Housing Director Finalists Named

Fri., April 14, 2000

By Jonathan Martin jonathanm@spokesman.com

The Spokane Housing Authority will pick an executive director within a week, said Jan Bastine, chairwoman of the authority’s board of commissioners.

The board is sifting through five finalists selected after a nationwide search. All have extensive experience in public housing; none has local ties.

The post, which pays between $48,000 and $62,000 a year, is being vacated by Mary Jo Harvey, who had led the agency for 17 years before announcing her resignation.

Bastine said the five-person board will make a selection after receiving criminal background checks on the five finalists, which should be finished by Tuesday.

The board is looking for a person with leadership and administrative skills to guide the agency, which has 40 staffers and a budget of $13 million a year.

The five finalists:

Don Wakefield, modernization director of the Independence, Mo., Housing Authority.

Dianne Quast, asset manager for the Seattle Housing Authority.

Sheila Smith, executive director of the Garfield County Housing Authority in Battlement Mesa, Colo.

Clyde Caldwell, vice president of the private Radelow/Gittins Real Property Management Corp. in San Diego.

Terry Madigan, executive director of the Kennewick Housing Authority.

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