[nfbmi-talk] Continued Mismanagement of Blindness Services

[Christine Boone]

The position of Director has been abolished.  However we do not know whether a unit supervisor of some kind might be established to continue to lead the services cadre that has been transferred to the DHS.  

Christine

On Feb 24, 2012, at 9:53 PM, Fred Wurtzel wrote:

> Dear Sir,
> 
> This letter is to address your article about the Commission for the Blind
> And the action of Governor Snyder.  I kind of wonder why you did not cover
> what blind people think of this regretful change.  There was serious
> mismanagement at the Commission for the Blind.  That was a failure of
> oversight and administration.  Blind people were suffering because of this
> mismanagement.  Blind people will continue to suffer because of this
> well-intended and misguided change.  These problems were there before
> Governor Snyder was elected.  He did not need to own them, he does now.
> 
> 
> 
> It seems that you, as someone whose job it is to fully cover a story did not
> talk to the very people affected by the action of Governor Snyder.  I voted
> for him.  I still have respect for him.  He inherited a lot of poor managers
> who did not have the best interests of blind people in mind.  The welfare
> department is not the right place for a jobs program.  If you had done your
> homework, you would have known that the Michigan Commission for the Blind
> Training Center in Kalamazoo is not the "School for the Blind," as you
> reported.  
> 
> 
> 
> Blind people account for a mere 2% of the population.  We are kicked from
> pillar to post with no consideration for what is the best way to provide
> needed services.  With 70% unemployment, worse than almost any other
> minority in society, we need a quality jobs program that is controlled by
> blind people rather than political hacks like the former MCB director, who
> happened to be blind but was incompetent to have the job.  Unfortunately no
> one did anything to monitor his performance though blind consumers
> repeatedly and vociferously raised concerns.  Now we are being punished for
> their mismanagement and you, the reporter who ought to explain these things
> can't take time to even get the basic facts correct.
> 
> 
> 
> There is nothing inherently wrong with P.A. 260 of 1978 which created the
> Commission The agency has plenty of money.  There is an adequate staff to do
> the work of the agency.  The only fly in the ointment is the Commission
> Director's incompetence and the failure of administration to measure and
> hold him accountable.  The Governor, nor his staff,  did not even have the
> courtesy to talk to blind consumers, the very people who will have to live
> with this change.  The Commission has been in the welfare department 2 other
> times.  We, the blind, have worked in the legislature to get it out.  We
> will do it again.  It makes take another 10 years, or we may stop it in the
> next 60 days, but be assured we will outlast every last politician and
> weak-kneed administrator who got us in this mess and we will win.
> 
> 
> 
> I love the Free Press.  My father read the Free Press every day.  I grew up
> with it.  I don't think your story lives up to my high expectations of this
> proud paper.
> 
> 
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> 
> 
> Fred Wurtzel
> 
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