Contract of Housing Chief Extended 90 Days : Government: Move allows time for City Council performance review of Evan Becker that mayor sought.

Averting a political showdown, San Diego Housing Commission Executive Director Evan Becker agreed Friday to a 90-day contract extension to give the City Council more time to evaluate his performance.

That performance review, however, could reopen old wounds--notably, Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s anger over a housing deal involving a purported organized crime figure--and lead to a clash between the council and the council-appointed Housing Commission over who has the ultimate power over Becker and his agency.

At a special meeting Friday, the council, acting as the city’s Housing Authority, unanimously approved the three-month extension of Becker’s contract pending his evaluation by the council--a task previously handled by the seven-member Housing Commission.

Becker, who had balked at the extension when O’Connor proposed it Tuesday, willingly accepted it Friday, characterizing the shift as less a change of mind than the result of having additional time to reflect on the matter.

“On Tuesday, the matter got a little more complicated . . . and it became difficult for me to respond without an opportunity to fully comprehend the proposal,” Becker said. He did not want to permit his contract to be rewritten unilaterally, Becker added, without first getting a sense of what provisions might be changed or inserted.

Friday’s special joint session of the council and Housing Commission was necessary because Becker’s $93,700-a-year contract, which is renewed annually on Aug. 1, includes a provision requiring 60-day notice of termination.

As a result of Friday’s extension, the council’s deadline for notifying Becker whether he will retain the job he has held for nearly three years has been pushed back to this fall.

Though O’Connor and other council members have occasionally criticized Becker and his $81-million agency, which was created to provide low-income housing, Becker reiterated Friday that he has “no reservations about a performance review.”

“That’s not to say that in every area we’ve established goals and objectives, we’ve done a 9 on a scale of one to 10,” Becker said. “I think we’ve got some 9s in there, we’ve got some 8s and we’ve got some 5s. But we’ll stack up our record with that of any agency in the city, and, for that matter, any housing agency in any city in the country.”

Despite a widespread perception within City Hall that there may be ulterior motives behind the evaluation, O’Connor insists its purpose “is not to eliminate Mr. Becker,” but simply to provide closer council scrutiny of his and his agency’s performance.

However, a source in the mayor’s office has said that, if she had the votes, O’Connor would like to force out Becker or, failing that, at least dramatize her displeasure with him.

Last year, Becker and O’Connor clashed over the Housing Commission’s controversial plan to purchase two low-income apartment complexes from a Florida attorney with reputed ties to organized crime.

Over O’Connor’s vehement objection, the council approved the commission’s $385-million acquisition of the Penasquitos Gardens and Mt. Aguilar apartment complexes from Alvin Malnik. During the protracted, acrimonious debate, O’Connor sharply criticized Becker and his staff for not initially informing the council of Malnik’s background. A subsequent investigation by Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller cleared the commission of any wrongdoing.

Should the evaluation evolve into a vote of confidence over Becker’s tenure, he appears to have sufficient backing on the council to withstand the challenge. Indeed, even most of the council members who sided with O’Connor in pressing for the evaluation also took care to praise the 44-year-old Becker’s performance.

Because of the unusual nature of Becker’s existing contract, it was also necessary Friday for the Housing Commission--which consists of three council members and four public representatives appointed by the council--to ratify the extension. Technically, Becker’s contract is a three-party document in which the council, doubling as the Housing Authority, and the Housing Commission serve as his co-employers.

On Tuesday, a majority of Housing Commission members refused to go along with O’Connor’s plan for an eleventh-hour review of Becker’s performance, creating a peculiar standoff in which elected officials were stymied by appointees they selected. Like Becker himself, however, the commission also reversed ground Friday and seconded the 90-day extension.

Disturbed by the notion of the council’s latitude being restricted by its own appointees, O’Connor stressed Friday that, in conjunction with Becker’s evaluation, the relationship between the Housing Authority and the Housing Commission needs to be clarified.

“There’s some misunderstanding about who is the ultimate ratifying agency,” O’Connor said. “It’s the impression from the Housing Authority that we are.