Santos Steps Down as Housing Authority Director

Natick Housing Authority executive director Edward Santos' resignation will take effect on Nov. 30.

Natick Housing Authority executive director Edward Santos has submitted his official letter of resignation, according to the NHA Board of Commissioners. On Nov. 30, assistant director Eileen Merritt will take over as interim director, should she accept the board's offer. Merritt, who has acted in Santos' absence since he reportedly left work early on Sept. 8, said she will discuss the offer more with the board in a couple of weeks. The board specified that the interim director would serve for a period no longer than six months or until a new executive director is chosen. Board chairman Gina Govoni said the authority owes it to the NHA and to the town to have a broad search for a new leader, but said Merritt's current position would neither…

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NHA Plans to Turn Over 40 Units, Earn $777,000

The Natick Housing Authority is submitting its corrective action plan to DHCD to turn around units and get the organization back in the black.

By April 2012, the Natick Housing Authority plans to have 40 housing units turned over for new tenants and to earn $777,000 in net income in three years, according to a corrective active plan to be submitted to the state Department of Housing and Community Development. The NHA Board of Commissioners studied the plan produced by NHA assistant director Eileen Merritt at a meeting Monday night. DHCD recently mandated that executive director Ed Santos submit a plan to turn around the authority, which is $480,000 in debt. Santos did not attend the board meeting Monday night, nor had he returned to work since Sept. 8 when he left early, according to NHA attorney James Wood, who said Santos is still being paid as director. DHCD originally set the…

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Town Posts Sept. 26 Housing Authority Agenda

The Natick Housing Authority will meet at Coolidge Gardens at 4 Cottage St. at 6:30 p.m.

6:30 PM         Meeting Opens 6:30 PM         NHA Work & Business Session 4 (200 -1) roof replacements

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Letter to the Editor

Letter: CGTO Founder Says Management to Blame for NHA Woes

Founding president of the Cedar Garden Tenants Association, George Ross, shares his thoughts on the current state of the Natick Housing Authority in this letter to the editor.

For seven years I resided at Cedar Gardens. During that time I helped organize the tenants so that there might be a way for us to get the many problems we were having addressed properly. Under the laws and regulations of the Commonwealth, we established the Cedar Gardens Tenant Organization (CGTO) and developed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) together with the NHA. The MOU was signed by the Executive Director, the NHA Board of Directors, and the CGTO. It was later accepted as valid and binding by the DHCD. Now the tools to achieve effective cooperation between the NHA and the residents were available for use. In my opinion, the basic reason public housing has not improved in Natick is the lack of effective management. With effective …

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NHA Rushes to Submit Plan to Turn Organization Around

The Natick Housing Authority has less than one week to submit a plan to state Department of Housing and Community Development to pay back debt and fill vacancies.

Natick Housing Authority staff has less than one week to submit a plan to the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development to turn around the authority and pay back its $480,000 in debt. At a meeting of the Natick Housing Authority board of directors Thursday night, NHA director Ed Santos was not in attendance. Assistant director of the NHA, Eileen Merritt, answered board questions and concerns that the plan will not be completed and the authority may go into receivership and be taken over by DHCD. During the meeting board members did not read over Santos' preliminary plan, saying that it lacked detail and would be unproductive to do so. Jeanne Williamson Ostroff said the text seemed unusually large, as if to make it look …

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Dispatches

Housing Authority Has $350,000 in Debt

The state Department of Housing and Community Development has given director of the Natick Housing Authority, Ed Santos, three weeks to make a plan to pull the authority out of major debt.

Urgency has increased over the Natick Housing Authority’s growing debt, which has reached $350,000, according to Jill Fenton, an independent fee accountant. According to Fenton, who periodically examines the organization’s financial situation, the authority has been spending money it does not have for the past four years. The NHA board of commissioners showed their frustrations at a meeting Wednesday night, sharing that they were not aware of the severity of the situation. In an Aug. 22 letter to Edward Santos, executive director of the NHA, the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development expressed major concerns over the authority’s financial situation and “serious decline in the past three years in the overall …

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Fight Over Webster Street Parking Continues

At a Zoning Board of Appeals meeting on Wednesday, the board discussed recent proposals from the Natick Housing Authority and the Natick Service Council to add parking to the Coolidge Gardens location. The parking issue has been angering abutting resident

When the Natick Service Council moved into the Natick Housing Authority’s Coolidge Gardens building in November 2009, it was based on several conditions set by the Zoning Board of Appeals. The conditions, which the ZBA says the council ignored, included an agreement that no employees, volunteers or patrons of the NSC would park along Webster Street and would reserve the spots only for the street’s residents. So when the NSC requested approval from the ZBA for two additional parking spaces on the road, members were met with heated resistance from both the board and residents whose properties abut the council at 2 Webster St. Since the NSC’s move, there have been dozens of complaints and calls to the Natick Police from neighbors furious that…

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Thief Steals Valuable Tools From Affordable Housing Office

The Cedar Gardens Tenant Office was robbed Sunday. The petty cash fund, laptops, a digital camera necessary to the organization were stolen.

The Cedar Gardens Tenant Organization's productivity came to a halt Sunday, when a thief reportedly broke into their office at 40 Cedar Ave. and stole the tools necessary to keep the organization running. Ted Mellor, vice president of the CGTO, said between 2:30 and 9:30 p.m. on Sunday, someone entered the office through a small sliding window and stole two laptops, a digital camera and the petty cash fund of just over $60. According to Natick Police, the incident was reported to the department just before 9:30 a.m. Monday. "It's impossible to do anything for the residents," said Mellor, who was the owner of one of the laptops. Without the computers, he said the organization is unable to produce its newsletters and calendars and maintain …

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