NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton Housing Authority (NHA) voted 5-1 to appoint the agency’s acting executive director Sharon Kimble to a permanent role, pending successful contract negotiations, at a meeting held virtually Thursday evening.

The vote came only three days after the NHA’s Board of Commissioners interviewed four candidates — Kimble, Kathleen Povar, Andrew Skoog, Maryrose Menash — vying for the NHA’s top seat.

Those who supported Kimble for the position, such as Commissioner Hank Abrashkin, praised her leadership of the city’s public housing in the aftermath of former Executive Director Cara Leiper’s suspension for alleged wrongdoing and subsequent resignation last year.

The NHA Board, partnering with thee Massachusetts Chapter of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Organizations (MassNAHRO) formed a subcommittee in January to begin searching for, and screening candidates.

“It takes a long time, several years, on the ground building, hard work and program oversight [to improve, or “turn around” a housing authority] … she knows the residents, the employees, the community and it’s really something to me, what she has accomplished with everything else going on, in such a short period of time,” Abrashkin said, referencing Kimble’s hiring of a maintenance director. “Sharon is not, and was not, a member of the so-called ‘old guard.’ I can confirm that she did not participate in the problems of the past.”

Board Chair Patricia Healey echoed Abrahskin’s remarks and outlined her reasoning for choosing Kimble by describing the positive momentum she has seen since Kimble took over s acting executive director.

“Sharon got a lot done in this organization without, without the staff she needed. She had multiple crises with the units that weren’t filled. Instead of blaming, she drilled down very quickly, found out where the culprit was, made rapid changes, made a deal with Greenfield to come in and assist quickly,” Healey said. “I feel pretty strongly that that Sharon will really take the helm of this organization and rapidly be able to build a staff and promote a good vision for this organization.”

Many of those who spoke in support of Kimble addressed rumors circulating on social media that the NHA Board had already decided to choose Kimble, prior to the interview process.

Commissioner Ben Wood, who initially stated that he supported candidate Andrew Skoog, but later in the meeting admitted that the board’s deliberations had “swayed” him toward supporting Kimble, was among the commissioners who vehemently denied these rumors of a fixed hiring process.

“If anybody is saying that there’s a decision that’s been made behind the scenes, it is, of course, complete nonsense — it’s just noise. Certainly, I have had zero conversations with any commissioners about who and how they were going to vote,” Wood said. “I have been swayed pretty significantly by a basic feeling that we need to turn the page and I feel like that is because of this endless cycle of innuendo and gossip, and what again feels to me like an impossible situation for commissioners like ourselves.”

However, NHA Commissioner Jo Ella “Jada” Tarbutton-Springfield, whose dissenting vote for Skoog was the sole vote for someone other than Kimble, argued that while Kimble might not have been complicit in the wrongdoing that occurred under Leiper’s leadership, she had “put her head down,” rather than report it.

Alluding to rumors that Kimble’s selection had been pre-decided, Tarbutton-Springfield said she is not, and would not, take part in a “scam.”

“Someone said this is a scam; that they’ve already made the decision, and I wrote back: ‘I am not now, nor will I ever be a part of this scam,'” Tarbutton-Springfield said. “Tenants, tenants, let’s think of them.”