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Handle Housing Agency Publicly

It says something about the Jefferson Metropolitan Housing Authority that the organization cannot seem to hold on to a director for very long. What that says is not particularly good.

Members of the JMHA Board of Commissioners were accused last week of mishandling the process of replacing former authority Director Debbie Bailey, whose retirement becomes effective Sunday.

Discussion of the process prompted board member Gerald DiLoreto to observe that the authority has had six directors during his tenure. “It’s about one a year,” he noted.

DiLoreto went on to express the hope that the next director “is going to be my last, as long as we get someone good. This program will be turned around — but it may take years.”

During a meeting Wednesday, board members were taken to task over the process used to find a new director. One complaint was that some applicants were interviewed at a church in Wintersville instead of at JMHA offices.

That was so housing authority tenants “could not see who was interviewed,” one man at Wednesday’s meeting alleged.

There also were questions about how a potential new director was sought. JMHA employee Gloria Martin said Wednesday that she wanted to apply, but had not known applications were being accepted. That seems odd, to say the least.

Some matters need to be handled behind closed doors. Clearly, however, secrecy is not serving the housing authority well. Handling JMHA business out in the open ought to be a priority.

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