The ICOIL Way: perhaps the real reason for Ramona Harveys

Just went to check out the www.onecandream.com/icoil location, which is a
repository for documentation of what has gone on with the Indiana SILC over
the past year. The first thing I found was this letter, written almost a year
ago by a not-yet-burned Ramona Harvey. She had not yet learned that if one is
honest and without conflict, if one takes their responsibilities to people
with disabilities throughout this state seriously, and if one questions in any
way the status quo, they'll get run off. But first, they will be lied about
without opportunity to defend themselves, right after the assumption is made
that they must have been contaminated in some way through interaction with
'those Everybody Counts' people.

It's the ICOIL way. Just ask all of those who came and been run off before.

Ramona says that her website was created 'only after several months of trying
to work with a system that is defrauding the people with disabilities in
Indiana.'

Her introduction says:

'With all the unsubstantiated rumors going around I feel it is important
people know the truth of what is going on in Indiana and how we got here.
There is a strong institutional bias against people with disabilities that the
state is trying to maintain at what appears to be any cost. Lets rebuild and
be vigilant. The supposed leaders for people with disabilities in Indiana are
being used to surpress the very people they are supposed to serve, and anyone
who tries to point out the fraud and corruption in the system gets beat up.
Nobody can really advocate for change in the state of Indiana because the
system is such that they will soon find that their hands are tied and the
people who are supposed to be working with them are instead the ones that are
doing the flogging.'

So here's her letter, written almost a year ago, appealing to the council to
get their action together:

 Hello Everyone,

As I have spent a lot of time, looked at a lot of documentation and talked to
a great several people since the ICOIL meeting. I believe I have a better
understanding and picture of where we are at as a council. I am still in the
process of researching, but I have an even clearer picture of what my concerns
with this council are.

Everyone agrees that there needs to be changes to the council and that we have
to move forward. There are varing opinions of how this should be done, but
there is no question that we have got to change and really get our act
together. It is also clear that no one person is fully responsible for the
problems the council are now facing. One person did not get us to where we are
at now and nor is it a single person that needs to change.

We cannot change the past. But we must learn from it and we must also
acknowledge and admit that the past is coloring how people are interacting
with each other. We as a council may not be able to rectify past issues, but
we SHOULD NOT try and hide these issues. If we do that especially during this
restructuring stage then we run the risk of not protecting ourselves or future
councils from the very mistakes that have gotten us to this point in the first
place.

I had been confused as to why there was a policy that the governor needed to
appoint all the center directors were to be appointed to the council as this
is not the case in other states....however, I have concluded that the
situation in Indiana is such that in this case it makes since.

So even though personally I would not support all center directors being on
the council, because I believe there to be a conflict of interest there. I
have a severe problem with there being a policy where ALL center directors are
to be appointed to the council and then not all center directors are
appointed. The fact of the matter is that if a person is a director of a CIL
they should be appointed to the council period. It is the law.

To say that a director maybe should not be on the council because they may get
along with someone that you don't agree with is wrong. I understand there is a
lot going on there, but that does not negate the fact that we should be
following our own policies.

We must have our actions follow our words and we have got to stop fighting. We
need to make sure that we are consistant. I understand that we need to get
used to doing things by committees, but I also understand that those
committees need to be open to the public (Because of the open door law), and
because everyone needs to actually have equal access to participating in that
committee. We have a bad reputation and we got to clean it up.

At the very least we need to have a specific place that everyone has access to
that we can post all committee meetings. I was told that meetings in the
government building were posted on the state website, but that the chairs of
each committee are responsible for letting interested parties know when they
are having meetings. Thinking this over I find it problematic because I do not
believe that the chairs are personally aware of who all the interested parties
of their committees may be.

Of course one might say then that interested parties need to contact the
committee chairs, but I find this very difficult as well because it is not
public knowledge who the chairs of the committees are, nor is it public
knowledge what the committees do or how to get ahold of the chair. A good
example of this would be the membership committee. I know that Melissa was
chair, and I know that she resigned from that position prior to our last
meeting...which everyone discovered at the last meeting. After that meeting I
requested information about the committees and Jodi sent the information that
she had. (Since Jodi is the acting chair I must assume her information was up
to date) Her information indicated that we had committees that only had two
people on them making all the decisions, and that the membership committee had
no current chair. If there is no current chair then who exactly is an
interested party supposed to contact if they cannot find a posting of a
meeting anywhere, or are not able to attend the meeting but wants
information?

I also find it difficult because Jodi said that the discriptions of the
committees are in the bylaws, but the bylaws are not universally accepted and
are in the process of being modified, and in the last meeting it was
determined that the finance committee had decided the discription of what they
did needed to be changed...I got to thinking about this and I thought that
committees ought to be able to come to the council and say you know, I know it
says that we are supposed to do this particular thing, but the committee does
not think it is appropriate for our current needs and purposes and we would
like the counsel to vote on whether or not we can iliminate this sentence from
our discription. But especially given history, I do think that committees
should not be able to make significant modifications as too thier own purpose
without approval from the council at large.

My understanding of a committee is it that they are task forces used to
discuss/collect/and assimulate information and policies relevant to that
committee and then report that information to the larger council who would
then have opportunity to look over the information ask for clarification if
need be, and then vote on anything that needed to be voted on or send it back
to the committee to be worked on.

We need committees, but we need to have clearly defined committees. All
committees and their purpose need to be open to the public. We need to find a
way to get that information out. People need to know that committees exist and
what they are supposed to be doing before they can know if they are
interested.

The council needs to establish a specific place to post meetings and figure
out a way to at least make it available to anyone who may be interested in
attending.

Presently this is not happening....even the people on the council do not have
equal access to information as to when committee meetings are being held. If
our goal is to move forward this has got to change. We all agree that things
happened in the past that should not have, and though we disagree as to the
details the fact that we have a turbulant history as a council means that if
we really are serious about wanting to change because we know we need to in
order to save IL in Indiana (A point everyone agrees on) then we must be
vigilant.

I also believe it is important to be consistant in the way that we do things.
What we have here is a situation where in the past things happened that should
not have happened. People got hurt.

While I have heard everyone commit to making things change and getting over
past issues and I am glad for that, I am also recieving mixed messages and
imagine other members may be as well. Because I am hearing that people are
frustrated and they have tried certain things before. (apparantly getting
together as a council and spending one day to go over important issues as
bylaws - and a second day as an educational experience of some sort has been
tried before - with little success).

And because these efforts have failed in the past and people are tired of
doing the same things over and over again, there is a reluctance to try again.
Because of what has happened in the past, people are reluctant to do what they
percieve as a waste their time. But here is the deal the current situation IS
substancially different then the past situation. Any individual who judges
that something will not work simply because it has not worked in the past and
so does not even try to allow an activity to work is not really sending a
signal that they really are willing to move past the past and start from today
towards the future.

If we really want to move forward we have got to agree to suck it up one more
time. Given our history as a council I believe the bylaws to be incredibly
important and because we are literally re-building the council and trying to
create a foundation it really does need to be a group effort. (For anyone who
does not know I have discovered there was a time period when the council was
only made up of two or three people and that was part of the reason as to my
understanding that the law was created saying that the governor needed to
appoint all center directors...the other part being that information was not
being desimininated effectively to all of the directors - a problem we still
have)

My research has made it clear to me that it is not one individual who is
responsible or to blame for the situation of the council. We are all
responsible (Including myself...because I have had opportunity in the past to
try and be on the council, but have decided not to because I did not want to
be involved...with all the stuff that seemed to be going on...) but like I
said now is different. But we have to as a council believe and accept that it
is different and act as if it is....we as a council have to give ourselves a
chance to be successful and those who know how bad it can get need to not only
be a resource for individuals, but also actively support the council moving
forward so Indiana does not suffer any more then it already has.

My allegence right now with regards to the council is not with any particular
region of the state, but with the state of Indiana as a whole. As a council we
cannot ignore the past and assume that we will be able to avoid those mistakes
in the future, but we must be consistant with our policies procedures and the
way we treat and interact with fellow council members. Indiana cannot wait for
us to do the right thing any more.

Ramona Harvey