NEWS LOOSE LIPS
Coup? What? Where? When?
Darrow Montgomery/File
In a deposition, DCHA Director Tyrone Garrett says he fired his deputy because she plotted to overthrow him. Chelsea Andrews, the former deputy who is now suing DCHA, says that’s ridiculous.
Tyrone Garrett By Mitch Ryals @MitchRyals LL has an idea for the cash-strapped D.C. Housing Authority: Bring in some bright lights, mic up the staff, and let the cameras roll. The District’s biggest landlord could certainly use the extra revenue that an unscripted DCHA drama is sure to rake in, considering its derelict properties and waning federal support. There’s even a frame for the pilot episode: DCHA Director Tyrone Garrett’s sworn deposition in a whistleblower lawsuit his former second in command, Chelsea Andrews, filed last year. Andrews claims she was fired after raising concerns about the procurement and authenticity of masks bought to protect DCHA employees during the pandemic. Garrett claims he had lost trust in Andrews and that she openly mocked his vision in front of subordinates. During his six-and-a-half hour testimony, delivered on Jan. 14, Garrett accuses Andrews of “berating” a DCHA board commissioner
into changing a vote, he tussles with Andrews’ attorney, Carla Brown, over Andrews’ efforts to empower women in the agency, and he describes seemingly innocuous interactions with Andrews over office space, tickets to Michelle Obama’s book tour, mistakenly sent selfies from a night out, and his support (or lack thereof, depending on your perspective) for Andrews’ internal leadership initiative. All of it, in Garrett’s mind, was evidence of a plot by Andrews and two former members of his senior staff, deputy general counsel Ed Kane and chief development officer Darrell Davis, to stage a coup. In his deposition, Garrett says his human resources director, Natasha Campbell, told him about a conversation where Davis “referenced two teams at the organization: the Chelsea team and the Tyrone Garrett team.” According to Garrett, Davis told Campbell that he, Kane, and Andrews were “ready and prepared” to take over DCHA. Garrett acknowledges that he never talked with any of them about Campbell’s disclosure. All three deny they plotted to overthrow
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Garrett’s reign over public housing in D.C. In a statement to LL, Kane writes that “the appropriate place to address and/or publicly adjudicate the specific, patently false, and frankly absurd claims and mischaracterizations made about me is in the ongoing litigation.” But, he adds, “I categorically deny any knowledge of, or participation in, any purported coup or other attempt to usurp or undermine the executive director’s authority.” Davis writes in an email to LL that to buy into Garrett’s characterization, “one would have to believe that I would be dumb enough to plan a coup and then go to HR to discuss it.” He writes that anyone familiar with DCHA, “knows that [DCHA Board Chairman] Neil Albert controls the DCHA Board and Tyrone’s fate. The day Chairman Albert gets tired of Tyrone’s antics he will be packing his bags. If I were interested in planning a ‘coup’ I would have been talking to the Chairman, not Chelsea.” Dav is ack nowledges he spoke w it h Campbell on multiple occasions about dysfunctionality within DCHA and about factions within the agency.
“I told her that for us to accomplish anything, we first had to come together as a team,” he says via email. “We had the talent to accomplish big things but DCHA was a toxic work environment, and no one trusted anyone.” That his conversations with Campbell were “twisted into some sordid tale about an attempted coup is a perfect example of the toxicity at DCHA,” he adds. Andrews, for her part, calls Garrett’s accusations defamatory and said in an interview last week that they amount to further retaliation against her. “I don’t even understand what that means,” Andrews told LL at the time. “I have no idea how you stage a coup or overthrow the executive director who is appointed by a board. It sounds ridiculous. And it goes without saying, but let me say it: It is completely false and without merit and ridiculous.” In Garrett’s telling, Andrews’ attempts to undermine him and her alleged attempted overthrow started showing about a year into his tenure at DCHA. In November 2018, former first lady Michelle Obama brought the tour for her memoir, Becoming, to Capital One Arena. Andrews told Garrett ahead of the event that she’d received tickets through a friend and planned to invite DCHA’s female employees. She recalls Garrett suggesting that male agency employees might also want to attend. Garrett says in his deposition that Andrews believed women in the agency needed to be empowered. “ What’s w rong w it h t hat?” Brow n, Andrews’ attorney, asks in the deposition. “Nothing, but I believe the whole entire agency needed to be empowered, men and women,” Garrett responds. “Right, all lives matter?” Brown prompts. “No ma’am, don’t — no. We are talking about two different things,” Garrett says. “We’re talking about me running an agency and trying to keep a cohesive team right? And what was being said and what was being touted was that there was going to be division between men and women within my organization. You cannot function when you have that type of divisiveness.” Andrews ultimately used the tickets as she intended. She adds that Garrett purchased copies of Becoming for all the attendees and included a handwritten note in each one. “This was around the #MeToo movement, I’m the No. 2 leader at the agency, and I’m a woman,” Andrews says of her thinking. “And it dawned on me that this was a great opportunity to lift up the women and hear a very inspirational speaker, the first lady.” Garrett also attended the event. In his deposition, Garrett says he and Larry Williams, senior VP for property management and a main character in Andrews’ lawsuit, bought their own tickets, though he says they did not attend the event together. Garrett denies Brown’s assertion in the deposition that he does not believe women at DCHA need to be empowered.
