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Airing out 'our' dirty laundry

Jim Wise; January 28, 2006, News & Observer, The (Raleigh, NC)

So a former member of the Durham Housing Authority's board came to a board meeting the other day and declared that it ought to quit airing "our dirty laundry in public."

A sentiment, that, no doubt, is discreetly shared by others around town fretted by the so-called "image problem."

Also, perhaps, by those for whom it's better to leave past events in the past, for reasons of decorum, decency -- or probable cause.

Such sentiments, however, slide around a pertinent point: the dirty laundry in question isn't "ours" -- it's ours, as in yours and ours, friends 'n' neighbors.

The public is precisely where it needs airing, because it's the public's property -- just like the money the Housing Authority apparently misused for years -- and the public's problem.

Yeah, it's pretty embarrassing for the City of Bull, too. Truth hurts. Big deal. Better to get it out and get it over with, though around here maybe that's too much to hope for.

Housing has been a matter of public concern in Durham since at least 1940, when a federal study found almost two-thirds of the city's dwelling places were "substandard" in terms of structure, utilities, capacity and/or upkeep.

It's just that situation that led to the Durham Housing Authority's creation after World War II, to administer taxpayers' money routed through federal hands toward eliminating the urban slums that the New York Times, in 1949, called "our number-one national disgrace."

The Housing Authority itself became a matter of concern later on, as two board members pleaded no contest to illegal wiretaps in a public-housing complex during the 1950s, and, in the late '60s, its management of public housing and policies toward tenants became the flashpoint for Durham's civil-rights movement.

Developments opened as objects of civic pride in the 1950s, such as the now-demolished Few Gardens apartments, declined on the authority's watch into warrens of despair, poverty, crime and drugs.

Over the past three years, the Housing Authority's fiscal management has become one more Durham scandal. It's bad enough that many thousands of the public's dollars have vanished into "our dirty laundry."

It's even worse that the people ultimately ripped off are the needy folks who are supposed be helped by the public's taxes. Stealing from the poor box is pretty low -- even by Durham standards.

For the public -- that's us -- to let the dirty laundry fester in the bin would be equally irresponsible, if not equally despicable.

Because it's just such lack of public oversight -- which means, of public interest -- that encourages hanky-panky. Stonewalling, "losing" records, making excuses and otherwise covering up only put off the time the laundry's fragrance leaks out, and the public can't help but smell the roses.

And when the laundry's brought out for airing, it's best if it looks like it's getting cleaned.

Copyright 2006 by The News & Observer Pub. Co.
Record Number: its51389