In dark basements under two Freeport public housing projects, a quarter-million taxpayer dollars’ worth of unused windows have collected dust for two years.
Freeport Housing Authority commissioners and attorneys say the windows can’t be installed because they weren’t designed to work with child safety guards. The windows can’t be returned because they were custom made, and the best option now might be to sell the windows for scrap, they said.
The windows are an expensive example of problems with the Freeport Housing Authority, where local officials manage nearly $5 million in federal funds each year to provide public housing and rental vouchers for more than 500 of the village’s low-income residents.
The agency has operated without an executive director for the better part of 20 months while two people have largely handled the role: board chairwoman Annette Wright, whom federal officials would not allow to take the job herself, and housing authority counsel Angelyn Johnson, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to a violation and paid $10,000 in restitution following mortgage fraud charges in Queens.
The authority’s board finally hired a new executive director in July 2012, then fired her a month later.
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Matthew Doig 