As published in the Record Journal, Saturday November 19, 2011
By Robert Cyr
Record-Journal staff
rcyr@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2224
WALLINGFORD
— The Wallingford Housing Authority board of commissioners voted
Friday at a special meeting to fire longtime Executive Director Stephen
Nere and offer him a separation package of $130,000. Board Chairman
Michael Misiti said the decision was made to avoid costly legal
proceedings to remove Nere.
Nere and the Housing Authority have
been immersed in controversy for more than a year amid allegations of
mismanagement, with scrutiny from local, state and federal officials.
Nere, 60, has been director for 26 years and earns about $100,000 a
year. His contract is set to expire next year.
The board
rejected two offers from Nere earlier this year to have the Housing
Authority buy out the remainder of his contract. Misiti said the draft
report of a recent forensic audit had nothing to do with Friday’s
decision. The draft report found large holes in financial records at the
authority and auditors were unable to complete their investigation.
“After a lot of meetings with lawyers, this was the best solution for
the Housing Authority,” Misiti said. He added that attempting to fire
Nere without a severance package could have led to hundreds of thousands
of dollars in legal fees if Nere decided to fight termination.
Nere has 21 days to sign the resolution, Misiti said.
Nere said he was “surprised yet pleased” when the board asked him “out
of the clear blue” last week if he would work on a separation
agreement. He said he was more concerned now with improving his poor
physical health.
“I’d say that this is something the board and I
have reached a mutual accord on,” he said. “I’ve had some serious
health issues, and I’m going to try to move forward with making myself
feeling better. I’m way too young to retire, and I think it’s really
sad that I have to leave my position now. I sincerely hope that things
go well for the authority and its tenants. I’m sure I’ll look for something else.”
Nere said the terms of the severance package were reached between his
lawyer and attorneys for the Housing Authority. His last day will be
Dec. 2.
Board member Thomas Mezzei, who cast the only vote
against the resolution, suggested his own language for Nere’s
separation agreement and proposed $75,000 as a severance package. The
motion was not seconded.
“I don’t think he should get a dime,”
he said. “But if we’re going to have to give him something, it should
have been a lot less than what we voted on.”
A separate
resolution at the meeting approved settling a lawsuit with Nere out of
court, paying him $15,000 to withdraw the claim. The suit, brought by
Nere last year against Mezzei
and board members Patricia Hogan and former Chairman William Fischer,
alleged that they violated his contact when they disallowed him use of a
Housing Authority vehicle to travel between work and his home in
Guilford. While the board has since reinstated the vehicle privilege,
Nere claimed the loss of the vehicle cost him thousands of dollars in
travel expenses.
Town Councilors
Nicholas Economopoulos, a Democrat, and Craig Fishbein, a Republican,
who have been investigating allegations of mismanagement at the
authority for more than a year, attended the meeting.
Economopoulos, who recently announced his intention to run for mayor,
has called publicly for Nere’s resignation and called the resolutions
“sad.”
“It is the Town Council and (housing) commissioners of the past that let it get to this level,” he said.
Fishbein was recently elected to a second term on the council and said
he had spent about half of his time in his two years as a councilor
looking into issues at the Housing Authority. “I think it looks like a
proper resolution to a long battle between a lot of different people,”
he said.
The cost of the settlement
and the severance package will be covered by the roughly $200,000
remaining in the “Ridgeland” account, Misiti said. In 2003, the
authority sold its Ridgeland housing units to a New Haven based company
for $1.2 million.
The authority operates 317 low- to moderate income and senior housing on an annual budget of about $1.5 million.
