[nfbmi-talk] they knew they were violating several laws all along
joe harcz Comcast
joeharcz at comcast.net
Thu Nov 14 20:33:26 UTC 2013
Pemble Rodgers OMA FOIA and Already Violating ADA
The following is a verbatim segment from the very first meeting of the Commission for Blind Persons. It is introducing members to various things from the Handbook referenced here. Note all the comments about the FOIA and OMA and also note that the blind commissioners themselves didn’t get this information in their most effective format which is supposed to be done affirmatively under the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act which by the way were never even mentioned. In fact BSBP would not exist without the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amened. Pretty strange but very revealing stuff here. And Mr. Rodgers has as he suggests here opened himself to lawsuits for his continued violations of all of the above cited laws and for doing so knowingly as a state actor.
Oh and do I have to mention I requested this very information from the transcripts/meeting minutes months ago and only got it through the web site a few days ago? Not very timely eh” And a violation of again bot the Rehab Act, ADA, OMA (goes to minutes) and the FOIA.
Joe Harcz
From: Jan 26 2013 BSBP Commission Meeting
22 MS. MOGK: Okay. Mike, if you'd like to say a
23 few words about the handbook?
24 MR. PEMBLE: Yes. I won't go into too great of
25 detail. What I am basically referencing is the table of
1 contents, and what you have before you I would call it a good
2 start. These handbooks are to be used with all boards and
3 commission that the Department of Licensing and Regulatory
4 Affairs works with and through. Therefore, it's not exactly
5 specific to your role here, yet it generally addresses your
6 role here as an appointee of the Governor and as a public
7 officer of the state of Michigan. Congratulations.
8 First of all, chapter one is a general welcome,
9 and overview of the department, and what the role of
10 departments and boards are as a working team and working
11 together. And your role, of course, is of an advisory nature
12 at this point. The handbook has policies from our department
13 and also laws regarding ethical standards and conduct and
14 conflicts of interests for boards, commissions, agencies, and
15 bureaus. Some very good reading in there. When you are
16 having trouble sleeping or wondering what you're going to do
17 with your time for a couple of hours, peruse through it.
18 What's going to happen is you're going to have
19 a general flavor for what's in there. And you're going to
20 keep your handbook together. You're going to probably add
21 materials. As you get materials from us, you're going to add
22 materials to that. And it's probably going to be a working
23 document for you so that when you get a specific issue that
24 somebody has accused you of violating the Open Meetings Act,
25 you're going to say, you know what, I know there's a copy of
1 the Open Meetings Act in my handbook, I'm going to go back
2 through there and read it. When you have a specific issue on
3 your plate, that's the time you're probably going to read it
4 in more detail and understand what's there. The second --
5 MR. RODGERS: Let me jump in for a second,
6 Mike. Twice now Mike has gotten the hair on the back of my
7 head to stand up by indicating that the Commission is bound by
8 the Open Meetings Act. It's my legal opinion, and I have an
9 informal opinion from the attorney generals office, that in
10 fact while we adhere to the spirit of the Open Meetings Act,
11 because this is an advisory Commission and does not have final
12 order, power to direct anything to happen, that based on those
13 rules which is different from the Commission for the Blind,
14 the Open Meetings Act per se does not apply.
15 And I mention that because one of the issues
16 that usually rises up at these type of meetings is that
17 individuals want to use a lot of time and public comment
18 beyond whatever perimeters that the Chair has set for public
19 comment, and she'll explain that when we get to that. And
20 that's to keep the meetings running in an orderly basis.
21 Unfortunately, some of our history was that commission
22 meetings ran on for a very long time with long dialogues
23 between commissioners and the public, which certainly dragged
24 the meetings out to a certain extent.
25 While we will adhere to the spirit of the Open
1 Meetings Act, we are not legally per se bound by it. But I do
2 encourage you to look at it. Because it clearly gives us some
3 guide posts on the things we ought to be doing such as giving
4 people notice of the hearings, allowing the people to
5 participate in the hearings through public comment, et cetera.
6 Thank you.
7 MR. PEMBLE: Thank you for clarification.
8 Chapter two discusses more of the composition of the boards,
9 committees or commissions. It has information regarding Open
10 Meetings Act and Freedom of Information Act, talks about
11 liability, civil immunity as public employees and public
12 officers, talks about board meetings and how board meeting are
13 supposed to be run based on parliamentary procedure, which
14 I've heard our Chair following this morning which is good.
15 Chapter three is more about government processes, such as the
16 administrative rules process, how a bill becomes a law.
17 Chapter four is the Administrative Procedures
18 Act of 1969, very interesting reading. We also go into
19 contacts by media and other interested parties.
20 MR. RODGERS: That was a shot at me folks
21 because I made a living for 30 years off the APA. And I will
22 add the footnote, there's a point where the APA does effect
23 the bureau in that when we have a permit holder who has a
24 disagreement or a grievance against the program, there is a
25 process informally in which we try to resolve it. If it's not
1 resolved, they are entitled to a hearing before an
2 administrative law judge at the Michigan Administrative
3 Hearing System, and then that's governed by the APA. So,
4 again, if you can't sleep some night, you might want to look
5 at that.
6 MR. PEMBLE: A couple more chapters. Chapter
7 five is about good moral character, and how to handle former
8 offenders for occupational licensing, and other handy
9 references. Chapter six is going to be devoted to bureau
10 specific material. And right now there is not a lot in there
11 specific to your bureau, but we're going to be adding to that
12 as time goes by. And I heard a number of really good
13 questions about statistical components of what we do, and
14 that's a really good place to start, and that's information
15 that we as a bureau want to pull together for you.
16 And I'm taking notes as I'm listening to your
17 questions and comments about the different types of
18 information you would like to see for the future. And that
19 will be folded into chapter six probably as we continue to
20 give you materials to place in your handbooks. And finally,
21 chapter seven talks about the Health Insurance Affordability
22 and Accountability Act regarding information privacy and
23 security, and what we have to do with protected health
24 information as a public body.
25 That is an overview of your handbook and why
1 it's in front of you, and I hope you find it helpful. I think
2 that if we use it as a working, living document that it will
3 become more and more useful to you as time goes by.
4 MS. BARNES-PARKER: If you can give us just the
5 clarification now as commissioners on two things: If perhaps
6 we were to receive a FOIA, as a commissioner you would want
7 that turned over to you directly, would you not?
8 MR. PEMBLE: Yes, I would.
9 MS. BARNES-PARKER: And if we are contacted by
10 the press, as a commissioner you would want us to defer to Mr.
11 Rodgers or to Dr. Mogk, would you not?
12 MR. PEMBLE: Yes, I would.
13 MR. RODGERS: Those were great questions.
14 MR. PEMBLE: We may use your expertise in
15 responding, get your input. And certainly if you possess
16 documents that you obtain through this process, they would be
17 subject Freedom of Information, unless I am corrected on that
18 point. My understanding is that all the work of this
19 commission is going to be subject to Freedom of Information
20 and, therefore, available to the public. And the public is
21 very interested in knowing exactly what we're doing and how
22 we're doing it, including things like notes, e-mails, things
23 you might not normally think of, and not just documents. FOIA
24 does not require us to create documents to respond to public
25 inquiries, but documents in our possession, including your
1 possession as commissioners any note taking you've done,
2 things of that nature, e-mails you've sent, certainly are
3 subject to disclosure if that request is brought to us.
4 So we may be contacting you saying we need all
5 of your notes from the meeting on January 17th because we've
6 gotten a Freedom of Information Act request on that.
7 MR. RODGERS: As a follow up to that, the very
8 handbook we gave you today could be subject of a FOIA request.
9 The e-mails between myself and Dr. Mogk, just introductory
10 stuff where she had a question and I'd answer it on how we do
11 stuff procedurally, that's all subject to FOIA. Notes, as
12 Mike said, are subject to FOIA if they're between you and
13 fellow commissioners and/or the agency. Almost every piece of
14 paper, in fact, every piece of paper we give you is probably
15 subject to FOIA. Now there are some exceptions in FOIA. And
16 you might want to make a note mentally or a note in your notes
17 that Section 13 of FOIA does cover exceptions.
18 For example, decisions which are preliminary to
19 a final decision are not subject to FOIA. I'm having ongoing
20 discussions about several different issues which are
21 preliminary to agency action. So anything that is involved in
22 that process at this point would not be subject to FOIA,
23 simply because the theory being that would stifle discussion
24 on how we get from point A to point B.
25 The other thing I would warn you about, because
1 while the Open Meetings Act does not apply, there may be other
2 acts that apply, Federal regs or State regs. If a quorum of
3 the committee meets, those proceedings may be subject to FOIA
4 or may be subject to a lawsuit if we haven't given them
5 notice. Even though we're not bound by the Open Meetings Act,
6 because you are created by the Governor's executive order, we
7 certainly have a notice, a fundamental notice requirement that
8 any Circuit judge or Federal judge would say you should have
9 sent out a notice. So I guess what I'm saying is be careful
10 that four or more of you don't meet together without letting
11 us know about it so if we have to notice it up we will.
12 A quorum, because there's seven of you, would
13 be four. Two or three is a get together for dinner and that's
14 fine, but if all seven of you are going to have a dinner, let
15 me know and we'll decide what we have to do.
16 MR. PEMBLE: One question I have to you and,
17 you know, anybody who has an opinion feel free to give me the
18 input, but is the handbook in a format that's useful to you?
19 I know some of you have spoken this morning about your low
20 vision or no vision issues. And if this handbook is not in a
21 format that's useful to you, perhaps we can get you the
22 information in another format. You don't have to answer that
23 now. If would let us know that though, we do want you to have
24 the information in a format that you can use. So I apologize
25 if it was insensitive of us to provide everything in a
1 notebook form.
2 MR. RODGERS: You will note also, folks, that
3 you have a disc in there which hopefully was copied correctly.
4 And if it isn't, you've got to let us know. So the book
5 should be in there. If anybody does want a braille copy of
6 this, we can braille it for you, okay. It'll take a little
7 while because the brailler is a little bit old and a little
8 bit slow like me so it'll take time for it to be done, but we
9 can also give you that or if you need larger print copy, we do
10 have the capability to do that too.
11 So just let us know either directly if you want
12 to send, here we go FOIA, an e-mail to me or Mike Pemble or if
13 you want to go through your chair and have her give us a list
14 of who needs additional things. One other point on the
15 handbook itself, before the end of the day Sue Luzenski,
16 who's always on top of this stuff, will be giving you
17 information about travel vouchers and all that kind of good
18 stuff. So if you have those kind of questions, Sue will take
19 care of all that before the day is done.
20 MR. PEMBLE: I think my time is up. Thank you.
21 MS. MOGK: Thank you very much, Mike and Ed.
More information about the NFBMI-Talk
mailing list