I am asking that this be public to show the reasons that the Alcona Grassroots Conservatives have valid concerns concerning the conduct of the Director of the Alcona County Commission on Aging and the board that governs him.
- On August 29 the 10:00am meeting was by manipulation moved to 1:00pm when it was discovered some public would be in attendance.
- A deputy sheriff was present at this meeting I believe as an intimidation factor to scare off the public. With Alcona having a manpower shortage of deputies for coverage of an individual sitting on his ass for 1 ½ hours in a meeting, well it is hard to justify such an action.
- At the same meeting the Director handed the Vice President (President was only available by video) a copy of the restrictions for public comment. The Vice President refused to present them as they were just handed to her and had the director read them. After the meeting I went home to look up the procedure. This is a violation of Robert’s Rules of Order 12th Edition 9.29. They can have these restrictions providing the board made these restrictions the rule. With my conversation with a board member, according to that member they were not voted on or approved by the board.
Next was a FOIA request by the Alcona Grassroots Conservatives. No instructions were present on the Alcona County Commission on Aging website. An inquiry was made to the liaison to that board and the county clerk. We were told the county was the party to go through. Here is what happened.
- FOIA request by Alcona Grassroots Conservatives September 1st 2022.
- County Clerk was overloaded with requests sent September 7 with a conclusion on September 21st 2022. (See PDF below named “FOIA Extension Redacted”)
- The Director showed up at the September 21st Board of Commissioners meeting, said nothing at the meeting and had a conversation with the Clerk about FOIA and procedures after the meeting. (See PDF below named “Redacted FOIA Email”)
- Magically FOIA instructions on Alcona County Commission on Aging website. (See PDF below named “Brand new ACCOA FOIA”)
At the last meeting not only the FOIA material matter also included in the meeting the Harrisville land purchase. It was brought to our attention that the Alcona County Commission on Aging purchased a piece of land the purchase was suspicious for the following:
- The Director called for the vote (it is not the place for the director to do so, but the President or Vice President in the President’s absence).
- This purchase was known about in July and could have been brought up in the August meeting (and this is speculation on my part) the public was in attendance and I do not think they wanted this disclosed.
- At the meeting this was not brought up for a vote for the record.
Too many things are being done in private for a publicly sanctioned board with taxpayer money. Intent and scope have changed from what the public was supporting for millage. Too many suspicious maneuverings, something is going on that they are trying to hide. It is time to contact your commissioner and ask for an inquiry and answers as to what is going on. This Director has over-extended his scope and the Alcona County Commission on Aging board are not reigning him in. The whole thing needs to be restored back to order or disbanded.
Gary R. Wnuk
Chairman Alcona Grassroots Conservatives
Download and read the files below:
Editor’s note: Want to help? Let us know below and we will get you in touch with the ACGC.
So in your words, you want ACCOA disbanded? Is that the goal? Who then will hep the seniors?
We are not the originators of this action or these words. They were submitted to us for publishing from the Alcona County Grassroots Conservatives group. We are a news site… this news was submitted to us for public consumption, and so we shared it for all to read.
However, we do agree that the ACCOA needs to be investigated and if these accusations of malfeasance and misappropriation of tax-payer funds are true, then they need to be dealt with accordingly, as prescribed by Law.
If they are found to be guilty of these actions, and are disbanded because of these actions, then a new group will form, I’m sure, to fill the void and to actually help the seniors who reside within Alcona County. (And they’ll do so knowing that we don’t put up with groups and people taking advantage of our tax dollars and our seniors citizens.)
Thank you for reaching out and asking questions!
-Jeff & Jess Dobbs
I have been posting in some of the Alcona groups on Facebook many concerns and looking for answers. This director would have to be constantly policed and any of the information that he finally made an appearance with an article to the public in the Alcona Review and Apkesna News, after months of trying to get a response, I realize that every claim he made would have to be fact checked before any of it can be taken seriously. He dances all around the with a carefully, what just looks to me as, trying to cover himself, throw out a bone with suddenly the Lincoln Project will be one floor, working in senior accessability. Why do I feel like the article and new complex plans are just because we forced a response and to get us off his back?
Why is his wife using the senior center as a free dance studio to teach her dance classes, her personal business for profit? This is not right. I understand there was some deal she would trade line dancing classes for seniors. I don’t know if that happened but In the past people donated their time to teach a craft or whatever at the center only asking for supplies to be paid for by seniors.
Has anyone seen this director bully a 78 year old woman on the board? This has happened at least twice as recently as the September board meeting.
This director doesn’t like to be questioned. She questions. Bullying is an abusive and cowardly behavior that makes the abuser feel powerful and is meant to intimidate the victim. Quite the marxist move attempting to silence her voice. Who does he think he is? Do we have another tyrant as the last director was? This is disgusting to me. There should be zero tolerance and consequences for bullying. He is the director of a senior center and abusing a senior.
How has this been tolerated by other board members? Why hasn’t anyone come to her aide as this is happening infront of the board and an audience?He should have been stopped and called out, letting him know bullying is not acceptable behavior and will not be tolerated. He bullied another woman a couple months ago too. Victims can feel shamed and not want to talk about. He ambushed this one, she had no time to even react. This is a serious character flaw. How many times does this have to happen before the board takes action?
If he will abuse a 78 year old woman in front of an audience what is he capable of in a more private setting? If I was his boss, this is a deal breaker, I wouldn’t keep him in my employ. Bulling and his irritable moods he can’t control in the center cause employees to just want to stay away from him.
A couple of people who had appointments to talk with the director about concerns over the last couple weeks, remarked he was irritated and rude to them. He told a former aide of mine, if clients have any complaints just assume they are lying. Then he and the board say don’t talk on social media bring us your concerns. I wrote an email last May to a couple of board members with my concerns. I never even received an acknowledgement of receipt. I found out weeks later my email was considered… Gossip. They say they want to hear from us but they frustrate the attempts.
This whole Lincoln Project, with the lack of transparency and difficulty to get a straight answer only solidifies our concerns that something is being hidden because the director knows we are not going to like it. His stories change with his audience. Who will profit from the Lincoln Project? Why was a group hired out of Detroit to decide what’s going to be done in Alcona County? I resent decisions being made that have the potential to change Alcona into their idea of progress.
We have not been truthfully informed or given the opportunity that I am aware of to say, yes or no. It looks to me after reading some of their proposal, paraphrased, the seniors are going to die off soon and we want to get this younger generation into our plans for progress… They’ll take over. They will turn this area into something you’ll be sorry for after.
Once our small town USA, peaceful area is gone, there’s no getting it back. I’ve seen this “progress” and it isn’t for you and me. It’s for making money for investors pockets or locals looking for housing for employees they want to bring in for their businesses.. . The director said once the apartments were for the folks that work for Koletta and another business in the area.
Nothing with this project feels right for Alcona County. The twisted facts and bait and switch, gaslighting, evasiveness are just the beginning. The director should have built a new senior center with some apartments for seniors. Less complicated and and could be accomplished in a more timely manner. He’s talking about phases, five years for the first one? We’re seniors! We need a center now and apartments. Bring this project back down to Earth and for the Seniors. Seniors weren’t even going to get anything at all with the Lincoln Project, because the Lincoln Project never was for seniors. I know he threw in some multigenerational grandparents raising grandkids. With an income to yo rent affordable housing? Not low-income housing like many were were expecting. When was he going to make it clear the project wasn’t really for seniors or low income people? At completion? He wasn’t forth coming with any information before we started raising the awareness in the the groups on Facebook. I still don’t think he is, but that’s my gift suspicion, works pretty good sometimes… . Why has he been paid by ACCOA to be working on a project that has nothing to do with seniors?
He’s paid to work for the seniors or is that just okay… Is there any integrity here?
This director and the last director are just different types of abusers with the seniors that they are supposed to be helping and instead the seniors are victimized in one way or another. The board does not know how to hire the right people, this is twice. The center needs help with finding and hiring someone who will be an asset for the seniors and the center. The destruction of the center since Mia left around 2017 has turned the center into nothing like the warm and friendly small town USA that it was with it’s purpose being fulfilled as was intended. The director sets the tone for the center.
Was there COVID-19 relief money given to the center? It’s my understanding there was. Where did it go? Does this director have clear performance objectives or does he just do his own thing? The seniors need to be the objective not personal ambitions of anyone at that the center… It leaves the seniors needs unmet. The last director fired evey seasoned employee except one. If you stood up to her abuse, she would find a way to fire you and then deny your unemployment. Some had over 20 years with the center. If you were a client like me and stood up to here, she just stopped all your services. I have a lot of skin in this game. I’ve been with the center wlsincr 2012. In 2017 that woman was hired as director. She tore up our lives. I am a level 4 out of 5 disability, I can not stay in my home without help. She wanted copies of my personal bank account and my EBT history. I said no, she said okay, your not getting your aide back and I am closing your account. There was no one else up her taking clients like me. She did that to anyone else who wouldn’t bow to her. She caused havoc in all our lives for 2 1/2 years and no one would listen or help us. We were trapped. It wasn’t until a board member got her wrath first hand that anything was done. Then I got phone calls asking if I would give them my documentation to use to help terminate her. No one listened, our families called NEMSCA and the board, other people in the area tried to raise awareness and get help. We were being abuse and employees were being abused and the board was useless. This affects our daily lives. We have problems again, not exactly the same but here we are. I tried to warn the board again and no response. I have more strength this time so I am doing what I can sharing my experiences and as long as I can spreading awareness about the issues. Board president doesn’t like it, said I am just causing more trouble for the seniors the other day. I can’t see that. If they did their job we wouldn’t be out here fighting for ourselves. They didn’t care before and I am not seeing any difference now. The board failed us then and it’s not looking too good now. No one on the board seems to be able to stand up to the current director, and he seems to rule the board. The center is on its 7th inhome coordinator since Lenny over the last couple years. Employee turn over is high red flag. This has a direct effect on clients and aides.
Is the livestock purchase disaster being wrote off as advertising?
Sorry but, I’m asking, does anyone know if any of the pork, chickens and turkeys ended up in the directors freezer? I wouldn’t hire the director to oversee the building of my shed, let alone a 12.5 million dollar project.
Because of all the issues and the project hasn’t even gotten off the ground. There needs to be a full and complete audit of ACCOA and the Lincoln Project. The project should be halted until every part of it is brought under the control of a trusted experienced source or scrapped and focus on the original objective the seniors.
A new senior center and some apartments. The project proposed in Lincoln does not have half the funds needed to complete all of the grand scale of things planned I am told. Ask the director where he’s going to get the rest of the money. What construction experience does this director have? Not much, if he didn’t know ahead of time he couldn’t hook into an existing serwer system! I do think there will be one problem after another based on our experience this far. That’s my two cents that always turns into a the whole dollar and I’ve got at least 5 more bucks to go.
Let’s bring back the focus on the seniors… and a place they feel welcome again and activities the seniors want, not what the director wants or some study that has no idea who or what our seniors are about. Mia used to have a Senior of the month from our area and a synopsis of their life in the monthly bulletin. We got to know a bit about each one. Does the director know what any of our seniors like to do? The center isn’t being used by seniors now because the seniors are not comfortable there and there isn’t anything for them. Maybe the surveillance cameras Lenny installed with the ability to also hear everything they say and they know he’s watching and listening is a problem for a comfortable environment.
Their needs aren’t being met and someone just doesn’t get it. I guess they didn’t want 15,000 in exercise equipment and a 50.000 dollar computer lab? Did anyone ask them before taking away what they did have for activities? I’d ask the director but I don’t think he wants to talk to me. Who wanted the exercise equipment and computer lab if no seniors are coming to the center to use them, I guess it wasn’t the seniors? Why is there a high volume of employee turn over at the center? I know why, do you think the director does? Alright I quit… Chapter and verse it 🤣 Thank you to all who are involved and helping this time. ❤️
Seriously, it is a deflection from the many questions we all have, many of which were brought up before the Commissioners today. The list of concerns the citizenry have is a page long and have NOTHING to do in specific with the proposed housing development. However, the proposed “affordable housing” project has at least two pages of concerns by itself. We will put together a list of questions that we would like to have the ACCOA board and/or the Executive Director respond to so as all can get answers. I would invite others to post their questions in this forum also.
I would like to see a full audit done by an outside firm. The livestock purchase were not audited as was suggested by a board member. I would like to see disciplinary action taken for the director not doing as instructed by the board on at least two occasions, one being finding out meat processing etc before purchasing animals and the second being finding out if the lot in Harrisville is even buildable. I would like to see the director actually being at the center and working for the seniors M-F 8-5. I would like the focus of ACCOA to be on seniors. Bring back stuff that seniors want. The seniors need a welcoming place to gather and have meals and activities, this should be priority not apartments for the “missing middle” people ( not low income and not seniors). If the program is not for seniors, it should not be handled by ACCOA.