Bradenton Housing Authority wants more input on code enforcement process at Bradenton Village Apartments

BRADENTON -- Bradenton Housing Authority Executive Director Ellis Mitchell Jr. said Thursday that the BHA needs to be more involved in the ongoing code-enforcement process at Bradenton Village Apartments.

About half the units at the complex are public housing, but a development agreement signed in the early 2000s to build the complex excluded the BHA from management.

Despite finding more than 125 code violations remaining from a 2011 inspection of the complex during a January reinspection, the city opted in March to strike another deal with property owner Telesis Corp., out of Washington D.C., rather than pursuing the quasi-judicial process of the code-enforcement board. Mitchell said the BHA is being kept up to date Telesis' progress, but only after the fact.

The public housing units at Bradenton Village had the largest percentage of violations: 77 out of 129 violations documented.

Mitchell said the number of violations in public housing units has dropped to 56 since the March agreement

was struck.

Telesis president and founder Marilyn Melkonian canceled a March meeting with the BHA and has declined multiple requests from the Bradenton Herald for comment. Mitchell said he has asked to be a part of the city's monthly meetings with Telesis with no response to date.

Telesis defends its complex, citing a 2014 Department of Housing and Urban Development inspection that gave Bradenton Village a passing grade, scoring more than 38 points out of a possible 40. The city's process is more stringent, however.

"Somehow, the city and Telesis have worked out another arrangement," said Mitchell. "I have asked to be invited to those meetings and I'm only concerned with our (public housing) units."

While city and BHA staff work on communication issues, elected city officials are pledging more involvement than in previous years when the housing agency was headed by former executive director Wenston DeSue, who is under federal investigation and whose now-wife, Stephany West, has agreed to plead guilty to a theft charge related to her former work at the BHA.

At Thursday's BHA board meeting, City Councilman Harold Byrd Jr., the city's new liaison to the BHA, pledged stronger city support going forward. For example, Byrd said he wants to renew an effort to turn a problem piece of vacant property in between Bradenton Village and G.D. Rogers Garden Elementary into a community garden.

"It doesn't look like there will be any development there any time soon, so it's a public-safety issue being so close to the school," Byrd said.

Mark Young, Herald urban affairs reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7041 or follow him on Twitter @urbanmark2014.

This story was originally published April 17, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Bradenton Housing Authority wants more input on code enforcement process at Bradenton Village Apartments ."