Audrey Strauss is a do-nothing “Acting” U.S. Attorney, and she is countenancing Bill de Blasio’s breach of the HUD Settlement Agreement with NYCHA.
Shortly after the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic in New York City, the political gossip Web site POLITICO published a report, noting that the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio (WFP-New York City) was in violation of the Settlement Agreement between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, and the New York City Housing Authority, or NYCHA (… “with the onset of the [C]oronavirus, [NYCHA] workers have stopped doing annual inspections of properties required by” HUD, and NYCHA “… is limiting lead inspections to the universe of properties already known to have both lead paint and children under six years of age. … That has thrown the [C]ity out of compliance with a [F]ederal [S]ettlement [A]greement.”).
That the de Blasio administration was able to within the first weeks of the confinement to breach the HUD Settlement Agreement with NYCHA means that he is delaying the addressing of one healthcare crisis (say, lead paint poisoning) for the potential of another (Coronavirus infection).
The breach of the HUD Settlement Agreement less than one year since it was inked should have enraged NYCHA residents, but the corrupt mayor has engaged in obfuscation by taking the public’s focus off of long-term healthcare endangerment to tenants caused by lead poisoning, and he has proposed, in its stead, the free delivery of meals, the purchase of inexpensive Android tablets, and the distribution of at least some air conditioning units for senior citizens living in public housing. That was enough of a give-away to distract, confuse, or buy-off some tenants and many NYCHA “preservation groups” into going alongst with the mayor’s grand prize game, thereby taking the heat off the mayor’s violation of the HUD Settlement Agreement.
Audrey Strauss should know better than to go alongst with this charade. Donald Trump put NYCHA front-and-centre at the RNC. If he really cares about NYCHA, then he should fire Audrey Strauss.
Audrey Strauss is an entitled former C-suite executive of a large mineral mining conglomerate. She has already made one turn through the revolving door between Government and Big Business, and now she heads the self-styled “most influential” U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Nation. With all the pretense that goes alongst with such a job, Audrey Strauss is clearly demonstrating how S.D.N.Y., as her office is sometimes known, engages in selective prosecution. The mayor has violated the Settlement Agreement for a case that Audrey Strauss’s predecessor called the most important on his office’s docket, and Audrey Strauss is signaling that there will be no consequence to Mayor de Blasio over his breach of the Settlement Agreement.
The violation of the Settlement Agreement puts the lives of public housing residents in danger. For such reckless abandon of the trust the public is supposed to vest in S.D.N.Y., Audrey Strauss must be removed from office.
R.S.V.P. to our Sleep-Out Protest
- S21 : Sleep-out protest at U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan (Hosted by Fight For NYCHA) [Facebook]