[ Editor’s note: The following is a letter to the editor submitted by John Catalano, a commissioner on the Brick Township Housing Authority board. In the letter, Mr. Catalano references recent events at the authority, which were covered in a Brick Shorebeat article posted yesterday. ]
To The Editor:
There will be no Chairwoman Vera Fozman at the next meeting of the Board of Commissioners of the Brick Housing Authority this month. Vera Fozman has resigned as a Commissioner of the Brick Housing Authority just a few months after being appointed by the Brick Township Council, headed by her husband, Councilman Jim Fozman. Vera became Chairwoman of the Housing Authority after voting herself in during the June meeting of the Board. She then began a campaign of dismantling the Authority’s administrative structure to bring in her own cronies from Democrat strongholds as far as the City of Passaic. But banging her gavel at fellow Board members did not prevent them from stopping her from treating the Authority as her own personal property. Once her scheme of bringing in Passaic City Democrats to run the Authority failed, she sheepishly resigned from the Housing Authority’s Board. Did she see the writing on the wall and couldn’t face the humiliation and embarrassment that was coming her way? This she so pleasantly handed out to others at public meetings. No explanation, no rhyme, no reason – just an email to an employee of the Authority.
And what did Vera Fozman accomplish during her term on the Board of Commissioners? Nothing but turmoil, disagreement and divisiveness. She created a vacancy in the Executive Director’s position and has left the Authority without any leadership structure whatsoever. The 266 residents of the Authority are left with no administrator for their housing project. No thought was given as to where she was leaving these people. It’s just politics at its worst from one of the worst.
Upon being notified of Vera’s resignation, other Democratic appointees to the Authority are resigning as well. This leaves the Board of Commissioners of the Housing Authority badly understaffed. Hopefully, the remaining members can put back the pieces of the Authority’s leadership. Hopefully, the Democratic Council has learned its lesson about appointing political hacks.
John Catalano
Commissioner
