ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / August 21, 1999

LAPLACE – The St. John Parish Council’s probe of the public HousingAuthority came to a screeching halt Thursday night.

Robert Barnett, attorney for Housing Authority Executive Director Patrena Ester, informed the council it had no authority to interrogate Ester because she is a state employee and the council’s subpoena was for parish business. Barnett told the council his client will not answer anyquestions.

A stunned Parish Council immediately went into executive session, then decided to turn the investigation over the state attorney general’s office, the state legislative auditor and the inspector general of the U.S.Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This anticlimax ended two days of contentious hearings in which most of the Housing Authority Board of Commissioners were dismissed, one commissioner resigned and hints of malfeasance, forgery, theft and death threats were brought out in testimony.

The board has come under increasing scrutiny since July, when the Department of Housing and Urban Development released a scathing report on the St. John Public Housing Authority, accusing the board ofcommissioners of interfering in the day-to-day operations of the housing authority administration and condoning criminal activity on public housing property. The report was a result of complaints by public housing tenants,board commissioners and Parish Council members over poor maintenance on public housing units.

Ester has received much of the blame from the board, but the HUD report said the commissioners were the ones to blame. This garnered an angryreaction from the Parish Council, which hired an attorney to oversee its own investigation.

Wednesday night’s session, moderated by council attorney Walter Willard, dealt mainly with the appeals of the board commissioners to keep their positions on the board. The council had dismissed the entire board on July6.

By the end of a long and revealing evening, the council had reinstated only one person, Sheila Morris. Brian Fiest handed in his resignation forpersonal reasons, and the remaining three members, Tim Patrick, Paula Swilley and Felton Collins, were not reinstated.

The scenario painted by the board members’ testimony is that of a Board of Commissioners in chaos.

Morris, the Board of Commissioners chairperson, said that part of the problem is that the rest of the board was not trained properly on how to conduct business at board meetings. This was proven under questioning ofother commissioners by the council. Under prodding by Ranney Wilson,commissioners said they rarely made motions or brought up items to the meeting agenda. They did not seem to understand parliamentary procedure. Minutes were recorded and transcribed by Ester but rarely brought to the meetings. Commissioners did not accept or reject meeting minutes.Morris said Ester was part of the problem because she didn’t provide the board with information needed to make proper decisions. Of great interestwas the criminal reports of people who are on the bar list, a list of people who are not allowed to live in public housing because of previous criminal activity.

Deputy Mike Weber of the St. John Sheriff’s Office and Special PublicHousing Police said he gave all criminal reports to Ester.

“I was given direct orders by Ester not to give the reports to anybody but her,” he said.

Morris said they were rarely given these reports, and if they were it was done five minutes before a meeting when the commissioners could not really go over the material.

Morris said, “We were never given agendas for the meetings, and information was withheld from us.”However, Morris was grilled about the 1998 Public Housing Management Assessment Program which is a self-assessment form filled out by the executive director and the Board of Commissioners. The 1998 PHMAP hadgiven itself a 100 percent rating. Morris had refused to sign thedocument, but the document was sent to HUD headquarters anyway.

“I will not sign any document that I know is not correct,” she said.

Councilman Joel McTopy asked her if commissioners had voted to accept the PHMAP. Morris said they had. McTopy wanted to know whey she hadn’tsigned something that she was told to do by the board.

“By not signing the PHMAP, you broke a resolution,” McTopy told Morris.

“This is malfeasance in office. The board told you to do something and youdidn’t comply.”Again Morris defended her actions, saying she would not bear the responsibility of signing something she knew was incorrect.

McTopy said, “I get the impression the board of commissioners is acting like individuals, not as a board. This board is dysfunctional.”There is still the question of a signature on the 1998 PHMAP that is supposedly that of Morris’, but Morris insists she never signed the document. To prove her point, she showed the council a copy of minutes ofa board meeting she hadn’t attended and yet her signature was on the minutes saying she had been there.

Commissioners Morris, Swilley and Collins had all agreed to testify in a public forum. However, Commissioners Patrick and Fiest both wanted thecouncil to go into executive session in which only the council and Willard could hear their testimony.

Fiest read a short statement when the public was allowed back into the council chambers.

“In order to clear my name, I do not wish to remain on the board and for personal reasons, I hereby resign,” the statement read.

Later, the council unanimously accepted his resignation.

Patrick handed out his statement to the press after his testimony in executive session, and in it he says he did everything he could to be a good commissioner.

“I have upheld my oath of office, ” he wrote, “followed the guideline as set forth in seminars and the handbook for public housing commissioners.”Patrick does agree with HUD that the board did sometimes interfere with the established policies of public housing.

“I warned the others repeatedly in several meetings that they were making far too many exceptions to the policies of the St. John Housing Authority,”Patrick wrote, “and I was concerned that the criminal element was returning to the areas with the full assistance of the board’s actions.”More unsettling is the fact that Patrick said he received numerous death threats while he was commissioner.

“Each of my death threats came after a vote to deny access to someone with a criminal background that my Board of Commissioners had voted to allow a return to the areas,” he wrote.

Despite this, Patrick appealed to be reinstated at a board commissioner.

Collins was at a loss as to why he was appealing for his job.

An assistant principal at LaPlace Elementary, Collins asked the board, “What am I guilty of? I respect the rights of all those that live in public housing. But I don’t know what I am guilty of,” he said.As to the charges that he interfered in the daily business of the housing authority, Collins angrily replied, “I have time for the housing job, but I do not have time to interfere.”The most touching testimony, and the only defense of Ester was from Swilley. A resident of public housing, she talked about how life used to bebefore Ester became executive director.

“I have seen a lot,” she said. “I’ve seen people die on my front steps; I’vehad people shooting at my house and my children; I’ve seen drug dealers take over the public housing ares.”But she said Ester’s presence has changed all that. “Ms. Ester may not beperfect,” Swilley said, “but she has changed a lot of things. This is themost comfortable I have ever lived.”Asked by Councilman Clinton Perrilloux how she would rate Ester on a scale of 1 to 5, Swilley replied that she would give Ester a 4.

She pleaded with the council to put aside differences. “We should workthis out and not point fingers,” she said.

Willard started to ask Swilley about her association with the LaPlace Oaks Resident Council and several checks she had written out to her husband, Trapagni Swilley, using the resident council’s funds. However,McTopy told Willard this line of questioning was not relevant to the focus of the investigation.

Swilley ended her testimony by saying, “Judge not, for ye shall be judged, too.”In the end, Council President Duaine Duffy, saying he was following the HUD recommendation that they start with a whole new board of commissioners, voted not to reinstate any of the commissioners. McTopyand Steve Thornton followed suit and also voted against all the commissioners. Kevin Duhon and Perrilloux voted to reinstate Swilley,Duhon was the sole vote to keep Patrick, and Perry Bailey and Wilson voted against Collins.

At Thursday night’s meeting, council members nominated their new choices for the board to be given to Parish President Arnold Labat. Under a1997 state law, only the parish president can appoint new board members.

He has until Aug. 24 to put the new board of commissioners in place.

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