Leased Housing seems to be NYCHA's forgotten child, now that Harold Sole has left. Of course, Harold left once before, but Franco/Finkel soon realized that without Harold taking care of reporting, NYCHA would soon come unglued.
The good news is, with Harold gone there's a better chance that problems may become visible. Hopefully, this can lead to a scenario in which when Finkel next tries to set up one of his real-estate friends with Section 8 Vouchers or other taxpayer $ to Finkel's Friends schemes, it might be discovered! Wouldn't that be lovely?
(Just prior to publishing this issue, we're told that NYCHA realized that without Harold's wizardry, this whole NYCHA Leased Housing scandal might burst into the light of day. So, they've re-hired Harold Sole as a consultant. I thought that there was a rule about having to wait years after retirement before one can become a consultant to NYCHA?)
Anyway, NYCHA has shorted Leased Housing down to the point that a severe phone-line shortage has caused employees to begin purchasing cell phones in order to insure that they can be reached in emergencies and that they can make important calls out from 350 Livingston Street. When someone tries calling into Leased Housing, they'd best be prepared to hit redial for quite some time before they luck out and get through.
To top that off, even when an employee gets lucky and finds a line not in use, NYCHA strikes again. In what was supposed to be an attempt at fiscal frugality, NYCHA dictated that the phone lines be set up so that only local calls can be made. So, even with a large contingent of our Section 8 funding going to out-of-city landlords, Leased Housing has no way to contact those landlords. And should someone working at Leased Housing need to call another governmental agency for information, they better hope that the out-of-city agency just happens to call in, as NYCHA won't let you call them. Really bright decision, NYCHA!
What makes this story even more comical is the attempt to make it look as if NYCHA is just carrying out some fiscal prudence, and is therefore saving the taxpayer's monies. Hah!
(And can someone explain why we're told that Kern's secretary got her hubby a job at NYCHA while other employees have spouses on lists that seem to take forever?)
Mentioning Mike Mastriano in our last issue has set off a firestorm of email blazing into Spotty's fax and voicemail. It appears that Mr. Mastriano learned his labor relations skills whilst sitting at JoAnna Aniello's knee.
He obviously double-majored in the Grand Old "If they hate me, I'm doing my job well!" discipline at the NYCHA school of management. He was awarded a BA (Bad Apple) in "Getting along with underlings, Managers and Supers" and a BS (You figure that out) in competence in "Skilled Trades safety and competence."
Here's just a sampling of quotes from the people who work under (Skilled Trades), or with (Managers ands Supers), Mastriano in the field. While we won't print everything we received, as it would be too long to fax, we picked some that give a fair representation of the sentiments our readers sent in. They are ranked in a somewhat order of importance, as expressed by the number of notes mentioning each issue, or, as with the final two, the importance of the problems mentioned.
"What about him using the lot at Campos Plaza to lock up his car, 24 hours a day, as if it is his own private parking lot."
"I know I cannot get any work done if I do not buy him lunch, or coffee and a donut in the morning."
"That thing on Mike Mastriano hit the nail on the head. He never moves he stays in Campos Plaza or Meltzer."
"Mastriano reads his stock report all day with his tea and muffin, which he makes people buy for him if they want electricians. He also parks his car in a NYCHA lot overnight under lock and key. Do we supply full time garage service?"
"All he does all day is read the newspaper(which he take from someone) stock reports and stock books. He lives close by so he can also walk home. That why he keeps his car at Campos at night."
"He never works. And if he goes to a meeting you will see him filling his bag with food, that the NYCHA paid for, and then he takes it home. I never see him use his own car." "He also is in charge of his building and gets many trades to do work in condo. And than he charges his condo extra and keeps the money."
"Mastriano is so incompetent that he has, more than once, almost fried electricians working under him. At Wald Houses, he continued to play with the cabinet door while inches away an electrician was doing an emergency "hot wire" job.
While Mastriano kept swinging the door, open and closed, to continually look at a directory printed within, the end of the electrician's ratchet was so close to being hit by the metal door that the electricians finally had to force their ‘boss' to leave the area. Later that same day, workers overheard Mastriano as he made contact with a District Administrator.
In an effort to redirect blame for problems that arose that day and mislead District, Mastriano gave the District people derogatory info on the Manager, the Superintendent, and the assistant superintendents of Wald Houses. He also ranted on about the Plumbing Foreman that covers that particular area."
© MM Public Housing Spotlight and John Ballinger. All rights reserved.
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