The Syracuse Housing Authority board of commissioners elected Rickey Brown as the vice chair days after longtime board member Christopher Montgomery resigned to join the City Planning Commission.
Montgomery resigned a year before his term was set to expire, leaving behind a vacant seat. Mayor Sharon Owens elected longtime ally Monica Williams to serve as the seventh member on the SHA board.
During their monthly board meeting on Thursday, commissioners voted Brown into the role with a 6-1 vote.
“My vision as vice chair is to support the residents of the SHA to the fullest capacity possible and that includes support for the board president as well as the executive director as he carries out the fiscal and organizational responsibilities of the agency,” Brown told Central Current. “My role serves as a support to all the hard working staff at SHA as they work towards the fulfillment of the agency’s mission.”
Owens’ allies now make up a majority of the board. She repeatedly during her campaign for mayor called for Executive Director William Simmons’ removal and for change atop SHA. His removal would require a majority vote of the board. Simmons said the appointment of Williams and the elevation of Brown do not worry him about his role at SHA.
“Why would I be worried?” he said.
Simmons opposed the idea of making the commissioners’ votes public. SHA attorney Brad Hunt advised the board that the way commissioners voted could be private to the public but not to Hunt.
Last November, former Mayor Ben Walsh appointed two key Owens allies, Brown and Stephanie Pasquale, to the SHA board, after former Chair Calvin Corriders Sr. resigned and commissioner Walt Dixie’s term expired. Shortly after, Pasquale stepped down from the board after the Owens administration hired her as its chief strategy officer. State laws mandate that only one board member of a public authority may work for the municipality. City Clerk Patricia McBride already serves as a board commissioner at SHA.
Brown is the founder and principal consultant of Diversify-NY, LLC. For the last decade, Brown helped create and promote opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses and provide business and professional development training to such enterprises. He also served as the first executive director of Upstate Minority Economic Alliance and was the former director of the first-time homebuyer program at Home Headquarters.
Brown has served on several boards, including Home HeadQuarters, Onondaga Community College and The Syracuse City School District Education Foundation. He currently serves as a board member on the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency, Christopher Community, Vera House, and Housing Visions and SHA.
At the February board meeting, Brown was at the centre of a heated exchange with McBride. The spat took place after Simmons sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, alleging that SHA Chair Ryan Benz’s conflict of interest as a developer lies in partnering with businesses that contract with SHA and are specifically involved with the project, according to a HUD letter that Benz read at the February board meeting.
Benz, who was not informed of the potential conflict of interest by Simmons before he was notified by HUD, repeatedly denied any such conflicts. McBride insinuated that Benz pushed for SHA and its developer, the Missouri-based McCormack Baron Salazar, to use Hueber Breuer Construction as general contractor. This led to a tense dialogue with Brown who jumped to Benz’s defense.
Emails obtained by Central Current through a public records request appeared to undercut McBride’s allegations. It showed that Hueber Breuer was hired by SHA’s development partner in April 2024 — nearly 11 months before Walsh appointed Benz to the board.
Hunt sent a letter to HUD in March clearing Benz of any such conflicts of interest. HUD is yet to clear Benz of Simmons’ allegations.
Benz has been recusing himself from parts of the board discussions involving the redevelopment of public housing on the Southside as per the federal government’s recommendation, specifically involving the $50 million Choice Neighborhoods Implementation grant which is a major pot of funding for the project.
In Benz’s absence, Montgomery, also the chair of the finance committee, had been moderating the board discussions related to the project — a duty that Brown will temporarily perform.
SHA, which is in charge of the $1 billion redevelopment of public housing on the city’s Southside, has been plagued by conflict since last year.
While Walsh stopped short of calling for Simmons’ removal during his rebuke of his leadership, Owens has repeatedly called a change in leadership crucial for the redevelopment of public housing. This would require firing Simmons. The SHA board has seven commissioners with five-year terms. Firing Simmons would require a majority of the board’s seven members to vote for his removal.
Williams’ appointment to the SHA board may help mark another step toward Owens’ vision to remove Simmons.
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