Redevelopment Authority - Regular Meeting

This is the regularly scheduled meeting of the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee taking place at 4PM on Wednesday, 12/10/2025. Can we get a roll call,

please? Commissioner Nelson? Present. Commissioner Burrell? Present. Commissioner Epez Classen? Present. Chair Hazlett? Present. Vice Chair Gottsler? Present. Commissioner Moore? Present. Commissioner Snyder?

Present.

A Commissioner like to move approval of all the items within the consent agenda? So moved.

Second.

Great. Are there any all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Any abstentions? All right. The ayes have it.

Items number one and two, as part of the twenty twenty five annual meeting of the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee Board of Commissioners, the next two items are the election of officers, Chair and Vice Chair. Each office will have its own election. For each election, the Board will move in second to open and close the Florida nominations. However, the nominations themselves do not require a second. Candidates may nominate and vote for themselves. We will complete both elections and then those elected will have the opportunity to speak if they choose. First is the election of the Chair. May we have a motion to open the floor to nominations for the Office of Chair?

So moved. Second.

Second. Thank you. I had a

second already. All

in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Now a nay. Is there a nomination for the office of chair?

I nominate Commissioner Charlotte.

I second.

Are there any other nominations for the office of chair? Is there a motion to close the floor to nominations for the office of chair? So

moved. Second.

All in favor signify I'm sorry. This is to close the floor denominations. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Nay. Aye. So for the voting, when I call your name, please say A if you vote for Chair Hazlett, nay or abstain.

So Commissioner Nelson.

Could you repeat that again, please?

This is if you would, like to vote to have Chair Hazlett be the chair for the next year.

Yes.

Thank you.

Commissioner Burrell? Aye. Commissioner Pez Klassen? Aye. Chair Hazlett? Aye. Vice Chair Gottsler? Aye. Commissioner Moore? Aye. Commissioner Snyder?

Aye.

The next item is the election for the Vice Chair. May I have a motion to open the floor to nominations for office of the Vice Chair? So moved.

Second. All

in favor of opening the floor to nominations for Vice Chair signify by saying aye. Aye. Nay? Upstate? Is there a nomination for the office of Vice Chair?

I would like to nominate Vice Chair, Karen Gottsler.

I second that.

Are there any other I am sorry, is there any other nominations? Is there a motion to close the floor to nominations for the office of Vice Chair? So move. Is there a second?

I second it.

All in favor to close the floor to nominations for Vice Chair signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Abstentions? No. We will proceed with the vote for the Office of Vice Chair. When I call your name, please say A if you vote for Vice Chair Gottsler to remain Vice Chair or nay or abstain. Commissioner Nelson.

Aye.

Commissioner Burrell. Aye. Commissioner Epez Classen. Aye. Chair Hazlett. Aye. Vice Chair Gottsler? Aye. Commissioner Moore? Aye. Commissioner Snyder?

Aye.

Congratulations to the Chair and the Vice Chair. Would either of you like to address the Board?

I'd just like to say thank you once again for your vote of confidence. There's still a lot of work yet to do. So just get ready. Get ready. I guess we stay ready, but just

There's a normal

I I just wanna commend my fellow commissioners. It feels good to have a full board to work with and with the wonderful talent that comes with each individual and the way that you are showing your passion for the work that has to be done for housing authority, the staff, the residents, and everyone. I just commend you all for staying in the good fight and look forward to serving a new year with you all by my side. So thank you.

I'd like to thank the chair for agreeing to serve again for another year. And I'm looking forward to working closely with her. I second everything she had to say. It's pretty clear we still have plenty to do. And hopefully, everybody's ready to continue the work that we've started.

Madam Chair?

Commissioner Moore.

Thank you so much. I think one of the things just from the experience about being on the board, one of the things I do want to definitely say publicly, is that, you know, being, most of us, aside from, commissioner Irma, are completely new. And so, I want our chair and our vice chair to be completely transparent when conducting business that you are completely looking out for the well-being of the organization. And that means that there are conversations that, you know, amongst executive staff that may need to have versus things, you know, being done behind sort of, you know, privately or closed doors because it airs on the side of distrust and dishonesty. Mhmm.

So I want to just, you know, for the both of you, make sure that we are being completely open and having a transparent process and that there are no, you know, sort of hidden agendas because that's how we unfortunately tarnish the reputation, you know, of this of this board. So I just wanted to say that publicly Mhmm. You know, to the both of you that, yes, there's still a lot of work that needs to needs to be done. And on behalf of the other commissioners, you know, on, I just, you know, wanted to just be I'm honored to be a part of this body. So I I thank you both for your leadership.

Thank you so much, commissioner Moore. That was very well stated. And that was one thing I think we all committed coming around this board was to be completely transparent and honest, not only with one another, but with the public as well. So thank you so much for just restating our commitment and keeping us held to a higher standard, not just the standard, but a higher standard as we progress through a new year. Thank you. Are there any other comments from fellow commissioners?

Yes. I'd like to make a brief

Commissioner Nelson.

Comment here. Oh, it's an honor and a pleasure to be a part of this group. I've been on many boards in the past, and I'm truly impressed with the individuals, not just the chairman, vice chairman, but everybody who makes up the commissions. I'm truly impressed with the communication. I could see the research, the well thought out comments, questions, or even answers that people have.

One thing I noticed right away, this board is dominated by females. Some some evenings, I felt like I was back at home with my mama and my big sister. I said, these women, they still in charge. But y'all doing a good job.

Hey. Hey.

Because we need to balance it He is. I'm glad, we got the chairman back. She's very sharp.

Thank you.

I'm big on communication. I need to know and hear what you're saying and be be very clear on what I'm hearing so I could respond. So she had done it from the beginning when I first came on board. I think she told me the meetings would be an hour.

Of course, they Got you.

A short meeting here is three hours. So, anyway, I'm just happy to be a part of this. With no money, I don't get paid.

Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that, Commissioner Nelson. I don't recall that one hour, but I take full accountability and responsibility.

I was only kidding about the time.

Alright. Thank you for sharing, though. Do we have any other sentiments or comments? Alright. Patty, can you

read the next item, please? Item number three is a motion to approve the proposed 2026 schedule for the Board of Commissioners of the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee.

I have

a motion. You are moving? Okay.

Second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed say no. Any abstentions? All right. The ayes have it.

Good.

Next item please.

Item number four is a resolution approving an award of contract to Berglund Construction Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin for facade repair at Locust Court in the amount of $499,000 Allison Wissnicki will speak on this item.

Hello. Hello.

Good afternoon, Commissioners. We put out the facade design, as you guys will recall, voting on for $180,000 for the seven buildings for the designs. Yes.

You state your name?

I'm sorry. Was Vice President of Construction. We put out the design work. The first design that we had asked for them to expedite was Locust Court. We did get those bid documents put together, the plans and the specs, and we put it out to bid.

Three bids did come back. The low bid that we received was actually from Restoration Systems LLC for $374,325. They did come back and request that their bid be removed. They made some calculation errors when they were going through, and they actually had only gone to the 9th Floor with calculations. And it's a 24 story building.

So they actually let me know that they were somewhere in between Berglund and Masonry restoration. So we have three very close bids when it comes down to looking at the three of them and how space they would have been if they would have gotten their actual number in. So Berglund came in as the next lowest bidder for $499,000 Our estimate for this work was closer to $1,000,000 We're very happy to see this bid. The number that we had that we were working with as the estimate is a number that has been tacked on to over the years. We put an additional percent on and then an additional 10% on.

We're finally at the place where we're working on the construction. So it may have been a very skewed estimate on our part. So we're very happy to see the $499,000 from Berglund. We have worked with Berglund in the past. They did the facade repairs at Merrill And Beecher Court. So we're very happy with their work. Our partnership in doing this work with them went very smoothly. So we're happy to have them on board. And we are looking to get this work done prior to 05/11/2026. So we're pushing this.

We already got the contract in Berkland's hands for their review. We're looking for approval today from the commission, and we will expedite the execution of this contract to get them out hopefully working next week. So that is where we are. Does anybody have any questions on this?

Madam Chair? Vice Chair Gottsler?

Just to clarify, these are this is capital funds, correct? Correct. Yes.

Do we have any other questions or comments? Commissioner Yepes Klassen.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just had one quick question, and maybe you answered that already. Was the unit prices for the panel repair, the square footage, the numbers seemed kind of off compared to the higher lump sum bid. Is that could you explain what the difference is there or no?

I actually, without speaking to each of the individual contractors and what went into their unit price Okay. I wouldn't be able to explain those numbers. We did put 300 square feet of panel restoration as so that they were bidding apples to apples on on the amount. This is this unit price would be used for anything over, but it will also be used for anything under. So if they come in at 200 square feet instead of 300 square feet of restoration on the panels, we'll actually get a credit back to the contract.

And so it'll be at that $150 per square foot. So if Restoration Systems would have received this and they only did 200, we would have gotten that 500 times 100 back. Okay. Thousand. 50,000. Words by math. 50,000.

50,000. Okay.

So that their unit prices, it's just in case we go over that 300.

Okay. So it's for overruns. It's for overruns.

It's contingency. Just wanted to know ahead of time so that down the line, if something isn't going well with the project, they don't up it to $1,000 per square foot. We wanted that to be transparent at the beginning. Okay. Well, that makes sense.

All right. I just I noticed that the dollar amounts didn't quite

sum they could be factoring equipment, labor, materials. It all depends on how they factor their unit price.

Thank you, Amy. Madam Chair? Commissioner Snyder.

Yes. A couple of questions. Is this a Milwaukee company?

Berglund is a Milwaukee area company, yes.

Area? Yes. Okay. When you let contracts typically, does the city attorney get to go through them and check them? It's not for content but for legal issues?

This one doesn't, that I am aware of, go through your office at all. Correct.

Welcome, attorney. Please state your name.

Am Greg

Cruz with the City Attorney's Office. No, we don't generally review every contract that the housing authority does. If they send us one to review, we're happy to do it. And I've reviewed a couple of contracts in the last year or so, but I have not looked at this one. Madam Chair?

Yes.

Commissioner. You're hearing it for city attorney review, what's the criteria like over a certain amount complication? From my perspective, it's when everyone

is referred to us. So we only do the legal work we're asked to do. I don't know if the housing authority has specific criteria beyond the level of import or dollar value.

Last question. Is this a contract that came and has this been discussed by the Board in the past?

This specific contract. The

first time for this contract we did discuss the design side of things previous to this. This is the first time this contract specifically has come before

the Board.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Mr. Barbo?

Just to add a few things. Usually, we don't have specific criteria, but when a contract varies from the normal type of contract that we do or there's something that we really want the city attorney's opinion on, we do refer it to them. On this contract, we do have a number of buildings that do need facade work. It hasn't been done for a number of years. And so that's why we haven't done a facade repair contract in a while, but it's a fairly standard kind of construction contract.

So those are usually the criteria that we use. If it's something unusual, for example, when we were going out to contract out the management of the voucher program, that went through an awful lot of attorney review for that contract.

Thank you, Mr. Barbell. Amy, I have a question. The amount of $499,000 is that not to exceed past that amount?

That is not. If there are any design changes during construction, it could definitely through the change order process go over $499,000 But it would have to be through a change order.

Okay. All right. Can you explain what that process is? Like change order, they get it to you, you have to bring it back to us for the excessive amount or the exceeded amount? Or how do we handle that?

This approval, change orders, unless they were astronomical and completely out of the ordinary, would not be come before the board. It would be up to me and my team to review the change order. It would have been at our request. If there was a change order, the contractors are not able to move forward with any work before our approval. So it would be at our request that they were doing additional work. We would either decide on a dollar value for that work ahead of time or we would decide that it was going be done on T and M and they would provide material and labor hours back up for us as back up to that change order.

Okay. Thank you. Do we have any other questions of the commissioners? Okay. Thank you.

So we need a motion to approve, yes, the expenditure. I move the resolution. Second.

All right. All in favor signify by saying it.

We got to roll call this.

I'm sorry. Roll call, please. Commissioner

Nelson. Aye. Commissioner Burrell. Aye. Commissioner Epez Classen. Aye. Chair Hayslett. Aye. Vice Chair Gottsler. Aye. Commissioner Moore. Aye. Commissioner Snyder.

Aye.

Motion passes. Item number five is a discussion regarding the I am sorry, Item number five and number six just for the better flow of the staff in the room where we

are going

to switch the orders on that. So we are going to do item number six first and item number five next.

Okay.

So the new item number five is a resolution to appoint Convent Hill two zero two Holdings Inc. Incorporated Directors. And Ken Barbo and Tom Gardner will speak on this item.

Thank you, commissioners. Tom, if you'd like to give just a brief review, I know it's come before the Board prior, but in terms of what this subsidiary is, what its history was, and why we are naming directors now.

Yes. Madam Chair, Commissioners, Tom Gardner from Michael Best. In Convent Hill, there are a number of units that were financed using the HUD two zero two loan program. And while those loans are outstanding, the housing authority the owner of those units. They need to be owned by a third party.

Because Friends of Housing is planning to dissolve, The housing authority needed a new entity to own those units. It could have been a just an existing not for profit. Initially, we contemplated creation of a new not for profit entity that would serve as the owner of these units. But in discussions with HUD, we were able to get them to allow the housing authority to create its own instrumentality entity to own those units for as long as that two zero two loan is outstanding. The benefit for this approach is that it gives the housing authority a little bit more control of the long term future of those units which are integral to the Convent Hill project.

The articles in the bylaws for this entity are a little bit different than the ones for the other housing authority instrumentalities. And that's because HUD had a very explicit list of requirements for the entity that would own these units. One of those requirements was to have a board with seven members. And so this is the first time that the Housing Authority Board will be formalizing a board that will have a quorum that can actually act, conduct an initial meeting, elect officers, and be ready to proceed when it's time to close on those two zero two units. There is still some ongoing HUD review because there were issues with some of the audit reports for Friends of Housing.

And I know that work on those updating those audits and getting HUD approvals is ongoing, but it has not been wreck realized at this point. And I'm not sure how long that will take. The 2023 financials were being prepared by Friends of Housing. The financials in the audit for 2024, as I understand it, is being prepared by the housing authority. And one of your challenges is just the number of staff changes.

But, again, I I know those are ongoing. I'm not sure when HUD will sign off and approve all of those, hopefully before the end of the year, but that's probably optimistic. I know that, again, Convent Hill or, excuse me, Friends of Housing is anxious to dissolve, but these issues need to be resolved first. So as part of this process, this resolution just appoints the initial board for the entity so that they can have an organizational meet organizational meeting and be ready to move forward. And if there are any other questions, please let me know.

Madam Chair? Yes. I a

number of questions, but I I don't think they're relevant to the resolution. Perhaps I could just talk with mister Barboa at a later time about the status of Friends of Housing Mhmm. Because it was my understanding that they were they've been out of business for a long time. So just to get a sense of what's happening and and who's who's preparing that audit and how does that affect obviously, we need the 2023 audit to do 2024.

I mean, we can have a quest you know, I can answer your questions in more detail, but the quick answers are the auditor who's doing the audit is SBA, who does the audits for the LLCs. The 2023 audit is just about completed is my understanding and that one should be ready to go soon. The 2024, I'm not a 100% sure of the current status and I'd have to double check with them. The and what was the other question?

Do we have a seat on the board of Friends of Housing?

We do not. Friends of Housing, if you want to talk, speak to the board, you're probably as familiar with it as I am. The

housing authorities worked very closely with Friends of Housing for a number of years, their role has gradually declined. But unlike Treval and the other instrumentalities of the housing authority, Friends of Housing was completely independent five zero one(three). And so the housing authority does not have the same level of control over Friends of Housing that it does over other instrumentalities. And as far as I am aware, I don't believe there were ever housing authority board members mistaken on that.

But they were Yeah. And the current members that are on the board, there's two members, I think, that are still on They're the born

to two. I'm not And sure who they

they want to end their organization. The only thing that's one of the things that's holding this on is this whole transfer of the two zero two units. And so we're trying to do what we can to accommodate that because these units are smack dab in the middle of one of our buildings with other types of units that surround them.

And so who are we communicating with at Friends of Housing to get their audit?

Narkisi Feaster to get their audit, we're communicating with SVA, the auditors.

But technically, the audit would need to come to us through the Friends of Housing Board of Directors.

Technically, that is correct. However, we also in jointly with Friends of Housing hired a consultant to assist in that work. So he's assisting in terms of getting some of the paperwork prepared for the auditors.

And are we paying for the consultant?

We're sharing the cost with Friends of Housing.

Okay. And so you said it's McCarthy Feaster.

And who was the other person? And, I'm I'm blanking on her name for a

second here.

That's okay. That's okay. Do you know who the consultant is?

Yes. Tony Pranda, who is with Burke that. To then able because the staff person we had working on it needed some assistance and now she's no longer with the housing authority.

Madam Chair? Commissioner Moore.

I think my colleague posed some really great questions that I just wanted to tag onto. So if it's so if the board is sort of defunct, there's only two board members is what I'm hearing that's remaining on the board? Is that am I hearing that correctly?

I believe so. And they're ready for retirement. So

And so they're able to make the decision to dissolve I mean

They're working closely with their attorneys. So I assume that that is the case.

And then what would well, two things. Aside from this particular matter in front of us, is there anything on their docket that's tying them to keeping them from being from dissolving?

No. I mean

So this is the main matter? Yeah.

This is the main matter that's keeping them from dissolving.

Okay. And then what would be the timeline? Do we have an estimate timeline on when they would be able to make that decision?

Well, would end up being a little bit of HUD clearing us on some of the compliance issues. So we're trying to clear through some compliance issues in terms of subsidy reporting to HUD to request the subsidy drawdown going back to 2022, 2023, 2024, some of the last part of 2021.

Got it. So with this new what we're doing right now, the resolution to have the Convin Hill two zero two Holdings, Inc. With the creation of this new entity, would that be able to start before the dissolution of Friends of Housing?

Yes. Okay.

Thank you.

I mean, one of the things that will be helpful is having this board to help look at and direct these these kinds of activities and get some attention on the two zero two.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Great questions.

Madam

Chair. Commissioner Snyder?

Mr. Gardner, do they have it says holdings. What do they number one, what do they hold? And number two, do they have assets?

I think this entity does not have assets. Friends of Housing has assets, but I'm not sure to what extent they have what their assets are at this point. The reason why we inserted the word holdings, there was a prior entity that was created, and we we inserted the word holdings just because to get state approval of the name, we needed a different name, but we wanted to stay as close to the prior entity name as possible. So the current owner is the Friends of Housing entity that's is Convent Hill two zero two Inc. We added holdings to get state approval.

Madam Chair?

Yes, Commissioners. Do

they have well, you said that I think you said that you don't know what assets they may have. The

Friends of Housing has assets.

Right.

Mhmm. And when these but but this this entity does not have assets. There when the and I believe there are 35 units that are subject to that

This is a subsidiary of them. Pardon? This is a subsidiary of them.

No. No. This is a new entity created by the housing authority that has no relationship to Friends of Housing. These units will be transferred Mhmm. To this new holdings entity so so that Friends of Housing can dissolve and all of their collateral entities can also dissolve.

The I believe that the current assets of the entity that owns those units now consist solely of the units themselves. And so those units are going to be will be transferred owned by this new holdings entity for the term of that two zero two loan. And then when that two zero two loan is finally paid off, the decision will be, does this entity continue to hold title to those units or would those units be transferred back to the housing authority so that the housing authority could own all of the Convent Hill complex?

So there is no liability for Hackham? For the 35 units?

No, no. Because there are condominium units within the larger Convent Hill development. That said, I am not sure how they are insured, what the all of the details of the relationship between those units and the rest of Convent Hill is, but the intent is not to create any liability for the housing authority. And in fact, what we will probably recommend is that once this entity has been created and becomes operational, we would suggest doing a cooperation agreement between Convent Hill Holdings and the housing authority modeled after the cooperation agreement for Treveau, which allows the authority and the entity to share staff, to share space. So it just makes it more more easy to facilitate day to day operations because this new corporation is not gonna have its own staff.

So they'll need to rely on the housing authority. And it's really it's very, very close to the housing authority. It's just a technicality that these units based on the federal regulations cannot be held by a public housing authority. So they can only be held by a different not for profit entity.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you, commissioner. Do we have any other questions, comments?

Madam chair.

Yes. Commissioner Nils.

I have one question concerning Friends of Housing pertaining to, numerically speaking, the makeup of the board. Now sitting here listening to everything, it sounds like Friends of, Housing is down to two board members for whatever reason. And those two, I guess, I could assume they anxiously want to move on to whatever. Now what about the legalities pertaining to having just two board members? Are they allowed to do that?

And what did they start with? Seven? And so as it goes down, can they still vote and make decisions that are binding, meet all the criteria, the legalities? I was just wondering about that.

And I I'll qualify this. I have not personally reviewed the Friends of Housing articles and bylaws to determine that. It's my understanding that they can still act with two board members that consquorum. But if they lose one of those two board members, then they'll no longer be able to act. And I'm not sure how that would impact all of these discussions, whether they'd be able to come up with another board member or how we would approach this. But ideally, HUD will approve this transaction so we can simply close and Friends of Housing can dissolve and that'll be the end of it.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Nelson. Do we have any other questions? No. Alright. Hearing none, would a commissioner like to move adoption of the resolution? So moved. Would someone like to second? Second. Can we get a roll call, please? Commissioner Nelson.

Approved,

yes. Commissioner Burrell? Aye. Commissioner Eppes Classen? Aye. Chair Hazlett? Aye. Vice Chair Gottsler? Aye. Commissioner Moore? Aye. Commissioner Snyder?

Aye.

So again, we flipped the order between the old items five and six. So now this item will be the discussion regarding the creation of a finance committee by the Board of Commissioners of the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee, including how the Board may model its duties, member structure and processes. Tan Barbo and Greg Cruz will speak on this item.

Thank you, Commissioners. I will just fill in the other Board member is Margaret Hanson, who some of you may know.

Thank you. Okay.

So that's the other board member at Friends Housing. I think I'll turn it over to Greg. I know we've had some discussions on a finance committee and so this is really really to kind of figure out how we can go about this.

Correct. Greg Cruz with the City Attorney's Office. So I've had inquiries from multiple board members about the creation of a finance committee, but we don't really have a lot of specifics at this point. So we discussed after the last Board meeting and thought it would be good to have an agenda item for all of you to kind of hammer out details about what this might look like so that we can start to craft a resolution to actually create this entity, this committee of this Board. But I did want to kind of go through some more general legal advice about creating a committee and about how this body can create a committee underneath it.

I know that some of the questions I've received about the finance committee were focused on creating a committee that is only comprised of members of this board. And then I've also received questions about a committee being created that is comprised of members of this board as well as members of the public who probably have some relevant finance or related experience that maybe the Board doesn't totally have to kind of supplement the experience you all have. Attached to the agenda is an opinion that I drafted back in 2020 when I was representing the Board of Health for the City Of Milwaukee. They were looking at creating a lead I think it was the lead action committee or something along those lines. And they wanted to create a committee that was partially made of Board of Health members and then also made up of community members with experience in lead and lead safety.

So they asked our office to look into and draft an opinion about whether that was allowable and sort of what the terms are. So of course, it's not exactly on point because it's citing a lot of health laws, Chapter two fifty one of state law versus Chapter 66, which is where this board is created under. But I think it actually provides a lot of really good guardrails for you guys if you want to look at developing a committee that's comprised of members of the public as well as members of this Board. So a couple of broad strokes on what the takeaways of the opinion are. I know it's super exciting to read and you probably all read it already.

For anyone who didn't, basically when we look at whether a body has the power to create a committee, you look have at whether that authority is granted under state law. There's two ways that authority can be granted under state law. It can be expressly granted or it can be granted by implication. Basically, is it specifically written in state law that you can do the thing? If it's not, is it implied by the nature of the authority that is expressly granted to you such that you could say, well, this is a necessary or efficient way to allow this body to do the things that it is authorized expressly to do.

Obviously, this body has a lot of authority relative to finance, bonds, budgets, housing authority, there's a budget. So I think it's pretty easy to say that even if state law doesn't allow expressly for you guys to create a finance committee, I think it's implicitly built in that you guys have enough duties related to finance that it would make sense that we could make a very good argument that, yes, you can in fact create a committee to look at these things even if the committee is comprised of members of the public as well as members of this body. Probably the most important thing to note though is we want to avoid a situation wherein we are accidentally increasing the membership of this board. And what I mean by that is state statute says that this board has seven members. You can't have eight, you can't have nine, right?

So you need to be careful that the committee isn't given authority to vote and approve things such that those members of the public would be almost pseudo board members and that would raise the number of board members on this board. So what we generally recommend is that if you're going to create a committee like this, you don't give them any express authority to do anything without your approval. Really, they're limited similar to the secretary executive director search committee that is meeting regularly right now. They really only have recommendation authority so that everything that they're going to do or approve comes in front of this body and the seven of you can vote on it. So that's really critical.

A couple other things to note, of course, if you create a subcommittee of a body, that subcommittee also has to follow open meetings laws and public records laws. So we're going to have to make sure that they're aware of all of those. They're going to have to have properly noticed agendas and the meetings are going have to be open to the public unless a closed session exception applies. It's hard to get into the specifics without of what you can and can't do without having a clear picture of what you guys are actually intending to do. So I think we'll be able to work through a lot of that as we get further down the line.

But I would say making sure that you define what a quorum is, making sure you define how members of that body are selected. If somebody is no longer there, how do you replace them? So so you're gonna have to hammer through some of those specifics. But obviously, our office is here, and we're happy to help you work through all of those different things. With that, I kind of wanted to open the floor up to you guys. Maybe if you had questions for me, but more so so you can discuss amongst each other. So maybe we can start to get an idea of what this might look like and we can help you guys craft whatever resolution or bylaws might need to happen.

Thank you. Do we have any questions from the commission?

Madam Chair? Vice Chair Gottsler.

So I had a while back suggested a resolution which I thought addressed these questions, apparently not. So what else do did we need to address? I mean, I think it was pretty clear that the committee would only make recommendations, that it would provide advice and support to the CFO and his team and that we would that the initial members would only be members of the commission. And I don't remember if it talked about quorum or not. But if it's not taking action, why is that important?

Why is the discussion of quorum important? So I

would say that it is taking an action. The action is formally recommending things to this body. So it's still an action being taken and it's still a meeting. You want to define what a quorum is so that under open meetings law, we know when we have to notice things and what size discussions are okay and which ones aren't. So for example, if I remember correctly, know I looked at the resolution, but that was some months ago.

So if I'm wrong, I apologize. But I think there were going to be three members of this body on that committee. You wanted to find quorum so that you know is two people having a conversation accidentally a meeting of this committee or do you have to have all three present in order for the body to actually meet and convene and act. So hammering out things like that is that's why the quorum is important so that we know when we have to put a notice up.

Madam Chair? Yes. Commissioner Yefes Klassen.

Thank you. So can you define what quorum is now that we're a body of seven commissioners? Four. It's four. Okay. So if the committee were comprised of three three commissioners, it would not be a quorum.

It would not be a quorum of this body, but would two members of that committee be a quorum of that committee such that you'd be violating so it wouldn't be that the hacking board has accidentally met without notice, but has that committee now accidentally met without notice.

Simply because it's comprised of commissioners?

Yes. Well, not simply because. So let's say, again, we have a three person body. Generally speaking, quorum is anything above half. Okay. That's kind of the baseline. So we'd be looking at a quorum of two. So if any two of those three people talked on the phone, for example Yeah. Now you have a meeting. You could set it up where the quorum would be three, but then you have to have everybody there in order to meet. So it obviously makes it a little more difficult to get together with people's schedules.

So thank you.

Our general advice is bigger bodies are better than smaller bodies, which is kind of a benefit if you do have members of the public that are also involved. Can expand the membership and have a larger quorum so that two of you or even three of you talking to each other, you happen to be on that committee, you you don't trigger the application of the open meeting slot because let's say the body is seven people on this committee, two or three of you plus some members of the public. Now we have a quorum that we can set at four. So it's a little easier to get business done, you know, sort of one on one as needed or just talk socially.

Do we have any other questions? Commissioner Snyder.

Help me out with this. Did you said, if I'm not mistaken, that was this to where we hashing something out here? I think those are your words. Or are we just asking technical questions?

That's up to you all. I thought that this would be a good opportunity. We noticed it as a pretty broad discussion about the topic so that if you all wanted to talk amongst each other to try to figure out what you think this should look like or who might want to spearhead coming up with the answers to these questions that you would be in a position to do so tonight.

Well, if we're going to hash it out and this is a place to do it and I think we're going to go over three hours then. You're right, Commissioner Nelson. Can we order dinner?

I mean,

would be nice to order bathroom break every now and then, three hours long time. Yes. So, okay. Well, I've been pretty insistent on this. And I think when I got nominated by the Mayor and discussed it with anybody who I talked to about it, the idea of having a or not having a finance committee was, I don't know what to call it, a shock given everything that had happened, but it was pretty surprising.

And I had not been I've been on a lot of Boards and I've never been on a Board that didn't have finance committee. My own organization had three and not every month, every other month, all three met. Sometimes it was really brief like where are we at with the audit and it could be five minutes or less. But we had them and nobody could say we didn't. And nobody could say we didn't discuss it.

So if somebody in the public said, well, they're not talking about their audit, I have minutes to show that we did. The other our loan committee and the finance committee were much more robust except during the audit period when that committee was extremely robust. But it seems to me that the thing that I've heard the most both in the press and in public discussions and even discussions quietly amongst ourselves is that the name of the game here is reform and that we needed to do that and this is one way to do it. Now the problem that I have is that I was really good at governance, but I can't even read a spreadsheet. I never admitted that I could.

I didn't try to convince people that I was that I knew I'm not an accountant, but I had a lot of stuff that was in front of me and occasionally needed to be interpreted, but I always had a CFO. And I made sure I didn't want CFO running away with everything that we owned because we owned a lot. So the idea of putting on two members that we had five actually we had a six member finance committee and two were people who were experienced in public finance. One was almost always from UWM. Finding somebody wasn't that hard because I had the provost on my board and she said, he's going to be And on your that was the end of that.

We always had somebody who knew what they were talking about. And that's the way we protected ourselves. And so I would make that suggestion, Madam Chair, that we look very hard and take some time because a lot of people aren't going to want to put their reputations on the line to join a finance committee for an organization that has had a lot of financial or has had difficulty. But I think that it's really critical because I don't know the experience of the people up here. I hope it's better than mine when it comes to understanding finance.

But having somebody that we know, trust and represents an institution or a major accounting firm who can come in and can say, look, this is what you guys did, this is what I'm recommending you do, would be really critical. But then you have to make sure that they can't outvote the Board or the committee at any time. And in my experience, we did it exactly the way you suggested that the committee only recommended, the Board made the and the Board had and this is one of the reasons why I've been a little bit little queasy about consent agendas because we would spend a lot of time, most of the work was done in committees. And you could pull something out, just type it up, you send it to your secretary, it got pulled out for big discussion so that everybody could decide whether they wanted to talk about it to the extent that they wanted to. And I'd say that we could do something kind of similar to that.

That's at least my experience. And I'm willing to talk to anybody about a better idea because this is just one idea. But having somebody that you know and trust who could say, I'm here to protect your the public's interest, the residents their interest, the Board's interest, the staff and the other stakeholders' interest, maybe hard, I don't know, but the people who finance us interest and then we not going to find ourselves in this trouble maybe this time next year if we do it right.

Actually something you said did bring up another something that I thought of just now, which is there are going to be some ethical considerations that we're going to have to make, especially and what triggered it, as you mentioned, somebody from a large public accounting firm. We're going to have to be careful or perhaps even reach out to the State Ethics Board if we want to have potentially people that HACM also might do business with. There are some considerations there. Obviously, it's less of a concern when we're talking about a professor from UWM who is, you know, it's a government entity. They're not looking for our business, but it's just another thing to sort of keep in the back of your mind as you're thinking through this.

Do we want the members of this committee to maybe fill out statements of economic interest or something similar to that? And do we want to have specific roles about members of the committee and their ability to do business with HACM or any parent company or anyone that they're related to? So something to think about.

Absolutely. That's why we have an attorney.

Do we well, I'd just like to jump in. This was something that the five commissioners committed to as we sort of joined the board as a whole was to look at subcommittees to help us move the work along because it's only seven of us. So I would certainly like to see not only representation from the commissioners but the community as well. There are great subject matter experts out there that could be a part of this community, and I would love to get that input and have them a part of the process. We had drafted some things based upon our recovery plan, based upon communicating with HUD in regards to what these subcommittees look like.

So I know that we are focused on the finance committee, I so will stay right there. I would also like for it to be solidified as we are working to identify the next secretary executive director. I would love to have that in place or have that person to, you know, sort of be a part of that process. I think we're moving closer to identifying who our next will be. But I think we're in a really good place.

So this is a healthy conversation to have. But I would like to revisit the that that's good talk we've about also be proactive in what those the subcommittees look like. And Not just this one because we also need the audit committee. I think the finance and audit committee can be, you know, together. But again, I will share that information with our with the fellow commissioners so we can identify moving forward what we need, not only based on the recovery plan, but stabilizing the organization as a whole.

But certainly starting with the Finance Committee. Do we have any other questions or comments from fellow commissioners? All right.

If I may Yes. This is a very good discussion and it sounds like there is some appetite to try to move it forward. Think probably the best next steps, obviously this group is going to need a resolution or something to vote on at some point that hammers out all of the details. It might be good if one or two of you want to spearhead it and want to work with our office to put all of that together because we're going to have a lot of you know, anyone who's worked with me, I ask way too many questions and like to have a lot of input. So that's likely to happen here. So if any of you want to work with me, I'd be happy to help move that resolution forward in the coming months.

Absolutely. We take you up on

that. Yeah.

Okay. So

whoever, just reach out and happy to help move forward however I can.

All right. Thank you so much, Attorney Cruz. No problem.

Okay. Next item, please. The next item for today's meeting is a general public listening session. This listening session is agenda item number B7, part of the 4PM Wednesday, 12/10/2025 meeting of the Hackham Board of Commissioners at City Hall Room 301B. The purpose of this session is to give interested persons a reasonable opportunity to present their views to Hackham's Board of Commissioners. Each speaker will have two minutes to speak. This listening session does not have a specific topic. Persons who wish to speak if they have not already done so should sign up at the sign in sheet located at the side table on your right. For those who have prepared written comments, those comments will be shared with the Board. Any comments received by eleven a.

M. Today have been distributed to the commissioners. Is there anyone that would like to speak today? The public also had the opportunity to provide written or e comments. None were received before eleven a. M. Today. Seeing no one rising to speak, this concludes the public listening session, which was part of the four p. M. Wednesday, 12/10/2025 meeting of the HACC and Board of Commissioners at City Hall Room 301B.

Item number eight, let me move on to my next script. All right. For item number eight, the Board of Commissioners of the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee may receive a motion to convene in closed session at City Hall Room 301B pursuant to Section 19.851 gs of Wisconsin Statutes to confer with legal counsel for the governmental body who is rendering oral or written advice concerning strategy to be adopted by the body with respect to litigation in which it is or is likely to become involved. The committee may then reconvene in open session concerning additional items on the agenda. During the closed session, the committee members and the staff involved in the deliberations must meet in private.

After the closed session, the Board is expected to then reconvene in open session concerning the additional items on the agenda. During the closed session, all members of the public and staff not a party to the discussion must leave the room. Once the closed session is completed, we will reopen the doors and let any members of the public and staff back into the room at that time. Is there a motion and second to go into closed session based on the exception just read under 19.851 gs?

I move we go into closed session pursuant to Section 19.851 gs. Second.

Roll call, please.

Commissioner Nelson?

Aye.

Commissioner Pez I'm sorry, Commissioner Burrell? Aye. Commissioner Pez Clase? Aye. Co Chair Hazlett? Aye. Vice Chair Gottsler? Aye. Commissioner Moore? Aye. Commissioner Snyder? Aye. Okay. So we are moving into the closed session. The public must now leave the meeting.

Commissioners are Oops, sorry. I'm going away. Okay. That's right. So we are coming back.

So now we're going to do just so the audience can get caught up. We're going to take the motion to come back into open session. So is there yes, there a motion and second second to go into open session?

So moved. Second. Oh. I thought I revered it. Okay. Can we get a roll call, please? Sorry. It's okay. Give me a moment.

Here it is.

Nice.

Commissioner Nelson, this is to go back into open session.

Present.

Commissioner Burrell? Aye. Commissioner Pez Klassen? Aye. Chair Hayslett? Aye. Vice Chair Gottsler? Aye. Commissioner Snyder? Aye. We are back in open session. Item number nine is a presentation of the November documents from the Travaux Board meeting. Ken Barba will speak on this item.

Thank you, Commissioners. So in your packets, there is the items that were presented at the Travaux Board meeting on 11/20/2025. Most of them are very similar to ones that you've seen in previous meetings. Vice President of Construction, Alison Wuznicki, did give an update on Travaux projects. There was the presentation in terms of the public housing occupancy, the affordable market rate occupancy as well as the work order reports.

Do you have any questions on any of that? There are no significant changes from the prior month. Thank you. All right. Okay.

So the paper. Are we there? So no action.

Okay. Are there any questions? Okay. All right. There being no more questions, can you read the next item? Item number 10 is

a presentation of the agenda and documents from the November HACM Executive Search Committee meetings. I can speak on this item. In November, we just had one committee meeting and you'll see that we did have the minutes for the three October meetings, including the two stakeholder forums. And the committee was also in October finalizing the job description and other documents. During November, the community they took the community input from the forums and the results of the surveys, which the surveys were completed by both boards, the residents, staff and the public.

Although all of that information was consolidated and presented alongside a draft of the IDL candidate profile and initial drafts of the rating and ranking criteria. In addition, the initial recruitment efforts began. Peeking ahead into next month summary for the December activities, we'll be providing information about the committee's two meetings so far this month where the committee has begun the process of reviewing candidates. And it was good to hear the members' comments about their thoughts of the candidates. Please feel free to reach out to Chair, Vice Chair or myself if you would like any more information and the audio of the meetings is always available to the commissioners. I'm not sure if Chair Hazel, Vice Chair Gottsler, Ken or Greg would like to say anything else about the Executive Search Committee.

I'd just like to say this is a great process and I am anxious to identify the for the team, but also acknowledging the great job that CAN does. I'm not trying to rush you out of here, CAN, but we we're not trying to rush you out of here. But I am excited about the number of candidates that we had to source through. And I have complete confidence in the executive search committee to bring forth those candidates to the body for you all to review fairly soon. All right.

Do we have any other questions, comments?

Yes, Madam Chair.

Yes. Commissioner Snyder.

Can tell me, and this may also be a great question. I have heard about a candidate who is applied for the job that I know. Okay. And so I think it would be only fair for me to abstain until I mean, because we make the final decision.

Yeah.

And I don't want to be a part of it. Not I mean, because I think it's unfair that I know somebody that I just shouldn't be party to the conversation. Alright. Maybe the conversation but not the vote. And I wasn't sure what the past practice is for something like that. I mean, maybe you haven't been through a search, but

Welcome back, Attorney Cruz.

Thank you. By the way, I love the person and that's one of the reasons why I don't want to be part of it.

I have not been a part to a party to this previously. So I'm not sure what the past practice for Hackham has been like when Willie was hired and if board met because he was previously on

the board.

Search. There were no

searches before. I think everybody on

the It's board at time first do search for an executive director.

It is.

So but I think that's I mean, you're well within your right to abstain. I don't know if you are required to in that situation, but you're certainly well within your right to do so. Okay. We don't even know at this point whether that candidate is

It's going to be an ethical issue for me.

Yes.

And I think that's fine for you to abstain if you want to.

Okay. Do we have any other questions or comments? Well, thank you so much, Commissioner Snyder, for sharing that information. But just we have no idea who may rise to the top. So hopefully you don't have to exercise your right to abstain. I'm not sure. But we are certainly looking for the best and the brightest to lead the organization. So stay tuned for more. All

right. Okay. Next item. Item number 11 is a report from the Secretary Executive Director.

Thank you, Commissioners. So I am going to skip down to the public safety report and ask Chief Marlon Davis to come forward.

Good evening, Chief.

Good evening, Commissioners, Board. Do have a copy, but thank you. I'm Marlon Davis. I'm the chief of public safety for the housing authority of the city of Milwaukee. I'm here to give you the public safety department analytics and Initiatives Report, which span from November 6 to 12/05/2025.

Again, we have a standard form. I think the most important thing that I would be able to present other than what's on in front of you would be the the data. The data is important because it shows our effectiveness in responding to calls for service as well as our officer initiated. For the month, our calls for service were four fifty one, which is a 74 cause or 14% decrease from the previous period. We believe some of that is associated with the weather.

When it gets cold, people start to embed themselves in their residence. We also are seeing those costs decrease because Mr. Nelson and I talked about is the residents are starting to hold themselves and their neighbors accountable for what they do in the building. And that's what we always want in neighborhoods, sustainable neighborhoods. We look at our developments as though they are one big neighborhood in one place.

Residents, citizens have some of the responsibility to ensure that they where they live is safe and secure, and either that by calling us or partners with management to hold people accountable. But I think that a lot of that is going on, a lot of that responsibility sharing is going on and we're seeing the positive results. I hope that's the case and it's sustainable. As far as our officer initiated events, we did see a decrease in that from last month. I don't know why that is.

I think that the officers of our public safety specialists are spending more concentrated time in the developments and that could be why they're not getting out as much. But we did have some staffing changes as well, so that may attribute it to it. But we're still monitoring it. We want those numbers, like I said, to be above our cost of service, which they are. So we're still doing the proactive work and we're still leading the work that department has done by being proactive.

So I'm still happy with that result. As far as our initiatives for the month, we combined with some other stakeholders, resident services, property management, and began thinking about evacuation routes or education for our residents. We had a concern and we acted on that concern and got together with this group, formed a committee, and started having some conversations about evacuation procedures, especially in our high rises and mid rise buildings. We partnered with the Milwaukee Fire Department. We got one of their educators on board that does this training and we executed a successful training on Monday or at least an awareness session, I'll call it that, with our residents at Convent Hill on Monday and Cherry Court.

Yep. No, Convin Hill and Highland.

Convin Hill and Cherry Court.

Cherry Court? Okay. It's a mistake. I didn't make it to the second one. But it was well received and obviously it was something that was needed.

So we found and saw an opportunity for growth within our organization. This is not being spearheaded by public safety. This is a collaborative effort with property management, resident services. We even have part of Allison's team working with us as well because there may be some lifts that are required for future and going forward building evacuation planning. We also responded in a big way to a fiber optic cable was somewhat broken.

So we was doing some digging or shoveling and we had the fiber optic cut and it affected all of our developments. It affected the pool alarms. Our Sims panel alarms were out. So we activated our personnel, the public safety personnel that we had on shift, and had conversations with property management that we could reach and talked about walking the halls and making sure that the residents were safe in our developments that were affected. We were able to work with IT to figure out a timeline to get those things up as soon as possible.

Because of those life and safety tools that were affected, we had a concern that we weren't going to be made aware of when alarms were going off. So the IT team worked with ITMD of the city and we were able to get back up and running within a couple hours.

Yeah. Yeah.

So

We were worried it was going to be overnight and it was only a couple hours. Was But very

again, that action of what the Public Safety Department does for the agency is very important because I was very nervous about those alarms going down. So we are working again with IT, ITMD, and again, development and construction to figure out a fail safe. We can't have our systems rely upon one fiber optic line and then we're down throughout our high rises and our mid rises. So we're going to be working with them to figure out a fail safe. If a fiber is cut, we go on to a different system right away.

The switch is made and everybody is still in play. So that's all I have. Anybody have anything for myself as public safety?

Doctor. Yes, I do.

Okay.

Doctor. All right. Speaking on fire drills, can you tell me how are fire drills handled at the high rise developments, especially for our differently abled residents, those who are wheelchair bound or

Doctor. Yes.

Conversation or the education that's going to be put out is that, one, there's a management responsibility to give us a list of those particular residents that are, you know, kind of immobile. So we take that list every month. My public safety lead dispatcher communicates with the property management and gets an updated list. So we have a list in my department and our database. The property manager's responsibility is to put that list into the fire panel box so that a fire department comes

and

they know to go there to get that list and make that a priority as far as how to extract those people from incident, right? And part of the other training or the other education to the residents is going to be if you are strapped in that manner vulnerable to make the property management know

and

then shelter in place because the fire department will have that list and they'll be coming for you. So that's what the plan is, but we know that if it's an active event, people are trying to get out of the building. Right. But our stance is we want to have these lists updated monthly and available to the fire department. It's been communicated to the fire department and it should be communicated to the resident that that shelter in place should be what they should do. We are not advocating for the elevator use because the elevator shaft is air filled, right? And what fuels a fire? Air. So we don't want that to occur. Language is do not use the elevators.

So we're getting that messaging out. I know that Amy Hall, the Director of our Media Relations, has recently posted onto our screens throughout the developments some of that tip, some of those tip information that was developed as a result of this evacuation committee, so to speak.

Okay. Great. I would certainly like to see at least some practice drills because this is the season, season, as we all know, where we have a lot of calamitous, you know, activities with fires and people with heaters and whatever. But if if we could be proactive in getting people used to the fire drills, especially with the turnover of the residents, you know, people move in, move out. They're not aware of what the evacuation plan is.

I would like to see something, you know, at least annually shared or and certainly public facing of if there is an emergency, how they can get out of the high rise locations because most people, their first mind is to go to the elevator. You cannot use an elevator in case, you know, in the case of fire or whatever the other emergency may be. But I would certainly want to make sure that we are using our resident organizations and other opportunities to continue to keep that in front of residents.

Yes. This coming up, it did there is an opportunity for this agency to lift that risk and safety department type of element to whereas those are done annually and the buildings are safety inspected. I definitely agree that there should be a cadence for having at least one drill annually and having those conversations on a regular basis. But the situation that was the impetus for us developing the committee was just that. Some resident had some serious questions about what happened when a drill, when an alarm went off.

So, again, we saw that there was a deficiency or an opportunity for us as an agency to grow and do a lift, and that's where we're at. And I'm absolutely on board, but there should be some annual education to our residents and there should be a light on this type of safety element, either within the Public Safety Department or globally otherwise. But there's a need, and we're working to fill that gap until we figure out how to satisfy that need in a consistent level.

Okay. All right. And I just encourage you to utilize the services of our community partners. Is it Milwaukee Independent?

Center for independence. Yes. And independence first as well.

Yes. Independence first. But to be able to pull those subject matter experts in, with our differently abled residents to be able to help, yes, to give voice to those so we know how to best service everyone.

Yes. In my prior employment, I was a director of risk and safety at one of those agencies.

Wonderful. Wonderful. So you know how to actively bring them in and, you know, just stay up and current on some of the factors involved. And then who are how do we work with the Office of Wellness in like four fourteen? AQUAS.

I work with AQUAS. We're in the middle of some conversations with Westlawn. So we do have a direct line of sight with that department, and we do have a communication there. So we did do we had them at a meeting.

Working with foster

youth. Not the last one.

The one before.

Yeah. So we do work collaboratively with that particular department and it's a good working relationship. Course, haven't had much challenge since the new director had come into play, but we are we do have a line of sight with that department.

And if there were to be an incident where we felt that it was necessary to bring them into development because of some issue going on, we would certainly do that.

Yeah. We got some things tabled, right?

Yes.

Yeah. Yes.

Okay. Madam Chair? Yes. Commissioner Snyder.

Thank you. Are those Narcan boxes available in the developments? No. Should there be?

That's another risk and safety question, right? That's something that should be explored. I do have some bandwidth, but we have to have conversations to see what that particular wing, if that's going to be attached to public safety, what that looks like. But no, there aren't.

Thank you. Do we have any other questions, comments from commissioners? All right. Well, thank you so much, Chief Davis.

All right. Thank you. You guys have a good evening.

All right. You too. Thank you. Next, I'd like to ask CBR to come forward. We have Tracy Sheffield, Trita Cummings.

Tina, Royalty. And we also have online, if needed, Michael Tonovitz. So with that, I'll turn it over to Tracy.

Thank you. Good evening, commissioners. Good evening. Tracy Sheffield, Senior Vice President with CVR Associates with me Tina Royalty, Deputy Director of the Wrap program. Is this on? Okay. So good evening. I well, I have a few points that I wanted to point out this evening. The first is a response relative to the news report that went out last week. We have made contact with the property owner and we have a in person meeting with him tomorrow to discuss his concerns.

It does appear to be isolated to his case. And so we're looking forward to getting more information from him tomorrow when we meet with him in detail. Are there any questions about that? Manager?

Yes. Vice Chair Gottsler.

In the news report, it sounded like he has multiple issues that

are happening currently. Is that accurate? We're that's what we're hoping to find out tomorrow in our meeting with him.

But you don't you don't know yet?

Not not not specific details. No, ma'am. Okay. Alright. Thank you. Yes,

ma'am. As

far as the as far as the report submitted for October, we did experience our second consecutive month of a reduction of late recertification. So I do feel like we are moving in a good direction there, although there is work obviously still to be done. We are as far as the PBB reconciliation, we have made significant headway. Currently, the bottleneck right now is relative that we have requested from the families. We are actively working with the Hakim property managers who are going door to door to try to get the documentation from the family so that we can proceed. In some instances, we need units to pass inspection,

but

we are having weekly meetings with the property managers to make sure that updates are continuing to move forward with that. As far as November, we completed 28 move ins retroactively and payments totaling 116 just over $116,000 went out in November as well. And we also conducted 13 inspections for units where an initial inspection wasn't conducted prior to the person moving into the unit originally. This could have happened. I think there are some cases dating back to twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two, 2023 and 2024.

Sorry. So we are working with very closely with Ken and the property management staff to get that information together. So that hopefully we can get those payments out the door. As far as the FSS reconstruction, which was also a part of our goal for this first year and a part of our head mandate, There were approximately 200 FSS families that we needed to reconstruct their FSS files. There are less than 50 reconstruction records that remain.

The bulk of these are pending resolution with that we're partnering with the Yardi representative that we have due to when HACM converted to Yardi from Visual Homes in 2019, some of the settings were wonky. And so it is creating discrepancies with the escrow calculations. And so as we're rebuilding these files, we're working with that representative to try to get those settings corrected so that those escrow payments can be calculated appropriately as the family is participating in the family self sufficiency program. FSS escrow payments are generated when the family's baseline earned income goes up over the course of their participation in the program. If they successfully participate in the program, which is a five year program, they could be eligible to receive that escrow amount to themselves so they could use it to purchase a down payment on a home or a car or whatever personal self sufficiency goals that they would like to complete with those funds.

Okay. Tracy, I

have a question.

Yes, ma'am. As you've learned of this discrepancy, how is it being mitigated until the system is fixed? So essentially what had happened since 2019 when the conversion happened is those escrow payments weren't being generated at all in the system. And so we're working with the representative to fix those settings on the back end so that any escrow the family is eligible to receive that they weren't getting credit for during their years of participation, it's starting to calculate that correctly. So there's nothing that needs to happen in the interim.

It's just making sure that that setting is fixed so that we can go back and fix fix all of their 5,058 records. That's going to add up those funds for them. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

Vice Chair

Gatzler. So are those funds that we are currently holding that would be credited to them or this is just a credit to their account or I'm just trying to figure out financially how that affects the housing authority.

Yes. So HACM would have a, an escrow account that where those funds are set aside for those families. If they do graduate from the program successfully, then they would be eligible to receive a check for those funds.

So I guess I'm really asking about a follow-up to the chair's question about recalculating those funds. So the recalculated dollars, would that also be cash that the housing authority has available in a separate account?

I have to refer to Ken.

So the answer to that is yes. It would be kept separate. We have

Sorry, everybody. We

that the problem with these 50 or so families left is that we haven't been able to calculate the amount and that's what this reconciliation process is doing is going back and recalculating so that we have the correct information. Due to some issues with FSS when it was transferred from Yardi from Visual Homes into Yardi, weren't being some of them weren't being calculated correctly. And so people were not receiving escrow when they should have been receiving escrow. So we're going back, we're calculating it correctly, we're putting into the account what needs to happen and if they are ready for graduation or once they are ready for graduation, we graduate them. So

do we have the cash available?

Do we have the cash available?

Yeah.

To put

into the escrow for

If it is from the it would come from the admin funds.

Great. Okay. Thank you.

So for the voucher program, we also

have some public housing. Right.

Madam Chair. Commissioner Snyder. These aren't funds that are commingled, are they?

No, because it's an escrow fund. Right. It may, I believe we probably only I think we have one FSS bank account. So it does include both the folks who are voucher participants and the folks who are in public housing, but it's one FSS escrow account.

And can you explain what Yardi is? That's

a Certainly. Good Yardi is our main housing and now financial software as well. We converted to Yardi in 2019 from a previous software called Visual Homes. And so Yardi, we use for the voucher program for all of our housing programs. It keeps all the housing information on our residents and participants, their income information, their rents, their all the history of what has been happened with them. And we also use it as our financial software as well at the moment. That was part of the transition we did the last two years.

And it is pretty Yardi is pretty much the industry standard for public housing authorities. So it just unfortunately took many years to make the migration from one to the other. And I hope it's done by now. I don't know if that's true.

I mean, we're always adding things into ERD. I mean, we're going to be implementing moving forward an inventory module as well. But I mean, so there's always things that we're adding. But yes, the migration is pretty much completed and part of this whole reconciliation process that CVR is doing is part of making sure that everything is right in the system.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Do we have any other questions?

Thank you. So effective October 1, the program moved to inspire inspection standards from the former standard, which was housing quality standards or HUS standards. These standards are different from the former standards that landlords and tenant may be familiar with. Since moving to the inspire standards, which is the new standard that had released, We have noticed an increase in emergency fail inspections that are the landlord's responsibility. Some of the biggest areas are smoke detectors being in the rooms of the unit where prior they needed to be outside of the room within a certain distance.

Another common trend that we're seeing is GCFI outlets in the basement. And so this is we've noticed this trend pretty quickly despite communications that we sent out to the landlords in preparation for this change over the last several months. And so we have been communicating also with Amy Hall, the marketing person at Hakim to make sure that we're we already have information on the website, but we're looking to add additional information. I've also been coordinating with our team internally to add some potentially add some checklists to our inspection request letters that go out to the landlords to say this is exactly what we're looking for under this new standard. We included the information in our monthly newsletter to property owners and discuss it each month with our monthly owner meetings that we hold each month.

But we still are seeing this uptick in trends. And so we want to try to get that under control because we're seeing a lot of emergency reinspections, meaning if I conduct an inspection today and it fails as an emergency inspection, the landlord needs to repair it by tomorrow. And so it's creating you can see how that can really escalate quickly as we move forward. And so we are pivoting with our inspections department to try to decrease this, ensure that landlords are reading our correspondences and our information that's been going out so that they meet these standards as they are obviously a shift. And so this could lead to an increase in the number of units that are under abatement, which means that we withhold payment from landlords if they do not complete the repairs within the required time frame.

So you may see an increase in landlord complaints from that, but it is a HUD requirement for us to do. So I did want to bring that to the Board's attention.

Madam Chair? Commissioner Moore.

Thank you. I just want to say just in regards to that that we've had such a low standard prior.

Mhmm.

Or just not having a consistent consistent standard that this is this is what we're getting. So I know it's going to take us a little bit of time to read the learning curve. It's a learning curve. Get us into compliance. But, you know, some of the things that I've heard of people staying in place and that's just like, wait a second. We allow that to happen? Wait a second. How how did how did how did that happen where we're still paying somebody's rent, but they're living in some subpar or unsafe, you know, condition. So I love that you all, you know, even when you're saying, okay. Nope. Let's we we want everybody to be successful.

Let's get them

a checklist. I just had a quick question in regards to, you know, the well, you have to get this done the next day. Does it depend? Do you all look at the specific thing that needs to be done to say, well, because there might be something that may take a week or you know what I mean? Obviously, depending on what it is. We always want to give a fair amount of time but

It's depending on the severity. So, it depends on what the specific deficiency is. Some deficiencies are considered emergency that should be fixed within twenty four hours. Others we give twenty eight days to fix. And so it just depends on what the exact issue is to make sure that we're because the emergency inspections, it means this is an emergent health and safety issue that needs And to be resolved so we want to make sure that we are getting the making sure that our families are safe first and foremost.

And I believe even if there's more to do to actually repair the item, if it's abated within twenty four hours, means that we took care of the urgent issue and there's still more to do that that counts as meeting the twenty four hours. We still have work to do, but that would count for the twenty four hours.

And where does lead paint fall into all of this? You know, properties that may not be may have small children, may not be abated. Is that part of a checklist standard or not necessarily?

The landlords complete a lead based paint certification. The city also does some testing for units that have children to make sure that there aren't elevated blood lead levels. So we partner with the city with that as well. But the landlords do certify.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I believe some parts of the Inspire standards do look at is there peeling paint on windows, that kind of thing. That is part of the inspection standards. We do not do lead testing as part of the regular Inspire inspection. However, we get reports, we share our addresses with the health department.

So the addresses of all the units that we have people in who have children six or under and get a report from the health department if any one of them have been have a child with an elevated blood lead level. In addition, the family reports or their doctor reports it to us, also follow-up that they have a child with an elevated blood lead level. There is a separate public and Indian housing notice on lead and what our responsibilities are both in the voucher program and the public housing program.

Perfect. And would I be able to make a data request? Can we get a list of the the inspire

check list? Standards.

Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you. Yes.

The inspire standards. Just so we get a sense of Mhmm. What it is that we're are expecting our landlords to do.

Thank you. I can also get you a comparison of what the former standards were versus the current standards. You can see the difference. Thank you. Absolutely. No problem. Let's see. The last thing I just wanted to note in our in our October report is that was our first full month of data relative to our lobby visitors. I know Alderwoman Moore, that was something that you were that we were going to follow-up on. So we received over 2,100 visitors for the month of October.

The majority of the visitors were participants and the main reasons that they were coming into the office were to further recertifications, to get lab assistance in completing the recertifications, document drop offs and things like that. But I did provide detailed data on the reasons of the visitor type and the projection per day of how many visitors we received throughout that month in case there were any questions.

That's perfect. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am. And that's all I have for you this evening unless there are any other questions. All right.

There being none, we can move to the next item. Okay.

All right.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioners.

Thank you, Michael.

Thanks for sticking around so long.

Our pleasure. Sorry about you.

Sorry we didn't make it harder. So

the last item I have is a resident actually a participant in our voucher program Maya Johnson. She bought a home recently. I believe one of our commissioners has met her And so but I'll just give you a few facts. She completed her make your money talk program. Okay.

So she was able to get some match savings that helped her in terms of her purchase. In addition, she completed well within two years because the family self sufficiency program is a five year program. Within two years, she completed her goals in the family self sufficiency program. So she also got some escrow from that program. So she's one of the people that we actually had to reconcile her balances and everything, but to get her to get a payout. But I don't know if, Alderwoman Moore, if you want have anything you want to add.

Thank you. Thank you for that, Ken. I just wanted to say that these are the things that we wanna support our residents to know that they can do.

That's right.

She's actually taking her voucher and actually using it to pay her Yes. Like, who would have thunk that you could be that you could do something like that. Right? And so we had a wonderful conversation. I have to give a shout out to one of the staffers, Glenys.

Who's screen?

Works over.

She works under Nanette Ray. She's one of our FSS coordinators.

Wonderful. She is complete. I just I mean when we have some great staff we got some great staff- but want to definitely shout her out because she had worked with- my account with my- and right now you know and my share that she needed a stove. Mhmm. And so I kinda put the word out and so we're trying to get the, you know, get her get her a stove but there were other resources that we cut connected, you know, her with if those sorts of things that we wanna let our residents know that we are going to continue to support you but home ownership is absolutely an option.

Yeah. And and so I I just wanna thank thank you all and thank Amy for helping to coordinate. I just wanna I, you know, wanted to give her something on behalf of the the commissioners just gave her congratulatory card a a plant. You know, for her for her new home but that that's we we want to praise those folks all day to say, hey, this is this is what we want to this is where you we want you to be. So. Yeah.

Thank you all for so much for doing

what you know.

Thank you. And and and it is a great tool. The section eight y program where they can use that voucher. They only pay 30% towards their mortgage and the voucher will pay the remainder. So. Wow. With that, I am done with my report.

So I have a question. How many homeowners do we have for the year?

That's a

great question.

For the year, I don't have the number off the top of my head.

Probably more.

It's probably about eight to 10, I'm guessing. Why? However, over like in the Section eight Y program, we're almost at over 300 purchases in that program or almost 300 purchases in that program since 2004. So Okay.

Is that something I would love to get that data point maybe every quarter or Yes. Just a few times a

We can report on our homeownership program Yes. Okay.

All right.

Madam Chair? Yes, Vice Chair Gottsler. A couple

of questions. How are we doing on our recovery agreement sustainability plan? Are we still on track?

We are still on track. I did I can forward you if I haven't already the November sustainability plan results because we did submit those to HUD. We do have a number of things in December that I am concerned about because they are of a financial nature. And so I may need to go back to HUD. I will be looking at to see accomplish, but I may look to HUD for an additional extension or to extend it originally because some of them were extended once from our CFO had requested an extension from I think June to push it out to December.

But now I'll have to look at whether we can complete it by December 31. Those are the ones I have a question on. Most of the others are achievable. So that are due on December 31. We do have other and we have besides the ones that HUD closed out in August, going able to

first

out 13 of 24 findings. I have to double check that out.

That's a good start. Yes. It's a good start. So speaking of HUD, we have a visit from our regional administrator coming up, I believe. Is that still on the calendar?

That is still on the calendar for Friday the nineteenth, which is next Friday. We will have three commissioners present. I believe the Chair, the Vice Chair and Commissioner Burrell.

Okay. All

right. Good

to know. I'm glad to have the confirmation.

And it will be at Westlawn.

Okay.

And then, let's see. I had some other question here.

We only have an hour and a half with him, but hopefully

Oh, really? Oh, well.

That's good.

We can

fill in an hour

and a

half with problem. Great.

An Hour and a half, Carrie.

Okay. Yes. And then what's the status of our audit reports?

The 2023 audit is almost done. They I think there was just one little thing that they needed confirmation of and then that one's done. The 2024 audit they're still working on. They've they just sent me an email actually today. They had some compliance questions that they needed some information on and they're doing the compliance work. They'll be coming to do the financial field work later this month.

Still in December?

Hopefully. I'm guessing it may go into January.

Okay. So with the 2023, is the missing information for them something that has to come from the housing authority or it's from a third party confirmation?

It I believe it was an easy ask. So I believe it was from the housing authority.

So are we done with that now? As we know?

Think it's going through their partner review.

That's a good sign. Okay. So we might get it before the end of the

The 2023.

Calendar yes. But we might get it before the 2025.

Yes.

Okay. All right. Great.

Rub it in.

Well, you know, it's just one of those dates that just pops up and, you know, also not the only ones in this situation, but

I'm sure it'll come up in next Friday's meeting as well.

I'm sure it will. Okay. But we're ready. We're ready for that. Transparency. That's right. I could think of more questions, but I think I'll leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Gottsler. Do we have any other questions, comments from the Commission? Madam Chair? Yes. Commissioner Moore.

If I can please make a request, just something that has come to my attention. If we can, I know in a future meeting, talk about, what support is given because I know sometimes when we have to evict an individual, it's quite some time down the line and they rack and you know for some you know depending on what it is they've racked up? Mhmm. Quite some charges. If if we can have a conversation at a future meeting to talk about what are the steps that what are the things that we do to support that that individual?

You know, just what are the what what do we do? I I don't know what we do. I you know, I I don't know if we just allow them to rack up the charges and then it's like, oh, we gotta evict you. You know, like, I'm I'm curious to know what that process looks like. So if we can, you know, have a discussion about that at at a future meeting, that would be awesome.

Absolutely. I think we had a conversation about that a few meetings back, but that would be good to have something quarterly just to keep it at the forefront of what these processes are and how to best support not only the residents but the staff around it as well. So thank you for those suggestions. Suggestions. Madam Madam chair? Chair? Yes. Yes. Commissioner Commissioner Burrell. Thank you, commissioner Moore. I just had a conversation regarding some stuff like that, and I do thank you for bringing it out to the public. All right. Do we have any other questions or comments? Okay. All right.

There being none, can we well, are you done?

I am I have completed my report unless Karen has any more questions.

Okay. All right. Well, that concludes the Executive Director's report. We will move to adjourn. Is there a motion to adjourn? I motion. Second. All in paper signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Alright. The ayes have it. Everyone stay safe and more.

Happy holidays, everybody.