A Number of Players Vying to Become Next HUD Secretary

A number of names are being considered to be selected as the new Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Here is a brief summary of some names being considered according to news reports and rumors circulating in Washington.

Jesse Jackson Jr.: Rep. Jackson (D-IL) is seeking to replace President-elect Barack Obama in the Senate. Jackson has told friends he is interested in becoming HUD Secretary if he is not selected by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to replace Obama. Jackson, son of Civil Rights Activist the Reverend Jesse Jackson, represents Chicago’s Second Congressional District. Prior to his congressional service, Representative Jackson served as the National Field Director of the National Rainbow Coalition. In this role, he instituted a national non-partisan program that successfully registered millions of new voters. He also created a voter education program to teach citizens the importance of participating in the political process, including how to use technology to win elections and more effectively participate in politics.

Shirley Franklin: She has been the mayor of Atlanta, Georgia since 2001. Never having previously been an elected official, Shirley Franklin became the city’s first woman mayor, and the first African-American woman to serve as mayor of a major southern city. On 8 November 2005, she won re-election with more than 90 per cent of the vote. She has drawn rave reviews for her work in balancing the city’s budget in her early tenure as mayor although her decisions did alienate many including some of her supporters. In 1991, Ms Franklin joined the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) as the top ranking female executive, serving as senior vice-president for external relations. In this position she was instrumental in the development of such legacies as the Centennial Olympic Park and served as ACOG’s primary liaison with various labor unions, civil rights groups, neighborhood/community organizations, and environmentalists.

Antonio Villaraigosa: Villaraigosa was elected mayor of Los Angeles in a runoff in 2005. He became the first Hispanic elected to be mayor of that city. He has been elected to a number of positions serving as a state lawmaker, a speaker of the California State Assembly, and a Los Angeles City Councilman. He was a co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and has extensive ties to labor unions. He is a Los Angeles native.

Adolfo Carrión, Jr.: He is currently the Bronx Borough President. He has an urban planning degree and worked for a period of time in the planning department’s Bronx office. If not appointed to a position in the administration, he is expected to run for the City Comptroller’s office. Affordable housing and job creation have been the center piece of his work in the Bronx.

Nelson A. Diaz: Diaz was General Counsel at HUD in the Clinton administration where he focused on reforming public and mixed-use housing programs. He was as judge for the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas from 1981 to 1983 – the first Hispanic judge in Pennsylvania history. He was appointed administrative judge by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, where he saved the state millions of dollars annually and used a nationally recognized Pro Tem Judges Program to reform the court’s case flow efficiency. He was a White House Fellow, serving as Special Assistant to Vice President Walter Mondale, and was also the Executive Director of the Spanish Merchants Association of Philadelphia. He was served as City Solicitor of Philadelphia. Both there and at HUD he was instrumental in increasing the number of women and minority lawyers in both organizations.

Saul N. Ramirez, Jr.: Ramirez is currently the executive director of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) in Washington, DC. He was the Deputy Secretary at HUD during Andrew Cuomo’s tenure at the department. He is a former mayor of Laredo, Texas and spent over 20 years as an owner of an insurance business.

Manuel A. Diaz: Diaz is in his second term as mayor of Miami. He is currently president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. He pursued a massive overhaul of the city’s finances at a time when the city was bankrupt, held junk bonds and was under a state oversight board. The city is now sound financially and has an A+ bond rating on Wall Street. The city has also increased its production of affordable housing by leveraging public/private investments toward 3500 affordable units since 2001 at a combined public and private investment surpassing $600 million with a billion dollar investment pledged by 2010. He is an active proponent of green building across the city and this year, presided over a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the City’s first LEED-certified affordable green home.

Frederick B. “Bart” Harvey: Recently elected to the board of the Federal National Mortgage Association, Harvey retired in March 2008 from his role as chairman of the Board of Trustees of Enterprise Community Partners, a provider of development capital and technical expertise to create affordable housing and rebuild communities. He joined Enterprise in 1984, and a year later became vice chairman. He also was Enterprise’s chief executive officer from 1993 to 2007. Before joining Enterprise, Mr. Harvey served in various domestic and international positions with Dean Witter Reynolds, leaving as managing director of Corporate Finance.

White Appointed Leader of S&P’s Public Finance Housing Group

Standard and Poor’s recently announced the appointment of Valerie White, as team leader for Standard and Poor’s Public Finance Housing Group. White joined Standard & Poor’s housing group in 1999, most recently after more than eight years at the New York City Housing Authority, where she served as chief of the Statistics Department, executive policy assistant for the Board of Commissioners and General Manager, and deputy director for Asset Management and Private Market Operations. She holds both a B.A. in Communications and a J.D. from Fordham University, as well as an M.S. and Certificate in Organization Development from New School University.

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