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Having just received the current issue of Insight, I would like to pass
along a few observations and comments on your lengthy coverage of the
Gwendolyn McIver matter.
Of course, as an in-house newsletter and not
a newspaper of record you are certainly under no obligation to seek
comment from the Housing Authority before printing your article. However,
inasmuch as I am apparently mentioned specifically, although not by name,
as having provided nothing but “excuses and suggestions” including one
that was deemed “offensive” by your staff, it doesn’t seem out of line to
expect that someone would have asked for my opinion before printing your
article. Your article prints as fact statements which were only
allegations in a lawsuit which never came to trial about myself, the
Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority and our housing manager. It omits
numerous inconvenient facts which would, if printed, not prove helpful to
the thesis of your article, including the fact that offers of units were
made to the plaintiff in timely fashion, and she rejected them because she
did not like the neighborhood.
After several years of having what I
believed was a mutually respecting and cooperative relationship with your
agency, I am dismayed that the goals of fund raising and
self-congratulation have replaced any thought of, or attempt at, balance
and fairness in your description of this settlement to your members.
For what it is worth, and I suspect it is
very little, the B.M.H.A. settled this matter at the urging of our
insurance carrier, which made a very reasonable cost-benefit analysis of
the pros and cons of litigation. Had the decision been mine, I would have
litigated the matter. The plaintiffs were extremely sympathetic, and my
heart went out to them, but I maintain to this day that this agency acted
as quickly as possible within the policies and provisions under which we
labor, and that the amount of the settlement was excessive.
This letter was written in response to the article in Insight, Summer 2004
entitled “A Dream deferred: BMHA pays family $125,000 to settle disability
case.” You can read the story in its entirety elsewhere on HOME's website
at
www.homeny.org/insightissues.
Insight welcomes letters from our readers and will publish them as
space allows. You may write to us at HOME, 700 Main Street, Buffalo
NY, 14202 attn: Insight, or email us at
homeny@homeny.org. If your letter is in response to an Insight
article, please include the word Insight, the title of the article
and/ or the issue to which you are responding in the subject line.
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