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Golden Gate Village Resident Council vs. Marin Housing Authority - An Untold Story - Part II
A multi-part series investigating the extraordinary story behind the case of Golden Gate Village Resident Council vs. Marin Housing Authority, and the challenge of housing those most in need in Marin County.
The Handwriting On the Wall
Soon after his arrival at MHA, Executive Director, Dan Nackerman, began to talk about a new vision for Golden Gate Village. He talked about creating a “long term plan.” As he saw it, the future of Golden Gate Village was bright.
GGV residents weren’t buying it.
At an MHA Board meeting at the Marin Civic Center, in May of 2009, an angry crowd accused the MHA of intentionally allowing GGV to fall into hopeless disrepair to create an excuse to declare the property uninhabitable and tear it down. They feared that it was going to be replaced with yet another “gentrified, mixed use” development, which would displace all the current low and very low income residents.
Ronnie Jones, a guidance counselor who worked with the Marin City Golden Gate Resident Council, in 2009, said at the time, “There is outrage from this community which has basically been abandoned by the housing authority for the last several years." He noted that requests to repair the deteriorating buildings had fallen on deaf ears "time and time again." According to press reports, he added that “Marin City residents have been sold out over the years and we feel this is the last power grab." [1]
Supervisor Charles McGlashan, who appears to have been the only Marin Supervisor in the past ten years who showed any real interest in the plight of Golden Gate Village, tried to assure the jeering crowd that this was not the case. But Nackerman was unable to confirm that the removal of the buildings would not be among the considerations in the MHA’s study of options.
With the condition of the project continuing to slide and funding for major renovation nowhere in sight, residents became more convinced than ever that GGV would someday be on the chopping block and face demolition.
One resident, in particular, had been making it her mission to ensure the well-being of Golden Gate Village, for a long time.
A Woman of Faith
Before meeting Royce McLemore a couple of years ago, she was described to me as “a dedicated, vibrant, no-nonsense, ‘I'll-take-care-of-it’ kind of woman, who remembers her gutsy great grandmother who was a slave, and strives to live up to her memory.” After knowing her, I’d have to agree with that assessment. Royce is sort of a “force of nature,” like earth, wind and fire … except all rolled into one.
Royce was born in San Francisco but moved to Marin City as a child, more than 70 years ago. She moved away for a little while when she got married, but eventually came back. She’s lived in Golden Gate Village for over 39 years ever since.
Her dedication to the community is beyond question.
She is currently the newly elected Vice President of the Golden Gate Village Residents Council and a Director on the Marin City Community Services District Board. Royce has also been the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Women Helping All People (“WHAP” - a 501c3 nonprofit organization) since 1990 and runs the Afterschool Safe House Tutorial Program for local school kids. And as if she doesn’t have enough on her plate, in addition to rearing her own five children, over the years, Royce has made a home for more than 140 foster children, two of whom live with her today.
In 2006, Royce was inducted into the Marin Women’s Hall of Fame.
You would think that with this resume of lifetime accomplishment, she would get a little respect in the County and, in particular, from the Marin Board of Supervisors. But you’d be wrong. Royce attends MHA Board hearings regularly and voices the concerns of the community, and is summarily ignored or worse.
As an intelligent, outspoken, African-American woman, Royce has been fighting uphill battles all of her adult life and if you asked her, she’d probably say that she doesn’t expect that to change any time soon.
Times Change
At its height in 2006, WHAP was a major driver of change for the better at Golden Gate Village. WHAP's founding mission was to provide low-income Marin residents - particularly those in public housing - with information, support services, and educational opportunities that develop self-esteem, economic self-sufficiency, and a sense of community. It was essentially picking up the slack for things the community needed that were no longer a priority for our federal government.
Their programs quickly expanded to include independent study to help high school drop outs earn their diplomas, literacy classes, a computer skills learning center, and many other community services.
Unfortunately, today, most of WHAP’s services are no longer being offered. The After School Safe House tutoring program now has very limited space for the children and the WHAP Scholastic Academy – a K-8 school to help disadvantaged youth excel – was evicted by MHA from most of their space in August of 2014. This has greatly limited the ability for more students to attend the school. The Golden Gate Village Resident Council’s computers and other equipment that used to help community members better themselves now sit in storage, unused. Royce is paying the cost of storage out of her own pocket.
At the time, Marin Supervisor Kate Sears, who represents Marin City, expressed confidence in MHA’s decision to evict WHAP.[2]
In some ways, WHAP was also a victim of the times. The Crash of 2008 reduced donor and foundation support and the subsequent federal cut backs took their toll on community services and local agencies. Many nonprofits had to down size and reduce programs and some had to close their doors. MHA was not spared and WHAP suffered some of the consequences of that.
However, other actions taken by MHA would suggest that what happened to WHAP was not just circumstantial, but very much intentional.
In the beginning, the Marin Housing Authority worked with WHAP and provided them with space at Golden Gate Village for their offices, the school, and other programs. In the years before Dan Nackerman arrived at MHA, WHAP had partnered with the Marin Conservation Corps and contracted with MHA to provide all the landscape services for Golden Gate Village and to provide jobs training, for a total of 16 years.
When WHAP was in charge of all the landscaping services and grounds maintenance at GGV, the property was in first class shape and it was done at a cost that the MHA couldn’t match.
After Nackerman took over, MHA canceled the longstanding maintenance agreement with WHAP and took over that function. Residents complained to MHA that where there had been ample crews on site, previously, there were now only four part-time people. MHA did not respond. The grounds maintenance of Golden Gate Village went straight downhill from there.
However, in the scheme of things, WHAP was just a side show in Nackerman’s vision of change.
Déjà Vu All Over Again
An unusual thing about the 2012 GGVRC vs. MHA lawsuit was that GGV had a tenant council, in one form or another, since 1976. By the late 1980’s, it was formalized as the Marin City Resident Management Corporation (which ran aground some years later, due to mismanagement). On March 22nd of 2005, residents at Golden Gate Village formally incorporated a new 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, called the “Marin City Golden Gate Village Resident Council” (the “GGVRC”). The GGVRC received its IRS Determination Letter, granting tax exempt status, on January 28, 2006.
Royce McLemore was elected Chairman of the Board, and its other officers and directors included Greg Cook, Lori Fall, Esther Williams, and Samantha Carter. Hazel Goff, Gladys Denis, and Gerald Taylor all became active in the organization over time.
Soon after its inception, the MHA officially recognized the GGVRC and memorialized their relationship in a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) between the two entities. The MOU gave the GGVRC very broad powers and involved it in most, if not all of the major decisions that could be made about the project.
The reason for having the MOU was based upon Federal Housing Code requirements. The MOU stated that
…the Parties seek to ensure maximum participation of residents in determining policies and discussing issues regarding the operation of the Golden Gate Village complex. The Parties desire to create a structure through which they will collaboratively address issues involved in managing GGV. The combination process initiated herein emphasizes an increased resident involvement in GGV operations.
The terms of the MOU go on to mandate monthly meetings with MHA, methods for GGVRC’s bringing forth recommendations and grievances, and other procedures. Henceforth, GGVRC would also be involved in a wide range of MHA activities. These included performing unit inspections upon move in and move out, review of operating budgets and any contracts for services costing more than $150,000, and review of any modernization plans, construction or design changes. They also were to be consulted on property maintenance issues, screening and hiring of new MHA employees for GGV, security issues including relations with the County Sheriff and Fire Department, and the creation or modification of any social programs for tenants. GGVRC would even run the laundry room facilities under separate licensing agreement that provided them with additional revenues.
MHA also specifically provided that
…space will be made available to the GGVRC at the GGV [property].
The MOU was effective as of February 14, 2006, and ran for a term of three years, at which time the parties had the option to continue for another three years, and so on. The agreement was comprehensive and clear and allowed the newly formed GGVRC to move forward with confidence. They held regular meetings, voted on various issues, provided tenant services, and had dedicated a meeting room and an office in one of the low-rise buildings on the site.
But even before Dan Nackerman became the ED of MHA in 2008, things had begun to change for the worse.
The Barbara Collins at the Marin Housing Authority, the Marin Community Development Agency, and the Marin Workforce Housing Trust Triumvirate of Conflicts of Interest.
On August 23, 2007, the GGVRC filed a complaint with Richard Rainey, the regional director of HUD Region 9, in San Francisco. They alleged that the MHA was not acting in good faith and wanted to know if there were plans
…to dispose of any or the entire Marin City complex ...the only family public housing stock in Marin County?
The complaint also alleged that Barbara Collins, then the Executive Director of MHA, had a conflict of interest in simultaneously being the Executive Director of MHA and the Executive Secretary and board member of the Marin Workforce Housing Trust (“MWHT”). GGVRC contended that Collins could not possibly be faithful to her responsibilities under MHA because MWHT was at the same time pushing an entirely different agenda.
The Marin Housing Authority is charged with maintaining its existing stock of low income public housing and it receives significant federal subsidies in order to do that. The Marin Workforce Housing Trust, on the other hand, has a mission to enable the development of new, high density, mixed use, “workforce” housing, in joint venture partnerships with private nonprofit housing developers. The result of that is what is commonly known as gentrification.
These two approaches were like oil and water. And since Golden Gate Village consists of almost 32 acres of fully entitled and re-developable land (streets and all utilities in place, currently less than 10 units per acre with zoning capacity and Density Bonuses of up to 45 units per acre), residents knew it was a prime target for redevelopment.
Prior to filing the complaint, GGV residents had also begun to question whether Barbara Collins was qualified for the job of Executive Director of MHA and how much she really understood the implications of the terms of the MOU. She had previously been an “affordable housing strategist” for the County’s Community Development Agency.
Their complaint alleged that Barbara Collins was unqualified because she lacked a working knowledge of federal regulations and didn’t even understand the difference between project-based, public housing and the tenant-based Section 8 voucher program, and the requisite leasing requirements of each.
According to sources interviewed for this article, Barbara Collins was hired without an executive search and had no prior hands on experience with housing management, construction or maintenance. One witness to her tenure told me that when confronted with the need to replace some old water piping on the property, she advised the Board of Supervisors to tear the property down.
But perhaps she wasn’t as dumb as they thought. Perhaps she had another agenda.
The Marin Workforce Housing Trust bills itself as
…a unique public/private partnership between the Marin business community, the Marin Community Foundation and the County of Marin, created to meet the challenges of housing affordability for workers in Marin County.
It is partially funded by the County with taxpayer’s dollars and partially by the Marin Community Foundation. The MWHT is supposed to act independently, but has been a bit of a “revolving door” quasi-government agency where County staff and consultants, and former employees move back and forth with great (and questionable) fluidity. Its board is sort of a who’s who in Marin high density housing development advocacy.
There’s nothing wrong with that, per se, but problems tend to arise when public agencies and private interests co-mingle activities behind closed doors.
For example, Robert Pendoly, the former planning director of Corte Madera, who according to several Town Council members, was instrumental in pushing through the zoning approvals for the infamous WinCup apartments, is currently the MWHT Board Chair. Rumor has it that Pendoly’s position was a reward for making WinCup happen, but perhaps his values are just more closely aligned with MWHT’s mission than those of Corte Madera’s residents.
Marin County Planner, Leelee Thomas, who has been intimately involved in crafting the County Housing Elements, is also on the MWHT board. Some say that this gives MWHT too much direct influence on county planning. The County contends it’s the opposite and that having a representative on the MWHT board is essential to keeping watch on their investment.
Maybe both are true, but either way the whole thing seems to have the potential to become a bit too incestuous and out of the public’s eye for its own good.
In any event, according to an article published in the Coastal Post, April 2008 edition, written by Karen Kakamura, the Marin Workforce Housing Trust was in fact eyeing Golden Gate Village as a feasible location to build more “affordable workforce” and high end housing. And MHA’s Executive Director, Barbara Collins, was in the forefront of pushing this approach.
Her concept was that GGV would be redeveloped as a multi-income community. Her pitch to the Board of Supervisors was that low income residents would enjoy the “benefits” of living among the more affluent. Meeting minutes and agendas indicate that Supervisors Steve Kinsey and Judy Arnold endorsed her approach (keep in mind that the Marin Board of Supervisors hires the Executive Director of the Marin Housing Authority, and decides who among their staff will sit on the board of the Marin Workforce Housing Trust).
The only problem was that no one asked the residents at Golden Gate Village what they thought, as required by both common sense and the terms of the MOU.
As rumors began to circulate that GGV was going to be torn down to make way for “affordable workforce housing,” GGVRC discovered that HUD had granted MHA the ability to dispose of their HUD properties without "one-to-one replacement." [3] This meant MHA could dump tenants onto the street without recourse.
Golden Gate Village is the only low and very low income housing project in the County that accepts families and children, and existing residents knew that it would be impossible for them to find comparable housing in Marin.
The GGVRC board reasoned that by letting GGV continue to age and deteriorate, MHA would be able to use that as a ploy to declare the property beyond redemption and say that the only way to “save it” was to undertake its redevelopment in partnership with the MWHT and private nonprofit developers, who would reap 99 percent of the benefits.
In any event, Barbara Collin’s tenure at MHA turned out to be short-lived. As discontent increased among Golden Gate Village residents, she exited the agency, in 2008, ostensibly to “be closer to her family” down in Santa Monica. But many GGV residents think she just cut and ran before the proverbial crap hit the fan.
In an interesting footnote, Barbara Collins is today, once again, listed on the Marin County website as the County’s “Housing Strategist” consultant in charge of coordinating the newly proposed Point Reyes Station, 36 unit, affordable housing project, in District 4, Supervisor Steve Kinsey’s district.
The revolving door keeps spinning.
After Collins departed, Dan Nackerman took over as MHA Executive Director and that’s when things really started to change.
The “AWRC”
Nackerman appeared to be a man out to make a name for himself. Doing that usually entails taking control of as much as one can in one’s respective agency (a recent example of this is MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger’s takeover ABAG planning and housing). A number of GGV residents feel that Nackerman was not at all happy with the powers GGVRC was granted under the MOU and was out to get rid of it. The events that followed Nackerman’s arrival make that assessment hard to argue with.
Early on in his tenure, Nackerman suggested to the MHA Board of Commissioners (which includes all the Marin County Supervisors plus two resident representatives) that it would be more “efficient” to do away with individual resident councils for individual projects and have all the representative bodies brought together under one council, called the Agency-Wide Residents Council.
In addition to MHA staff, the composition of the new AWRC would include one representative from each of MHA’s six properties. Aside from the fact that GGV already had a fully recognized resident council of its own, the glaringly obvious problem with this suggestion was that Golden Gate Village had 300 units and about 700 residents, while the other properties averaged about 30 units apiece. Golden Gate Village housed fully two thirds of all of the Marin Housing Authority’s tenants. Having just one vote didn’t make a lot of sense if the goal was to “ensure maximum participation of residents in determining policies and discussing issues,” in accordance with HUD regulations.
Golden Gate Village residents, at the time, were also 70 percent African-American, in sharp contrast with the other MHA properties that had about seven percent African-Americans residents (approximately three percent of Marin County residents are African-American). But even more significant was the fact that GGV housed 100 percent of the families with children living in Marin public housing.
In other words, the concerns and needs of GGV residents were markedly different from those of tenants in all the other MHA projects.
For the MHA to say that having only one member (one vote) on an Agency-Wide Residents Council would adequately represent the interests of the entire GGV community seemed ludicrous at best, and nefarious at worst. It could be just gross incompetence at MHA, but with MHA’s having proposed things like this with a straight face, it becomes harder to blame people who are convinced that MHA has been conspiring against the residents at GGV for more than a decade.
In a series of events that followed, in this writer’s opinion, the MHA essentially trumped up a “violation” of federal regulations by GGVRC, then used that as a pretext to get rid of the GGVRC and the MOU. My guess is they probably assumed GGVRC would not have the determination to actually challenge MHA on this.
In 2010, MHA accused GGVRC of not holding elections in a timely manner. They claimed this violated federal regulations and rendered the MOU null and void. MHA stopped doing their part to assist the GGVRC’s election process and refused to cooperate with GGVRC on all other matters or to renegotiate the MOU upon its expiration on February of 2009. MHA followed this by filing a formal complaint against the nascent GGV resident’s council (Marin Housing Authority vs. Golden Gate Village Resident Council; Case Numbers 10043222-10043224; 1004327-1004330; 1004332-1004335).
Meanwhile, the GGVRC Election Committee members kept pressing onward, trying to get the MOU extended and hold their elections for officers and board members. Nackerman continued to ignore them and pushed forward with his AWRC plan. In an email dated May 26, 2010 he advised GGVRC reps, “Let’s keep moving forward [with the AWRC]… this is what change looks like.”
GGVRC representatives had appeared before the Marin County Board of Supervisors as early as October of 2009, to express their concern regarding the lack of response by MHA to their request to extend the MOU for another three years. Nackerman advised the MHA Commissioners that there was no requirement for a housing authority to have an MOU with a resident council, even though the MOU was the only means of delineating the respective rights and responsibilities between GGVRC and MHA. Without the MOU, Nackerman knew that GGVRC would lose all their powers, a fact he failed to mention to the MHA Board.
The three GGVRC reps in attendance protested, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. The Marin Supervisors on the MHA Board unanimously backed Nackerman.
On the surface, the situation appeared to be cut and dry: GGVRC had the responsibility to hold timely elections of their board members and any failure to do so was actionable by MHA under the terms of federal regulations. However, the actual events that led up to this break paint an entirely different picture.
After Nackerman took over MHA, the game room for teens at Golden Gate Village was closed. In addition to canceling the grounds maintenance agreement with WHAP, noted above, MHA also reneged on the agreement allowing GGVRC to operate the laundry rooms and retain the revenues from the laundry machines to help pay for upkeep for the project. Those funds were redirected into the MHA general fund – an accounting black hole that can be used for any purposes, including generous pension benefits.
Residents also found themselves being increasingly charged for so-called “minor repairs” due to “normal wear and tear,” which are technically allowable under HUD regulations. These repairs now seemed to include water piping leaks, faulty faucet replacement, and removal of mold that was growing around leaky windows and door frames, cabinet repairs, and other such things.
Finally, the MHA demanded that GGVRC give up the meeting room space they were using on the property, guaranteed to them in the MOU. It became clear now that MHA was intent on systematically reneging on each and every covenant of that MOU, rendering it meaningless.
GGVRC tried to get MHA to come to the table and renew the MOU when it expired in 2009, but MHA refused. GGVRC then appealed their plight to HUD. But in a letter to GGVRC from HUD Regional Administrator Ophelia Basgal, dated August 13, 2010, without doing any investigation, HUD accepted MHA’s one-sided account of events and legal interpretations. Basgal concluded her letter by referring GGVRC back to Supervisor Judy Arnold, then chair of the Marin Housing Authority Board of Commissioners. GGVRC was essentially back where they’d started.
Business as Usual At the Pink Palace
It’s important to note that the Marin Board of Supervisors could have intervened at any time and sorted out the growing mess between MHA and GGVRC. They hold the majority of votes on the MHA Commission. However, the record shows that they consistently and consciously chose not to, but it was not for lack of requests from GGV residents.
As far back as 2009, Royce, in her capacity as president of GGVRC, wrote to the County Supervisors and Supervisor McGlashan, in particular, for assistance in dealing with MHA. However, in an email dated November 8, 2010, Dan Nackerman urged McGlashan not to talk to GGVRC representatives about the issue because GGVRC had “stated” in the past that they might take MHA to court to preserve their rights.
Nackerman’s caution to McGlashan was absurd. If elected officials stopped communicating with their constituents simply because someone might sue them someday, elected representatives would have to cease all communications with the electorate.
In an email to the Marin Board of Supervisors, dated June 1, 2010, Royce McLemore wrote,
I don’t know why you are refusing to question why MHA has continued to deny the residents of Golden Gate Village our right to organize and elect our own resident council. You know that a “local” council is different from a jurisdiction-wide council. Also, you know that by having a jurisdiction-wide resident council does not stop residents of all of the various complexes from exercising their right to organize. But you choose to remain silent. Why???
She never received a response.
As Chairpersons of the MHA Board during this time, several Marin County Supervisors were in the position to weigh in on whether or not MHA should work with GGVRC to extend the Memorandum of Understanding or whether they supported the concept of the Agency-Wide Resident Council, and the demise of the GGVRC. In all instances I can find in the record, they fully supported MHA staff and consistently voted against the desires of GGV residents.
I find this particularly ironic in the case of Supervisor Arnold who has been an MHA Commissioner throughout this time and chaired the MHA Commission in 2010 and 2013. Ms. Arnold has been particularly quick to imply that anyone who disagrees with her high density, urbanization visions of Marin, is racist. It’s equally interesting to note that in spite of pleas during this time to meet with GGVRC members, Supervisor Arnold declined to do that, and has never done so since.
The actions of Supervisor Steve Kinsey were equally ironic. Though he was also a MHA Commissioner the entire time and was chair of the MHA Commission in 2007 and 2012, and was intimately familiar with all of the proceedings involving MHA and GGV, he did nothing to aid the GGVRC. He supported the positions of both the MHA and the Marin Workforce Housing Trust throughout.
Kinsey’s actions or lack of action is particularly interesting since he has always made it a point to offer sound bites to the press about how much he supports low income housing and the rights of minorities. He stood outside the Marin Town Hall meeting in the spring of 2013, locked arm in arm with bused-in, faux protestors, who chanted anti-racist slogans, while inside, more than 400 of his fellow Marinites, including elected officials and the press, listened to a mildly entertaining lecture on the history of affordable housing.
That summer Kinsey also made a point of showing up at the fatuous, Marin Housing Advocates’ Civic Center press conference and rally asking Governor Brown to declare a “State of Emergency!” in Marin because of rampant “racism.” Kinsey made a photo-op appearance and commented to the press that Marin was “unwelcoming to minorities.”
Notwithstanding the fact that in the most liberal County in the country these unfounded accusations of racism were just a ruse to silence critics of newly approved “Plan Bay Area” and the overall push to urbanize Marin, I marvel at how the local press consistently fails to point out Kinsey’s hypocrisy.
But then, Supervisor Kinsey appears to live in a magical kingdom, protected from all challengers and enjoying the benefits of the most gerrymandered election district in Marin history. This situation allows him to consistently appear to support high density housing and urbanization only in Eastern Marin and the Highway 101 corridor, while West Marin, where he and his biggest supporters and voting block live, remains unscathed.
The truth is, I can’t find a single instance in the record, throughout the entire ordeal of this lawsuit, where any of the Marin Board of Supervisors, acting as MHA Commissioners, weighed in or took any action in support of the residents of Golden Gate Village.
In any event, with its operations in disarray, the GGVRC was basically fighting for its life and needed time to regroup. But the Marin Housing Authority gave them no quarter. Arguments ensued back and forth between MHA and GGVRC, culminating in the drafting and redrafting of a mediated Settlement Agreement overseen by Judge Vernon F. Smith.
The final Settlement Agreement was signed by attorney Nannette Sparks, on behalf of MHA, and Royce McLemore of GGVRC, on May 23 of 2011. The Settlement Agreement laid out a very specific timeline of dates for each step required by each party to move toward holding a new election.[4] Reluctantly, GGVRC also agreed to vacate their office space in the complex as part of the Agreement. They were promised it would be restored afterwards.
But no sooner was the ink dry on the Settlement Agreement, when MHA again began to throw obstacles in their path.
[1] San Jose Mercury News, May, 19, 2009
[2] Marin IJ, August 2, 2013
[3] The 1937 Federal Law requiring one to one replacement was repealed by Congress in 1997.
[4] Rumor has it that Dan Nackerman was furious with attorney Sparks for signing the Settlement Agreement, and Sparks departed MHA soon afterwards.
Read PART III - The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back
Read PART IV - The Big Squeeze
Read PART V - It Takes More Than A Village
Bob Silvestri is an architect, former Section 8 housing developer, a Marin resident for over 22 years, and founder and president of Community Venture Partners, Inc.
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