Mayor Villaraigosa hopes that new commissioners on the board of the city’s Housing Authority will help the embattled agency turn a corner. Last week, he named four new commissioners to the seven member commission after the terms of several expired.

The Housing Authority has come under fire this year after a series of actions that were described as politically motivated or unfairly retaliatory.

The Federal Housing and Urban Development Agency, as well as the Los Angeles District Attorney, have both begun investigating the commissioners because of actions they had taken. The former Board President is subject of an investigation because of a possible conflict of interest involving her employer, an affordable housing company.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa moved Thursday to replace a majority of the members of the housing authority’s board of directors, just as the agency  has come under scrutiny from the federal Housing and Urban Development Department’s  inspector general and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. 

Villaraigosa nominated attorney Dennis Hernandez, attorney Mitchell Kamin, public affairs director Kimberly Freeman and Isabel Ayala, a resident of the Ramona Gardens housing project, to serve on the seven-member board.

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