[nfbmi-talk] ludicrous rodgers at mi silc

Tue May 27 14:07:00 UTC 2014

These are Ed Rodgers verbatim comments from the May 16 2014 Michigan SILC meeting.

They are evidence of his total ignorance of VR and IL programs for people who are blind and evidence of his continued chronic violations of the ADA and Section 504, and the fundamental civil rights of people who are blind and otherwise disabled.

Joe Harcz

          Okay, Ed welcome back to the room, I would like you to have the mic to give you an update on the Bureau of services for blind persons.

     >> Ed:  Let me apologize for stepping out of the room and I put those three forest fires and one dealing with the media so you don't want to hear about that.  Can you hear me and good afternoon?  BSBP will be very short and we had a couple mundane months which I think is good.  I will give you the exciting news at the training center.  Lisa who had a couple applause and kudos today should get another one.  Lisa is closing in on her first anniversary as the director of the training center and she reduced a backlog she inherited of about a six months waiting list down to virtually 0 and deserves recognition of Lisa and the staff and we are running pretty much at full capacity and we did some reorganizations.  We restructured the training schedule so that it was much more like a college term or semester where students come in for ten-week blocks and much like graduate school if they don't finish what they need to finish at the end of their block, they kind of take it to the grade so to speak and they get to come back in for the next session.  And that leaves us two weeks in between each of the four training sessions which allow staff one week to do things such as catching up on paperwork, continuing education, follow-up on clients, et cetera.  It also will allow us then a one-week before we start the next session as many of you know we have many training that we do for a week at a time going around the state at different locations, introducing ourselves to various people throughout the state and giving them a short picture of the services that we offer at the training center such as mobility training, computer training with accessible equipment, lifestyles.  For those in the room who do not have a vision issue, imagine tomorrow morning getting up and having to eat your meal without being able to see it.  Most people look at their food as they eat it and most people use their eyes in eating and that is a skill we have to teach as a life skill to a person who has lost their sight.  We are pleased with the very progress that we have made with the training center and we think that they are doing a real good job there.

We also will have our transition services this summer for youth.  We do some summer programs with assessment and attempt to get kids ready for college and training, that kind of thing.

The business enterprise program in conjunction with the business assistance division that we created last year is about to launch its first joint effort at the Anderson building commonly known as the house of representatives building which is located on Ottawa Street at the corner of capitol avenue across from the capitol.  For those old timers like me you may remember that in that facility was a cafeteria for many years which was operated by our BE program and we were kind of kicked out in December of 2011 before I took over the new Bureau in October of 2012 and worked diligently over the approximately last 18 months and convinced everybody we can do a good job utilizing the space and providing services to the 6-700 employees who actually work in the building as well as people in the downtown area.  So Monday morning is our first day of operation and we are excited about the fact that the Anderson building will be up and running again with the enterprise program and the business assistance development program where Rob Essenburg the new director of that program will be working towards offering assistance to blind entrepreneurs and recently blind individuals who want to be entrepreneurs out in the private sector.  So that's exciting news there.

In the Anderson building, an interesting historical note.  For those who have worked with me for a while and know me I like to tell stories so this is historical when I think this group will appreciate more than a lot of other groups.

We are naming the facility in the Anderson building Kora's cafe, representative Kora and I will not attempt to remember the exact years was the first woman elected to the Michigan house of representatives and we believe, we can't quite establish it but we believe also the first native American to be elected to the Michigan legislature, so we are very pleased that we are able to name this facility after representative Kora.

We just finished a class for the business enterprise program.  As such, we had three students enter the program to be trained to take on a facility eventually; two completed the program and are waiting for possible assignments or a warning for a facility to take over in the business enterprise program.

I want to mention only one more thing and then I will pass the mic on to whoever is next on the agenda.  Early this morning we had a consumer call in who basically took a shot at the agency by saying we don't comply with the ADA and we don't comply with section 504, the Voc Rehab Act and that individual is from the school of thought that if you provide miss information long enough and often enough people will start to believe it.  The individual who made those comments, for example, last calendar year made a request for copies of all the position descriptions of my 109 employees.  Now, as most of you probably know and if you done you are about to find out, under the ADA in Section 504 the Voc Rehab Act we have to provide that information in an accessible format and we cannot charge for that.  However, as you can imagine, there is a cost associated with gathering the 109 position descriptions, reviewing them and redacting from them any information that should not be released and then putting them in the format.

There is a cost involved.  Just gathering the position descriptions there is a cost for that.  And neither the ADA or section 504 of the Voc Rehab Act supersede or eliminate FOIA as a requirement and quite Frankly when we get a request saying give me copies of that is an F-FOIA request and when they ask for something it's a-FOIA request and this morning our interpretation of the ADA and 504 for the consumer are quite different and quite frankly that individual would like to receive everything free no matter what the cost to the agency is in terms of gathering or preparing the information, et cetera, just because he is blind.

I'm also legally blind and I don't think I'm entitled to that kind of service so with that I'll take any questions.

         >> Sara:  Does anybody have any questions for Ed?

     Okay.

     >> Ed:  Thank you.

     >> Sara:  Thank you and congratulations Lisa for all the hard work you are doing at the training center, the other Lisa back there.  