Dubois said he cannot discuss the particulars of the allegations against O’Connor. He also said he does not know the status of the HUD audit and has never received a progress report from O’Connor’s temporary replacement, Interim Director Rob- ert Moreau, who was previously the WHA’s assistant director. Moreau is also the manager of the re-election campaign for Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt – the appointing authority for members of the WHA’s ruling board of commissioners.

Several days after the WHA placed O’Connor on leave, Dubois said the board hired city lawyer Howard Croll to conduct an independent review of the allegations against O’Connor. Croll used to be staff counsel to the WHA, but he was hired as an outside counsel for the exclusive purpose of reviewing the O’Connor matter.

Dubois said he does not know when the allegations against O’Connor will be resolved.

“Soon, I hope,” he said. “We have to wait until the audit is done. We have to wait for Howard Croll to complete his investigation.”

Dubois said issues revolving around O’Connor were the apparent trigger for the audit, though he didn’t elaborate. The audit commenced “when they found out Christine was put on leave,” the WHA chairman said.

In an interview with The Call, however, Moreau downplayed the suggestion that HUD launched the audit in response to any allegations involving O’Connor – although he says it did commence shortly after she was placed on leave.

When personnel from HUD’s Office of Inspector General arrived at the WHA’s headquarters, Moreau said, he asked them if there was anything he should know about what triggered the financial review.

Their answer, he said, was, “Your number just came up. We haven’t been here in many years. It’s your turn.”

If the allegations concerning O’Connor are a focus of the audit, Moreau said he has not been apprised of it by HUD’s OIG.

Darryl Madden, a spokesman for HUD’s OIG, confirmed that the agency is conducting an audit, but he declined to say why.

“The audit is under way and pretty much just started so that is all we can say for now,” Madden said via text message.

O’Connor has hired Providence lawyer Joseph B. White of the firm Robinson & Cole to represent her interest in the personnel action. In a recent phone interview, White acknowledged that he was working on O’Connor’s behalf, but he declined to elaborate on the nature of the allegations she is facing.

At that time, White said he would see whether O’Connor would clear him to speak on her behalf in more detail, but he has since failed to return repeated follow-up calls.

Candidate questions real estate purchase

While no one with any direct knowledge of the cause of O’Connor’s suspension will say much about it, one aspirant for a seat on the City Council is calling attention to a real estate transaction involving the WHA that took place in March.

John Ward, a former president of the City Council, says the WHA purchased – and then razed – a multifamily house at 393 East School St. for $146,500 – almost $9,000 more than its appraised worth under a revaluation that had just been completed. The house was next door to St. Germain Manor – one of the high-rises the WHA runs for the elderly and disabled. It also houses some medically certified assisted living units.

“After all these years of St. Germain Manor existing I don’t understand why the housing authority felt the need to buy this house, demolish it – and pay $9,000 more for it than the newly assessed value,” said Ward. “Interestingly – and I don’t know whether this was considered blighted property or not – I don’t understand how this real estate revaluation firm could have increased the value of the building by almost $27,000.”

Baldelli-Hunt has made blight eradication a hallmark of her administration, but housing officials – including former WHA chairman Dave Lahousse – flatly deny that the agency was participating in the program at the mayor’s behest.

Lahousse, who resigned from the WHA in late 2017, said the mayor had presented the WHA with a list of properties for suggested buys, but the agency made it plain to the administration that it would purchase no property unless the WHA had a justifiable purpose for doing so.

He says it was actually his idea to purchase the house in question – 393 East School St. – and that it predates any guidance from Baldelli-Hunt or members of her administration. He said he had long thought it would be a good acquisition for the WHA to create a community garden – and to expand sorely needed parking space at St. Germain Manor.

The dwelling, Lahousse said, was acquired with proceeds from the sale of scattered site housing several years ago by the WHA – funds over which the WHA has complete discretion to use in any way it sees fit. “We could have bought Woonsocket Plaza with it,” said Lahousse.

The acquisition was questioned by HUD, according to Lahousse, “and they were very satisfied with my expla- nation.”

Dubois – Lahousse’s successor as chairman – has been a member of the WHA for over three years, and to date 393 East School St. is the only piece of privately owned property the agency has purchased.

“We’re not under any pressure to buy...” said Dubois. “I’ve been here over three years and this is the only piece of property we’ve purchased.”

Dubois said there is a pressing need for an expansion of parking at St. Germain Manor. Not only do tenants have vehicles, they receive medically necessary visits from nurses, certified nursing assistants, and others, on a regular basis.

Agency has faced past issues

Executive director of the WHA since March 2016, O’Connor isn’t the first director to become embroiled in personnel intrigue involving the WHA.

O’Connor succeeded Patrick Morganelli, a housing official from Massachusetts who lasted less than six months before the WHA placed him on administrative leave for reasons that were never disclosed, later reaching a termination agreement with him. Before Morganelli, Robert Kulik had been in charge since 2006, but he was placed on administrative leave for 30 days in 2013 amid charges of bullying workers and making insensitive remarks to female coworkers.

Kulik eventually returned to work, but he took a leave of absence in June 2014 after union workers took a no confidence vote in him and never returned. In August of that year, he and the WHA reached a severance agreement and later promoted O’Connor, the former assistant director, to interim director.

Moreau, who has worked for the housing authority for more than nine years, had been the assistant director for the last two. He says his ascension to the interim director’s job has nothing to do with his association with the mayor.

As second-in-command of the WHA at the time of O’Connor’s suspension, his appointment as temporary interim director is a normal personnel move, he says.

“I’ve been here 10 years,” he said. “I didn’t get here last week. I didn’t know any of this was going to happen.”