Elmer Smith: PHA chief Carl Greene's liabilities now outweigh his legacy

CARL GREENE was as good as it gets. But now he's as good as gone.

The decision yesterday by the PHA board to suspend him pending an investigation by PHA and an audit by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development may leave him in limbo. But the only thing that should really be pending is the date of his departure.

He deserves due process. That's not too much to expect from a PHA board whose oversight failures make them at least partially complicit in anything he's guilty of.

But we deserve public officials who conduct our business in ways that benefit us and conduct their business in ways that don't dishonor us.

I've said it before: Carl Greene may be the most creative public official I've seen in local government. He has done more to raise property values here than any big-time commercial developer in town.

But his liabilities now outweigh his legacy. He's become a luxury we can no longer afford.

Much of the controversy he finds himself mired in is of no consequence. I think the pay issue is bogus. I don't calculate how much a person is worth by comparing him to other officials. If you want to judge him on comparables, find another public official with a comparable track record.

I don't care about his personal finances. If he has trouble paying his mortgage, it's his problem. John Street managed to provide years of useful service despite owing a back utility bill.

And for all we know, Greene may be innocent of all the sexual harassment charges that have dogged him for years.

But this relentless parade of real or perceived victims exposes us to almost unlimited liability. Taxpayers reportedly have shelled out close to $1 million and counting to his alleged victims.

Aside from the costs, to let this pass would raise serious questions about our values.

How much will we overlook to retain a public official who has served us well? How many of us held our noses to vote for men like Vince Fumo and state Rep. John Murtha, who breached ethical and legal boundaries? They kept us in pork. We kept them in power.

Nobody brought home the bacon like Carl Greene. The Obama administration lauded him for his ability to expedite the use of stimulus money. They were so impressed, they sent him another $127 million that he used to build or refurbish another 1,200 units.

He has a well-deserved national reputation as a turnaround specialist in public housing and urban development.

Carl Greene came to town at a time when Section 8 was the most explosive and divisive issue in city government. It was freighted with racial and class subtexts that polluted the political climate.

But he managed to quiet that controversy. He closed the Section 8 eligibility list, redirected some Section 8 money into existing developments in North Philadelphia and West Philadelphia.

He demolished rows of blighted buildings, such as the old Richard Allen homes in North Philadelphia, to make way for modern, energy efficient, semi-detached homes with off-street parking. Similar PHA developments have sprung up all over town.

PHA has become the city's leading real-estate developer and property manager. And Greene has leveraged his federal bankroll to provide training programs, including a pre-apprenticeship that has led to jobs in the building trades for PHA residents.

What I'll remember most is how effective he was in using federal programs and dollars to transform public-housing renters into homeowners and taxpayers.

But, along the way, Greene adopted an autocratic management style that made him hard to work for or with. He developed a sense of entitlement that may have led to some of the most serious ethical issues that have been raised against him.

If the PHA and HUD probes reveal that he pressured PHA vendors to make donations to his charity, that alone would be enough to compel his dismissal.

This city owes Carl Greene a lot. But it does not owe him permanent employment.

Send e-mail to smithel@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2512. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/smith