Pioneer Homes is pictured. Credit: Mike Greenlar | Central Current

Missed deadlines and misinformation have defined the Syracuse Housing Authority’s approach to collaboration on the Children’s Rising Center, said the city’s Interstate 81 project director Joe Driscoll.

That’s why Driscoll issued the most direct rebuke from city officials of Simmons, publicly calling this week for SHA’s board to remove Executive Director Bill Simmons from his role. 

Driscoll has spent nearly three years working to advance the city’s portion of the I-81 viaduct removal.

As the I-81 project director, Driscoll’s work is intertwined with the nearly $1 billion redevelopment of public housing – of which the $32 million Children’s Rising Center was a key part.

That project’s pause prompted an outcry of criticism toward Simmons and his upper-level staffers, especially from project partners with the Allyn Foundation and Blueprint 15. 

In a Monday interview with Central Current, Driscoll said he had lost confidence in Simmons and SHA leadership long before the children’s center halted. 

Driscoll accused SHA of dealing in half-truths when discussing the redevelopment of public housing with its project partners. He said SHA’s involvement in the project is “poison in the locker room.”

Joe Driscoll, I-81 project director for the city Credit: Courtesy of City of Syracuse

“When people start gaslighting you,” Driscoll said, “… you don’t really have many places to go from there with trust-building.”

In an interview with Central Current, he said the board should have seen enough to remove Simmons as SHA’s executive director. Driscoll argued for more structural change beyond Simmons.

Simmons did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Central Current for this story. 

Driscoll joined a chorus of stakeholders lambasting Simmons’ leadership since news broke of the children’s center snafu. According to the City of Syracuse and the Allyn Family Foundation, (which led fundraising efforts for the $32 million children’s center), Simmons’ and the housing authority’s repeated failures to hit critical deadlines resulted in a loss of $7 million in time-sensitive tax credits.

Simmons has insisted SHA did not miss any deadlines, and even provided his partners with a letter from the Department of Housing and Urban Development stating that SHA did not miss deadlines on the project. Officials at HUD have not replied to questions from Central Current about the letter. Central Current reached out to HUD multiple times for more than a week. 

To the mayor and the other project partners, Simmons’ argument amounts to little more than quibbling over semantics. 

Since January 2023, SHA has filed for extensions five times on the redevelopment of public housing, delaying the first two phases of the project, city officials said. 

“There is like a 15% truth in here that’s like, okay, you didn’t miss the HUD deadline for your whole project,” Driscoll said. “But you know very well, you did miss all the deadlines you set with your internal partners.”

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Driscoll’s comments stepped up the severity but align with previous critiques of Simmons from Walsh and Meg O’Connell, the executive director of the Allyn Family Foundation.

After the housing authority’s most recent board meeting, where Simmons presented his HUD letter, Walsh said SHA had presented the board with an inaccurate depiction of SHA’s role in the children’s center pause.

“I think that’s been one of the problems over the years, is communication that goes from the staff to the board isn’t always clear and consistent,” Walsh said.

Walsh attended the meeting with an open mind, he said. But after watching Simmons sidestep responsibility, Walsh said he couldn’t imagine a path forward with him at SHA’s helm.

The mayor declined to make a direct call for Simmons’ removal. Five of the 7 commissioners on SHA’s board are mayoral appointees. 

Driscoll believes the board has a responsibility to act.

“The tenants have organized. The mayor has spoken. They’ve lost $32 million in the last few weeks,” Driscoll said. “There’s enough there for them to make a decision, in my estimate.”

A defiant Simmons told reporters that he was not bothered by the mayor’s comments for change at SHA leadership.

“Why should it bother me?” he said. 

Blueprint 15 Executive Director Raquan Pride-Green and Syracuse Housing Authority Executive Director Bill Simmons Esq. sit next to each other at the panelists table during Central Current's public housing forum.
William Simmons, right, the executive director of Syracuse Housing Authority. Credit: Ike Wood | Central Current

When asked about critical comments from O’Connell, Simmons said he did not care what O’Connell thought.

Blueprint 15 representatives and the mayor said in the meeting that all the involved parties had a share of the blame for the children’s center pause.

Simmons chose a different tack.

“I just told you that there hasn’t been any proof of us dropping the ball anywhere,” Simmons told a reporter after the meeting.

Simmons repeated the need to move forward on the project. But when asked how he intends to make progress with Walsh, who says progress can’t be made without an SHA shakeup, Simmons deflected.

“If we have future meetings coming forward like we’ve been having, and the city stops showing up, then that’s on him,” Simmons said. 

“It’s not on me.”

In an interview with Central Current that took place in the immediate aftermath of Allyn pausing the Children’s Rising Center project, Simmons characterized criticisms as personal attacks. 

“So they make all these hyper-sensitive statements about, ‘Yeah, Bill Simmons, you know, he’s gonna screw over the people again,’” Simmons said. “Makes no sense, no sense whatsoever.”

As Driscoll talked to a reporter about the rift between the city and the housing authority, he thought back to Kennedy Square, a pain point for many Syracuse residents. 

Residents remember the apartment building dying a slow death — falling into disrepair before being demolished. Developers and Upstate University have since traded the property back and forth. 

Its fate left residents in the lurch. Like some of SHA’s properties, Kennedy Square sat on top of what used to be the 15th Ward, a vibrant, predominantly Black neighborhood.

“For a while now, I have not had faith that they can execute appropriately,” Driscoll said, “and that they won’t just repeat like a Kennedy Square-type situation where people will be told they’re moving.”

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Patrick McCarthy is a staff reporter at Central Current covering government and politics. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Maxwell and Newhouse Schools, McCarthy was born and raised in Syracuse and...