New commish of Dade County Housing is a comic

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on July 25th, 2009

Talk about your versatility! Talk about your lucrative hobby!

Mayor Carlos Alvarez has hired a former professional comedian– who was forced to resign as San Francisco’s housing director last year– to lead the county’s embattled public housing agency.

Greg Fortner, who has said he began his public-housing career to make ends meet while he did stand-up in Los Angeles, will have to dig deep to find something to laugh about at Miami-Dade’s Public Housing Agency, the most troubled department in county government.

He was pulling down $210,000 a year in a similar position in SF. He got canned there and moved across the bay to Oakland. Now he’s flying to Miami to gig there.

He was still performing as a comedian up to six times a year as recently as 2006 while running the San Francisco housing agency. He’s scheduled to emcee a comedy night next month at a Los Angeles club, according to the club’s website.

He took that gig after his predecessor was canned in 2000. Lasted a good five or six years.

Despite the grumblings of the folks in Miami-Dade politics, we suspect that Fortner’s dismissal from the San Francisco job was motivated by politics and not for incompetence. Mayor Gavin Newsome’s office said, “The mayor thinks very highly of Gregg Fortner and wishes him well in this new post.” First Joey Novick as Flemington Borough councilman, then Al Franken goes to Washington. Now this!

Read the whole thing. (Thanks to FOS Aaron Ward for the tip!)

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