Drew Dixon
Turbulence at the Jacksonville Housing Authority (JHA) continues as the agency appoints yet another Chief Financial Officer.
After the JHA board thought they had a permanent CFO in Tyson Montoya when they agreed to appoint him in June, they had to re-open the position. Montoya, who is the CFO of the Utah Communications Authority, was selected in June to replace previous JHA CFO Dennis Lohr following a national search. Montoya was supposed to assume the position July 3 but turned down the role before his July start date.
The CFO position at the Jacksonville Housing Authority remained vacant over the summer. But in the last week of August, the agency found at least an interim CFO.
Long-time Jacksonville attorney, certified public accountant and nonprofit operative Mamie L. Davis agreed to temporarily lead the Jacksonville Housing Authority late last month.
Davis’s law firm in Jacksonville specializes in bankruptcy, estate planning and other legal and financial areas of practice.
While she accepted the CFO position for the JHA on an interim basis, she brings decades of serious government and nonprofit service. Davis was a Standing Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Trustee for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida in Jacksonville from 1993 to 2007. Earlier in her career, Davis was a contract price analyst for NASA at the Kennedy Space Center.
In the nonprofit arena, Davis is a past member of the board of trustees for Hubbard House Inc., a nonprofit women’s domestic violence shelter in Jacksonville.
Davis enters the JHA amid a rocky year for the housing agency. The Jacksonville Housing Authority has sustained repeated criticism, including a city Inspector General’s report in late 2023 that claimed the agency engaged in wasteful spending and mismanagement of a utility assistance program for residents.
Earlier in August, the JHA board appointed Roslyn Mixon-Phillips to fill the interim CEO post. Mixon-Phillips assumed that role after one of the board members, Andre Green, resigned from the panel in January as JHA faced an investigation into allegations of unnecessarily spending in excess of $1 million in federal funds, and a series of utility payment cards that allegedly were misused.
Shortly after Green’s resignation, then-CEO Dwayne Alexander resigned from JHA. In published reports, Alexander claimed he was being “pushed out” of the agency by Mayor Donna Deegan.
The Mayor’s Office denied any such maneuver and a spokesman said Alexander voluntarily stepped down.
Just last week, a former JHA financial executive, Gregory Samuel Williams, was arrested by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office on charges of fraudulent use of a credit card. The arrest was linked to the Inspector General’s investigation, according to a Florida Times-Union report. Williams is suspected of of using the prepaid credit cards from the FHA at local restaurants.
