"It seems to me you can't avoid doing that by simply having an arrangement between a law firm and a lobbying firm," she said.
Urban - whose clients include Comcast, SEPTA, and Temple University - said no other public client made payments through a law firm.
Congress requires housing authorities - as federally funded agencies - to file lobbying-disclosure forms because it wants to make sure that federal dollars earmarked to build housing for the poor aren't being spent on lobbyists.
Taxpayers "should demand and expect to know where [housing authorities] are spending their money and how they are spending their money," said Mark Studdert, who ran HUD's congressional-relations office from 2005 to 2008.
Kelly said that, since the start of this year, PHA has had "no federal lobbyists working on ... anything to do with HUD."
Previously, Kelly headed housing authorities in Washington, New Orleans, and San Francisco. He is also president of the Council of Large Housing Authorities, a trade association that lobbies on behalf of public housing agencies in major metropolitan areas.
About the federal guidelines controlling lobbying activities, Kelly said: "It's not a system built to be unclear or to make it difficult to make these kinds of disclosures."
He said that in his previous work at other housing authorities, he did not rely on outside lobbyists. "I was my own lobbyist."
PHA paid outside lawyers to shadow federal auditors. HUD
is demanding that
the housing authority repay $726,400.
Contact staff writer Jennifer Lin at 215-854-5659, jlin@phillynews.com,
or @j_linq at Twitter.
