WPCNR Rotunda Report. By John F. Bailey. October 29, 2003: While cooling my heels in the media holding tank at City Hall, better known as the Rotunda, during the la new WPHA headquarters to be built into 225 South Lexington Avenue, to the Design Review Board Monday evening, which he told me will hold a groundbreaking December 12.

HOUSING AUTHORITY IN ACTION: Mack Carter told WPCNR about the new atmosphere of tenant pride and purpose blooming in the Authority's buildings thanks to Housing Authority "building makeovers", and the installation of a Tenant Watch program in cooperation with the White Plains Department of Public Safety. Photo by WPCNR Newstest Common Council “secret” Executive Session Monday night, I had the pleasure of chatting with Mack Carter, Executive Director of the White Plains Housing Authority. Carter was there to present designs of the

Mr. Carter, on board as Executive Director of the Authority for little more than a year, reported that the Housing Authority is reaching out to the buildings they manage throughout  the city to build new bridges of tenant cooperation. In the meetings he has held with tenants, he reports he has received a new spirit of interest and cooperation in bringing Housing Authority buildings  back.

He announced that the White Plains Department of Public Safety has agreed to work with a select tenant force creating “Tenant Watches” building-by-building to tighten up the wanderings of unauthorized nonresidents whom Mr. Carter said compromise the buildings’ security.

Physical Issues Finally Being Taken Care of if Tenants Take Responsibility.

Carter told us that he has held discussions with tenant representatives of  Buildings 11, 159, and 135, and has come to a meeting of the minds with the residents. He said he has taken the position that the Housing Authority will address their concerns about “fixing the infrastructure, the intercom systems, the doors, conducting extermination  requests, cleaning the floors, if, in return, the tenants have control of their building, and take responsibility for it.”

“We have established a Tenant Watch,” Carter said, at 11-159 and 135 in the Winbrook complex, “which will have select residents sitting in the lobbies of the buildings, simply to ask questions of persons going and coming  whom they do not recognize as persons who live in their buildings. A majority of the security problems at the complex are caused by persons who do not live there.”

Carter reported the White Plains Department of Public Safety is working with the Housing Authority to train residents to make up a Tenant Watch program. He said the members of Tenant Watch will wear yellow jackets with an “Eye” logo to identify themselves. He said Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety, David Chong, is aiding in providing training for these persons in terms of legal issues, how to conduct themselves, and procedures in handling situations of concern.

Carter said his building at 86 DeKalb already has a Tenant Watch in place and he is very happy with the new atmosphere of security and pride in the building there.

“The residents need to be much more vigilant. If we don’t know about it (a dangerous, suspicious situation), we can’t do anything about it,” Carter said, indicating that the Tenant Watch program is an effort to discourage the non-resident influences that he feels create chronic unsafe situations and  in the complex.

2 Weeks in Place.

Carter reports that it has been two weeks since Building 159 has been participating in the program, and he is very pleased with the new protocols and atmosphere at that building.