Poor oversight leads to scams

The closer you look, the easier it is to understand why Gov. Deval Patrick is seeking to enhance accountability by replacing the commonwealth’s 240 local housing authorities with six regional agencies. He has already had to demand the resignations of two authority heads.

Former Chelsea Housing Authority Chief Michael McLaughlin is facing federal charges that he deliberately concealed his $360,000 annual salary from state and federal regulators.

Medford Housing Authority Executive Director Robert Covelle also made headlines when he resigned last May after handing out $1.3 million to 21 construction firms without following federal contracting rules, demoting an employee to promote a crony, and awarding a no-bid interior decorating contract to his son’s girlfriend.

Covelle’s director of operations, John Lonergan, admitted to selling salvaged copper from a housing authority demolition site. Lonergan claims he put the $1,300 he got for the copper in an envelope in his desk and forgot about it. He also says he had Covelle’s approval to sell the copper.

But shenanigans at the Lowell Housing Authority have largely flown under the statewide radar. There, an extensive renovation of the North Common Village Housing Project was completed without bids, permits, inspections or even a general contractor, using a practice common to housing authorities known as “force account,” which allows authorities to complete small projects or repairs using their own employees, sometimes with the help of outside labor.

But force account construction wasn’t designed for a $6 million gut-rehab project, as was the case in Lowell. Since the job was beyond housing authority employees’ capacity, they brought in significant outside labor to help complete the project. When the union representative on the housing authority board was asked about the practice, he reportedly said that he wanted to make sure his members were put to work.

But construction workers who weren’t among the chosen few were shut out of this closed-door process. And without the competition created by public bidding, taxpayers also took it on the chin.

North Common Village residents suffered as well — 48 were moved out so walls could be demolished and inspections that had never taken place could finally be performed.

The city’s plumbing and gas inspector ordered that the gas ranges in all 132 units be replaced, because they had standing pilots that are illegal in Massachusetts. None of the units ever received a certificate of occupancy.

Lest you think the housing authority has second thoughts about any of this, the five-year plan it submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development calls for force-account construction to continue through 2016.

It’s an age-old story. Unsupervised government entities that fly under the radar become breeding grounds for nefarious activity that taints the legitimate work of many on housing issues.

So it’s no wonder Patrick wants to rein in the commonwealth’s local housing authorities. Hopefully the legislation he has proposed will spell the end of scams like those in Chelsea, Medford and Lowell.

Shenanigans at the Lowell Housing Authority have largely flown under the radar