Housing, 1951–53. It was Cronk, "an enemy of public housing since its inception," who introduced a controversial motion that eventually ended a $110 million public-housing program in the city. In a council meeting the next year he angrily castigated Leo A. Vie, a city housing commissioner, who was reported to have said that opponents of the program were "scum." He said that Vie should be "asked to resign." Other council members supported the commissioner's right of free speech. The council sent Cronk to Sacramento to lobby the State Assembly in support of bills that would "limit autocratic powers of public housing authorities."