"We think it's very unfair that something that was on the back burner for eight or nine months, now be brought up in an open meeting," Reynolds said.
Reynolds, who was on the 10-member committee that drafted the original lease proposal last year, has had problems with the lease ever since the issue was brought up.
Like many tenants, she has argued that the authority should repair its existing housing stock before it tackles such weighty issues as a new lease.
Reynolds yesterday stood up before about 100 tenants and PHA managers and urged them to leave the room if the federal officials who took over PHA in May were going to insist on discussing the new lease.
At one point, Reynolds stood in front of PHA Special Master Elton Jolly and Michael Smerconish, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development regional administrator, and said: "I can't wait for Nov. 3 to come."
Nov. 3 is Election Day. It is widely believed that Smerconish, a Republican, will lose his job as regional director if Democrat Bill Clinton ousts President Bush.
Jolly attempted to calm the audience by taking a voice vote, but a majority voted to table the discussion on the lease. Jolly, at Reynolds's request, said that he would set up a meeting between tenant council presidents and PHA officials.
The lease covers almost every aspect of a tenant's life in a PHA development, from allowable major appliances to grievance hearings.
One of the most controversial aspects would allow PHA to evict a tenant if the tenant or guests or family members are caught committing a crime on or within 500 feet of a PHA property.
