[nfbmi-talk] official board correspondence

[joe harcz Comcast]

July 24 2012 Official Board Correspondence MCB

 

Paul Joseph Harcz, Jr.

1365 E. Mt. Morris Rd.

Mt. Morris, MI 48458

joeharcz at comcast.net

 

(For today’s MCB meeting)

 

 

To: MCB Commissioners and more

 

 

 

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

Make no mistake about it the State Plan and EO 2012-10 is a mass misappropriation of federal taxpayer’s dollars in to the hands of a non-vocational rehabilitation entity, Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. It also misappropriates the voice and the rightful role of people who are blind and disabled created in Public Act 260 and vested in part with the Michigan Commission for the Blind Board. Again these actions take funds and authorities that are supposed to be used for the vocational rehabilitation and independent living of the blind and put them in to the hands of a government apparatchik with no knowledge or willingness  to apply  vocational rehabilitation     programs in general to wwe, those who are blind after all. 

 

Now what is misappropriation? Well in plain language it is theft.

 

What is being stolen?

 

Well that is the $64 million.  question.

 

What is being stolen here is employment opportunity, rehabilitation, and the future of tens of thousands of blind Michiganders.

 

The right of the newly blinded person to learn the skills of blindness including travel, Braille and the acquisition and use of assistive technology is being stolen.

 

The right and the ability of young blind folks to transition from school to work and or higher education is being stolen.

 

Oh, and current jobs are being stolen not only in the BEP program but elsewhere.

 

Funny how Governor “Jobs” Snyder is actively making these moves which will rob  the meager jobs from blind folks right now, or very soon in the Business Enterprise Program alone.

 

 

Oh, and then there is the issue of misappropriation of millions of dollars of federally funded assets in the BEP program to be accounted for. Oh, I guess they’ll just have a giant yard sale and send it all to Treasury.

 

These are the so-called efficiencies that this EO and State Plan put in place.

 

Oh, and yes we, the blind are being robbed of something else very fundamental in a constitutional democracy. We are being robbed of due process and simple justice. Do you hear that Mr. Zimmer, you an officer of the court are violating the constitutional rights of blind people and you dare to put that in writing, to codify this gross and moral injustice, as a final insult to us.

 

The current generation of blind people will be forced to be charitable wards of the state and folks will cluck at those lazy blind people living on Social Security, food stamps and subsidized housing if they can get that in the first place.

 

At our last, and I mean last Consumer Involvement Council meeting Jim More, who read the 200 plus pages of the Braille version of the State Plan said, “It looks like we are going back to the fifties.”

 

Yes ladies and gentlemen, we are going there and worse.

 

Thank you Governor Snyder, Mr. Zimmer and all involved for this insidious, immoral, illegal and un-Constitutional assault upon each and every one of us and for the bleak future you are giving blind Michiganders.

 

Thank you, Massa.

 

As for the blind community who caves to these outrages or other wise capitulates without a fight I have nothing but pity,. But it sure isn’t changing what it means to be blind, unless of course one means changing things for the worse.

 

As for the staff or some of the staff of the current corrupt and misguided MCB I will say this, “Mark my words there will be pink slips come October 1 and thereafter.”

 

But the way I see this thing going it is likely competent and proficient counselors, O and M instructors, and Vision Rehabilitation Teachers, along with support staff who will be going.

 

 

Good union folks will be the ones hit.

 

So, ladies and gentlemen it is back to the dark ages for us.

 

Oh, you might get a job at sub-minimum wages at the Peckham’s, New Horizons, and Kandus. I almost forgot that part of our future.

 

Last blind person out of Michigan please turn on the lights for those sighted bureaucrats. We wouldn’t want them to bump in to anything or not be able to find their way back to their offices without any raised character and Braille signs.

 

Sincerely,

 

Paul Joseph Harcz, Jr.

 

 

 

 

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Cc: several