[Nfb-or] Action Needed: OCB Proposed Plan

[T. Joseph Carter]

Sorry, I should've posted an update.

The plan as written is dead.  Even if it were a great idea, I 
understand from Kevan Worley and Scott LaBarre that it would require 
changes in federal law before it could become practical.  More than 
that, though, right now is not a great time to ask Oregon legislators 
to make changes to the applicable state laws.

Said more plainly, if they decided to essentially gut the vending 
program and turn vendors' livelihoods into a bit of extra revenue for 
the state, only the vendors would be directly affected.  And even if 
they rallied the entire blind population to seek retribution in the 
next election, we're not a large enough population to affect the 
outcome of the election.  It's probably best not to draw their 
attention to the possibility just now!

There is a working group looking to see what can be done to improve 
the program, but legislative changes are off the table for the time 
being.

The problem is that many of the vendors feel they've been burned once 
too often, so there's not a whole lot of trust.  The vendors as a 
whole are saying that they feel the Commission has been dismissive of 
their concerns, failed to involve them where they ought, and engages 
in practices even after they've lost grievances over them and signed 
binding arbitration agreements agreeing to certain changes.

The Commission's response appears to be to dismiss their concerns, to 
shut them out of processes where law indicates their involvement, and 
maintaining those practices.  The latest in this vein appears to be a 
proposed resolution for the board of commissioners that boils down to 
saying essentially that they consider the vendors' elected committee 
to be operating in bad faith, that they will not hear the allegations 
of the Commission's failure to comply with the law, and accusing the 
committee of attempting to destroy the Commission by attacking the 
reputations of Commission employees by telling people what actions 
those employees have taken.

There's a bigger problem, though.

The governor's "reset committee" has been tasked officially with 
eliminating government waste, paring back services, and otherwise 
trying to make surgical cuts to Oregon's public institutions with a 
chainsaw.  One of their unofficial charges from the outset was to 
eliminate the Commission for the Blind, folding it into the DHS 
mega-agency.  The justifications are to be fiscal mismanagement from 
the 2009 audit of the Commission, ongoing concerns that applicable 
laws are not being followed correctly, and some nebulous assumption 
that eliminating the Commission would save money.  You know, like 
eliminating the School for the Blind did.

Anyway, this is all basically a done deal, political back-room stuff.  
The committee's report was to include the recommendation that the 
Commission be closed from the day the committee was formed, and even 
if every single specific problem the committee could cite were 
corrected first thing Monday morning, it'd still be coming down the 
pipe.  We may get the official word on Friday.

So far, the Commission's attempts to defend its own existence and 
actions in public are frankly pretty weak.  Perhaps the Commission's 
administration is working with legislators behind the scenes, but if 
that's the case, they don't seem to be talking to the same people the 
NFB of Oregon has been talking to.

It's going to take more than the NFB to save the Commission though.  
It is going to take the entire population of blind people in this 
state, the full force of the NFB and the ACB, all of our supporters, 
and the board of commissioners of the Commission as well.

Most of the people pushing for closure of the Commission are Dems in 
districts where a Democrat just is not going to lose, so it's going 
to be a bit of an uphill fight.  Without the commissioners directing 
the administration to make changes and following up to see that it 
gets done, the odds are maybe 50/50 at best we can save it.

Joseph


On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 10:07:48AM -0700, Johnston wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>What was the outcome of Linda Mock's proposal to alter the vending 
>program? Is anything similar planned for the future?
>
>Thanks.
>
>Jay
>----- Original Message ----- From: "T. Joseph Carter" 
><carter.tjoseph at gmail.com>
>To: <nfb-or at nfbnet.org>; <oregon-l at acb.org>
>Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2010 11:37 PM
>Subject: [Nfb-or] Action Needed: OCB Proposed Plan
>
>
>>Art Stevenson asked me to post this:
>>
>>Tomorrow (Friday, April 2nd), Oregon Commission for the Blind 
>>director Linda Mock intends to present her plan to remove 
>>state-operated facilities from its Randolph-Shepperd vending 
>>program in this state.  This would reduce the program from its 
>>current size to just four people.
>>
>>Any program Ms. Mock might propose in its place would operate 
>>without the legal protections afforded by the Randolph-Shepperd Act 
>>and its companion state legislation.  These protections include the 
>>loss of
>>priority access to vending sites, the requirement that the blind 
>>themselves are given full participation in the administration of 
>>the program, and a prescribed remedy for redress of grievances.
>>
>>As such, it seems this plan directly contradicts the stated mission 
>>of the Oregon Commission for the Blind, and Ms. Mock's mission as 
>>its director. Moreover, Ms. Mock appears to be working to 
>>fast-track the approval of this plan before its impact is realized.  
>>It affects not only those in the program today, but also the blind 
>>youth still reeling from the loss of our School for the Blind.
>>
>>Only we can prevent this detrimental plan from moving forward now.  
>>If you can be in the Portland area at the Commission for the Blind 
>>for the 4pm meeting at which Ms. Mock will present this plan, 
>>please attend.  If you cannot attend, please call the Commission's 
>>Portland office at 971-673-1588 or toll free (within Oregon) 
>>888-202-5463.  Tell them what you think of this plan, and ask them 
>>to pass the message on to Ms. Mock and to the Commissioners.
>>
>>If you call, PLEASE DO BE POLITE!  The people who answer the phones 
>>are not responsible for this plan, and they do not deserve the 
>>brunt of anyone's anger.
>>
>>Thank you.
>>
>>
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>
>
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