Residents ask to testify in lawsuit vs. Atlantic City Housing Authority (2024)

ATLANTIC CITY — Atlantic City Housing Authority Executive Director Tom Sahlin is due to testify June 5 for the first time in a lawsuit over conditions at Stanley Holmes Village, and a lawyer for the residents is asking for a date when some of her plaintiffs can testify.

“We believe that their testimony would create a fuller record, with greater context, and allow us to present a more complete picture as to how the Housing Authority’s actions have affected our clients,” Olga Pomar of South Jersey Legal Services wrote in a May 15 letter to Atlantic County Superior Court Judge John Porto.

The court will wait until after Sahlin's testimony to decide if he needs to hear from plaintiffs, Porto said in a response Monday posted on the Superior Court's eCourts system.

The June 5 hearing is on a motion to enforce litigants’ rights. Pomar is asking the judge to enforce orders he had given to the authority dating back many months.

About 130 residents of the 420-unit complex are suing over a lack of heat and hot water, frequent gas leaks, mold and pest infestations, water intrusion and more.

Last month during a hearing, Porto said he cannot set any more deadlines for the authority to make improvements at Stanley Holmes, after it missed earlier deadlines, until he hears from Sahlin under oath.

“This court needs to hear some competent evidence in the form of testimony from an ACHA representative ... about order compliance and why previous orders were not complied with,” Porto said.

Among deadlines missed were those requiring the authority to provide plans for replacing the heating system at Stanley Holmes, for giving residents in the lawsuit court-ordered 25% rent abatements, and for replacing all old gas lines under Stanley Holmes.

In her recent request, Pomar asked for a separate date for her clients to testify, to avoid having residents having to return to court on multiple occasions, which would be difficult for those who have jobs, limited mobility or other issues.

In all but one hearing in the case over the past year and a half, Housing Authority attorney Rick DeLucry of Cooper Levenson has been the only attendee representing the authority.

At a hearing in October, Housing Authority consultant Mike Brown of the 360 Group in Philadelphia testified about advice he gave the authority, but no board member or staff member has ever testified in the case.

The authority recently hired an engineering and architectural firm, DeLucry said last month, so it is now in a position to begin moving on the heating system and more. But he acknowledged the firm has not yet completed its analysis to say when the authority can go to bid and install a new heating system or meet other deadlines.

DeLucry acknowledged he perhaps should not have agreed to past deadlines.

“The truth is we didn’t have the ability. ... I agreed to deadlines perhaps unwisely or precipitously,” DeLucry said. “We didn’t have the ability to deliver given that everything ... required an engineer we didn’t have.”

Pomar is asking the judge to set a detailed schedule for selecting by the end of May and installing by Oct. 1 a new heating system at Stanley Holmes.

She also asked the judge to order the authority to pay residents some amount weekly until it follows court orders, as a way to compel compliance.

“This court doesn’t want these residents to undergo what they have experienced the last two winters,” Porto said. “Whether it is inaction, inactivity, whether there is some paralysis with regard to analysis, whether it is budgetary issues ... this court is going to enter an order and oversee its enforcement.”