[nfbmi-talk] commissioner posont comments in detroit

[joe harcz Comcast]

Michigan Commission for the Blind

State Plan Comments from the Draft State Plan Meeting in Detroit

June 23, 2011

 

Hello, my name is Larry Posont.  [Note:  Address and phone number were given, but have been omitted for website posting.] I have started to write/read the State Plan.  First I would like to say that with the State Plan coming out on June 6, and myself being involved with the Commission for the Blind and having Commission meetings on the 16th  and 17th  really didn’t, I believe give me and other people the time that it really takes to look at the State Plan.  I do know that this State Plan is claimed to be similar to other State Plans but with the consumers and the Commission board not been really involved in the State Plan development, I believe that it should have been more time.  I think it is unreasonable of saying the 6th is when you got it, had two conferences, three different meetings around the state and now. I will respond by email before the 27th at 3:00 p.m. in comments about the State Plan in more detail.  But it is clear that this morning and now I believe that everyone is always looking at go do it ahead.  They are not willing to look at the point that why was it not done properly, I believe in the recent pass with involvement of the Commission Board and the involvement of other people.  I know the State Plan is developed through rehabilitation mainly to try to get jobs. We had some discussion about that this morning. I know that you can use the excuse of economics in Michigan and jobs in Michigan, but for example the Commission willing right now to brag about the Newsline for the Blind with Newsline’s newest feature of jobs, we went on the Newsline the other night and two other people looked, within two hundred, with 20 miles, I sorry, within 20 miles of Lansing, Newsline has 200 different jobs. Now those may not be all potentially jobs for blind people, but they are there to get the information and start developing.  We need to take our clients, and I think this is one of the things in the client relating to counselors, if we’re gonna have a service and blind people really want to work, the blind people that do want to work will look at it, will do applications, if it means the internet or whatever it means, but you know you gotta, my son is going through jobs right now, and you don’t stick with the one job and try to get it.  You put 30, 40, 50, 60 applications out and you may get one or two interviews every 20 or 30.  But what I am saying is that here is another mechanism where blind people can use that mechanism and yes the funding is tight right now, but the Commission for the Blind can take the money out of different pots.  We have pots within senior blind, we have pots within independent living, we have pots with the CIL’s, we have pots of rehab, so the money don’t have to take from one pot and other programs from other groups – and yes it’s a program that if we can prove that blind people are using it and clients are using it and clients were getting jobs noone would argue about paying for it.  It has to take time, it’s gonna take time to get the staff of the Commission to say here is another mechanism for you to get a job if there is somebody that is seriously looking for jobs, if they’re not, not matter what you get will be any good.  I say that within the State Plan there may not be major changes, but having the understanding of how it works and waiting for the last minute is clearly, clearly a violation of maybe not the law, but maybe the spirit of the law.  It’s clear that the feds consider this Commission a policy making that’s taken us over a year to battle with publicly, that’s wasting our time, as consumers and as blind people and other people’s time to argue it.  It’s there, its what we are, what we believe in and you know, I have to say that the State Plan, I believe is clearly been ran down blind people’s throat, the Commission’s throats and I hope in my watch on the Commission for the blind board that I won’t, I have to depend on what I do now.  It’s on my watch now, and if the agency don’t do better, then the responsibility is on me and I making sure that I stand up for what I believe is correct and people say you are being hard about, no I am not being hard, I want the process to work now, I don’t care what happened in the past, I want it to work now and I believe that it is a violation of the federal law or if its not the law, it’s the spirit of the law, and that’s what we have to go by is the spirit and jobs are important.  There are far and in between jobs even for sighted people today, but we have to work and there are many ways to do it.  Relating to blind people that are case closures, yeah, we have to get them registered back on.  They never should have been closed; not when you are going to work for 50.00 a day, I mean, I’m sorry 50.00 a month and I know people that do that.  Why was that, tell me why, I don’t think you can, I don’t think the agency can, but I’m here to say look it there is a lot of good staff and people say that I say to much against the staff, no, I think it, 99 percent of the staff come to work everyday, work their eight hours or nine hours whatever it takes, they want to see progress at the end of the day.  People want to help that’s what they are in the business for, if they weren’t in this business to help people they wouldn’t be doing this kind of work.  I’m not saying that this is the best work, I mean best money or the worst money, but it is a job and think that most people want to go to work and feel like they’ve done something at the end of the day and not just fighting with other people.  I’m going to stand up for my principles and I believe what the agency should do, and I think today’s discussion at the Commission board meeting of what RSA said is a clear of what the Commission is and what it should be and is it going to get there, under my watch I hope I can get to one more step to make it work for all blind people, so when we get somebody, they can come into the system as a rehabilitation client, they can get registered, they can get a counselor to do the job, the counselor satisfied, they send them to training no matter where they go, if they go to Kalamazoo or out of state or somewhere else, they can get the skills of blindness to get a job and their gone, then we will have a successful 26, I think it’s a 26 is it, yeah, so I think this plan has been jammed.  This building alone is not accessible, I believe this building has some violations but you know, we’re here, that’s what we have to deal with.  I’m going to continue working on it.  It’s not that I won’t give up, I will not give up.  I won’t give up until it’s done for satisfactory to blind people and our needs and what we need in the state.  We have a lot of committed staff, I know that there are some hard feeling today currently in the staff, but when the staff and the administration of this agency violates the law and their caught with it, you can’t blame the staff people for doing what they need to do to protect their self, it’s clear that there has been a broken down from the management side and I’m not afraid to say it and that relates to the State Plan here today.  So, ending this, I think the bottom line is that the State Plan is important, it will get comments before Monday at three o’clock and I doubt that any of its going to be important. I don’t believe that anybody is going to take it seriously.  I think that they’ll just look at it and think that it’s just a bunch of blind people arguing about it. So, there’s what I think – nothing else I can say.