The Roving Activist’s Blog

As many of you probably know, we at CDR have embarked on an ongoing campaign to establish an Independent Living Center (ILC, or CIL) in Onatrio County, in Upstate NY. We have had several action alerts asking folks to urge their state legislators to support the establishment of of an ILC in the budget. We called, e-mailed, and faxed our state legislators. we even made a short, and amusing video that’s up on You Tube. Ultimately, the state decided that it had a couple hundred million for a new racino (racetrack and casino), but it didn’t have three hundred thousand for a new ILC! Mindblowing, isn’t it?

We decided to keep up the campaign, and got Senator Mike Nozzolio to put forth legislation that would establish an ILC in Ontario County, which he serves, and soon after, Assembly member Brian Kolb introduce an exact same bill in the Assembly. We have had meetings and action alerts around these two bills, A.10440, and S.7264. We ahve started a Postcard Campaign, which I have already described in an earlier post. So far, we have about 350 postcards that have been filled out. Today, we sent out 2500 post cards!

CDR has also been blogging about this on our blog. Here is the link:

http://rochestercdr.org/wordpress/?p=9

Yesterday, we had another Action Alert. There have been some interesting things happening in the past couple of days, so here goes:

Yesterday, June 4, 2008–Action Alert–Move S.7264 and A10440 out of Committee!

A.10440 and S.7264 are now sitting in the Education and Finance Committees. Please call Assembly member Catherine Nolan, Chair of the Education Committee, and Senator Owen Johnson, Chair of the Finance Committee. Ask them to move these bills out of committee and on to the floor for a vote before the end of the legislative session on June 23rd.

We made hundreds of calls! Chris was in Albany helping this along by meeting with various legislators. Bruce followed later in the evening. Here are Chris’s updates:

Updates from Albany

I had an 11:30 meeting with Devra Nusbaum, Legislative Director for Catherine Nolan. Devra was very aware of all the phone calls today and the lst time we made phone calls. She commended everyone for the large volume of calls.

Devra explained that they are sympathetic and would love to see more ILCs, especially in Ontario County. BUT, she is not optimistic about A10440 because the climate in Albany is rigidly against any new spending. When I pointed out that the bill doesn’t itself necessitate new spending, she elaborated. She indicated that the State Education Department is “adamantly” opposed to creating new centers without creating the funding. I further explained that it is State E.D. that has chosen not to give CDR funding when new funding was available because CDR was not recognized in law as an ILC.

Devra seemed to understand our chicken or the egg situation. She agreed to talk with the Assembly Ways and Means committee about the bill’s financial impact and other strategies of acheiving our goal.

I then met with Charles Silverstein from Senator Owen Johnson’s office. He was not aware of the bill or the calls, but he was very understanding of the need for an ILC and this bill as I explained it. He agreed to talk to the Chief of Staff and the Senator and get back to me.

The calls are great. I was over hearing some of them. Keep it up!  I have more meetings with committee members this afternoon and I’ll send an update if there is any significant news.

Stop the senate calls, continue the assembly calls!

I met with Senator Mike Nozzolio. He indicated that the Senate Finance leadership asked him to make one change in the bill - instead of taking affect immediately, it would take affect April 1, 2009.

We would not realistically have a shot at funding until April1, 2009 anyway, so I said that’s fine. He and I also agreed that having the specific start date also gives a much stronger impression of a commitment to secure funding for Ontario in the next budget. This is great progress.

I also met with Senator George Maziarz. He mentioned getting a lot of emails on this issue (thru our capwiz alert!). He agreed to cosponsor the bill and write a memo to Senator Johnson to put S7264 on the SFC agenda.

We look great on the Senate side - stop those calls.

No news on the Assembly side - keep those calls going through the end of the day.

Today, June 5, 2008–Update from Albany

Not a lot of exciting news today, but still progress being made.

Bruce made a barrage of calls yesterday to officials at State Education Department. They’ve agreed to a conference call with us on Friday. SED seems to be the main barrier to getting an ILC in Ontario.

I met with the Governor’s education staff. He is a Rochester resident and very supportive. He agreed to join our conference call with SED.

Assemblyman Bill Reilich has agreed to cosponsor the bill. He is on the education committee, so this is good. Susan John is also looking closely at cosponsoring, she is also on the committee and would be better positioned to help get the bill through. David Koon is also reviewing the bill for cosponsorship.

We have more work to do, but our efforts are moving things in the right direction. Good work!

I’ll keep you update as this saga continues…

It looks like we have a meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary, Mike Leavitt! This meeting was one of the demands of ADAPT when we took over the HHS building in Washington, DC back in April. The meeting is scheduled for June 19th, in Washington, DC. I will let you know how it turned out.

CCA has another co-sponsor. Great work everyone!

Rep Johnson, Henry C. “Hank,” Jr. [GA-4] - 6/3/2008

This Action Alert is part of an ongoing campaign to establish an Independent Living Center (ILC) in Ontario County. The Center for Disability Rights serves 109 people in Ontario, Wayne, and Yates Counties, but due to a lack of state funding, the services that we provide are limited to Consumer Directed Personal Attendant Services (CDPAS). ILC’s offer an array of services to help people with disabilities remain independent in their community.

We have also started a post card campaign. We designed some post cards, which are being distributed widely. The plan is to have them signed by people who support the establishment of an Independent Living Center in Ontario County. These post cards will hand delivered to state legislators so that they know that there is wide support for this. On the first day that the post cards were made available, over 300 people signed and returned them to us!

Action Alert:

Establish an Independent Living Center in Ontario County!
 
There is an unmet need for Independent Living services for residents of Ontario, Wayne, and Yates Counties. According to the U.S. Census, there are 27,669 people with disabilities in Ontario County, 26,206 in Wayne County, and 7,495 in Yates County. These counties are primarily in rural areas, which means that there is a lack of accessible public transportation, and affordable, accessible, integrated housing. In addition, none of these counties have an Independent Living Center. Independent Living Centers provide a range of services that help people with disabilities remain independent within their communities.

Center Disability Rights (CDR) hopes to provide an array of services from its Geneva office, including Independent Living Services, Home and Community Based Waiver Services, Service Coordination for persons with developmental disabilities, and our unique support services for people transitioning from nursing facilities back to community living and people avoiding nursing facility placement. State IL funding can support the core Independent Living Center services and provide seed funding for CDR to expand its other services in Ontario, Wayne and Yates Counties.

Assembly member Brian Kolb and Senator Michael Nozzolio have sponsored bills that would establish an Independent Living Center in Ontario County. Please urge your state Legislator to support, co-sponsor and pass A.10440 and S.7264 before the end of the legislative session in June so that people with disabilities in Ontario, Wayne and Yates Counties can get the full range of services and supports they need to remain in the community. Contact your state Legislator today! 

Take Action!