Former San Marcos mayor named interim head of Housing Authority

The Kyle Housing Authority Board appointed former San Marcos Mayor Frank Arredondo to be the authority’s interim director this evening and guaranteed no one will attend its next meeting which it scheduled at the same time as two of the traditional New Year’s Day college football bowl games.

Frank Arredondo

Arredondo, who lost a bid last year for re-election to the San Marcos City Council, will assume his new position in Kyle on Tuesday. He will succeed Vickie Simpson, whose administration of the authority came under fire from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees public housing projects. Within hours of the HUD criticism being made public, Simpson submitted her resignation effective Dec. 31.

Perhaps ironically, Arredondo is a retired HUD employee as well as the mayor of San Marcos in the 1970s. He made housing, both low-income and executive housing, a principle plank in his unsuccessful run to return to the San Marcos City Council last year.

"I oversaw several programs within HUD in West Texas and Northeast Texas," Arredondo told me shortly after the board made the announcement of his appointment. "I’ve been chair of the San Marcos Housing Authority as well. I served there for three years after I retired from HUD. I have time on my hands and I have the resources and the experience to share to help Kyle out with its housing authority."

Arredondo said the first item on his agenda will be to try and meet with each resident living in Kyle’s two complexes managed by the authority. He also said he is anxious to look into the authority’s financial ledgers and "the way the operations are set up."

He also said he would "most definitely" attempt to arrange a meeting with Simpson prior to her departure.

"She probably has more in her head than is in writing when it comes to the housing authority," Arredondo said.

He said his only interest right now is being the interim director and it "depends on how much I can get done" as to whether he will seek the position permanently. "I want to see what the possibilities are and whether this needs more time than I’m willing to give. We’ll see in the next 60 days."

The authority set the dates for its next four meetings during the next two months, the first one of which is scheduled for right about the time the Rose Bowl game between Southern California and Penn State is due to end and the Sugar Bowl contest between Oklahoma and Auburn is scheduled to begin — 6 p.m., Monday, Jan.2 The next three meetings are on the books for 6 p.m., Friday, Jan. 20; 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 2; and 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 23.

The board also agreed to approve a contract for legal services with the same firm that handles the city’s legal affairs.