Housing-chief hire put on hold
3 on finalist list, then 4th shows up; decision expected Monday
The Metropolitan Housing Alliance board could not decide on an executive-director candidate Friday after meeting for more than five hours.
The board, which oversees the federally funded public-housing agency in Little Rock, interviewed four candidates Friday.
The board was to have interviewed three finalists, but a fourth candidate showed up Friday afternoon, board Chairman Richard Stephens said.
“I got an e-mail this morning from [a staff member] saying he had submitted a resume through our website, and he was planning on coming in from Texas,” Stephens said. “So we talked about it briefly and said if he showed up, we would interview him.”
The board broke up the executive session about 5:15 p.m. and voted to meet via telephone Monday at an undetermined time to make a final decision. Notice of the meeting will be sent out at least two hours in advance, the agency said.
The agency is seeking a replacement for Executive Director Shelly Ehenger, who was fired at the beginning of August after a three-month investigation into accusations of nepotism and unsound hiring practices. The agency has had an interim director since May 3.
The board has moved quickly since hiring executive search firm Gans, Gans and Associates Inc. of Plant City, Fla., about a month ago.
Consultant Simone Gans Barefield gave the board a
with seven semifinalists Oct. 25, and the board narrowed that list to three Monday and flew them in for interviews Friday.
The three original finalists are Wayne Alexander, deputy executive director of the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority in Las Vegas; Horace Allison, chief development officer of the Harris County Housing Authority in Houston; and Rodney Forte, a former deputy director of community revitalization at the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority in Richmond, Va.
According to information gathered by Barefield and her company, Alexander has 18 years of experience in public housing and strategic planning and has managed a housing agency with more than 2,800 public-housing units and 11,000 housing vouchers. He has been tapped twice by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help turn around troubled agencies.
Barefield said Allison has 22 years of experience working in public housing and 15 years of strategic planning experience in a housing agency with more than 1,000 housing units and 4,100 housing vouchers.
Forte is a former Razorback football player and Pine Bluff firefighter, according to his resume. He has worked in several HUD programs and for housing authorities from Richmond to Dallas and Fort Worth. He is now working at a private investment company focusing on development and acquisitions, according to his resume.
The candidate who showed up Friday, Stanley Lowe, said he applied through the website in a roundabout way because he did not want his name mentioned before the interviews.
Lowe provided a resume to the board, and a copy was given to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It was unknown Friday whether Lowe is related to board member Kenyon Lowe.
According to Stanley Lowe’s resume, he is the former director of the publichousing authority in Pittsburgh and former director of the Housing Authority of Galveston, Texas. He’s also worked for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and a regional development company on the Gulf Coast.
Lowe was hired in February in Galveston, Texas, to take over a project to replace 569 public-housing units destroyed by Hurricane Ike. The plan caused tension among residents, and Lowe resigned his position when a new mayor was elected this summer on the platform of doing away with the program.
The Galveston Public Housing Board agreed to keep Lowe on staff until Sept. 30 to help ease the transition of the new mayor appointed housing board in exchange for about $95,000 in severance, according to the minutes of the meeting of the public-housing authority. Stephens said after the meeting Friday that no notifications would be sent to any candidates over the weekend regarding the job.