Housing Authority

I read in Sunday's paper that city officials in the Housing Authority outright refuse to pay financial damages to plaintiffs who have won financial awards against due to damages their children endured while residing in public housing ( "Baltimore housing authority says it won't pay millions in lead poisoning judgments," April 3). It was noted chipped paint containing lead was all over the window sills in the public housing units. How is it acceptable that the city will not pay financial damages when they hold city landlords to a totally different standard?

Two siblings trying to collect a $2.6 million judgment against Baltimore's public housing agency for lead-paint poisoning argue in court papers that an auction of 20 agency vehicles must go forward because officials have refused to pay. The Housing Authority of Baltimore City "must be treated like every other judgment debtor that fails to pay its debts," their attorney, Evan M. Goldman, wrote in a motion filed Wednesday in Baltimore Circuit Court....

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke ought to waste no time in getting to the bottom of the report that the city Housing Authority has allowed 300 of its 2,800 scattered-site public housing units to be stripped by vandals. Housing officials dismiss this as an aberration caused by complicated factors (such as tenants disappearing into the night), but we see it as a reflection of serious morale and leadership problems within the Housing Authority.We urge Mayor Schmoke to follow in Evening Sun reporter Joan Jacobson's footsteps and size up the impact of this problem on a neighborhood.

A federal grand jury indicted a project manager for the Baltimore Housing Authority yesterday on charges that he accepted more than $25,000 in bribes to influence repair and renovation contracts.John L. Dutkevich, 46, of Timonium is charged in a 14-count indictment with accepting cash from representatives of six companies.One company also paid his airfare and food and lodging bills during a trip to the PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens in January 1991, according to the indictment.

The Maryland Senate directed Baltimore's public housing authority Friday to explain how it will pay nearly $12 million it owes in court judgments to residents poisoned by lead paint. A spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said she is willing to work with lawmakers on "thoughtful and constructive" solutions that don't diminish the city's ability to serve 25,000 low-income families. The Senate issued the direction in a last-minute amendment to the state's $1.45 billion capital budget.

State Sen. James Brochin suggested Wednesday that a surcharge could be used to help the Housing Authority of Baltimore City pay nearly $12 million in court-ordered judgments that it owes former public housing tenants who suffered lead-paint poisoning years ago as children. Brochin, a Towson Democrat, made the comments the same day he wrote a scathing letter to Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake decrying the authority's refusal to pay the judgments because of a lack of funds. He urged the mayor and Housing Commissioner Paul T. Graziano to rethink their position.

A man from the District of Columbia pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring to commit bank fraud as part of a plan to gain about $1.4 million from the Baltimore Housing Authority, prosecutors said. Keith Eugene Daughtry, 50, allowed his identity to be used so that co-conspirators could set up a fake company that hid funds siphoned from a housing authority bank account, according to a statement from the Maryland's U.S. Attorney's Office. Daughtry also used some of the stolen funds.

By now, Del. Samuel I. Rosenberg says he expected big news from the Housing Authority of Baltimore City - that it had found a way to resolve the millions of dollars in court-ordered judgments it owes former public housing residents who suffered lead paint poisoning as children. Housing Commissioner Paul T. Graziano told him in early January that the agency was "close to an agreement with the feds to work this thing out," Rosenberg recalled. Based on Graziano's assurance, Rosenberg says, he held off pursuing a remedy in the legislature when the General Assembly's annual session began days later.

The chairman of a City Council committee told Baltimore's housing authority Tuesday to take immediate steps toward paying a former public housing resident who suffered lead poisoning — just one in a looming tidal wave of legal claims that the authority warns could eventually total hundreds of millions of dollars. "You're just lying to them," Councilman James B. Kraft said to housing authority chief Paul T. Graziano after hearing how the authority has refused to pay a $200,000 settlement it reached with Daron Goods.