Fed monitor: Mayor de Blasio’s new housing chief misled public
Same as the old boss.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s latest choice to head the New York City Housing Authority “omitted material details” while testifying about its lead-paint scandal — including how officials failed to adequately investigate whether kids are being exposed, according to documents obtained by The Post.
Interim NYCHA Chairwoman Kathryn Garcia — who’s on leave as Sanitation commissioner while she runs the housing agency — potentially misled the public by not revealing that officials “relied solely on resident disclosure forms to determine where children under six reside,” federal monitor Bart Schwartz wrote in a damning letter last week.
Schwartz also said Garcia painted way too rosy a picture for the completion of lead tests in some 135,000 apartments, saying it would take at least two years beyond the 2020 deadline she offered the City Council during testimony on May 7.
Former NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye resigned in disgrace last year following a series of scandals that included a blistering report by the city Department of Investigation, which said she and other officials lied to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development about conducting mandatory annual testing for lead-paint hazards.
In his Thursday letter to Garcia, Schwartz said her May 7 testimony left the “misimpression” that NYCHA was only able to identify 2,559 lead-tainted apartments occupied by its “most vulnerable” kids — an assertion the Trump administration appointee said was contradicted by her admissions to him in a meeting on May 22.
“In response to my questions to you, you informed me that NYCHA made no other efforts to identify children at risk by virtue of inhabiting or routinely visiting lead paint units,” Schwartz wrote.
“NYCHA did not speak with or survey building managers or others, did not conduct any site visits, did not review any other city records and/or engage in any actions that might reasonably lead to the identification of apartments occupied by children under six.”
Schwartz also said it’s “common knowledge that children visit grandparents in senior developments while their parents work or are unavailable.”
“All one needs to do is stand outside a senior development to see all the children who visit there,” he added.
He also accused Garcia of not having a “proper basis” to testify that X-ray testing for lead paint in 135,000 apartments would be finished by the end of 2020.
That schedule “requires the testing of some 6,750 units per month,” but data from NYCHA’s Web site shows that only 1,740 apartments have been tested through May 17, Schwartz said,
“Continuing the current pace of testing (109 units per day), approximately 2,300 units would be tested in an average month, which would mean that it would take approximately 58 months to complete the testing of all 135,000 units,” he wrote.
The letter also says that despite Garcia having “characterized NYCHA’s relationship with the Monitor as a ‘partnership,’” Schwartz’ office had to learn on its own about “multiple painting vendors having been caught violating lead safe work rules.” Schwartz did not detail those alleged violations.
Schwartz said Garcia’s testimony, offered under oath, “omitted material details about lead paint issues that are required to be addressed now and in the future by the NYCHA, and thereby may have resulted in a misleading impression being given to City Council members and the public about how these issues are being addressed.”
He also said that his focus solely on lead paint problems “should not be taken as an indication that I believe NYCHA has met its obligations in other areas,” and said he was investigating other, unspecified “potential violations.”
Schwartz was appointed to oversee NYCHA as part of a deal de Blasio struck with federal prosecutors in January to settle a suit that accused officials of covering up squalid living conditions in the city’s low-income housing projects.
Garcia’s testimony could potentially lead to a perjury charge.
Under New York state law, testifying falsely about something “material to the action” can be prosecuted as first-degree perjury, a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Leading Manhattan lawyer Mark Bederow — who’s handled perjury cases as both a Manhattan prosecutor and a criminal-defense attorney — called Garcia’s testimony “not the most open-and-shut case” and said that “if it turns out she omitted material facts, it boils down to her intent.”
“If you intentionally omit material facts, then your statement is false, assuming it was under oath,” he said.
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“If you’re not intentionally misleading, that is still an inaccurate answer but it doesn’t make it perjury.”
Bederow added that for Garcia, “either way, it doesn’t look good.”
“You’re either deliberately lying or woefully uninformed about what is going on at [your] agency,” he said.
In a response to Schwartz’s accusations, Garcia wrote back Friday that “NYCHA fully acknowledges that it needs to make significant improvements with respect to its compliance with the lead-based paint rules.”
But she insisted her testimony was “truthful and forthright,” and said she was “confounded by the tone, timing and content” of Schwartz’ letter.
“Your decision to eschew the protocols available to you under our agreement, in favor of an unexpected and unwarranted public expression of frustration, is unfortunate and misguided,” she wrote.
Garcia said she was “reviewing the challenges” posed by asking building supers to identify “any undisclosed children living in the units,” and attacked as “grossly premature” Schwartz’ assertion that NYCHA won’t make the deadline for X-ray testing to find lead paint.
Garcia also called his claim regarding the contractors’ safety violations “specious,” saying, “We have been sharing information with you about this program for months, including information about vendor non-compliance.”
Additional reporting by Bruce Golding
