Pittsburgh mayoral spokeswoman Alecia Sirk resigned yesterday, and her husband, Urban Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Pat Ford, was placed on paid leave, pending a State Ethics Commission investigation into his receipt of gifts from an executive at a billboard firm that got a lucrative deal that Mr. Ford smoothed.

Mr. Ford's many roles -- sign expediter, lease negotiator, pal to business, housing board chairman -- also have come under challenge from Washington, as the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development ordered him off of the Pittsburgh Housing Authority board, citing conflicts of interest.

Ms. Sirk confirmed yesterday that the two have repeatedly exchanged gifts with Lamar Advertising Real Estate Manager Jim Vlasach, including a surround sound system she got for Christmas 2006.

Mr. Vlasach said that he probably gave Mr. Ford "some cigars, and maybe a few neckties" last Christmas. That happened days after Mr. Ford was involved in granting Lamar a no-bid lease for a 1,200-square-foot electronic billboard on the front of the Grant Street Transportation Center, and a permit for that sign that was stamped without invoking the public hearings and votes that the city code may require.

Mr. Ford's friendship with Mr. Vlasach goes back to his stint as city zoning administrator from 2001 through early 2004, when the two were negotiating "swaps" of vinyl billboards for electronic ones, including some that apparently circumvented the city Law Department.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl gave Mr. Ford a role of unprecedented scope, serving as executive director of the Urban Redevelopment Authority, housing authority board chairman, Pittsburgh Parking Authority board chairman until he left that post early this year, and unofficial overseer of some planning functions. Yesterday, he altered that portfolio.

"Obviously, I have concerns about it. As a result of those concerns, the actions of today were taken," Mr. Ravenstahl said. Mr. Ford "asked to be placed on paid leave pending a state ethics review that he also asked for. ... I would like to have the benefit of the State Ethics Commission's opinion as soon as possible."

Mr. Ford is also off of the housing authority board.

Ms. Sirk's departure, the mayor said, was "a mutually agreed-upon conclusion" that was not based solely on her receipt of gifts from Mr. Vlasach. He would not discuss other issues.

Concerns about Mr. Ford's relationship with Mr. Vlasach stem from a lucrative billboard deal that the URA director shepherded through the city bureaucracy. Lamar agreed to give up six vinyl billboards in return for approval for one digital sign on the Grant Street building owned by the parking authority. Mr. Ford approved of a $3,000-a-month lease negotiated by agency Executive Director David Onorato and Mr. Vlasach. It was never put before the full authority board.

Two competing billboard firms have said the deal is favorable to Lamar, and an executive from one has called it "a sweetheart." Lamar executives have said in conference calls with industry analysts that billboards around half the size of the one proposed for Grant Street bring in $18,000 a month.

Mr. Ford has argued that only Lamar could do such a deal, because any other firm would run afoul of billboard spacing rules due to the nearby signs that Lamar is taking down. He advised current Zoning Administrator Susan Tymoczko to grant the billboard permit without requiring hearings and votes by the Zoning Board of Adjustment, the Planning Commission or City Council. The city code indicates that approvals by some or all of those bodies are required for Downtown billboards, but Mr. Ford has argued that because the sign replaces six others, those rules don't apply.

Five council members have filed a zoning board appeal, set for a hearing this morning. Lamar countered by suing them in civil court.

Mr. Vlasach said he did not believe his firm got special treatment at Mr. Ford's hands.

"We're good friends, and at Christmas time, we exchange gifts," he said. The surround sound system he gave Ms. Sirk was worth "maybe a couple hundred dollars, maybe less," he said. His gifts last Christmas weren't of great value, he said.

"To me, this is about their friendship," Ms. Sirk said. She was the URA's main street program coordinator in 2006, and didn't have any dealings with Lamar, and figured there was nothing wrong with accepting a gift.

Mr. Ford was a city employee through early 2004, and from early 2006 until his elevation to the role of URA head last October. The city code says employees can't "solicit or accept [gifts or favors] from an interested party, nor shall any interested party offer or give anything of value to a public official, City employee or agent of the city" with some exceptions. The only one that could apply to Mr. Vlasach and Mr. Ford is the exception for "an occasional nonpecuniary gift of nominal value."

Mr. Ravenstahl said he wasn't aware of the gifts, and said Mr. Vlasach hasn't offered him gifts.

Mr. Ford has been negotiating deals with his friend for much of the decade.

"I knew he and Jim Vlasach were very tight," said Susan Golomb, who was city planning director under former Mayor Tom Murphy, and Mr. Ford's boss when he was zoning administrator from 2001 through 2003. "They spent a lot of time together."

She didn't view their friendship as a problem.

Mr. Vlasach said he and Mr. Ford negotiated a 2003 arrangement in which Lamar took down 36 vinyl billboards in return for uncontested permits to build six digital signs. Late that year, Lamar attorneys Goldberg, Kamin and Garvin proposed a framework for more such trades. City Solicitor George Specter, then a deputy in the Law Department, wrote Mr. Ford an e-mail saying he had "some serious problems with it," and he never approved it.

Mr. Specter's unease didn't stop the deals. "Thereafter, in 2004 and 2005, six (6) additional LEDs were permitted by Mr. Ford and two (2) subsequent Zoning Administrators," Mr. Specter wrote last week. "I was not aware of the six (6) additional LEDs."

In 2004, when Mr. Ford was zoning administrator under Mr. Murphy, he wrote a memorandum to then-Chief of Building Inspection Ron Graziano related to three former Lamar billboard sites. Lamar had taken down signs on the sites -- on Second Avenue in Hazelwood -- and the property owner sought to put up new billboards that he would manage personally.

Mr. Ford cited code provisions that he said nixed the erection of new signs on the site. The code provisions are some of the same ones that, he has said, do not apply in the case of the Grant Street Transportation Center.

Mr. Ford left in 2004 for a job in Pompano Beach, Fla. When he visited Pittsburgh, he visited Mr. Vlasach and they exchanged gifts, according to Ms. Sirk. Mr. Vlasach said he never visited Mr. Ford's Florida home.

News of the gifts broke after Internet blogger Bram Reichbaum asked Ms. Sirk about entries in her now-defunct Internet blog that discussed their friendship with Mr. Vlasach. One such entry, from June 2006, said they "spent a wee bit of [T]uesday afternoon playing hooky," smoking cigars, drinking, and ending up on Mr. Ford's rooftop deck.

Mr. Ford then approached the Tribune-Review to discuss the relationship.

"Once again, it is a black eye for government," said City Council President Doug Shields. "The appearance of a compromised position is as harmful to the city as if there was, in fact, a violation" of ethics rules.

Sister Patrice Hughes, chair of the city's Ethics Hearing Board, said she will wait to see if anyone files a complaint against Mr. Ford or Ms. Sirk before taking action.

Lamar has placed Mr. Ravenstahl's face or name on free billboards lauding the Redd-Up Campaign and the region's hosting of the U.S. Open golf championship. In addition, attorney Jonathan Kamin, who represents Lamar in the just-filed lawsuit against five City Council members, gave Mr. Ravenstahl's campaign an in-kind donation in February 2007 worth $2,755, and characterized in campaign finance filings as "event catering."

On Monday, HUD's Pittsburgh Office of Public Housing Director James D. Cassidy wrote to A. Fulton Meachem Jr., executive director of the housing authority, demanding Mr. Ford's resignation from that agency's board.

Mr. Cassidy wrote that HUD determined that there was a "conflict of interest involving Mr. Patrick Ford" that it did not specify. Administration sources said the conflict stemmed from Mr. Ford's roles with both the housing authority and URA, which sometimes do deals in which their interests may not fully align.

"The conflict of interest is a serious matter that must be resolved expeditiously," the letter went on to say. HUD funds most of the authority's activities. "The only viable resolution is the immediate resignation of Mr. Ford from the Housing Authority's Board of Commissioners."

Mr. Ravenstahl said attorney Fred Frank will replace Mr. Ford on the board. Last week the mayor submitted four new housing authority board appointees, including Mr. Frank, to City Council for consideration as part of a group of 12 board picks, but then he withdrew them all for reconsideration.