user: NYCHA must be more transparent: NYC pols
The city Housing Authority must open up its contracts after construction at one Harlem development caused rampant leaks, city pols said Thursday.

“NYCHA is the least transparent institution in city government,” said City Council public housing chair Ritchie Torres at a hearing probing the agency’s contracting process after the Daily News reported on the roof repair debacle at Harlem’s King Towers caused rampant leaks.

Torres and City Controller Scott Stringer said NYCHA must start putting its contracts on Checkbook NYC, which offers details of contracts from every other city agency and authority.

“NYCHA has become a collection of broken windows, mold, and roofs that never get fixed, like at King Houses,” Stringer said. “Year after year, we get plan after plan, promising on paper how the agency is going to improve. But over and over, those promises are broken.”

Stringer, who has slammed the public housing authority in a series of critical audits, said NYCHA must also follow standard budgeting practices like issuing quarterly reports on their planned budget and a four-year financial plan, and release its maintenance and repair records.

He charged that of 26 proposals in the “NextGen” plan announced by Mayor de Blasio to overhaul NYCHA, only six are new while the rest have appeared in earlier plans or consultant recommendations.

“You can forgive NYCHA residents for hearing NextGen and thinking ‘OldGen,’” he said.

NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye said the agency recently began publishing a list of active contracts on its website, a project completed days before the hearing, and is also putting up a summary of its physical needs assessment.

She ticked off some 14 entities NYCHA already reports to.

“The issue at hand is not creating additional layers of unfunded reporting, but more transparency for proper oversight and accountability,” she said, though she added she’d be willing to discuss using Checkbook.

The agency’s contracting practices came under scrutiny after a roof repair project at King Towers went awry, causing water to pour into residents’ apartments when it rained.

Olatoye acknowledged NYCHA failed to follow its own protocols in that incident, pinning the blame on agency staff rather than the contractor.

“It was preventable and it was unfortunate,” she said.

Workers failed to clear out clogged drains on the aging roofs there before the construction work started, leading to the leaks, she said, adding that unspecified “disciplinary action” was taken. The weight of repair equipment on the rotting roof led to additional leaks.

“All of these unfortunate circumstances contributed to leaks into residents’ apartments when it rained,” Olatoye said. “The lack of responsiveness by staff was simply wrong and unacceptable.”

Olatoye noted the city is spending $300 million to replace decrepit roofs at developments across the city, cutting down on leaks and mold.

“This unfortunate incident should not characterize all the good work we’re doing for residents,” she said.

Ruby Kitchen, the tenant association president at King, said that despite claims by NYCHA officials the leaks have been fixed, nine apartments are still leaking.

“It’s not solved,” she said, adding the roof has been in terrible shape for years. “The roof was so worn that you could hear it cracking. And if we did not get the work we were getting now, there would have been a big mess.”
Please write a summary below.
The city Housing Authority must open up its contracts after construction at a Harlem development caused rampant leaks, city pols said.


Riddick Bowe's life since his boxing peak has been full of loss, the willingness to trust perhaps the most significant

The truest thing Riddick Bowe ever knew was that punch. Despite countless blows to the head, the boxer recalls its purity because his memory, he says, is as sharp as ever. He was just a teenager then, but he still hears its echoes.

"WHAP!" Bowe says, punching a fist into an open palm to punctuate his words. "Just like that. You hear that sound?"

He recalls seeing a guy on the ground, knocked out cold, his teeth jutting in all directions. "I tell you something -- about 30 years later, I've never been able to create that same shot," he says.

So much else in Bowe's strange saga, though, seems open to debate, the passage of time and the violence of his chosen profession not necessarily blurring memories so much as crystallizing the differences.

A former heavyweight champion who has made his home in Fort Washington for nearly two decades, Bowe isn't mentioned in discussions of the best fighters ever. Despite his immense talent -- his record stands at 43-1 with 33 knockouts -- Bowe's achievements are overshadowed by the sideshow he invited into the center ring.

Bowe, a man who made millions as a prize fighter, now seeks paychecks wherever he can find them. Seventeen years after losing his title, he is back amid the heavy bags, though he's not fighting and he's not exactly training future champions.

Instead, he leads exercise classes at LA Boxing gyms in the Washington suburbs for government workers who pop in for a workout after business hours, housewives who squeeze in some gym time while their kids are at baseball practice, young men and women who are trying to keep their bodies from aging.

To a recent class, he brought his world championship belts, his 1988 Olympic silver medal, even his high school diploma. He's proudest, he says, of these mementos from his past life.

Since then, however, life has not been as kind. Today, he says, he doesn't trust people.

He has a new wife but few friends. The fans, family and entourage who seemed so important a decade ago are all gone, he says.

"When the money go, they go. When the money left, whatever the case may be, all that stopped," he says. "Have a million friends. Once the money stop, the crowd goes away."

As a young fighter, Bowe was often favorably compared with Mike Tyson, the tough-to-the-core brawler who also hails from New York. In contrast, Bowe was personable, media-friendly and had a clean record. But after Bowe had reached the peak of his career, winning the belt in November 1992, in the first of three battles against Evander Holyfield, controversy became ever-present, in the ring and outside it.

Summary:

assistant: Riddick Bowe didn't lose often as a pro boxer, but since his peak, the Maryland resident has lost a lot, most notably, his willingness to trust people.