D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson have introduced emergency legislation that would dissolve the D.C. Housing Authority’s current 13-member Board of Commissioners and replace it with what they call a streamlined seven-person “stabilization and reform” board to help steady the embattled agency in the wake of a scathing federal audit on its management of public housing in the city.

The proposal, which will be voted on in the D.C. Council on Tuesday, quickly drew criticism from some housing advocates, who derided it as an undemocratic “power grab.”

Bowser said Thursday that the new board would remain in place for three years and help direct the authority’s response to the October audit from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which catalogued 82 deficiencies in everything from repairing public housing to actually making sure units are occupied. Bowser likened the new board to the control board she appointed in 2021 to oversee the troubled United Medical Center hospital in Ward 8.

“I think everybody is really clear that this board needs to function and be efficient and be responsive to the needs of the Housing Authority residents,” she said in an interview. “And we think that this is a reset that is in order so that the board can focus on its mission, not on its differences.”

Under Bowser and Mendelson’s plan, only two of the board’s current members would remain: finance and investment specialist Melissa Lee and affordable housing advocate Raymond Skinner. (Both joined the board in 2021; Lee was appointed by Bowser, Skinner by Mendelson.) Skinner would serve as the new board’s chairman.

The D.C. deputy mayor for planning and economic development would be replaced by Bowser’s budget director; the current three designated members who are supposed to live in public housing would be replaced by a single representative of an umbrella organization of public housing resident councils; and new members would include retired affordable housing developer Jim Dickerson, former D.C. official and real estate professional Jessica Haynes-Franklin, and former city official and current Georgetown University vice-president Christopher Murphy. A representative from the office of the D.C. Chief Financial Officer would serve as a non-voting member.

Currently Bowser nominates six of the board’s members and her deputy mayor serves as a seventh, giving her significant sway over the board’s decisions and actions. But in recent years there has been growing turmoil on the board, and the HUD audit accused the board of “poor oversight.”

“Some members believe mayor and District appointed members vote as a group without individual review of the action requested. Some Board members feel they do not receive sufficient information to make decisions at meetings, while others feel adequate information is received,” said HUD in the audit, in which it recommended that commissioners receive more training and conduct better oversight.

“My view is that the board is increasingly viewed as dysfunctional,” said Mendelson on Thursday. “And it’s making it more difficult to turn around the agency.”

But some public housing advocates said they were aghast at Bowser and Mendelson’s proposal, in part because they say that some of Bowser’s appointees were responsible for the turmoil and that current members who represent labor and housing providers had loudly raised concerns with the Housing Authority’s operations.

“The labor position on the board, the advocates’ position on the board, these are the people who have sought answers when these development deals haven’t made sense. They have held [authority director] Brenda Donald and her predecessors accountable. It’s contradictory to better oversight [to remove them]. It’s the mayor’s own appointees who have contributed to rubber-stamping,” said Parisa Noruzi, the director of Empower D.C., an organization that works with public housing residents.

Bill Slover, the current board member representing housing advocates, echoed that point. “Silencing people with alternative views undermines democracy,” he tweeted.

Norouzi also called the proposal an undemocratic “power grab” by Bowser, one that would minimize the number of board members who live in public housing.

“It’s hugely undemocratic when residents of public housing have elected representatives to the board to simply strip that away with no conversation with affected people,” she said. “At the end of the day we have no idea whether these [new] people are going to move the agency towards the mayor’s development vision or the real goal of safe, healthy housing for the lowest-income people.”

Similar notes of dissent came from at least two members of the D.C. Council, which will have to vote Tuesday to approve Bowser and Mendelson’s plan. (Because it is an emergency bill, it will take nine votes to pass.)

“We all agree that things need to change for residents of DCHA properties,” tweeted Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1). “But this move undermines public trust at a time when we need to restore it. And it undermines a core democratic function of the board of [commissioners].”

Councilmember Elissa Silverman (I-At Large), who has said she will introduce a bill to overhaul the Housing Authority, said in a statement that she will vote against Bowser and Mendelson’s proposal.

“The D.C. Housing Authority needs a Board of Commissioners independent of mayoral control that truly acts as a governing body, providing sound fiscal management and operational oversight while including and respecting the voices of the very residents it is supposed to serve. This proposal doesn’t do that, and it removes the very commissioners who have been the most reform minded. What this does is use the window dressing of ‘stabilization and reform’ to consolidate the mayor’s power and make this critical affordable housing agency an appendage of the administration and its economic development needs,” she said.

Speaking Thursday, Bowser largely ducked responsibility for allegations that her board appointees could be partly responsible for the problems at the Housing Authority, saying simply that she stood behind them and that they had received unanimous council confirmation. (That’s not completely accurate: four lawmakers voted “present” on the 2021 confirmation of Dionne Bussey-Reeder to serve as board chair.)

And she insisted that the move to create a new board was intended to create “stability” at the Housing Authority, as well as to attract new leadership for the agency once Donald departs at some point in 2023. Speaking to lawmakers on Wednesday, Donald pledged to make sweeping changes to respond to the HUD audit, and asked for patience from the council.