A Rockingham Housing Authority board member, upset over the condition of some units, became so upset Thursday that he was nearly removed from the meeting.

The conflict between board member George Stone and the rest of the board began when Interim Director Jim McCaskill discussed capital improvement plans. It continued for nearly two hours until the board was interrupted by Rockingham Police Chief Robert Voorhees who insisted that Stone let the meeting proceed.

Following approximately an hour and a half in closed session, the rifts appeared to have been healed.

Stone was apparently incensed at the outset of the meeting over conditions he’d witnessed in at least one apartment the board inspected during a tour of facilities belonging to the RHA earlier in the day. He questioned whether federal stimulus money could be spent on more urgent matters than the completion of a roofing project.

“I think we have a lot of needs, and I think we should reallocate some of this money,” Stone said. “We have seen a lot of needs today, and if a roof is not leaking, that’s something that needs to be done when everything is under control.”

McCaskill went on to explain to Stone the nature of the federal funding, and the fact that it would be withdrawn from the agency if it is not spent by March.

The capital improvement plan to use $500,000 in stimulus money to replace the roofs on 60 units was first discussed with the RHA board in its May meeting. It was approved at the board’s July meeting when Stone was not present.

“I wasn’t here,” Stone said.

Several members of the board pointed out despite the fact he wasn’t there, the information was included in the minutes of the last meeting.

“I didn’t see it,” Stone said.

Discussion of the capital improvement plan then resumed, but was quickly disrupted again. Stone said one of the residents was being left “living in a hell hole.”

“What did you see today that was so bad structurally?” board member Cohen Cox asked Stone.

“I’m saying we should make these places habitable for these people,” Stone said. “Does your house look like that? I’ve never been there.”

“No, I clean mine,” Cox answered. “We are responsible for the structure of the buildings, not going in and cleaning them.”

"I can't believe a person is living in those conditions, and I especially can't believe he sat there and smiled about it," Stone said.

"That's his personality, George," Cox said. "He's a packrat. If you cleaned it, it would look like that again in three months."

The conversation continued.

“I’m telling you that the roofing project will not take away from capital improvements,” Joe Mendola said at another point. “Did you have these questions in 2006? That’s what I want to know.”

Discussion followed about the order of the packet, and Stone said he could not locate materials because it was ordered in a confusing way.

“I heard you mention roofs, but I can’t find it,” Stone said. “This is not the way things should be done, you have to go looking for everything. We should be aware of what we’re spending.”

McCaskill replied he would address the layout of the packet before the next meeting, but Stone’s protests continued intermittently throughout the meeting.

At one point, Stone stood to speak.

“I’ve never seen anyone standing over the other board members like this in a meeting before,” Mendola said, asking why Stone was standing.

“So I’ll be heard,” Stone said. “This is not the way things should be done. We need to prioritize the problems we have.

“It just does not make sense to not to take this money and allocate it to fix some of the problems we saw today,” he said at another point in the argument.

He replied to statements the plan was approved in July by saying, “We didn’t know about that at the last meeting. We really need to quantify what we need done.”

Once Stone was seated, a heated discussion continued, and he stood again repeating his concerns over the conditions of one of the apartments.

Mendola stood as well, reiterating his point the plan would not take away from capital improvements.

“And we’ll talk about this later,” Mendola said as the two men returned to their chairs.

Stone agreed to move onto another item in the staff report, but insisted the board revisit his concerns.

Board member Sabrina McDonald pointed out when the tour was taken the previous year, the group rode a bus, as opposed to going into apartments this year.

“It was just like, ‘Oh, what pretty buildings,’” she said.

“That was why I did this,” McCaskill said. “Instead of just seeing buildings, it puts a human face on it.”

The meeting proceeded through several agenda items, when Stone continued to protest the format of board members’ packets.

“You are out of order, George, and if the chairwoman calls you out of order, which I think she should’ve already, I’ll happily escort you out of this room,” Voorhees said after the meeting was repeatedly disrupted.

Stone asked Voorhees why he was present at the meeting, and Voorhees replied he is the police chief and he was there to keep order.

He then asked the Chairwoman Denise Sullivan why Chief Voorhees was at the meeting.

“This is an open meeting and anyone can attend who wants to,” Sullivan replied.

After nearly two hours in open session, the board went into executive session for about an hour and a half. Upon returning to an open meeting, discussion of how the board should proceed involved mainly Mendola and Stone talking with McCaskill.

Neither appeared to be perturbed as Mendola asked McCaskill what he could do to help the RHA over the coming weeks.

“I don’t want to just sit and wait for the next meeting,” he said. “You (McCaskill) are working your butt off and I want to know how I can help you.”

McCaskill said the board could make its wishes clear.

“If the board can collectively come up with a vision of what it wants the Rockingham Housing Authority to be and where it wants it to go, that would be helpful,” McCaskill said.

“It is clear we can’t manage this housing authority with what we’ve been doing,” Stone said. “I think we need to look at the ways we want to change things and have some standard procedures in place.”

“We’re going to have to think outside of the box to get this done,” Mendola said. “Because of the … I’ll call it turmoil … that has surrounded the Rockingham Housing Authority, this is not a typical situation.”