O’Connor resignation from WHA official
WOONSOCKET — After a months-long investigation into unspecified allegations, former Woonsocket Housing Authority Executive Director Christine O’Connor has resigned.
Marc Dubois, chairman of the WHA’s Board of Commissioners, said O’Connor’s resignation took effect on Dec. 31. He confirmed the departure on Friday – the morning after, he said, the commissioners were officially informed of it for the first time.
Dubois said neither the housing authority nor O’Connor may discuss her resignation because both sides signed an agreement to keep confidential the circumstances surrounding the particulars of her exit. He called the accord a “non-disclosure agreement.”
A longtime employee of the WHA, O’Connor was earning $106,000 a year under a three-year pact that wasn’t due to expire until March 17. She had been on paid administrative leave since June 4. Her resignation comes with no severance agreement,
said Dubois. The WHA stopped paying O’Connor’s salary the day her resignation took effect.
WHA Acting Director Robert Moreau’s status remains unchanged following O’Connor’s resignation, said Dubois. The commissioners plan to appoint a permanent director, he said, but it’s unclear if they will embark on an open search for O’Connor’s successor or Moreau would assume the title.
“That’s up to the committee to decide,” said Dubois. “I plan on having a meeting in the near future to decide on our next step for getting an executive director.”
O’Connor’s resignation comes after the WHA hired an outside lawyer, Howard Croll, to investigate “certain allegations” involving her handling of the housing authority’s affairs, according to Dubois. Citing the non-disclosure agreement, Dubois said Croll’s work is completed but he declined to say whether the results were directly related to the manner in which O’Connor’s employment with the WHA was terminated.
Neither Croll nor O’Connor’s lawyer would shed any light on the matter.
“I can’t comment because the agreement says non-disclosure,” said Croll.
O’Connor was represented by lawyer Howard Boyajian, who also declined to comment.
Shortly after O’Connor was placed on leave, the federal bureau of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Inspector General initiated a financial audit of the housing authority’s activities. In September, when The Call first reported about the series of events, Moreau said the timing of the audit’s initiation was purely coincidental.
Moreau said that HUD randomly audits all housing authorities and that the federal agency from which the WHA draws much of its operating revenue simply decided that “Your number just came up...it’s your turn.”
That audit had been ongoing until the partial shutdown of the federal government that resulted from the dispute between the U.S. House of Representatives and President Donald Trump over his request for $5 billion in funding for a wall on the border separating the U.S. and Mexico. The impasse has been ongoing for nearly a month.
But Dubois said the audit is incomplete and that he expects personnel from the OIG to resume their work when the government shutdown ends.
O’Connor isn’t the first director of the housing authority 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 O’Connor, then assistant director, was later promoted.
Moreau, who has worked for the housing authority for more than nine years, had been the assistant director for about two years before he assumed the title of acting director, when O’Connor was placed on leave.