[Nfbwv-talk] Fwd: For Your Information: American Foundation for the Blind

Wed Mar 20 14:13:23 UTC 2019

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: President, National Federation of the Blind <
OfficeOfThePresident at nfb.org>
Date: Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 10:11 AM
Subject: For Your Information: American Foundation for the Blind
To: State Presidents <StatePresidents at nfb.org>, Gashel, Jim <
jgashel0923 at gmail.com>, Hairston, Ever Lee <ever.hairston at gmail.com>

Dear Leaders of the National Federation of the Blind:

As you know, the National Federation of the Blind filed suit against the
United States AbilityOne Program last September for its violation of the
Administrative Procedures Act when it appointed the American Foundation for
the Blind as a Central Nonprofit Agency (CNA) without any public notice. I
have attempted to maintain some degree of diplomatic communications with
AFB despite their very disappointing actions. As you will find below, I
believe the time for the diplomacy is over. AFB is now trying to engage our
leaders to serve their own purposes. I urge you to be aware of their
actions and our stance. I urge you not to let the AFB staff mislead our
members into thinking that we are welcomed stakeholders. We should continue
to be polite but firm in our rejection of participating in their processes.

If you have questions, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Mark

*From:* President, National Federation of the Blind
*Sent:* Thursday, March 14, 2019 12:30 PM
*To:* Kirk Adams (kadams at afb.net) <kadams at afb.net>
*Subject:* RE: Set up time to talk about Ability One
*Importance:* High

Dear Kirk,

Thank you for your message. I am not at CSUN this year, but many members
and leaders of the National Federation of the Blind are there.

I received your message of March 11 inviting me and others to share our
best ideas about the future of the Ability One program especially as it
relates to competitive integrated employment. I find your invitation to be
astonishing and lacking in integrity. Admittedly, this might be my fault as
I have attempted to continue to be diplomatic with you despite your
complicity in the continued disregard for blind consumers demonstrated by
the AbilityOne Program. There is no way in good conscience, or with any
confidence that our perspective will be used for the betterment of blind
people, that we could participate in a meeting of the type you propose.
While we are on the topic, related to your email of March 7 asking for
advice regarding the Colorado Center for the Blind’s unwillingness to
participate in your efforts, I suggest you respect their wishes. I agree
with your email that your stakeholder gathering will not be complete
without the expertise of the Colorado Center for the Blind, but that is the
path that you elected to march down years ago when you began secret
negotiations with the AbilityOne leadership.

Kirk, as you well know, I had high hopes for your leadership of the
American Foundation for the Blind. Before you were officially in the chair,
you and I had an opportunity to talk about the history and what the future
might look like. I invited you to participate in the convention of the
National Federation of the Blind with the hope that you might help steer
your organization to a place where it demonstrated genuine respect for the
organized blind movement. Yet, no equal response has been received from you
on behalf of the American Foundation for the Blind. In fact, in turn you
have sent an equal and opposite response.

When you, Dr. Fred Schroeder, and I met in Reno on July 27 (hours after AFB
was announced as a CNA), you explained all of the reasons why blind people
were not permitted to have public input into the AFB’s designation of a
CNA. You told us that you had been planning for two years with the
AbilityOne staff and that you never felt it was necessary to involve
“stakeholders.” As recently as our meeting in January when I asked you
about the deliverable AFB was responsible for submitting to the AbilityOne
staff, you told me that it was not reviewable by “stakeholders” and that I
would have to discuss that with the AbilityOne staff.

It is pretty clear that you continue to use the illegal action of the
AbilityOne program as cover for your own lack of transparency and
misdirection. You had the opportunity to help transform the nature of AFB’s
work and its real potential value to blind people. Instead you have taken
the opposite tack, and you pin your actions on restrictions the AbilityOne
program has placed on you. Where is your leadership? What have you done to
create progress within the agency that stands to financially fuel AFB in
the future? I have seen no evidence of anything. As a matter of fact, we
cannot even get the simple literature review that you have performed for
the government. Have you advocated otherwise with AbilityOne? Have you set
them straight on the role of “stakeholders”? The facts say not one bit. In
fact, you were introduced publically at the AbilityOne meeting in November
2018 as being the president of the National Federation of the Blind and
made no gesture to correct the record—likely because it better served the
record of misdirection.

For these reasons, and the fact that we believe your current actions on
behalf of the AbilityOne program are illegally granted, we will not
actively share our thoughtful analysis and decades of experience with you
to the benefit of enriching your position with AbilityOne.

I regret that you have taken the approach you have taken. I also regret
that you have aligned yourself against many players in the field through
backroom conversations where you criticize what has been done but then
offer no public solutions—at least not until you have gathered the best
ideas from the public itself. I also regret that you have made it
impossible for us to trust that our input will actually be used to the
betterment of the constituents that elected me to represent them.

Sincerely,

Mark A. Riccobono, President

200 East Wells Street, Baltimore, MD 21230
<https://maps.google.com/?q=200+East+Wells+Street,+Baltimore,+MD+21230&entry=gmail&source=g>

(410) 659-9314 | officeofthepresident at nfb.org

[image: National Federation of the Blind] <https://nfb.org/>

                         [image: Facebook]
<http://www.facebook.com/nationalfederationoftheblind>    [image: Twitter]
<https://twitter.com/NFB_Voice>    [image: Youtube]
<https://www.youtube.com/NationsBlind>

The National Federation of the Blind is a community of members and friends
who believe in the hopes and dreams of the nation’s blind. Every day we
work together to help blind people live the lives they want.

*From:* Kirk Adams <kadams at afb.net>
*Sent:* Monday, March 11, 2019 5:08 PM
*To:* President, National Federation of the Blind <
OfficeOfThePresident at nfb.org>
*Subject:* Set up time to talk about Ability One

HI Mark,

I imagine I might see you in Anaheim this week.

Hoping so.

Would also like to set up a time for Steve Heinecke and I to talk to you
about NFB’s thoughts on a new model within the Ability One program leading
to competitive, integrated, employment outcomes.

I am thinking a couple of hours would be great, and that you may want to
involve others, so probably some of us meet in person with the capacity for
others to call in.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks much.

Kirk Adams

President & CEO
<https://maps.google.com/?q=1401+South+Clark+Street,+Suite+730%0D%0A+%0D%0A+Arlington,+VA+22202&entry=gmail&source=g>

American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

1401 South Clark Street, Suite 730
<https://maps.google.com/?q=1401+South+Clark+Street,+Suite+730%0D%0A+%0D%0A+Arlington,+VA+22202&entry=gmail&source=g>

Arlington, VA 22202
<https://maps.google.com/?q=1401+South+Clark+Street,+Suite+730%0D%0A+%0D%0A+Arlington,+VA+22202&entry=gmail&source=g>

Tel. (212) 502-7610

Email. kadams at afb.net

www.afb.org

[image: Facebook icon]
<http://www.facebook.com/americanfoundationfortheblind>   [image: Twitter
icon] <http://www.twitter.com/afb1921> [image: Pinterest icon]
<http://www.pinterest.com/afb1921/>  [image: Google+ icon]
<https://plus.google.com/+AfbOrg/posts>

We're creating a future of * no limits*.

Join us at www.afb.org/nolimits

[image: Title: no limits logo - Description: The words "no limits" in print
and braille] <http://www.afb.org/nolimits>

-- 
Sheri Koch, President
National Federation of the Blind of West Virginia
304-993-5103
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image004.png
Type: image/png
Size: 1788 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbwv-talk_nfbnet.org/attachments/20190320/eb779913/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 804 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbwv-talk_nfbnet.org/attachments/20190320/eb779913/attachment.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image005.png
Type: image/png
Size: 10586 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbwv-talk_nfbnet.org/attachments/20190320/eb779913/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 8262 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbwv-talk_nfbnet.org/attachments/20190320/eb779913/attachment-0001.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 793 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbwv-talk_nfbnet.org/attachments/20190320/eb779913/attachment-0002.jpg>