Pierce’s Friend Got $350,000 From HUD

Former HUD Secretary Samuel R. Pierce Jr. reportedly awarded a friend a $350,000 development grant for two New Jersey projects that never were built, officials said Sunday.

Housing and Urban Development documents show that the 1985 grant was made to a Washington consulting firm, the Center for Resource Development, after other HUD officials had rejected the award, the New York Times reported in Sunday’s editions.

The firm’s principal was Samuel P. Singletary, a longtime friend of Pierce. The money came from one of two discretionary funds that Pierce controlled, the newspaper said.

Singletary managed Pierce’s unsuccessful campaigns for a judgeship in New York City in 1959 and 1960. He told the paper that he and Pierce met several times at HUD but they never discussed the grant. He denied that Pierce had done him a favor.

Through a lawyer, Robert E. Plotkin, Pierce said he did not remember the grant to Singletary. HUD officials acknowledged that there was opposition to Singletary’s group being awarded the money for economic development in Camden and East Orange, two New Jersey cities with blighted central districts.

East Orange Mayor John Hatcher Jr. told the Associated Press on Sunday that Singletary proposed a commercial project to make use of two abandoned buildings in the city’s Ampere section.

“And as far as I understand, they were pretty well set with the project as far as plans were concerned,” Hatcher said, yet the proposal never went beyond the discussion stage.

Hatcher said that most discussions between the city and Singletary’s firm would have involved city planners, and that he did not “get involved in technical details or get into a big dissertation with them.”

Camden Mayor Melvin (Randy) Primas also said he did not remember details of the grant, but added: “I think I remember the man, but nothing ever happened. We’re always getting developers in.”

DuBois L. Gilliam, a former aide to Pierce who managed the discretionary fund programs, told the New York Times that Pierce ordered him to award the grant to Singletary even though other HUD officials opposed it on grounds that Singletary’s group lacked experience.

Gilliam said that Singletary had repeatedly contacted Pierce, and that Pierce “told me he wanted us to help Singletary get some money. He said Singletary was a good guy.”

Gilliam has pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges involving other HUD grants, and is scheduled to begin an 18-month prison sentence, the newspaper said.

Even if the grant had been made, there was nothing improper about it, Plotkin said, since Pierce had the right to use the money at his discretion under HUD’s Technical Assistance program.

The Times said Singletary’s group originally approached HUD in 1985 for nearly $1 million for the New Jersey projects. A HUD official who talked to the Times on condition he not be identified said the proposal was rejected because of concern over its cost and the relative inexperience of Singletary’s group.

The group scaled back the proposal, and the $350,000 grant was approved through HUD’s regional office in New York.