(This story was updated to add new information.)
The CEO of the Corpus Christi Housing Authority has been terminated.
After a two-hour executive session on Sept. 15, the majority of the Board of Commissioners voted to terminate immediately the employment of Gary Allsup, who led the agency for nearly 14 years, according to the agency’s website.
The board appointed housing authority Chief Financial Officer Rhen Bass to act as interim CEO after Allsup’s departure.
Allsup declined comment through his executive assistant, Valerie Hernandez, shortly after the meeting.
He did not immediately respond to a message sent by the Caller-Times later in the afternoon of Sept. 15.
There was no public discussion among commissioners during the meeting regarding the vote or whether high-profile events preceding the meeting had played a role in the decision by the prevailing board members to fire Allsup. The housing authority in recent months has been embroiled in controversy over questions about adherence to the Texas Open Meetings Act, Allsup’s salary and public pushback over a workforce housing initiative.
The controversy
The housing authority has for years carried a relatively low profile prior to April, when local taxing entities learned that the agency had acquired 13 private apartment complexes, cumulatively valued by at least $330 million.
The move took off the table millions of dollars in property taxes that would otherwise help fund community services, according to representatives of Del Mar College, Nueces County and the city of Corpus Christi, in statements made earlier this year.
The apartment complexes had been acquired by the housing authority at no monetary expense as part of creating a workforce housing opportunity program, officials said.
Under the program, at least half of the units in each complex were required to be priced at a cost considered affordable to the “workforce.”
In exchange, the private apartment owners would be promised a tax exemption, officials said.
The program would make room for a portion of the population considered “the workforce” — generally meaning those whose incomes are too high to qualify for subsidized housing, but too low to afford available market-value housing.
Federal definitions state that housing is considered affordable when no more than 30% of household income is spent on housing costs, plus utilities.
When more than 30% is spent, the household is considered “rent-burdened.”
Disagreement over the need for the program — and whether property tax exemptions could be granted as part of the arrangement — has lingered for months.
Allsup has asserted that the program helped meet the needs of a population often overlooked for housing affordability, while opponents have said the focus of the housing authority should be on low-income housing.
Apartments that had applied for property tax exemptions were denied, Board Commissioner Greg Smith told the Caller-Times on Sept. 15.
Smith was not on the board at the time the housing authority created the workforce housing program, and is instead among three new commissioners appointed by the mayor to the board in May.
The CEO
Documentation of Allsup’s contract, dated as being signed in March, was obtained by the Caller-Times through an open records request in June.
Among its included terms, the document shows that at the time of termination, Allsup was slated to earn a salary of $528,074, with a bonus of $257,742.
Prior to his hire at the Corpus Christi Housing Authority, Allsup was employed for five years with the Kansas Housing Resources Corp. as its executive director and, prior to that, had worked for three years with the Missouri Housing Development Corp., both part of a cumulative 25-year history in housing, according to CCHA’s website.
Allsup told the Caller-Times earlier this year that he also had 40 years of experience in government.
Board Commissioner Joe McComb, who was among the three new commissioners appointed in May, told the Caller-Times that there was “an issue of whether it was a valid contract or was it not a valid contract.”
He’s had other concerns in his time on the board, McComb added.
“We’re there to do what we can for the best interest of the housing authority, and you’ve got to have a high level of confidence,” he said. “My confidence was beginning to wane a little bit.”
Smith said “there were a number of factors that went into the decision,” but declined to elaborate, pending resolution on terms of separation.
The board will begin a search for a new, permanent CEO, he added, describing Bass — who will act as interim — as having “served the authority well for the past five years.”
Board Commissioner Judith Gonzalez-Rodriguez declined to comment on Allsup’s termination, citing it as a personnel matter.
“I know that the board will continue to move forward with our mission, which is to provide housing for families in our community,” she said.
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: The Corpus Christi Housing Authority CEO has been terminated
Reporting by Kirsten Crow, Corpus Christi Caller Times / Corpus Christi Caller Times
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