Kuzemchak calls for HOPE VI forum

Last May, Alderman David ‘‘Kip” Koontz (D) made a similar request after residents of South Carroll and East streets questioned the HOPE VI project of 36 houses and apartments. A public meeting took place in June, but without someone from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which funds the HOPE VI initiative.

Kuzemchak said Monday that having a HUD representative at the meeting she is requesting is ‘‘an absolute.”

‘‘If we don’t have someone from HUD there, we are spinning our wheels,” Kuzemchak said. ‘‘It would be a useless meeting without someone there.”

With a verbal commitment by Mayor W. Jeff Holtzinger (R) to schedule the session and invite a federal representative, Kuzemchak said the meeting will look ‘‘at the entire project.”

That idea sits well with Alderman Alan E. Imhoff (R), who also feels the time has come for a refresher, given new aldermen, a new mayor and new residents to the city since the original HOPE VI agreement was signed in 2002.

‘‘The concept remains the same and the purpose remains the same,” he said. ‘‘...Perhaps what is needed is to go to square one and get a record of what has been agreed to, what has changed during two administrations to put us where we are today and what is left to be done.”

E. Kevin Lollar, HOPE VI project manager for the Frederick Housing Authority, an independent nonprofit organization that oversees the project for HUD, said he agrees with Imhoff and Kuzemchak. Lollar said he was already in the process of preparing a presentation of HOPE VI history to present at Neighborhood Advisory Council meetings soon.

Teresa Justice, the housing authority’s executive director, called Kuzemchak’s request ‘‘totally reasonable,” and that the authority tries ‘‘to keep the city generally informed.” The housing authority is not a city agency.

At last week’s meeting, Kuzemchak said she is having difficulty obtaining answers from the housing authority. Praising Lollar as cooperative, Kuzemchak did not have the same feeling about his agency.

‘‘I don’t trust [the housing authority],” she said. ‘‘We’ve had issues with housing authority properties ... and can do nothing about them.”

Kuzemchak said her mistrust of the agency goes back to when it was chosen as the agent for HOPE VI six years ago. ‘‘We [as aldermen] have tried to get information [on other projects before HOPE VI] and haven’t gotten it from the housing authority,” she said. ‘‘They are not cooperative in general.”

Kuzemchak said she would ‘‘absolutely” advocate for one person from the city to ‘‘run the show” and provide regular updates on the project’s progress through the planning and engineering stages.

Justice agreed with Kuzemchak on Tuesday, indicating that miscommunication was an issue ‘‘in the past,” but ‘‘I think progress has been made.”

Also at last week’s meeting, the aldermen unanimously voted to reallocate some of the city’s $4.2 million commitment to the HOPE VI initiative. Originally, $28,464 was committed to a park on the former Hanson⁄Taney site, but plans for such a park became too small.

City staff then recommended that the money be used for renovations to Hospital Park off Trail Avenue, two blocks from the proposed Hanson⁄Taney replacement housing. The aldermen agreed and those funds will be coupled with a $50,000 commitment from HOPE VI developer, TCG Venezia, to buy playground equipment as the start of renovating the neighborhood park.