Op-Ed: HHA Commissioner Stuiver Has Distorted Facts on Vision 20/20

Dear Editor,

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so I wanted to share this one of former Chairman Jake Stuiver, former Chairwoman Jeanne Rodriguez, Commissioner Eduardo Gonzalez, Chairman Robert Davis and myself in 2011 accepting the award from the NJ Future organization at our board meeting that ran in our published newsletter.

It seems that Commissioner Stuiver is using his marketing discipline and skills to distort the facts, but pictures don’t lie and neither do voting records. I’m attaching, for the public’s review, the resolutions showing Commissioner Stuiver’s support and record regarding Vision 20/20. What I find most interesting and disturbing is how he can mislead the residents and this agency to approve going in one direction and then due to his orders from the Mayor, to change course to deceive the public that all along he has not supported this process or project.

Commissioner Stuiver also served on the sub-committee for Vision 20/20 and never once objected to what we were doing in pursuing the first step of Phase 1 and never calling for a meeting, which as Chairman, he could have done at any time. He never called for additional meetings because all the information was shared with him at each step of the way. 

In an e-mail we exchanged on Jan. 28th, he wrote: “Please also add to the agenda a discussion/review of the status of Phase 1 of Vision 20/20 to recap where we are and make sure everybody's understanding is clear,” for the special Feb. 7th meeting. This was in reference to the selection of the developer for Phase 1 and what the next steps would be as outlined to the commissioners at the Feb. 18th meeting by myself and our professionals whom we invested and expended over $150,000.

During the entire process we had planned for public forums which will be discussed in our meeting Thursday night. We’ve always had a strategic plan, it’s called getting things done and following the necessary steps outlined by the best practices of a visioning process. Unfortunately we never expected Superstorm Sandy and how it changed our world. Commissioner Stuiver has attended all of his courses and has learned about the state of affairs in public housing and its operation, so politics can qualify his behavior and not education. This funding opportunity that is presented to us due to Superstorm Sandy may never happen again. As a commissioner of this housing authority, he should understand how much in need our buildings and residents are of this upgrade. 

All of our meetings are public and minutes can be viewed on our Web site, myhhanj.com. There you can see every commissioner's interaction with the business of the HHA. 

I welcome you to e-mail me at director@myhhanj.com if you want to learn more on how we got here as this didn’t happen overnight.

In the near future, I will be sharing with you the dates as to when the public forums will be hosted with my professionals and community partners!

The distractions by Commissioner Stuiver have become counterproductive to the agency. His behavior continues to breed the division in the city that creates a paralysis and the people suffer so it cannot be condoned. I will not allow myself or my staff to continue to participate in his distractions and his attempt to obstruct progress.

Executive Director Carmelo G. Garcia, MSIS, IM, SHRM, SPHM, FHO

Editor's note: The series of Vision 20/20 resolutions mentioned in the op-ed are available separately by clicking here. A bug with the new site design currently prevents them from being attached to this article.