Peekskill Dems and Mayor Exposed as anti-poor, anti-Black party

This week Peekskill Housing Authority Director Harold Phipps was exposed as the same Harold Phipps who was fired from the Asbury Park Housing Authority in New Jersey. Phipps was called "incompetent" after HUD did an audit of the books. He was suspended by his board for three days for breaking policy. That isn't even the juicy stuff. Phipps was sued for sexually harassing one of his female employees. In one act against her, Phipps left a note on her door with his phone number telling her to fax over the viagra prescription. The housing authority settled out of court.

Now Phipps is in Peekskill harassing and disrespecting the woman and children of our community. I have documented much of it and sent emails to the mayor and council as it was going on. Several woman in the housing authority complained to me that he yells and screams at them. One Peekskill Housing Board member told me that residents don't come to the meetings anymore because they are afraid of him. Peekskill Mayor Mary Foster said she supports Phipps anyway. She said she heard he screams at residents but said that it is only residents that "try to game the system."  I guess this poor woman in New Jersey was "trying to game the system" when Phipps tried to kiss and touch her.

I guess the mayor doesn't see Phipps as gaming the system when he hid all of this to get hired in Peekskill. I think the choice of words Foster used is instructive. Apparently she thinks that only poor people and people of color "game the system."

Foster said on a tv interview that she likes Phipps because he addressed a bed bug problem in one of the buildings. Yes, he is a nasty person, yes he sexually harassed an employee, yes he is incompetent- but he beat the bed bugs! The fact is just last week a resident there opened a jar of bed bugs in the housing authority office because the residents have been living with this problem for the full tenure of Mr. Phipps.

By the way, the mayor is only supposed to appoint housing commissioners and not interfere in the running of the authority. So why is she out front pushing for this man to get a new contract? How can she close her eyes to all this ugliness? She can only do that if she doesn't care about the people being victimized, Black and poor people. And her colleagues on the council are all equally guilty. All of them, that the residents of the housing authority supported at the polls are now being told by them to accept your lot.

The housing board is going to give Phipps a new contract even though they all have this information. They are going to do it because the hypocrite, racist, democrats have made it known they want him there. And they appoint the board.

As to mayor Foster. She is the worse kind of racist. The kind that finds a Black person to do her dirty work. Yes, Phipps has Black skin. And he is being used by the Peekskill democrats to do their dirty work- gentrify!

All is not lost. These politicians all have to run again. And they need your help to get elected. If Phipps gets a new contract, we will hold the democratic party responsible for bringing this man down on the heads of the residents. I, as an activist have been down this road before. I did a lot for the democrats over the years. And no one has been a bigger supporter than African Americans. Apparently, they- the dems- have no sense of loyalty. But isn't that what racism is? Irrational?

Comments

[ida_riveralaw@yahoo.com]

I agree. Being a residnet at Bohlann Towers. They claim to address the bedbug issue and roach issue and yet my kitchen is still crawling with roaches. Killiing roaches could be a full time job for me if I did not have to go to work. My poor cats cannot even eat their food in peace without a roach trying to get into it. God forbid if you leave your food on the stove to cool because they will crawl right into it. Note I said the stove and not the counters. I cannot open a kitchen cabinet without seeing at least 4 of them,. No one should live like this and then you have to worry about going to be with bedbugs fun. Supposedly they have done 3 complete exterminations in my apartment but it seems to have no effect on the roaches and after the 2nd one I found a bedbug in my bathroom at 10 pm in the evening now there is no bed in the bathroom. The stairwells look better, the halls look better, but as for these meeting they have they like to change the venue/location at the last minute. Now if every resident in the building went down into that meeting there would be no room to move. They hold it downstatirs instead of the kiley center. They appear to go out of their way to make you feel unwelcome and anything that happens results in a notice stating if suchs and such or if this occures or if cooperation is not received an automatic eviction will occur. I do not believe that anyone really wants to live in this building but rent on the outside is ridiculous and not affordable by most of the single mothers in the building. If you give the roaches and bedbugs and mice and waterbugs a survey they will tell you they do not care if your house is dirty or clean they want to visit anyway when no one is doing anything to get rid of them. Then the bedbug infested furniture is left to sit outside by the dumpsters where they can just crawl right back into the building. I am sure there are many homes in the city of Peekskill that have the bedbug issue who will not admit to it. I also bet that any place that has it is trying to place the blame at low income housing because we are the only ones who spoke up about it. I am sure City Hall probably has them as most of the schools do.

[Dale Darlene Simmons]

I don't live at Bohlmann but I am African American woman that has witnessed the disrespect of the so called authority of housing! Sad, sad, sad! he really needs to go back to where he came from! And I don't mean Asbury park!