Good morning! I hope you had a nice weekend! There are a couple of meetings this week and they are both on Wednesday, the 2nd. The commissioners meet at 1:30pm, lower level of the county building and at 6:00pm is the Tavern meeting. We will be back at the library on Wednesday.
Last Tuesday the ACCOA had their board meeting. This might be a bit long as the meeting was three hours long! There were 23 of us in the audience. Bob and Leroy took their seats at the board table. Leroy asked if public comment could be listed in the minutes in the future. The minutes were approved from the last meeting. The first public comment period saw several audience members stand. Gary Wnuk said the board was hiding in the dark and reminded them that God was in charge. Chris Scully stood and talked about an incident that got his contract with the ACCOA terminated. He said he was accused of a hit and run and was screamed at by Lenny in public in front of ACCOA staff members. He said he has never been treated that way in 30 years of running a business. According to Chris, a malfunctioning door flew open while he was parking an ACCOA vehicle he had just detailed and it hit another ACCOA vehicle. Since everyone was gone for the day and it was Friday, he turned in the keys and left. When he returned on Tuesday to let them know what happened and to give them his insurance information, Lenny started yelling and accusing him of a hit and run and then fired him. Karen Sharboneau stood and asked only for a new senior center, not any other housing project. Mike Maturen told her not to point her finger at him, Karen said she was pointing in no particular direction. She said the board needs to do what is right for the community. I stood and said that since I had not heard a word on my discrimination complaint against the ACCOA, my next step was to fill out a USDA discrimination complaint and file it. Jess Dobbs from Curtis Township asked for a link for future zoom meetings and asked the board when she could expect the video of the meeting to be available. Terri Goldstrom asked why Bob and Leroy were the only ones asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. Mike said the entire board was also asked. She also asked that financial records be open to the public. The rest of the meeting commenced.
Caitlyn (sp?) Franks is the new financial analyst at NEMCSA. She will be doing the accounting. Bill Thompson said the commissioners were working on the budgets. Kim Fleming resigned as a board member so Mike Maturen will take her place as the Regional Advisor liaison to NEMCSA. The next part was interesting…well. not really. Lenny and Toni Scott gave about an hour long presentation on the ACCOA. They said it was for the new board and current board members about what exactly the ACCOA really does. The things I noted that Lenny’s favorite program was the Golden Girls. ? Toni and Lenny gave a list of how the board should conduct itself. I found this unusual that employees should tell the boss what their duties are. I thought this worked the other way around. Lenny commented that the board sets the course but does not steer the ship. He commented that the board should work with him, and I thought, again, it should be the other way around. It seems to me he has things backwards as to how things should work there. These are just my observations. After the presentation, Rolland talked about how he needs help filling pop-up pantry boxes. Mike talked about the hierarchy of complaints at the ACCOA; employees report to their supervisor who report to Lenny who reports to the board. There is nothing in place for employees to talk to the board. There was no old business. Rolland said the ramp to the building looks like it won’t get done. Rolland got one estimate for tree trimming/removal. Leroy asked for more than one estimate before the board makes a decision and Mike asked Rolland to call Consumers Energy to see if they’ll do it. The board needed to renew the CPA’s (Stephenson Gracik) contract. Lenny asked for 5 years. Delores said she thought it was beneficial to change accountants every five years or so to have new eyes on the finances. Bob asked if there was time to find out if what Delores said was true. Since an audit was coming up in a week, the board agreed to three years. The new officers were elected, Mike Maturen President, Will St. John Vice-President, Pam Ashford Secretary, Rolland Lynch Treasurer. Lenny prompted Mike to make a statement. Mike talked about social media and the rumors circulating about the ACCOA. Then the final public comment period came.
Pam MacKinnon replied to Toni Scott’s assertion that the ACCOA does not solicit funds from the seniors. Pam said she has seen solicitations coming to her father (or father-in-law) and has written the checks. She asked for more oversight on the animal and property purchase. She asked how we the people get to see the results of the audit and commented on how many people have quit over the last couple of years. Rich Bray stood and thanked Lenny for his presentation. He offered to help pack boxes for the pop-up pantry. He said that there seems to be more than one mission statement – does the ACCOA care about the seniors or is it working for the entire community? Other agencies can take care of a low-income housing project, ACCOA should be taking care of the aged first. I stood and said the words “Lincoln Housing Project” was not made up by someone and put in the Alcona Review, those words are on the State of Michigan Senate Appropriations Committee budget as a line item. Bob later showed Mike a copy of the statement that shows it is called the Lincoln Housing Project. Jerry Merrick stood and asked if Lenny is the only employee who can approach the board with employee complaints, what if he is the problem? How can the staff bypass their supervisors and the executive director if they are the problem? There was no answer from the board. He said the millage should not be for real estate. He voted for the millage because it was supposed to be for a senior center. He said those of us in the audience were not stupid. Gary Wnuk stood again and said the millage wording was somehow changed to funds going directly to the ACCOA, as opposed to previous wordings where to funds can go to any organization which can direct them to seniors. He was on the board of commissioners with the last ACCOA director and he thinks things are worse now. He also asked for his FOIA request to be processed. Brenda Bray stood and said the CDC does not recognize mask mandates and signs that say you have to be vaccinated or wear a mask. The ACCOA should take them down. Chris Scully stood and thanked the volunteers for helping with the food pantry. He said the people that sit in line for four hours have nothing else to do. There was talk about how the ACCOA can not discriminate against people coming in for food (as to how wealthy they may be). He said the board is not doing anything about complaints from staff regarding the executive director. Mike said he hadn’t heard about the hit and run thing. Jess Dobbs asked the board to put the presentation and the board meeting on the website. They said they hoped to have it by the next meeting but it depended on the IT guy. Liz Brown stood and said we need senior housing and continued care. Sharon Hume stood and told the board they need to listen to what our county needs, not what NEMCSA needs. The audience started talking to each other about the survey that went out stating no one in the audience had received a survey. Lenny told Mike to cut off the conversation so Mike told everyone to quiet down. The meeting adjourned.
Rosie attended a meeting on Thursday that Dan O’Connor hosted regarding school safety and some grants that the school received (31AA and Section 97 Security). She gave me her notes so I hope I do a good job transcribing. There were six people who came to the meeting. The grant funding is based on head count. There is $75,000 in the 31AA grant and some of the ideas include $50,000 for paraprofessional support which would include staff counseling at the clinic and a supervisor for in-school suspensions, $5000 in employee assistance, $5000 in sensory tools in Pathway and the break room and $12,000 for flexible seating which includes stand-up desks. The Section 97 Security grant would include a resource officer at $30,000 (split with the county), classroom barricade devices which secure classroom doors from intruders at $40,000, vape detectors that work with a camera system (they estimate half the students are vaping) at $30,000 and numbering the exits for $600.00. The superintendent was asking for everyone’s input or suggestions as to other things the grants could be used for. Everyone thought these were great ideas. Rosie, if anything here looks wrong, please let me know. 🙂
And that’s it. Thanks for reading. It was great to see people showing up, and speaking up! We are starting to pay attention to what is going on in our county. Congratulations to Bob and Leroy! I am expecting good things to start happening at the ACCOA. 🙂
See you at a meeting…
Your fellow patriot,
Lisa
