D.C. housing advocates, public housing residents, and some members of the D.C. Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners are scrambling to block a bill the D.C. Council will take up Tuesday that would dissolve the current board and replace it with a smaller “stabilization and reform” board to oversee and steady the troubled agency.

The bill, unveiled late last week by Mayor Muriel Bowser and Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, would shrink the authority’s current 13-person board to seven members as a means to stabilize the agency, which is reeling after a scathing federal audit made public in October found that it was broadly failing to manage and maintain public housing in the city.

Under the current structure, Bowser nominates six of the 13 board members, and controls a seventh, giving her significant influence on the board. There are also three members who live in public housing and are elected by residents there, a member appointed by the council, and two members appointed by labor organizations and housing providers.

Under the bill, only two of the current board’s members would remain — one nominated by Bowser, the other by the council — and five new members would be appointed. In the process, the board members who represent labor and housing advocates would be removed, as would the three current members who live in and represent residents of public housing. One member of the new board would come from the umbrella organization for resident associations of different public housing communities.

The bill drew loud and almost immediate opposition from a number of individuals and groups, some of whom spoke Monday morning during an event organized by Empower D.C., an advocacy group that works with public housing residents. Much of the anger focused on the removal of the three public housing residents from the board, as well as the eliminating seats for representatives from labor groups and housing providers.

“The idea of removing resident commissioners elected by the very people we serve from their positions, the idea of removing all the voices that have elevated DCHA’s plight to the ears of [the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development]… these are blatant attempts to squash the voices that disagree. The voices that speak the truth. The voices of our residents,” said Bill Slover, a longtime board member who represents advocacy groups and has been critical of the management of the Housing Authority. Under Bowser and Mendelson’s plan, he would lose his seat on the board.

“We can’t sit by idly and allow the mayor to, without justification and/or explanation, blow up a board that, even though she controls its voice, was still able to elevate the failures of DCHA to get us to this critical moment that sees reform within reach but at risk of being snatched away by this attempt to silence our movement,” he added, referring to the bill as a “hostile takeover” of the authority’s board.

“My grandmother would say she’s really making a gangster move to silence the voices of a lot of people who are not in favor of the things that she wants to move forward with her agenda,” said Abena Disroe, a public housing resident and leader, referring to criticisms that Bowser has been pushing to redevelop public housing properties with more market-rate units. “And this is very, very, very wrong.”

Ann Hoffman, the labor representative on the board, said that some of Bowser’s proposed nominees for the new board, notably affordable housing developer Jim Dickerson, would be welcome additions, but she said she would rather see them added to the existing board instead of the board being made smaller.

Speaking Monday morning, Mendelson indicated that he would be making changes to the bill as a means to mollify some critics and ensure its passage. He said the bill would create a new nine-person board, instead of the initially proposed seven-person board, with one new member representing voucher-holders and the other being the director of the D.C. Inter-Agency Council on Homelessness. He also clarified that Denise Blackson, a current member of the board and public housing resident, would remain on the new board. But he also defended the overall proposal.

“Pretty much everyone agrees the current board is not functioning well. And if you accept that, then what do you replace it with?” he said. “What would make a difference is a collaborative board, a board steeped in expertise. When I say collaborative, I don’t mean rubber-stamping, but willing to work together. I don’t think we have a choice. The board has been so dysfunctional. This leads to enormous instability.”

Councilmember Robert White (D-At Large), who worked with Mendelson on the proposed changes to the bill, says he is of a similar mindset. “I didn’t love the mayor’s proposal, however when the HUD report came out it was clear to me that we are on the brink of a [federal] receivership,” he said in an interview on Monday afternoon. “The only way to avoid a receivership is a temporary reform board that is focused on expertise but includes resident voices.”

But at least two lawmakers have already expressed their concerns with the bill; Mendelson can only lose five votes if he wants to see the measure passed on Tuesday. Speaking at the Empower D.C. meeting on Monday, Councilmember Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) reiterated her concerns that the bill would merely give Bowser more control, and that it was being rushed through before the end of the year.

“This is not a problem that occurred overnight. The unsafe conditions, the lack of compliance, this has happened for eight years in which the mayor has had control of the board. To say there hasn’t been adequate mayoral control is just not true,” she said. “Residents should have input into the plan. I don’t disagree: we should have subject-matter expertise on the board. But we need to do it right. It shouldn’t be an overnight thing.”

That was largely the same message from the 34 social service and advocacy organizations that make up the D.C. Consortium of Legal Services Providers, which appointed Slover to the board in 2015. (He had also served from 2009-2011 as a mayoral appointee.)

“Although the D.C. Housing Authority is unquestionably in need of substantial reform, that fact should not be used to justify a radical overnight change in the structure of the board that may lead to reduced board independence and reduced oversight in how the DCHA carries out its critical work,” said the consortium in a statement. “We urge the council to oppose the emergency bill and take the time to get this important public governance issue right for D.C. residents.”

But White says time is not on the council’s side.

“There are some people saying, ‘Don’t do this now.’ Folks are missing some critical facts: we don’t have much time before we end up in a receivership,” he said. “One of the reasons we can make progress now is there are a lot of eyes on this, so there’s political will. But people will move on soon. We have a really good opportunity, and slowing down hurts residents of public housing and also hurts progress.”

This post was updated with comments from Councilmember Robert White (D-At Large).