Sound Shore

Attorney James Johnson, the court-appointed monitor overseeing Westchester’s implementation of a fair-housing settlement, spoke Wednesday in an Editorial Spotlight interview on LoHud.com about the court case that gave rise to the agreement, Westchester County’s plans to site and build 750 units of affordable housing, and the “tone at the top” set by County Executive Rob Astorino’s administration. Here’s a video of the complete session:

He has been in the middle of a storm. Attorney James E. Johnson, the court-appointed monitor in Westchester’s fair-housing/False Claims Act case, will appear in an Editorial Spotlight interview 11 a.m. today on LoHud.com.

Over the next seven years, Westchester must build 750 units of affordable housing, most of them in overwhelmingly white communities that have long shunned or discouraged such housing.

The obligation arises from a controversial settlement and consent decree brokered last year by the Spano administration and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and approved by the U.S. District Court. HUD entered the case after the nonprofit Anti-Discrimination Center of New York, a fair-housing group, successfully argued in a lawsuit that Westchester had failed to discharge its fair-housing obligations, despite accepting millions of dollars in federal funds and pledging that it had.

Under the agreement, the county must affirmatively market the units in Westchester and nearby communities with large nonwhite populations, though the housing will be available to all income-eligible populations. Johnson recently told the federal court that the county’s most recent plan for implementing terms of the consent decree “falls short of a true plan to comply with either the stipulation’s specific terms or its overarching goal of building a more integrated Westchester.”

Watch the interview at www.LoHud.com/editorialspotlight; to submit a question during the LIVE interview, engage the CoverItLive feature on the computer screen.

Attorney James E. Johnson, the court-appointed monitor in Westchester’s fair housing/False Claims Act case, will appear in an Editorial Spotlight interview 11 a.m. Wednesday on LoHud.com.

Over the next seven years, Westchester must build 750 units of affordable housing, most of them in overwhelmingly white communities that have long shunned or discouraged such housing. The obligation arises from a consent degree brokered last year by the Spano administration and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and approved by the U.S. District Court. HUD entered the case after the nonprofit Anti-Discrimination Center of New York, a fair housing group, successfully argued in a lawsuit that Westchester had failed to discharge its fair housing obligations, despite accepting millions of dollars in federal funds and pledging that it had.

Under the agreement, the county must affirmatively market the units in Westchester and nearby communities with large non-white populations, though the housing will be available to all income-eligible populations. Johnson recently told the federal court that the county’s most recent plan for implementing terms of the consent decree “falls short of a true plan to comply with either the stipulation’s specific terms or its overarching goal of building a more integrated Westchester.”

Watch the interview at www.lohud.com/editorialspotlight; to submit a question during the interview, engage the CoverItLive feature on the right side of your screen.