Montijo Quits Housing Post in Kansas City

Ben Montijo, fired last year as executive director of the San Diego Housing Commission, resigned Wednesday as head of the Kansas City, Mo., housing agency. The move came less than a week after it was disclosed that he billed his latest employer for $1,700 in travel expenses that he never incurred.

Montijo, 47, announced his resignation Thursday morning during a three-hour, closed-door session of the board of directors of the Housing Authority of Kansas City, said Bill Snower, an assistant to Kansas City Mayor Richard L. Berkley.

Montijo, hired by the Kansas City housing authority 10 months ago, resigned less than a week after the Kansas City Times reported that he billed the agency for meals and lodging in five cities--Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland--on the same days telephone records show he made long-distance calls from his Bonita home, south of San Diego. Although acknowledging that he took the side trips to San Diego, Montijo blamed the overcharges on “human error.”

Complete Review Asked

Snower said Montijo’s resignation from his $75,000-a-year job was effective immediately, but he will stay on 30 days without pay to help with the administrative transition. The housing agency has asked the Kansas City auditor’s office to conduct a complete review of Montijo’s 10 months in office, Snower said.

In a telephone interview, Montijo said he had intended to quit the authority by the end of September. The newspaper reports just accelerated his plans, he said.

“I want to do something else with my life right now,” Montijo said. “I never intended to stay here very long. That was pretty well known. Once this other stuff (newspaper disclosures) started, I decided that I wasn’t interested in going through the many months of the hassle.. . . I’m very, very, very confident that, when the audit is done, there won’t be any wrongdoing.

“I’m looking forward to my life no longer being in the public eye. I’m not going to say where I’m going to live, what I’m going to do.”

Montijo was quoted in the Kansas City Star as saying that he had been thinking about going into private business somewhere in the West.

The Star quoted the chairman of the housing authority as saying that none of the board members had asked Montijo to resign.

The Kansas City controversy is the latest to dog the outspoken administrator, who lost his job in San Diego after a series of allegations about financial improprieties.

San Diego City Council members said at the time that they let Montijo go after his political credibility was irreparably damaged by questions of alleged sweetheart deals and the use of public money to buy an expensive walnut desk for his office and a weight machine for his staff.