The California disability community has been fighting to gain back some of the budget losses from the past few years.  We tried for a 10% increase but that didn’t happen.  The increases that are in the currently proposed budget are smaller, but they are increases.  And, most importantly, they aren’t finalized yet.  They could be still be cut.

Below is a letter emailed by The Arc & United Cerebral Palsy California Collaboration.  There are numbers to call.  And call now.  5 people to call.  That’s it.

Please call.  Please.

Dear Friends,

The Legislature’s budget conference committee acted late Tuesday, and now it’s time for more urgent action. I’m sure a lot of you are tired – I am, too – but I also know that our service system’s continued existence may depend on this fight.

For those who want details of what’s happened and what to expect next, scroll down to “Where are we now?” For those who just want to take action now, here’s how:

 

Five short calls needed urgently

 

Please call these five key decision-makers:

–      Governor Jerry Brown, 916-445-2841.

–      Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de Leon, 916-651-4024

–      Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, 916-319-2078

–      Senate Budget Chair Mark Leno, 916-651-4011

–      Assembly Budget Chair Shirley Weber, 916-319-2079

Please call all five, even the ones you’ve called before. There’s a new message — and they need to know we haven’t given up.

What you might say

 

“My name is __ and my address is __. I’m calling about the developmental services budget because ___ [tell them why you care].

“The budget conference committee’s actions will not be enough to stop our community service system from continuing to crumble. But they will save some of our services that that will close without them. Please don’t allow any cuts from what the committee passed.

 

“And please support the system reforms that the committee approved -– especially the language that says the savings from closing the developmental centers should go to the community services.

“Thank you.”

Where are we now?

 

Here are the actions the budget conference committee took late Tuesday.

Effective July 1:

 

–      5% increases for supported living, supported employment, and respite services, and for regional center clients’ rights advocacy.

–      2.5% increase for transportation services.

–      One new dental coordinator and one new forensic coordinator for each regional center.

 

Effective January 1:

 

–      2.5% across-the-board increase for all other services and for regional center staffing.

System reforms:

 

–      Require DDS to report to the Legislature annually on its evaluation of the rate-setting methodology for community service and regional center staffing.

–      Express legislative intent that future savings from closing the developmental centers be used to benefit people with developmental disabilities in the community.

–

All these actions reflect the Legislature’s priorities. I’m completely sure we wouldn’t have gotten even this much without our community’s united efforts in the Capitol and your energetic advocacy throughout the state.

 

These actions don’t reflect Governor Brown’s priorities. Brown originally proposed giving us nothing, and we hear he’s especially against shifting the developmental center closure savings to the community.

Now what?

The negotiations between Democratic legislative leaders and Brown are continuing, and will go on after the Legislature passes the budget as proposed by the conference committee. The Legislature’s deadline is Monday.

Even after the Legislature passes the budget, it can call it back and amend it to reflect any agreements the Democratic leaders reach with the governor.

At some point before July 1, Governor Brown will have to sign the budget, with or without any line-item vetoes – or he could veto the whole thing, sending it back to the Legislature for more negotiations. He has no such short deadline for signing or vetoing the “trailer bills” containing the system reforms, and negotiations over them could go on after July 1.

 

There’s approximately zero chance all this will result in anything more for our community than what the conference committee did. The big danger now is that they will result in less.

 

And in any case, the fight for more in the 2016 budget has begun.

Thank you for your advocacy. And please stay tuned.

 

Greg

 

Greg deGiere

Public Policy Director

The Arc & United Cerebral Palsy California Collaboration

1225 Eighth Street, Suite 350, Sacramento, CA 95814

916-552-6619 x4

Greg@TheArcCA.org

A few months back I wrote Yes, it may be illegal to sell MMS. It was about news and a DOJ press release (Four Charged with Internet Sales of Industrial Bleach as Miracle Cure). In short, members of company led by one Daniel Smith were charged with various offenses involving the import of materials, production of MMS and sale of MMS.

Mr. Smith has been convicted.  Here is the verdict form document.

In short, the document states that the following about six counts brought against Mr. Smith:

Count 1: Conspiracy.  Guilty

Count 2: Misbranding: Guilty

Count 3: Another count of misbranding: Guilty

Count 4: Another count of misbranding: Guilty

Count 5: Another count of misbranding: Not Guilty

Count 6: Fraudulently importing merchandise: Guilty

Per Consumer Affairs (“Miracle Mineral Solution” promoter convicted of selling bleach as a miracle cure)

In all, the jury convicted Smith of one count of conspiracy to commit multiple crimes, three counts of introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce with intent to defraud or mislead and one count of fraudulently smuggling merchandise into the United States.  The jury found Smith not guilty on one out of four of the misbranded drug counts. He faces a statutory maximum of 34 years in prison at his Sept. 9 sentencing.

MMS has recently become a fad “treatment” for autism, promoted largely by Kerri Rivera.  She has done so at the AutismOne parent convention (where anyone, it seems, can promote any fake cure as long as one claims vaccines cause autism and the “cure” is a treatment for vaccine injury) as well as her website, book and clinic in Mexico.  Also via skype for 100 Euros an hour.

Coincidentally, No More Bleach is reporting that Ms. Rivera’s online presence has gone largely offline.  I wouldn’t make too much of the coincidence.  One site (http://cdautism.org/) is up.  A facebook page is still down as of writing this (https://www.facebook.com/Kerririveracdautism).

The main promoter of MMS is a man by the name of Jim Humble, who heads a self-styled “church”.  The Genesis II Church of Health and Healing.  Their website is up.  And includes this disclaimer:

– Disclaimer –
The protocols described on this site are official sacraments of the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing. The reader accepts 100% responsibility for any and all use made of any information herein.

Yes, they discuss how it heals so many things (it doesn’t) but disclaim any responsibility by claiming it is a “sacrament”.  If this weren’t being used on disabled children, I would consider hiding behind a church ( a fake church in my opinion) as being reprehensible.  But that act pales in comparison to the harm caused to individuals.

Mr. Humble not only heads a church and has invented a miracle cure that apparently does everything, he has also found a way to “reduce radiation to zero and create gold in the process”:

Zero Fusion and Atomic Alchemy ebook

On the webpage for this eBook he states

Did I do it? Yes many times. I actually made gold and platinum and demonstrated it to Texas A & M University. But don’t check with them as they will refuse to admit that they every saw me or that they ever came to my Laboratory in Las Vegas, or that they assayed the precious metals right after my demonstration, but they did. Thirteen Videos come with this book free of charge showing actual demonstrations of all of the concepts given in the book. BUY THIS BOOK AND STORE IT AWAY. MANKIND MIGHT NOT BE READY FOR THIS TECHNOLOGY, BUT MAYBE IN 20 or 30 or 50 YEARS IT WILL BE NEEDED AND YOU WILL HAVE IT.

Why bring this up here?  Because–this is an example that the man is a believer in junk science.  Actually, this isn’t even in the same postal code as junk science, and not in the same galaxy as real science.  And yet people believe the “Archbishop” Humble, alchemist, invented a cure all (everything from brain cancer to diaper rash) and called it MMS?

To be blunt, Mr. Smith is not the only person whose actions on MMS are suspect.  I hope that the Department of Justice acts against all those selling this fake cure-all.

Mr. Humbles followers have not failed to notice that Mr. Smith wasn’t convicted of selling fake medicine.  On his public forum one can find this statement:

How curious, no charges that MMS is dangerous, only mentioned in the article, not in the verdict. What a stretch! Interstate commerce, victimless crimes? Where is the victim? There is no common law. There is no constitution. Jury rights are truncated. There is no justice in these courts!

Where are the victims?  The victims are people taking the medicine.  Sadly, that is not the crime.  If adults want to waste time, money and health on this nonsense, that’s one thing, but children and more, disabled children are being subjected to this.    But, hey, if it takes the crimes found proved in the charges above to put a stop to this, good on you Department of Justice.

—

By Matt Carey

As noted in yesterday’s article, we here in California are working to gain back some of the lost ground in services for the developmentally disabled.

If you follow the link and spend literally 2 minutes or less, you can send the message below to your legislators. You can also take more time and modify the message to your own unique message.

Take the time and be heard.

Here’s the message sent for me, with my address and phone number redacted:

Assemblymember
Senator
Message text follows:

Matthew Carey
[address]

May 27, 2015

[recipient address was inserted here]

Dear [recipient name was inserted here],

Please speak out urgently in your party caucus for the Assembly version of
funding for developmental disability community services — but starting
the funding on July 1. The system is collapsing, and more programs will
close without a rescue in 2015.

The Assembly version is preferable to the Senate version because it is an
across-the-board increase. This is vital because the entire interlinked
service system is endangered when any part fails.

And please support the Senate language to develop a realistic rate system
based on services’ actual costs, and to help fund the community services
by using the future years’ savings from closing the obsolete developmental
centers.

Thank you for all your efforts to save the services people with
developmental disabilities need, and for your continuing support now – no
matter what Governor Brown says.

Sincerely,

Matthew Carey
[phone number]

Dear Policymaker — This constituient sent you the above message via The
Arc and United Cerebal Palsy of California, a coalition of people with
developmental disabilities and their families, friends, volunteer
advocates, and service providers.

While I’ve been taking a break, a major legislative effort has been going on in California: an effort to bring funding back to the system here that supports people with developmental disabilities.

Below is a letter from The ARC of California and United Cerebral Palsy about the efforts to improve services.

If you don’t have the time to read the letter below, go straight to this website and enter your zip code to find your legislators. Follow the quick directions and you will send a message to them right away. Took 2 minutes for me:
Take Action.

The Last Few Miles of the Marathon to Save Our Services

Take Action!

We have made incredible progress together this year and while the end is in sight for this budget session we still have a lot of work ahead of us.

The Assembly proposes our 10% request but spreads it out over 2 years and delays it’s implementation.

The Senate puts forth bold proposals for sustaining the community system with developmental center assets and rate reform but selects some families and people with disabilities over others to receive desperately needed relief.

We need you to urge for the best of both proposals for a road map to bring the California system back to #KeepThePromise and preserve the Lanterman Act.

Remember a majority of Senators and Assembly members have already shown their support for the 10% across the board proposal in Senator Jim Beall’s letter.

The Latest Developments

If you’re already up to speed on the latest developments, skip the explanations below and take 20 seconds to email your legislators, click on the blue “Take Action” button at the upper right of this Action Alert, enter your ZIP code in the box at the top (right of “Action Alert”), click “Go,” and follow the prompts. The situation keeps changing and getting more urgent, so we’re asking you to email them now even if you’ve contacted them before.

For those who want an explanation, briefly here it is as of today (Wednesday May 27, 2015):

The Senate and Assembly budget subcommittees voted Thursday. Both of them clearly heard our community’s united, vocal request for a 10% across-the-board funding increase this year to save our developmental services system. Each of them voted to give us some — but not all — of what we asked for. We like part of the Assembly version and part of the Senate version.
The two full budget committees will continue meeting through probably Thursday May 28, 2015. They’ll pass their separate budgets then take floor votes, and at some point they’ll announce who will be on the conference committee.

The two versions will go to the Senate-Assembly budget conference committee for action, as early as this week. The final budget will depend on what that committee decides and, especially, on the legislative leaders’ negotiations with Governor Brown, who doesn’t want to increase our services’ funding at all.

The Assembly version would give our services a 10% across-the-board increase phased in over two years, starting January 1, 2016. We like that it’s across-the-board, but we want it to start July 1, because our entire system is in deep trouble and we believe some programs will close without more money this year.

The Senate version would give 10% to some to services and nothing to other services such as day programs, group homes, and regional center operations. But it would do two things that we like a lot: direct the administration to develop a realistic funding formula for future years that actually is based in the services’ costs; and give our community services the money from future years’ budget savings produced by closing the developmental centers.

So we’re asking all 120 legislators to tell their leaders and budget conference committee members to support the Assembly 10% across-the-board funding increase (but starting July 1) and the Senate language on future actions – no matter what Governor Brown says. That’s what the email I’m asking you to send them says. And of course, you can also add your own thoughts.

—
By Matt Carey