[nfbmi-talk] stealing from programs for the blind

[joe harcz Comcast]

July 1 2014 on Bolger

 

Paul Joseph Harcz, Jr.

1365 E. Mt. Morris Rd.

Mt. Morris, MI 48458

810-516-5262

Re: Anderson Building Comments by Rodgers Speaker of House

 

To: Several

 

All,

 

 

I point one and all to the following statement of Michigan Bureau of Services for Blind Persons (BSBP) Director, Edward F. Rodgers:

“From July 18 2013 Commission for Blind Persons Transcript:

 

 

“2                       MR. RODGERS:   In response to the comment about

 

3        the four facilities that Mark's aware of that there may be

 

4        temporary operators, two of those facilities we have no

 

5        control over, that's the Capitol Building and the Anderson

 

6        Building.   The Anderson Building facility was closed by an act

 

7        of the Speaker of the House of Representatives.     So Pat Cannon

 

8        had no choice.   He couldn't keep that stand open.    We were

 

9        simply booted out.   That's a fact of life that we have to live

 

10        with, and that was December 2011.”

 

 

 

First of all Mr. Rodgers and indeed apparently no one in the state apparatchik seems to understand that the Speaker of the House, Mr. Jase Bolger does not have the unilateral authority to void an act of the legislature (Public Act 260) which makes both the Anderson Building and the Capitol mandated facilities for blind operators. This is civics 101. We are supposed to be a democratic-Republic and not run by arbitrary and capricious practices of elected or non-elected public officials.

 

Most importantly more than one million dollars, taxpayer dollars, meant for the purpose of Vocational Rehabilitation of blind persons has been cyphoned off and misappropriated to run these Business Enterprise Programs without a mandated blind operator, or even one paid blind employee!

 

Again these are public funds both approximately 80 percent federal funds and twenty percent state funds earmarked for the express purpose of Vocational  Rehabilitation of blind people and not for the hiring of non-disabled persons or for the “feeding” of private interests, or bureaucrats and legislators.

 

This misappropriation of public funds is done right out in the open at the very buildings where the legislature passed Public Act 260 and where it appropriates the match for federal funds. It is absurd, abusive, and an open theft of public funds with no accountability and no sanction. In brief they are stealing “stands” and resources from the blind. If Mr. Rodgers, Mr. Arwood, Mr. Zimmer, Mr. Bowlin, Mr. Bolger or any of the other cast of characters in this saga took a gun out and robbed a person who is blind on the street wouldn’t we all be shocked and wouldn’t we demand justice? Yet they misappropriate which is effectively theft right out in the open and then openly brag about it in press releases.

 

And this is as they say only the tip of the waste, fraud and abuse in this program.

 

Sincerely,

 

Paul Joseph Harcz, Jr.

 

Cc: NFB MI

Cc: BSBP Commissioners

Cc: RSA

Cc: MI SILC

Cc: MCRS

Cc: CAP/MPAS

Cc: several media