Fifteen minutes into last Wednesday’s meeting of the Westport Housing Authority, acting board chairwoman Veronica Beaulieu announced her decision to resign effective this coming Tuesday, April 9, reached for her phone, pressed a few buttons and sat back as Frank Sinatra sprang forth:

“And now, the end is near,

And so I face the final curtain ...”

Sinatra’s “My Way” continued for another three minutes, and Beaulieu spoke again.

“It really sums up exactly how I feel.”

Beaulieu’s retirement was the last gasp of a housing board that, coupled with the expected resignation on June 30 of executive director Lucia M. Casey, leaves the board with just one member — tenant appointee Pauline Brodeur.

Former chairman Zach Rioux left late last year, state appointee Lois Spirlet’s term ended during Covid but she agreed to stay on though has since decided to leave, and Judith Menard has chosen not to run again for her seat, which opens Tuesday. That leaves one person on the ballot for three seats, apart from the state appointee position vacated by Spirlet — Tim Cayton, running for one five member seat.

After that?

“There’s an election next month,” Beaulieu told an audience member who asked what’s next. “Go out and vote.”

For Beaulieu, the end has been a long time coming, and was in part brought about by state-level changes that she said have made volunteering for the authority a hard, thankless task.

“There have been some issues,” she said Monday.

One of the big ones is the growing lack of local autonomy over placement in Greenwood Terrace, the authority’s 48-unit housing facility at 666 State Road.

The land on which Greenwood now sits was given to the town many years ago with the stipulation that it be used “for the needs of the people of Westport.”

But about 10 years ago, the state Senate voted to remove that provision, Beaulieu said, and since then Westporters interested in a unit have had no advantage over residents from other parts of the state in seeking housing here.

“So anyone interested in getting into housing, their applications go to the state,” she said. While housing at Greenwood used to be 100 percent Westporters, she estimates that less than 50 percent of the units are now occupied by locals.

“We’re bringing people in from all over,” she said. “Meantime the state criticizes us. It’s a real shame.”

Beaulieu told her fellow board members Wednesday that she has no regrets, so the Sinatra song was a perfect good-bye:

“I am not ashamed and I would not take back anything that I have done. The only thing I really regret is that I don’t feel at this time, that I can give to the people of Westport what they deserve.”