HHA Commissioner Questions Rescheduling of Monthly Meeting

Hoboken Housing Authority commissioner Jake Stuiver, the board’s most vocal critic of executive director Carmelo Garcia, said he believes there is more behind Garcia’s decision to reschedule the board’s August meeting than he’s letting on.

Stuiver said last week that two aspects of the meeting’s date change — from Thursday, Aug. 8 to Wednesday, Aug. 28 — struck him as odd. 

While he questioned the manner in which the gathering was rescheduled ‑ outside of a public meeting — he said he found the new date chosen to be the “more curious and interesting,” aspect of the change.

“I find it curious that suddenly we receive this note that the August meeting is going to be held the evening of the beginning of Labor Day weekend and done in a not-so-kosher way as far as laws for meetings,” he said, pre-empting what he posited would be Garcia's rebuttal by acknowledging that when he was the board's commissioner he once rescheduled a meeting in a similar fashion.

Stuiver said he felt the meeting’s revised date, scheduled at a time when commissioners and residents were more likely to be out of town on vacation, would exclude some people who may otherwise have wanted to attend. Additionally, if Garcia’s detractors on the board were unable to attend due to prior obligations, his loyalists could potentially push through controversial items like the contested re-appointment of the board’s general counsel, Charles Daglian.

“These are real meetings that don’t just cater to residents of the HHA, but the general public,” he said. “If people want to come participate in an HHA meeting, it’s certainly not very inclusive.”

Garcia laughed off Stuiver’s accusation that he had ulterior motives for rescheduling the August meeting, asserting that it had been moved because he and board chairman Rob Davis needed more time to prepare the housing authority budget, interview job candidates and review vendor’s bids.

“That’s a joke,” Garcia said of Stuiver’s comments. “Honestly to me, that’s insulting. That’s not what I spend my time doing.

“The chairman and I put the agenda together,” he continued. “So at the end of the day if we can’t produce what we need at that particular time because we’re waiting on other factors, I’m not going to go into a meeting without having all of it in place and then be questioned here and there…I want the introduction of the budget to be right.”

The rescheduling of the monthly meeting, now set for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Aug, 28 at Monroe Gardens, will push back the final public forum on the Vision 20/20 public housing revitalization plan by one week.