February, 2010

Farm Team Endorsed Candidate Eileen Filler-Corn: Democrat In Special Election For Fairfax House Seat Nabs Endorsement From Ex-Rival

Posted by The Farm Team on Feb 22, 2010 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

By Derek Kravitz
The Washington Post’s Blog

A Democratic lobbyist running for a Virginia House seat in Fairfax County picked up a big endorsement this week — from her old political rival.

Former Republican delegate James H. Dillard II, who served as Virginia’s 41st District House delegate from 1972 to 2005, endorsedEileen Filler-Corn, a Democratic lobbyist who served as an adviser to two former Virginia Democratic governors.

Dillard defeated Filler-Corn in 1999 in a hotly contested race for the 41st House District, which is in Fairfax County and includes the areas of Burke, Fairfax Station and Springfield.

The 41st House seat opened up again when Sen. David W. Marsden(D-Fairfax), who succeeded Dillard in 2005, defeated Republican Stephen M. “Steve” Hunt by 324 votes in a Senate special election in mid-January. He resigned his House seat a day later.

Filler-Corn faces Kerry D. Bolognese, a higher-education lobbyist who unsuccessfully tried to take the seat from Marsden in November, losing by 209 votes. The special election is set for March 2.

Filler-Corn, 45, of Springfield, is the director of government relations for Albers and Co., an Arlington-based lobbying firm, and served as a senior adviser for state and federal relations to former governor Timothy M. Kaine (D) from 2006 to 2007.

Education played a big role in the 1999 race, with both Dillard and Filler-Corn campaigning for raises for teachers and zero-tolerance policies regarding weapons on school property. Dillard, a former co-chairman of the House’s Education Committee and a former Fairfax teacher and school principal, said Filler-Corn was the toughest challenger he faced in two decades.

Now, Dillard is putting his money on his old opponent.

“As a Republican, I am willing to cross party lines to support a moderate who cares strongly about providing educational opportunities for our children in our public schools and institutions of higher learning,” Dillard said in an endorsement letter released by Filler-Corn’s campaign Friday. “Unlike her opponent, who believes we spend ‘-’excessive’ amounts on public education, Eileen will fight to get our fair share of education dollars to maintain our superior schools in Fairfax County.”

Campaign finance reports for Filler-Corn and Bolognese are scheduled to be filed by Monday.

[Baskerville Series] Saluting A Virginia African American Woman Cabinet Member

Posted by The Farm Team on Feb 22, 2010 in Statewide | 0 comments

By Viola O. Baskerville

Ruby Grant Martin (1933-2003)

It was not until the administration of Virginia Governor A. Linwood Holton, Jr. (1970-1974) that there was a Governor’s Cabinet. Prior to this time, dozens of agency directors reported to the Governor. In a move to re-organize the executive branch reporting and accountability system, the Governor’s Cabinet was instituted. Under the Holton administration there was a small gubernatorial cabinet consisting of six white men. Over the next 40 years and nine administrations later, the number of cabinet members and the diversity of the membership changed. Currently, under the McDonnell administration there are eleven cabinet secretaries representing broad categories from administration to technology and a chief of staff.

Of the slightly more than one hundred men and women who have served or who are serving as at-will, hand selected individuals by the Governor of Virginia to give advice and oversee state agencies, only twenty-five are women, and of those twenty-five women, only seven are African American. Governor John N. Dalton (1978-1982) appointed the first African American women cabinet secretary. Ten years later, Civil Rights lawyer Ruby Grant Martin (1933-2003) was appointed Secretary of Administration by Governor L. Douglas Wilder in 1990.  Ms. Martin was born in Arkansas but grew up in Cleveland. She was a graduate of Fisk University and Howard Law School.  Ms. Martin served under President Lyndon Baines Johnson and became the first Director of the Office for Civil Rights in the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare in 1968. She served as counsel to the House Committee on the District of Columbia and co-authored the bill that proposed home rule for the District of Columbia.

As Secretary of Administration for the Governor’s Office, Ms. Martin oversaw the departments of general services and personnel and training. During Wilder’s administration, she was very active in his efforts to establish trade relations with African countries. What a phenomenal woman who made a tremendous difference at a local, national and international level!!!

Can you name the six other African American women who have served as cabinet members to Virginia Governors since 1978?

Falwell: Suggested New Ward III Poll Location ‘Slap In The Face’ To Liberty

Posted by The Farm Team on Feb 21, 2010 in Lynchburg | 0 comments

Liberty University students vote in the 2009 gubernatorial election at Heritage Elementary School. The recent increase in LU voters has led to the debate about moving the Ward III polling location.

By Alicia Petska
The Lynchburg News & Advance

Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. is denouncing City Council’s recent rejection of two LU-backed polling place sites as a “travesty” designed to suppress the LU student vote.

“It’s obvious to me the goal was to discourage as many Ward III citizens from voting as possible,” Falwell said, renewing LU’s concerns that Lynchburg First Church of the Nazarene, the current leading contender for the new voting location, is inaccessible and unsafe.

“You have to ask yourself what is the motive of the five Democrats on council in choosing a difficult-to-find church on a residential road that is not equipped to handle this kind of traffic,” Falwell said. “Something smells bad.”

Falwell, who’s been aggressively promoting local voting among his students in an effort to affect future City Council decisions, went on to compare the situation to the disenfranchisement faced by minority voters in the Jim Crow era.

“Liberty students consider this a slap in the face,” he said. “And all other citizens in Ward III, which is generally conservative, should also consider it a slap in the face.”

Lynchburg City Council members roundly denied that politics played a role in their recent decisions about the relocation of the Heritage Elementary School polling place. Falwell’s ire in this matter is directed at what he repeatedly described as the “five Democrats” on council. Of the seven council members, six list themselves as independents. Ward III Councilman Jeff Helgeson runs as a Republican.

Mayor Joan Foster, one of the five under fire by Falwell, said she recently received a phone call from an LU student upset over the allegations of voter suppression swirling around campus.

“It is not true,” she said. “That is misinformation. It is their right to vote here. That’s a given. We’re just trying to choose the best place for everyone to vote.”

“This was not politically motivated. I’m very sorry that’s been the accusation,” she added. “… It’s always been my wish that political hats be left at the door of City Council and we just work to do what’s best for the community. I am just trying to make the best decision.”

Earlier this month, in response to an LU request, council began taking steps to move the Heritage Elementary polling place prior to the May elections. Over the past two years, Heritage Elementary has grown to become the city’s largest voting precinct, due primarily to the influx of student voters.

LU, citing concerns that the elementary school is no longer adequate to accommodate Election Day crowds, has been bucking to get the polling place moved somewhere closer to its campus. It recommended both Thomas Road Baptist Church and the Candlers Station shopping center as viable choices.

Council as recently as last week considered both those options and rejected them, citing concerns ranging from the fairness of choosing an LU-adjacent site, traffic conditions along Candlers Mountain Road and the fact that one of the recommendations, Candlers Station, is located outside the precinct in question.

Council has instead focused its search on Lynchburg First Church of the Nazarene on Wards Ferry Road, a relatively new building located near the center of the precinct. LU has raised multiple safety concerns about that location since it was proposed and submitted several reports to council on the matter.

The Lynchburg Electoral Board, which is formally vetting the site, is due to deliver its report next week. A public hearing has been scheduled for Tuesday. Council will likely decide then whether to move the polling place or leave it at Heritage Elementary.

Vice Mayor Bert Dodson, who said he submitted Lynchburg First Church of the Nazarene for consideration as a compromise between the needs of LU and the precinct at large, dismissed any suggestion that council was trying to undermine one ward or voting bloc.

“We’re not suppressing anything,” he said. “We’re doing what’s best for the City of Lynchburg. I hope Chancellor Falwell comes to the public hearing where he can express his opinion just like everyone else. I’m looking forward to hearing the opinions Tuesday.”

Last week, Helgeson and Councilman Turner Perrow called a special meeting and attempted unsuccessfully to get LU’s suggestions added to the list of sites under consideration. Helgeson referenced in part the safety considerations that had been raised by LU and echoed in a preliminary report issued by the Greater Lynchburg Transit Company that day.

Councilman Randy Nelson made a counter-motion that would have allowed other sites to be considered if a serious hazard at Lynchburg First Church of the Nazarene could be demonstrated that night. That motion failed with only Nelson and Foster voting in support.

Nelson later expressed surprise that Helgeson and Perrow opposed his motion.

“They and I were not on different pages,” he said. “I wanted to hear what the specific safety concerns were, see if they could be verified and, if they did exist, whether they could be corrected before May or not.”

In a different interview, Nelson said he felt the defeat of his motion indicated there were no genuine safety concerns.

“This flushed out the fact that was just a ruse to schedule this meeting,” he said. “They didn’t want to talk about safety. They wanted to talk about why we should leave Heritage and go to Liberty. But that was not relevant (because it had already been discussed and dismissed by council earlier.)”

At the time of the vote, Perrow said he was not prepared to provide definitive evidence of a safety hazard and asked that the electoral board be given a chance to assess the LU sites first.

Helgeson said later he felt Nelson’s motion was “disingenuous” because council already had reports from LU and GLTC outlining the church’s accessibility challenges. He voted against the motion because he felt its only intent was to slow the process down until it was too late for additional sites to be considered in time for May.

“We did explore safety issues,” he said. “We heard from GLTC and we heard from LU. Even without those analyses, all you have to do is drive through that area. Everyone who lives on Wards Ferry Road knows there’s a traffic concern there.”

“Those are the facts. It’s not political favoritism. It’s the facts,” he added, referencing an earlier comment made by Nelson. “For them to thwart even discussing other locations and having a public hearing says to me they don’t want to hear from the voters of this precinct.”

Falwell, who said his students were angry and offended over the way this has been handled, said Nelson’s motion was nothing more than a “little game.”

“It was all designed to kill it (LU’s recommendations) without coming out and saying it,” he said. “It was transparent, and our students see through it.”

“I think you’re going to see much more turnout among the students in May than you would have if they had just chosen a safe, convenient polling place … The site they did choose does just the opposite. It makes it more difficult and more unsafe for people to vote.”

LU’s Student Government Association sent out a notice and set up a Facebook group urging students to attend the hearing Tuesday.

In those messages, the association described the upcoming City Council elections as the most important in LU history and said the “anti-Liberty folks” on council appear to be trying to dilute their influence by choosing a bad polling place to discourage them from voting.

“It is important you attend this meeting. This outrage must be stopped,” read the e-mail, which noted that buses will be provided to take students to the hearing.

The public hearing will be part of the 7:30 p.m. council meeting this Tuesday in City Hall, 900 Church St.

Virginia budget proposed by McDonnell and disability issues

Posted by The Farm Team on Feb 20, 2010 in Statewide | 2 comments

by Martha Toomey

My dear Friends,

My family has been blessed by good fortune over the past 14 years, in spite of Jeffrey’s pertussis injury and all that has happened. His life care plan was, after 11 years, approved and funded. Not once did his expert, professional life care planner take Virginia’s social service benefits into account when deciding what Jeffrey would need to have an independent and successful life. She saw first hand that we could not rely on Virginia.

It is a chilling statement that I, as a disability advocate, member of a state agency and advisor to elected officials, decided to pick up and leave our home in Virginia so Jeffrey could get a decent education and live in a community that respects him. We just had the luxury of walking Jeffrey to school, knowing that today he will have access to algebra, physics, Caribbean history, Spanish, English, and PE. He is not segregated in a small room but fully integrated.

There is an adult with Down Syndrome here on St. John and he successfully works at several Cruz Bay restaurants. He lives with his mom, but there are support systems set up to help her out. There are children with autism here who attend the local public schools and receive services every day. There are no fights about OT, PT or speech services – if a student needs these things they get them. Therapists come over every day on the 7:30am ferry from St. Thomas and serve every child with special needs, every day.

If we define paradise as a place that loves our children, respects our differences and embraces community service than indeed this island, mostly a national park, is a parents’ paradise. It is so welcoming that poor Jeffrey is disappointed that we are coming home to Virginia for Easter and summer vacation….

I have been watching the Virginia budget process for years. As I sit here, thousands of miles away from our home, I cannot believe that our worst fears are coming true for my friends in Virginia. Please take some time to read the information below – you will be stunned. My dear mentor and friend, member of the Virginia Board for People with Disabilities, and winner of the latest Mary’s Family Jeffrey Award is Terry Smith, Director of Long-Term Care and Aging at DMAS. She is the person who has struggled to bring us all more help. Her only comment to me, upon reading the Governor’s proposed budget was "I think I may actually cry at work today."

Take the time to read this, and act on your feelings. Many of you will feel that you have been sucker punched because you could lose your jobs. Many of you will feel betrayed because you rely on EDCD so you can work. But I hope that all of you will do something about your feelings today.

BACKGROUND: Please keep in mind that these budget cuts are part of a political ideology that believes government has no role in providing social services. Political differences are what they are….Governor McDonnell has been very clear that he believes the Americans for Disabilities Act is unconstitutional, and as Virginia’s Attorney General he used our tax dollars to file an amicus brief in support of someone who did not want to comply with the ADA. So he has a history of fighting federal mandates.

You may want to watch Attorney General Cuccinelli’s lawsuit against the federal EPA, stating that state’s rights supercedes environmental restrictions set by the federal government. This lawsuit will be the same rubic he uses to file a lawsuit against the federal government re: the ADA.

Does the term "states’ rights" send a chill down your spine? Reminds me of the days of segregation when, for example, the Front Royal public schools simply closed down instead of integrating.

It is a stunning indictment that no other state has sued the federal government over state’s rights, the environment and global climate change.

Instead of using our tax dollars to help people they are using tax dollars to dismantle what few services there are in Virginia. And since the budget proposes to also eliminate VOPA there will be few opportunities to enforce ADA.

YOU MUST ACT TODAY!! – In the next two days, the Virginia General Assembly’s money committees will make final decisions on the state budget for FY’2011-2012.

In December, outgoing Virginia Governor Timothy M. Kaine presented the General Assembly with a proposed state budget for the next two years. It contained significant cuts to Virginia’s Medicaid Home and Community-Based Waivers Program, including a yearlong freeze on admissions to 5 of the 7 waivers. It also included an 8% cut in the Department of Rehabilitative Services (DRS) Personal Assistance Services (PAS) Program. Additionally, Medicaid waiver provider reimbursements, including the salaries of personal assistants, respite workers, and companions would be cut by 5%.

As a result of YOUR ADVOCACY, state legislators were considering restoring some of these proposed cuts and offered their own budget amendments to do that.

But then we saw this Budget: Two days ago, Governor Robert F. McDonnell presented state legislators with a list of additional budget cuts that he would like the General Assembly to adopt. These proposed budget reductions would significantly cut, and in some cases, eliminate, services vital to the independence, self-sufficiency, and community integration of Virginians with disabilities. He said that these cuts are necessary to balance the state budget, but he also said that he would not entertain raising taxes or doing away with the personal property (car) tax relief program to raise revenues to prevent deep budget cuts.

Governor McDonnell’s recommendations for additional budget cuts include —

• Elimination of consumer-directed personal assistance, respite and companion services (the much needed EDCD program so many of us benefit from) from Virginia’s Medicaid Home and Community-Based (HCBS) Waivers. (A new cut proposed by Governor McDonnell, it is expected to reduce the budget by $62.9 million ) Individuals and families would no longer be able to hire and fire their own attendants. Instead, they would either have to use home health agencies, which are notoriously unreliable, or be forced into nursing homes or other institutions.
• There are 14,000 attendants in Virginia and most of these people, working at an average $1,300 per month, will lose their jobs.

  All single service facilitators, such as Roseanne Campbell or Keri Kominek, who run their own business will lose their jobs also. If you do keep your benefits you will be forced to use large agencies, if they will take new clients.

• Reduction of the financial eligibility threshold for Medicaid long term care services (both waivers and institutional placement) from 300% of the monthly Supplemental Security Income (SSI) check to 250% of SSI. Those with higher social security/retirement checks, for example, or those attempting to return to work, but who rely on waivers in order to afford personal assistance, would have their services curtailed. This budget recommendation notes that those in institutions will not be in jeopardy because they can simply spend-down in order to continue to receive Medicaid. People want to work, but this proposal will make it nearly impossible for people with disabilities to work full time.
• Cuts of 25% in the Virginia Department of Rehabilitative Services (DRS) Personal Assistance Services (PAS) Program for FY 2011 and 50% in FY 2012. DRS PAS helps those not eligible for Medicaid waivers. A significant number of people would lose services, have to quit jobs, and could be forced into institutions.
• Additional reductions in state funding (beyond the 10% cut proposed in Governor Kaine’s budget) for adult in-home chore and companion services provided by local government departments of social services. These services provide an alternative for those needing help with activities of daily living, e.g., bathing, dressing and meal preparation, and who are not eligible for Medicaid waiver or DRS PAS services. The bad economy may force local governments to cut these services or impose waiting lists, especially with significant reductions in state funding.
• This is also a joke because rural counties don’t offer much to cut. If you rely on Fauquier County, for example, to provide social services you are in effect being denied services. The Governor has also proposed that churches, non-profits and individuals take up the slack and help do what the government was doing. I can tell you from 8 years of personal experience running Mary’s Family that this is the most absurd and pernicious belief – nonprofits are struggling to just stay open and can’t take on extra financial burdens. One of the reasons Mary’s Family switched our focus to become the national vaccine injury support group is because there was simply no local funding for us to continue serving the Piedmont area. Only approximately 10% of our budget came from local funding sources; most of this 10% came from one person.
• Elimination of the Department of the Blind and Vision Impaired, the Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and the Virginia Board for People with Disabilities. This recommendation was advanced without consultation with the consumers who will have their services impacted. Additionally, the DRS budget would be reduced by 5%. As a former member of the Virginia Board for People with Disabilities I am appalled that this is even proposed because every state in the country HAS to, by law, have a commission like this. It is federal law. By suggesting that federal mandates do not need to be honored they are setting themselves up for a very clear states’ rights lawsuit…..

These are only a few of the myriad of cuts in health and human services proposed by the McDonnell Administration.

In the next two days, the members of the Senate Finance and House Appropriations Committees will consider all of the recommendations regarding the biennium budget and issue their final recommendations on Sunday, February 21.

YOU MUST ACT NOW TO PREVENT DEVASTATING CUTS to PROGRAMS AND SERVICES THAT ARE VITAL TO VIRGINIANS WITH DISABILITIES!! If you do not act and these cuts do indeed affect you, your family and your community you will have only yourself to blame. We live in a democracy, and you are in charge of this democracy. The voters elected McDonnell, Bolling and Cuccinelli with a mandate to do this. This is what they said on the campaign trail – this is not a surprise. Those of us, including the Disability Votes PAC, who were desperately trying to explain what the candidates were saying are not at all shocked by this proposed budget.

If YOU, or someone you care about, receives Medicaid waiver consumer-directed personal assistance, respite, or companion services, tell legislators how important these services are to YOU. Remind them that it cost far less to provide Medicaid home and community-based waiver services. In fact, data that Virginia’s Department of Medical Assistance Services
(DMAS) provides to the federal government demonstrates that it costs Virginia three times more to keep people in nursing homes and other institutions rather than providing services in one’s own home.

I know that if my only choice for Jeffrey was a nursing home or us struggling as older, aging parents I would opt for struggling at home. But I know many of you are indeed aging parents and this is literally killing you, taking care of adults with autism, for example. These budget cuts will hurt YOU, your child and your community.

Don’t waste your time on SEAC meetings, support groups or sharing information. Forget all about your child’s life transition training, counting money or learning how to cook or garden — there will be no place for our children to transition to if these budget cuts are approved. What’s the use of telling people about EDCD when the Governor is going to eliminate the program?!

Ask them to reject Governor McDonnell’s proposed cuts because they would force people with disabilities back into nursing homes and other institutions, costing the state more in Medicaid expenditures and in lost human potential. Tell them to restore funding to Medicaid waivers, DRS PAS, and adult in-home and companion services. Tell them it’s a good economic investment for the people served and for the personal assistants who consumers hire and employ. Tell them to restore cuts in attendant salaries also

Senate Finance and House Appropriations members are making their decisions in the next two days. PLEASE ACT NOW BY CONTACTING THE FOLLOWING LEGISLATORS BY EMAIL OR BY PHONE –

• Senator Charles Colgan, Chair of the Senate Finance Committee district29@senate.virginia.gov, 804-698-7529
• Senator Edward Houck, Chair of the Senate Finance Health and Human Resources Subcommittee district17@senate.virginia.gov, 804-698-7517
• Senator Janet Howell (D-Fx), Member Senate Finance Committee district32@senate.virginia.gov, 804-698-7532
• Senator Mary Margaret Whipple (D-ARL/Fx), Member Senate Finance Committee district31@senate.virginia.gov, 804-698-7531
• Senator Richard Saslaw (D-Fx), Member Senate Finance Committee and Senate Majority Leader District35@senate.virginia.gov, 804-698-7535
• Delegate Lacey Putney, Chair of the House Appropriations Committee DelLPutney@house.virginia.gov, 804-698-1019
• Delegate Harvey Morgan, Chair of the House Appropriations Health and Human Resources Subcommittee DelHMorgan@house.virginia.gov, 804-698-1098
• Delegate Robert Brink (D-ARL), Member House Appropriations Committee DelRBrink@house.virginia.gov, 804-698-1048
• Delegate Joe T. May (R-LOU), Member House Appropriations Committee DelJMay@house.virginia.gov, 804-698-1033

PLEASE ALSO CONTACT GOVERNOR MCDONNELL – Ask the governor to withdraw his recommendations to eliminate consumer-directed services in the Medicaid waivers. Remind him that Medicaid waiver services are more cost-effective than institutional placements and a good investment for Virginia. Let him know how important it is for consumers to be able to hire and supervise their own caregivers because it results in better quality assurance than using a home health agency. If you use DRS PAS services, let Governor McDonnell know how important those services are for you, and if DRS PAS services help you to stay employed and continue to pay taxes, tell him that.

You may also ask him if these budget cuts represent his family values. We already have an 80% divorce rate and these budget cuts will result in the further distruction of families.

HERE’S HOW TO CONTACT GOVERNOR MCDONNELL –  Governor Robert McDonnell
http://www.governor.virginia.gov/TheAdministration/contactGovernor.cfm, 804-786-2211

Conclusion: I feel personal responsibility because I encouraged many of you to become service facilitators. Many of you signed up for EDCD and have gotten jobs because your children are taken care of by attendants. This is painful for me to watch because we worked so hard to get where we are today.
All that hard work will go up in smoke….

News from Delegate Herring

Posted by The Farm Team on Feb 20, 2010 in NoVA | 0 comments

Sixth Week of Session Edition
Feb. 19, 2010

CONTACT US IN RICHMOND!

delcherring@house.virginia.gov (804) 698-1046
PO Box 406, Richmond, VA 23218

And don’t forget to find us on Twitter or on Facebook

Paid for and authorized by Friends of Charniele Herring.