November 13, 2023

The Gloversville Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners met at its monthly meeting that was held at the Gloversville Housing Authority, 141 West Street on November 13, 2023 at 6:00p.m.

Board Members Present:

• Ellen Anadio, Commissioner
• Lashawn Hawkins, Commissioner
• Gail Peters, Commissioner
• Ronald Holly, Commissioner
• Amari Shaw, Commissioner
• Sherry Courtney, Resident Commissioner

Others Present:

• Anthony Casale, Authority Legal Counsel
• Jason Mazur – Executive Director
• Bryan Goldberger, Esq. – Authority Labor Counsel
• Kayla Potter – incoming Director

Commissioner Anadio called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. All present stood for the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a moment of silence.

Commissioner Anadio conducted a roll call memorializing the presence of the above-named individuals.

Commissioner Anadio opened the floor for public comment.

Vicki Rumill spoke and stated: they moved me into a handicap apartment that became nightmare with the people upstairs. They have been treated for the cockroaches and they all came down and now all my. Stuff is in their full of cockroaches I mean, yeah, they’re treating it, but it’s taking a long time. Because the people upstairs don’t comply. We had to get a storage unit and they should pay for it.

Vanessa Jensen spoke and stated: I live upstairs with an autistic boy and my neighbor has an autistic boy who lives across the hallway from me. Apartment 46, is everybody that returning your voice knows that perfect 46 is known for drugs. There has been numerous people coming and going all of the day, all all weekend. It don’t matter. They coming off whenever they want to and multiple cars.. I called the fire department. I called multiple people health department about this place, they said just keep doing what you’re doing. Pictures of traffic coming and going. We shouldn’t have to live this way.

Ralph Richer spoke and stated: When are you gonna get good cameras over there? The parking lot Jason knows all about it. I got robbed all $1000 worth of stuff out of my vehicle and the cameras ain’t worth a shit.

Angel Moreshouse spoke and stated: I’ve only been in the apartment building for about five or six months. But I have noticed that there are quite a few empty apartments. And there’s been talk that the maintenance guys are working on getting them right now people are being moved from one floor to another. Rather than these apartments being rented out to new individuals The tenants that are in there are shuffling around into different parts. My mother is the one that’s on the list. She’s very disabled, an elderly and we’ve been trying for months and we just keep getting told that she’s on the list.

Joyce Estey spoke and stated: First of all I want to congratulate the board. Second of all, When can we do anything about heaters in their bathrooms? The bathrooms are really old and they don’t work …

The 11th floor has heaters in their bathrooms, but all the other floors they were taken out for whatever reason I don’t know. Not only were they taken out, but within a year they would destroyed the ones that they took out. They were destroyed. Because we checked into it. We previously, the bathrooms are darn cold, and for elderly have circulations as good as it should be…

it’s very hard getting up in the morning and trying to get into a shower. OK. It be cold. So we can’t have heaters. We can’t have little electrical heaters. My I’ve had had a heater in there my apartment for almost a week because they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with my heating system. They finally got that taken care of. I am lucky 1. I live on the 11th floor. I have heat in my bathroom. But I feel very bad for all of the other ones that do not have it.

Susan Fox spoke and stated: I have an issue over there with a pet issue. We have one that I’ve been fighting with for over a year. That the pet is not neutered. Still like nothing has been done, I’ve still been wondering what is going on with that. And now we have. I have heard that there’s at least three people in the building that I know of that has more than one cat. I thought you were only supposed to be allowed one animal. And there’s at least three of us that I know of that has 2 cats. And there’s one person in there that I know of that has one cat and three birds. I just don’t feel that that’s should be allowed.

Krista Foss spoke and made inquiry as to when the playground repair/renovation will be completed.

Commissioner Anadio opened the floor for Announcements by Commissioners: Anadio indicated that Kayla Potter is starting as the new Executive Director and Anadio thanked Jason Mazur for her service to GHA.

Commissioner Anadio opened the floor for board committee reports and with there being none, the board proceeded with its agenda.

Commissioner Anadio opened the floor for new business and presented Resolution 859 regarding monthly vendor invoices and read said resolution, said resolution reading as following: into the record as follows: “Whereas the Gloversville Housing Authority’s Finance Committee has reviewed the monthly vendor invoices for payment of the financial obligations of the Gloversville Housing Authority for the month of October 2023 and finds all payments on the attached list to be in order. Now therefore be it resolved, the Board of Commissioners of the Gloversville Housing Authority has reviewed the monthly vendor invoices for payment as set forth on the attached list.” A motion was made by Commissioner Holly adopting Resolution 859, and said motion was seconded by Commissioner Hawkins. There was no additional discussion and Resolution 854 was approved by a vote of 6-0 in the affirmative.

The Executive Director’s Report was provided by Jason Mazur:

Alright, so occupancy rate, we’re still at 83 hovering right around where we were last month. We still are dealing with quite a bit of sewer issues here. We’re trying to relocate people, get things ready, reposition people that have been waiting to be placed back into apartments now for a year in some in some cases. So we’re, we’re still waiting on that.

As far as the towers go, business as usual. We’re just trying to make sure we get through everything, we’ve only got 2 maintenance guys on staff this week, so not expecting huge leaps and gains there. The delinquency rate currently sitting at a 41-ish percent, 102 delinquent accounts for right now, delinquencies total $83,786., so we’re about $84,000 behind paid rent. Month date income $81,852. Expenses – October is always an expensive month because we have all of our insurance renewals, et cetera. Et cetera.

However, next month that number will come down substantially. We cut 66 checks for $290,000. Most of what those checks came from were insurance renewals. Liability, et cetera, et cetera. So as far. As the playground goes, we’ve quoted 3 different companies. Now it’s looking like it’s going to be about. $120,000. We put it into the capital projects budget for the next couple of years.

That being said,, it doesn’t have to take the next couple of years. But you have to allot that money somewhere and put it aside for that money. So playgrounds we’re well aware of a lot of structural, internal interior issues right now. We can only move as fast as people move, alright, so when residents don’t help us to help them or help others, it becomes a huge issue for us, right, especially with three people trying to man this office. Alright, so just understand that anything and everything you could possibly do to help us out is going to help you out. So it’s easy to throw it back on us to say that we didn’t know we were supposed to do.

We’re finding a lot more of it’s, you need to prep for the pest treatments, all right. The pest treatments are important because without the pest treatments., obviously you have a pest infestation when the pest infestation, especially somewhere like you have the towers, or even here, where you’ve got _______[inaudible] that are bought enough right next to each other. We didn’t put the cockroaches there, alright, we’re trying to get rid of them. So just understand that. As far as occupancy goes, like I said, we’re trying to make sure that these apartments are ready to go as fast as we possibly can.

But there are certain situations where we can’t let people sign waivers or or just trying to follow in the place when we know there’s structurally things wrong with the apartment. That’s not how it works through. Through react, which is the real estate assessment center. They will come in, they will inspect, and they will bring us for all that stuff and they will, unfortunately, you’ll have to move and we’ll have to move you again, so the best I guess the best defense there is offense. You know, just make sure you clean up after yourself. A lot of the people that call and complain that there’s stuff, you know there are bugs or cockroaches or or fruit flies. Let’s face facts. Your apartments is nasty. It’s disgusting. There’s stuff all over the floor. There’s baby diapers. There’s stuff in the sink that’s been sitting there for weeks. The refrigerators, like that one, smells like absolute death.

So there’s things that we have to do on both sides of the fence here. And Kayla’s going to come in, she’s going to help do what she’s got to do. Obviously it’s going to take her some time to ease into it. But you gotta understand, you’re going to help us. Easing ease into it too. All right, you can’t just leave an absolute trash mess and expect things not to go wrong. They will. All right.

We’re trying to refill some of the cells underneath the buildings here. The stops on the mice and and pest problems that we’ve got in the spring. We’re trying to, like I said, we’re trying to get rid of the cockroaches. We’re trying to get rid of the bedbugs. We’re trying to get rid of everything, but we need your. Guys’s help in order to do that. All right. It’s not a matter of. Blame GHA. When I walk into your apartment and it looks like a bomb hit it – that’s what Charlie sees. And you know, when he walks in, that’s what he sees. So it’s frustrating for him. It’s frustrating for us. Obviously it’s frustrating for you guys. Which is understand that those are the type of things that we’re trying to work on here but we need a little cooperation from the other side. Alright, so we’re always willing here, we’re here to help you guys out. But we always want to do that. But just make sure you understand that it takes a local cooperation on your guys behalf to make that happen, OK. That’s really all I got.