Apr 4, 2003 By Paul Sunyak 4 min read

A Thursday morning special meeting of the Fayette County Housing Authority board of directors was dominated by a two lengthy executive sessions, where the main topic was the employee performance appraisal of controller Sonya Over. The board also discussed new administrative job descriptions as prepared by consultant Peter R. Johnson & Co., and Executive Director Thomas L. Harkless said he’s hopeful the board can vote on approving that package at its May 10 meeting.

In recent months the board has wrestled with approving the new job descriptions, delaying the vote for various reasons. Harkless said one of those concerns would be addressed by sending the proposed new descriptions to the Pennsylvania Civil Service Commission for review.

However, all five board members spent a great deal of time in executive session acting as the collective reviewing officer for Over’s performance appraisal, a job traditionally handled only by Kenneth L. Johnson as board chairman.

Over has filed an appeal to civil service over a one-day suspension imposed by Harkless in January, related to her employee evaluation. Over’s appeal includes other “non-merit factors” that include an allegation that “the executive director is making unreasonable and unrealistic demands upon the staff of the finance department, as a result of myself and staff members at my direction providing information to various board members in reference to alleged violations of federal regulations,” according to a housing source.

Housing sources say that Over’s civil service appeal has already consumed one day of testimony in Pittsburgh, with another scheduled.

At Thursday’s meeting, all five board members signed a performance evaluation report prepared by Harkless that gives Over 30 days to comply with certain job-related functions, at which time Harkless will prepare a new evaluation of her performance.

The board action taken Thursday is merely an acknowledgment that each board member has reviewed and is aware of Harkless’ initial evaluation of Over’s performance, following a process that will be duplicated for all other department heads.

After the initial executive session – which included board members Johnson, Beverly Beal, Angela Zimmerlink, Nancy Sutton and James V. Bitonti – all board members except Johnson went into a second executive session.

There, they discussed in detail a memorandum that Harkless gave Over in December, covering 18 areas of her job performance where he wanted improvement. Johnson said he didn’t need to attend that closed-door session, as he was already intimately familiar with the issues via his prior experience as reviewing officer.

Sandwiched between the executive sessions, the board met in public and Harkless expressed his intention to pick up one-year options on the two solicitors used by the authority: the Davis & Davis law firm of Uniontown, which primarily handles day-to-day operational matters, and the Cohen & Grigsby law firm of Pittsburgh, which primarily handles labor law and real estate development.

“If I don’t hear any opposition, I will inform them that they will be around until the end of April 2004,” said Harkless.

Zimmerlink said her only problem with retaining Cohen & Grigsby concerned the firm’s scope of work, and Beal agreed with that position. Zimmerlink said that Cohen & Grigsby has been called upon to perform legal work that goes beyond items listed in their contract.

Johnson said that if that were the case, he would favor changing the scope of work to permit Cohen & Grigsby to do more types of things. “I think these guys are really good at what they do,” said Johnson.

Harkless said that he assigns authority legal work to the firms using his own best judgment, and vowed to be more conscientious of how the work is split in the future.

“Sometimes I consult with the attorneys and sometimes I just assign them work,” said Harkless.

Bitonti agreed with other board members who stated that they would prefer to keep as much legal work local as possible, meaning with Davis & Davis.

When Johnson repeated that attorney John M. “Jack” Purcell of Davis & Davis had previously said that sometimes the workload gets too big for him to handle, Beal suggested that the firm send another attorney to cover the ground.

“Get Sam or Jim (Davis),” said Beal, referring to the firm’s founders.