Cisneros

WASHINGTON -- Former Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros was indicted yesterday on 18 felony counts of conspiracy, obstructing justice and lying to the FBI about the amount and frequency of payments he made to a former mistress.Cisneros orchestrated a conspiracy, the indictment alleges, to mislead FBI agents who were conducting a routine background investigation of him after his nomination to the Clinton Cabinet in 1992.Three other people, including the former mistress, Linda D. Medlar, were also charged in the 21-count indictment handed down by a federal grand jury in Washington under the direction of David M. Barrett, a special prosecutor who has been investigating the Cisneros case for more than 2 1/2 years.

WASHINGTON -- Officials from four of Baltimore's suburban counties yesterday urged the federal housing secretary to back away from a proposal that would allow more than 1,300 families in inner-city public housing to move to the suburbs.In their first face-to-face meeting with U.S. Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros on the issue, they said the proposal -- part of a settlement in a housing discrimination lawsuit -- could hurt the counties financially and create pockets of poverty."I told him that idealistically, his policy sounds like a good idea, but pragmatically, it just isn't going to work," Baltimore County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger III said after the morning meeting in Washington.

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- A 20-year-old woman gave birth to a 3 1/2 -pound baby in the bed of a pickup, assisted by construction workers, firefighters and paramedics.Maria Cisneros was walking to Western Medical Center yesterday afternoon when she collapsed on the sidewalk adjacent to the hospital's expansion project, construction superintendent Hal McNeil said."She apparently looked like she was fainting, so a gentleman from the building next door grabbed her and said, 'Hey, I think she's having a baby,' " Mr. McNeil said.

First there was the $200 haircut. Now there's the $2,200 fiv o'clock shadow.Lamenting a stubble and a "just-woken-up" expression, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry G. Cisneros ordered his official portrait removed from 220 HUD offices from Baltimore to Honolulu last month.The 8-by-10 color photograph depicts Mr. Cisneros in a bureaucrat's navy blue suit in front of the American flag, but a dull facial expression sparked an order to yank the mug shot from the walls of HUD field and administrative offices where he shared the spotlight with a smiling President Clinton.

Washington. -- A cloud of gloom has settled among associates of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros. They fear that whether or not a special prosecutor finds that he tried to mislead the FBI, his political effectiveness has been irreparably compromised.Their reaction -- and ours -- should be different. It should be outrage that a case is being pursued against Henry Cisneros at all.Here is a man never accused of misusing his public offices, local or federal, for any kind of personal gain.

WASHINGTON -- Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros, under investigation by the Justice Department about payments to a former lover, learns today whether Attorney General Janet Reno will seek appointment of an independent counsel.Under a federal law providing for outside investigation of alleged wrongdoing by government officials, Ms. Reno could ask a judicial panel for an independent counsel to investigate Mr. Cisneros or seek a 60-day extension to determine whether further inquiry is warranted.

Baltimore is depopulating like crazy. Sec'y Cisneros is just giving market forces a little push.The General Assembly passes everything at the last minute so that voters don't learn the details until they have forgotten that they cared.Julius Henson is not a shy man, which makes the reticence on his resume all the more puzzling.The Pulitzer Prize for Brevity was omitted again this year.Pub Date: 4/10/96

Topped off by President-elect Clinton's selection of Henry Cisneros as the next secretary of Housing and Urban Development, this may be the most hopeful holiday season for America's troubled inner cities in close to a generation.Since his election, Mr. Clinton has telegraphed clear messages that forgotten and forsaken urban America will be less so in the next four years.On his first visit to Washington after Election Day, Mr. Clinton was walking along impoverished Georgia Avenue, promising a community-development bank for every poor neighborhood that needs one.Then, when he set up his economic summit in Little Rock, the president-elect invited no fewer than four leaders of community-based development organizations -- Brenda Shockley of Community Build in Los Angeles, Larry Farmer of Mississippi Action for Community Education, Hipolito Roldan of Chicago's Hispanic Housing Development Corporation, and Daphne Sloan of the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation in Cincinnati.

Baltimore County Executive Roger B. Hayden, who was endorsed this week by the two activists leading the campaign against the federal Moving to Opportunity subsidized housing program, has charged that HUD Secretary Henry G. Cisneros is "playing politics" with the issue.Mr. Hayden said he had heard that his meeting with Mr. Cisneros to discuss the Moving to Opportunity program won't be scheduled until after the Nov. 8 election, a delay he said is deliberate "stalling."Mr. Hayden said he also still plans court action to block the program, although County Attorney Stanley S. Schapiro said he is not sure when that action will come.

Maryland will create a housing information service for people infected with the virus that causes AIDS, under a $976,800 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.HUD Secretary Henry G. Cisneros announced the grant yesterday, along with $7 million in awards to 10 other cities and states.The Maryland grant will go to the state's AIDS Administration and will be used to give notice of available public and private housing on a toll-free phone line and on the Internet.The funds will be administered by a private, nonprofit group, the Low Income Housing Information Service.