Ousted Housing Director Accepts Kansas City Post

Ben Montijo, the controversial former executive director of the San Diego Housing Commission who was ousted by the City Council early this year, has accepted a similar post in Kansas City, Mo.

Montijo said Thursday night that he will begin his new job about Oct. 1, although he must still iron out a compensation package with Kansas City housing authority officials. He said he received the offer Wednesday afternoon and tentatively accepted it late Wednesday night.

Kansas City officials confirmed Montijo’s selection Thursday.

Montijo said he and Kansas City officials have agreed on “everything except the compensation package. We’re real close, and what I decided to do was go there and meet personally with them and finalize it.” He said he will probably fly to Kansas City next week.

Apartment Complex Allegations

Montijo was ousted by the San Diego City Council in February in the wake of allegations of irregularities in a housing commission deal for an apartment complex.

Under a federal rehabilitation program, the housing commission allegedly showed favoritism in helping a group of developers buy the 122-unit Island Gardens apartment complex formerly owned by the commission. The revelation that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development was investigating the sale prompted a separate city investigation that ultimately led to Montijo’s ouster.

Montijo, 47, said Thursday that he will leave San Diego without bitterness, and said of his ouster: “Those things happen. I mean, that’s life. Those things happen. I’m not bitter, but I certainly take issue with the way things were handled.”

Montijo said he will make about the same amount of money as executive director of the housing authority in Kansas City as he did here--$79,500--and that his new job is an “identical position (to the one he held in San Diego), and the agencies are really not that different in terms of the scope of what they’re doing.”

In a pointed reference to Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s leadership of the effort to oust him, Montijo said: “What’s attractive about Kansas City is they have a citizens’ review board rather than the city council sitting as a board.” Most of the San Diego housing commissioners are also members of the City Council.

Betty Blackmon, chairwoman of the Kansas City Board of Housing Commissioners, said Thursday night that a private investigating firm spent three weeks checking Montijo’s background and the allegations that led to his departure.

“Part of our process includes an investigation. We have a private investigative firm look into the background of all the applicants to look into any civil or criminal charges that have been filed against them, to make contact with various individuals. As a result of that investigative report, we were satisfied,” Blackmon said.

Blackmon said Montijo will take over a housing agency that controls some 4,000 units and has a budget of $4 million a year and a staff of about 100.

Initially, Kansas City’s five-member housing board had to choose among 30 to 40 applicants, Blackmon said. That pool was whittled down to five, then cut further to three. The board made its final decision Wednesday.

“Mr. Montijo is articulate; he knows how to manage . . . he has an ability to do long-range planning, goal setting and an ability to do project development,” she said.

Montijo said Thursday he was proud of the job he did for the San Diego Housing Commission, and added that he was glad to have worked with several of San Diego’s leaders, especially former Mayor Pete Wilson and City Councilman Bill Cleator.

Montijo pointed to the fact that the housing commission staff increased from 30 to 140 employees under his leadership as evidence that he built the commission into a healthy, thriving entity.

He said he left his successor with “an agency that was greatly more productive than the one they handed me, and one that was much more innovative than the one they handed me.”

Montijo was eventually undone by the revelations of irregularities in the Island Gardens deal. The commission apparently violated federal guidelines when it relied on “word of mouth” rather than advertising to spread the word on the availability of a program that guarantees relatively high rents for 15 years after the sale.

Before the revelations about the Island Gardens deal, Montijo was accused of billing the city for questionable travel expenses, furnishing his own office lavishly and using federal funds to buy a weight machine for employees. In an internal city investigation that was disclosed last month, Montijo was also accused of using employee evaluations to punish and reward his top aides after he was let go.