PHA board may pick fill-in chief

Former city Managing Director Phil Goldsmith is the leading candidate to head the Philadelphia Housing Authority while its board investigates sexual-harassment and other allegations against suspended Executive Director Carl R. Greene, two board members said Wednesday.

Goldsmith, 65, was managing director from 2003 to 2005 under former Mayor John F. Street and is a logical choice to take over for Greene temporarily, based on his resumé and his lack of political baggage, said board members Jannie L. Blackwell, a city councilwoman from West Philadelphia, and Patrick J. Eiding, president of the Philadelphia Council of the AFL-CIO.

"That just struck me as a credible name who could come in there and be objective," Eiding said. "He's the kind of guy that won't create the kind of controversy that will have the politicians in this city jumping" on the board.

As of Wednesday, sources said, Street had reached out to Goldsmith, who would not comment for this article.

If he is offered the position, Goldsmith would be going back to work for his old boss, Street, who chairs PHA's five-member board and who has led the effort to put Greene on leave pending the outcome of the board's investigation. The board meets again next Thursday.

The board voted unanimously on Aug. 26 to suspend Greene with pay and launch a probe into at least four sexual-harassment claims against him. Settlements totaling nearly $900,000 have been negotiated in those cases since 2004, payouts that board members say Greene authorized without their knowledge.

The FBI and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development inspector general have launched a criminal investigation into various aspects of PHA's operations, including nonprofits that PHA contractors were asked to help fund. HUD auditors arrived at the agency Wednesday to begin an audit.

Blackwell said the PHA board authorized Street on Tuesday to approach potential candidates to run the agency on an interim basis. But she said she opposed hiring anyone before HUD auditors finished their business and Greene had a chance to respond to the sexual-harassment allegations.

Street encouraged board members to forward him names of possible interim directors, she said.

"I did not vote for hiring anybody at this point," Blackwell said. "I'm always for due process."

As far as Goldsmith's being a candidate, she said: "Nobody had a problem with it."

In an e-mail Wednesday, Street said Goldsmith "was among several people whose names were mentioned as possible candidates."

"Everyone knows Phil; he has filled in before at the school district, the parks and . . . served as managing director with distinction," Street said. "No decision has been made on any name. There is lots of interest."

As managing director for two years, Goldsmith was responsible for overseeing the government's daily operations. He resigned in 2005.

On Wednesday, Mayor Nutter said through a spokesman that he would defer to HUD on the board's actions.

"Given HUD's involvement, we defer to them to determine how, if at all, a change in PHA leadership might impact their independent investigation," Nutter's spokesman, Doug Oliver, said in an e-mail.

Though the mayor gets to name two members of the PHA board, he has yet to indicate whether he planned to reappoint or replace Blackwell, whose term expired in 2008. Nutter will get to make his second appointment when Street's term expires in September 2011.

HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims wrote to the board last week, notifying members that he was sending in a team of auditors and urging them "not to make any new appointments or management changes to PHA's senior team at this point."

But Eiding said the board believed that what HUD did not want in the director's position was an insider who could be implicated in any findings against Greene.

"Just because there are so many questions, we need to go outside to have this temporary oversight," Eiding said, defining temporary as "until Carl Greene is reinstated or we have a new executive director."

Before serving as managing director, Goldsmith was tapped for another temporary job, running the city school system.

That was in 2000, when the schools were in a financial crisis and faced a state takeover. Goldsmith spent 14 months in charge and resigned as his contract was about to end, in order to protest a proposed $101 million contract with a private education company.

During his tenure, he reorganized the district's management system, saving more than $60 million over five years and sending more than 100 administrators back to the classroom.

City Controller Alan Butkovitz, who also controls two board appointments, said Goldsmith has "a strong reputation as a cleanup guy."

For 12 years in the 1980s and '90s, Goldsmith was a top executive at PNC Bank. He also served as director of communications for former Philadelphia Mayor Bill Green's 1979 campaign and once was an editorial writer for The Inquirer. He currently writes a column for the Philadelphia Daily News.

Blackwell said that, according to Street, hiring an interim executive director did not clash with HUD's directive not to make major personnel changes until it completed its investigation.

"He said he thought it was OK, and there would be no problem," she said.

HUD spokeswoman Donna M. White said only: "The audit has begun and we will not have any additional comments until the audit is completed."

With Greene's job on the line, observers of developments at PHA say whoever leads the agency in the future must have not only technical expertise in public housing and public finance, but also the ability to restore the agency's integrity.