THE BRAILLE MONITOR
Vol. 45, No. 1;January/February, 2002
Barbara Pierce, Editor
Published in inkprint, in Braille, and on cassette by
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT
National Office
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21230
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THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION
SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND--IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES
ISSN 0006-8829
Louisville: Site of 2002 NFB Convention!
The 2002 Convention of the National Federation of the Blind will take place in Louisville, Kentucky, July 3-9. We will conduct the convention at the Galt House Hotel and the Galt House East Tower, together a first-class convention hotel. The Galt House Hotel, familiarly called the Galt House West, is at 140 N. Fourth Street, Louisville, Kentucky 40202. The Galt House East Tower, or Galt House East, is at 141 N. Fourth Street, Louisville, Kentucky 40202. Room rates for this year's convention are excellent: singles, doubles, and twins $57 and triples and quads $63 a night, plus tax. The hotel is accepting reservations now. A $60-per-room deposit is required to make a reservation. Fifty percent of the deposit will be refunded if notice is given to the hotel of a reservation cancellation before May 29, 2002. The other 50 percent is not refundable. For reservations call the hotel at (502) 589‑5200.
Rooms will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Reservations may be made to secure these rooms before May 29, 2002, assuming that rooms are still available. After that time the hotel will not hold the block of rooms for the convention. In other words, you should get your reservation in soon.
Our overflow hotel is the Hyatt Regency at 320 W. Jefferson Street, Louisville, Kentucky 40202, phone (502) 587‑3434.
Those who attended the 1985 convention can testify to the gracious hospitality of the Galt House. This hotel has excellent restaurants, first-rate meeting space, and other top-notch facilities. It is in downtown Louisville, close to the Ohio River and only seven miles from the Louisville Airport.
The 2002 Convention will follow a somewhat different schedule:
Wednesday, July 3:Seminar Day
Thursday, July 4:Registration Day
Friday, July 5:Board Meeting and Division Day
Saturday, July 6:Opening Session
Sunday, July 7:Tour Day
Monday, July 8:Banquet Day
Tuesday, July 9:Business Session
Plan to be in Louisville.
The action of the convention will be there!
Vol. 45, No. 1 January/February, 2002
Contents
Maxi-Aids Exposed Again, Part II: Able-Vision Established to Circumvent the VA’s Proposed Debarment
by Barbara Pierce
Elliot Zaretsky Visits the National Center for the Blind..........................................................................
by Marc Maurer
Address to the 1956 Convention of the Tennessee Affiliate...................................................................
by Kenneth Jernigan
Vending Opportunities for the Blind on Military Bases:
A Victory in the Courts........................................................................................................................
by Andrew Freeman
First-Timers' Convention Reports.........................................................................................................
The 2002 National Convention in the Making.......................................................................................
by Cathy Jackson
Dick Edlund May Be Blind, But He Can See Right Through You..........................................................
by Rebecca Shelton
Tapping the Cheese.............................................................................................................................
by John Bailey
Beyond Our Senses.............................................................................................................................
by Chris Kuell
More about SSDI and Retirement-Benefit Computations......................................................................
by James Gashel
Plaque Now Marks Federation's Birthplace.........................................................................................
by Jim Antonacci
Implications of Attacks on the ADA.....................................................................................................
Why I Am a Federationist....................................................................................................................
by Carlos Servan
NFB NEWSLINE® Goes Nationwide on March 1, 2002...................................................................
by Peggy Chong
Does What You Do Really Matter?.....................................................................................................
by Dana Ard
Tim Cranmer Dies...............................................................................................................................
by Buffa Hanse
Recipes...............................................................................................................................................
Monitor Miniatures.............................................................................................................................
Copyright © 2002 National Federation of the Blind
Maxi-Aids Exposed Again
Part II:
Able-Vision Established to
Circumvent the VA's Proposed Debarment
by Barbara Pierce
As reported in last month's issue of the Braille Monitor, early in 2000 Independent Living Aids (ILA) filed a motion in Federal Court in the Eastern District of New York alleging contempt of court by Maxi-Aids and several members of the Zaretsky Family. ILA claimed that the Zaretskys had violated a permanent injunction issued on October 24, 1998, by the Honorable Arthur D. Spatt, who had presided over the 1997 trial of ILA vs Maxi-Aids and the Zaretskys. The injunction stated in part that "Maxi-Aids, Inc., Mitchel Zaretsky, Elliot Zaretsky, and Pamela Zaretsky Stein. . . and their officers. . . and employees. . . are hereby enjoined and restrained from. . . engaging in any deceptive acts or practices in connection with the advertising or sale of their products."
Based on Judge Spatt's injunction, ILA went back into court claiming serious violations on the part of Maxi-Aids and the Zaretskys. ILA's papers, backed up by a considerable amount of documentation and research, alleged that it had uncovered a successful attempt to circumvent a proposed debarment by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) by establishing a company virtually in name only called "Able-Vision." Even more serious, it claimed to have discovered an illegal scheme in which Maxi-Aids has been diverting Perkins Braillers from South Africa, where the Perkins School for the Blind had established a program for the charitably subsidized production of Braillers for sale to and use by blind people and organizations in developing countries.
Just as we were going to press with last month's issue, Judge Spatt denied ILA's motion on a technicality. He seemed almost to apologize by stating "The fault is mine, of course, that I signed an over-broad provision." He did not deny the validity of the issues brought to light and in fact stated in open court that "ILA has presented a thorough and persuasive presentation that strongly suggests the defendants are indeed improperly obtaining subsidized Braillers intended for use in developing countries and selling them at retail prices in the United States."
Having described ILA's "thorough and persuasive presentation" (to use Judge Spatt's own words) of the Perkins Brailler matter in last month's issue, we now turn to the allegation that the Zaretskys set up a sham company called "Able-Vision" in a successful effort to circumvent the proposed debarment by the VA. As we did last month, we will present the actual words of both sides as taken from their own sworn affidavits so that readers can draw their own conclusions. We will include explanatory passages for continuity, but we will reserve editorial comment until the end of the article.
As reported in detail in the December, 1999, issue of the Braille Monitor, the VA issued a proposed debarment of Maxi-Aids and the Zaretskys on December 8, 1998, shortly after Judge Spatt's injunction of October 24, 1998. This was followed by a directive issued by the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA), prohibiting state agencies from entering into contracts with Maxi-Aids or the Zaretskys as contractors or subcontractors on contracts of $100,000 or more. The VA gave Maxi-Aids the opportunity to respond to the proposed debarment, and on March 30, 1999, the Zaretskys and their attorney met with the VA in Washington. They pledged that they would adhere to a strict code of ethical conduct, using guidelines established by the VA's debarment committee. At that point they were more or less on probation, could not do business with the VA or any other Federal Agency, and were limited in the business they could do with state agencies as outlined above.
In August of 1999, about four months after the meeting with the VA and Maxi-Aids's pledge of ethical conduct, a new company, called Able-Vision, appeared on the scene. It solicited business from various state agencies and also submitted a substantial bid to the Texas Commission for the Blind on December 1, 1999, during the period when both the VA proposed debarment and RSA policy directive were in full force and effect. Able-Vision's successful bid resulted in an award of a contract with the Texas Commission of $152,575.04, well above the $100,000 exclusion figure in the RSA policy directive. Able-Vision listed itself at a post office box in Maxi-Aids's hometown of Farmingdale, New York, which is perhaps what roused Sandler and ILA's suspicions and resulted in an investigation.
The procedure in a motion for contempt of court is for the plaintiffs (Sandler and ILA) to file a motion outlining the basis for the complaint. The defendants (Maxi-Aids and the Zaretskys) then have the opportunity to file a response. Finally, the plaintiffs file a reply, and the matter is scheduled for a hearing in front of the court. Here, then, are excerpts from Sandler's affidavit, followed by the Zaretskys' responses and Sandler's replies.
From Sandler's affidavit: "I submit this affidavit based on my personal knowledge after an extensive investigation revealed that the defendants, Elliot Zaretsky and family, acting through Maxi-Aids, Inc., their family-owned corporation, have flouted the judgment of this Court and continued to engage in nefarious and illegal business practices and charity fraud. Their conduct continues to prey upon and prejudice the blind and disabled population of the United States and to violate the rules and regulations of the various federal and state agencies which purchase and procure products for blind and disabled people throughout the country."
From Elliot Zaretsky's response affidavit: "all the defendants have been both diligent and energetic in complying with . . . the . . . vaguely all-encompassing injunctive provision which enjoins the defendants from . . . `engaging in any deceptive acts or practices in connection with the advertising or sale of their products.'"
From Sandler's reply affidavit: "While it is to be expected that the opposing papers would try to mask and obfuscate the truth, the responses contain evasions, non-sequiturs, half-truths, deceptions, and outright falsehoods that exceed the documents submitted and testimony given at the original trial of this case in November-December of 1997."
From Sandler's affidavit: "Despite the execution of an agreement by Maxi-Aids with the VA to take remedial actions, the Zaretskys almost immediately set about violating their agreement by `creating' a fictitious company called Able-Vision. The purpose of the creation of Able-Vision was to circumvent the sanctions and debarment that had been imposed by the government . . . .
A new name, Able-Vision, suddenly appeared before government agencies. This entity allegedly operated from Post Office Box 3459 in Maxi-Aids's hometown of Farmingdale, Long Island. Able-Vision was never incorporated, thus making it harder to trace . . . .
"Solicitations by Able-Vision were sent to various State Agencies by fax with follow-ups by mail. . . . The fax has been signed by a woman named Angela Giglio. Investigation has proved conclusively that Angela Giglio was and still is an employee of Maxi-Aids! . . . .
"A Certificate of Incorporation was filed with the State of New York for another new company named Ilgar." [Editor's Note: Ilgar was incorporated in November of 1997.] The filing was made by Pescow & Company, 128 Prospect Avenue, Douglaston, New York 11363. By using Pescow and Company to file the papers, the true identity of the person or persons incorporating `Ilgar' remains disguised. On a date that appears to be July 22, 1998, an application was made by Harold Zaretsky for a Post Office Box under the name of `Adaptive Living & Tech,' using Pescow & Company's address . . . . The Farmingdale Post Office assigned Box Number 3459, which is the same box number that was later used by Able-Vision for its solicitations . . . .
"At another point in time, an undated application was made to the Farmingdale Post Office for a mailing permit by a woman named Feige Berlin. Investigation of the identification of this individual has disclosed that Feige Berlin is the maiden name of Feige Zaretsky, who is the wife of Harold Zaretsky and is Elliot Zaretsky's daughter-in-law. The application was made on behalf of Able-Vision but indicated that the company also did business under the name of Ilgar. Thus the tie-in between and among Able-Vision, Ilgar, and the Zaretskys is conclusively demonstrated. It is irrefutable! . . . .
"Not only have Maxi-Aids and the Zaretskys engaged in a deceptive act by establishing and using Able-Vision to do business even though debarred, but they have clearly circumvented their agreement with the VA. The assignment of the Maxi-Aids employee, Angela Giglio, to participate in this deception is a clear violation of their signed agreement [with the VA] to develop `a corporate code of conduct and ethics training program.' The creation of Able-Vision and the use of a Maxi-Aids employee and Harold Zaretsky's wife, under her maiden name, as part of the nefarious scheme can only be looked upon as a willful act--as willful as those for which the jury found the Zaretskys guilty at trial."
At this point it should be noted that Sandler's affidavit was the only one submitted on behalf of ILA regarding Able-Vision, but several were submitted by Maxi-Aids, including those by the Zaretskys and also by employees of Maxi-Aids and Able-Vision.
The affidavits of the Zaretskys and that of Angela Giglio responded specifically to Sandler's accusations that Able-Vision was a sham company set up to circumvent the VA's proposed debarment and RSA's policy directive. An affidavit from Mitchel Zaretsky, denying any involvement at all, contained the opening statement that he was the former president of Maxi-Aids. It was submitted with papers from a law firm different from the one used by the rest of the Zaretsky clan. The Braille Monitor has confirmed that Mitchel has left Maxi-Aids and is now running his own company. Feige Berlin's affidavit uses her full name of Feige Berlin-Zaretsky for the first time in this matter.
From Elliot Zaretsky's affidavit: "The connection the plaintiff seeks, but is unable to make between Ilgar, Inc. and Able-Vision is that Able-Vision is a d/b/a [doing business as] for Ilgar. Ilgar was started as a separate company by my daughter-in-law Feige Berlin-Zaretsky because of dissension that developed between her husband Harold and Harold's brother Mitchell (sic) Zaretsky while they were both members of the board of directors of Maxi-Aids. There is absolutely no connection or collaboration between Ilgar/Able-Vision and Maxi-Aids other than the family name, and Ilgar was not created to circumvent Maxi-Aids's proposed debarment by the Veterans Administration. . . . In fact, Able-Vision regularly ordered products from Maxi-Aids."
From Feige Berlin-Zaretsky's affidavit: "I am the wife of Harold Zaretsky and therefore the daughter-in-law of Elliot Zaretsky, and between August of 1999 and January [of 2000], was the sole shareholder of Ilgar, Inc., and (sic) New York Corporation that was doing business as Able-Vision. My father-in-law helped me start this company because, as someone who is deaf, it was important for me to try to build an entity separate and apart from Maxi-Aids that would allow me to help people who are also hearing-impaired. To help me get Able-Vision off the ground, I hired Ms. Angela Giglio, an experienced customer service representative who was working at Maxi-Aids . . . . Able-Vision did use PO Box 3459 as a mailing address. It was a post office box that was opened by my husband Harold, which he allowed me and my company to share."
From Angela Giglio's affidavit: "I was . . . employed with Maxi-Aids in 1999, but on or about August 5 of that year, I left Maxi-Aids's employ to become the operations manager with Able-Vision, a company that was founded and run by Ms. Feige Berlin-Zaretsky. I worked as operations manager and sole employee of Able-Vision until approximately January of 2000 . . . . [after Able-Vision closed] I returned to Maxi-Aids, again as a customer service representative."
At this point we move to the statements made by Marvin Sandler in his reply affidavit to the submissions by the Zaretskys.
From Sandler's reply affidavit: "The establishment of Able-Vision was certainly a deceptive act to skirt the debarment of Maxi-Aids from public bidding. The affidavits of all those involved (false in themselves) provide more questions then they do answers. The affidavit of Elliot Zaretsky states, "Ilgar was started as a separate company by my daughter-in-law Feige Berlin-Zaretsky . . . ." The affidavit of Feige Berlin-Zaretsky states that between August of 1999 and [the following] January, [she] was the sole shareholder of Ilgar, Inc. and (sic) New York Corporation that was doing business as Able-Vision. The papers of incorporation filed by Pescow and Company indicate that Ilgar was incorporated in November of 1997, more than a year and one half before Feige Berlin-Zaretsky became the sole shareholder. If Feige Berlin-Zaretsky started the company in November 1997, but did not become the sole shareholder until August 1999, then who was (were) the other shareholder(s)?
The affidavits of both Elliot Zaretsky and Feige Berlin-Zaretsky aver that Ilgar was started by Feige Berlin-Zaretsky in order to have a company separate and distinct from Maxi-Aids, which she and her husband Harold could operate as an independent entity in order to help people who are also hearing impaired. There is already such an entity, owned by the Zaretskys, named Hear-More. Harold Zaretsky is the president of Hear-More. The question arises as to why Feige Berlin-Zaretsky would start a company called Able-Vision (a direct reference to vision products) `to help people who are also hearing impaired,' when her husband is already the president of a company specializing in products for the hearing-impaired, and which bears a name that clearly states its purpose. Furthermore, the catalog and literature distributed by Able-Vision does not contain a single product for the hearing-impaired. It should be noted that Mrs. Berlin-Zaretsky purports to have set up her company to help hearing-impaired people but submitted a bid to the Texas Commission for the Blind. To add another element to the deception, it must be remembered that everything involving Able-Vision, including the application for the postal permit and the bid submitted to the Texas Commission for the Blind, bears the name of Feige Berlin and not Feige Berlin-Zaretsky."
As mentioned earlier in this article, Sandler and ILA claimed that Able-Vision successfully submitted bids to the Texas Commission for the Blind and was awarded a contract worth $152,575.04. Maxi-Aids also submitted bids but was automatically disqualified because of the VA and RSA debarments. The Maxi-Aids bids were rejected because Maxi-Aids was a "party excluded from Federal programs." The reader should also keep in mind that the RSA Policy Directive prohibited Maxi-Aids and the Zaretskys from becoming contractors or subcontractors (as mentioned earlier in this article), yet Elliot Zaretsky, in his affidavit cited above, stated that "Able-Vision regularly ordered products from Maxi-Aids . . . ." Following are excerpts from Sandler's affidavit and responses from the Zaretskys, Angela Giglio, and Teresa Butler, the procurement employee for Maxi-Aids, a position established as part of the meetings between the VA and the Zaretskys. Ms. Butler is the employee who submitted the bids to the Texas Commission for the Blind which were rejected.
From Sandler's affidavit: "The RSA debarment applied to Maxi-Aids and its principals both as contractors and subcontractors. Notwithstanding the Maxi-Aids debarment, both Maxi-Aids and Able-Vision then submitted bids to the Texas Commission for the Blind . . . in time to meet the bid deadline of December 1, 1999 . . . . At the time the bids were submitted . . . both the VA and RSA debarments were in full force and effect. The Maxi-Aids bids were immediately disqualified by the Texas Commission for the Blind, which was aware of the VA and RSA debarments. However, they were deceived by the Able-Vision bid since they were obviously not aware of the Maxi-Aids/Able-Vision connection. They awarded over $100,000.00 in contracts to Able-Vision, an amount that was well beyond the amount prohibited by the RSA debarment of Maxi-Aids and the Zaretskys.
"She [Teresa Butler]. . . signed a document containing an affirmation . . . that there has been no collusion with another company. An examination of the bid tabulation sheets . . . show[s] . . . . that there is clear evidence of collaboration and collusion between Maxi-Aids and Able-Vision with respect to the bids . . . .
"The tabulation sheets prove beyond any doubt that the Maxi-Aids and Able-Vision bids were not submitted independently . . . . There are 124 items on the bid. Both Maxi-Aids and Able Vision bid on the identical eighty-eight items! Both Maxi-Aids and Able-Vision did not bid on thirty-six–-the identical thirty-six items! Of the eighty-eight items on which they both bid, Able-Vision beat Maxi-Aids by the identical figure of two cents on eighty-five of them (on items #18 and #52 it was three cents, and on #26 they tied). The odds of two parties independently arriving at a two-cent differential on eighty-five of eighty-eight items are so high as to constitute a statistical impossibility . . . . Furthermore, on item #22 the name of the manufacturer is Tops, and Maxi-Aids and Able-Vision have coincidentally both made the identical misspelling of Top . . . .
[The Texas Bid Document] "contains a certification stating that `The awarded contractor certifies, by signing the IFB, that neither it nor its principals is presently debarred, suspended, proposed for debarment, declared ineligible, or voluntarily excluded from participation in this transaction by any federal/state department of (sic) agency.' Teresa Butler signed the IFB, despite the fact that Maxi-Aids and the Zaretskys were debarred at that time by both the VA and RSA. This brings into question the code of conduct and ethics training to which the Zaretskys pledged themselves and agreed to in their efforts to have the debarments lifted. The falsity of the certification is apparent on its face!
"The Able-Vision bid has been signed by Feige Berlin, who identifies herself as the president of the company and who investigation has shown to be the wife of Harold Zaretsky and the daughter-in-law of Elliot Zaretsky. The contact person is listed as . . . Angela Giglio, who is the same person who signed and sent the faxes soliciting business [back in August]. Like Teresa Butler of Maxi-Aids, Feige Berlin has also signed a document containing the same anti-collusion paragraph and affirming that she has not `communicated directly or indirectly the bid made to any competitor or any other person engaged in such line of business.' The same certification regarding debarment has been signed on behalf of Able-Vision and its principals, who are clearly the Zaretskys . . . .
"The cover page of the bid documents from the Texas Commission for the Blind required all bidders to list a street address. The address for Able-Vision was stated as `200 Rte 110 #2, Farmingdale, New York 11735.' At the time the bid was submitted, 200 Route 110 was a Merrill Lynch Corporate Center, containing offices for their stock brokerage activities plus additional offices occupied by attorneys, accountants, and other professionals . . . . Able-Vision is not listed on the building directory. There are no warehouse or shipping facilities at 200 Route 110. Phone calls placed to the telephone number listed on the Able-Vision literature and fax were never answered even though the calls were made during normal business hours. All calls were answered by a click, indicating a ring-over to another location, followed by an answering-machine message suggesting that the caller leave a message or send a fax . . . .
"A complaint was filed by Independent Living Aids with the Texas Commission for the Blind, expressing concerns that Able-Vision was a sham company set up by the Zaretskys, who are principals of Maxi-Aids, in an effort to circumvent the VA and RSA debarments. In response . . . the Texas Commission for the Blind [contacted] Able-Vision asking for clarification as to whether there was any connection to Maxi-Aids . . . . [in answer] a phone call was made . . . . by Angela Giglio on February 10, 2000, asking that the award be cancelled since Able-Vision was no longer in business."
The attorney for Maxi-Aids responded to Sandler's charge of collusion between Maxi-Aids and Able-Vision by saying that it ". . . is only substantiated by what is called a statistical impossibility. The affidavits of Ms. Giglio, Ms. Berlin-Zaretsky, and Elliot Zaretsky reveal that it is possible for statistics to be misleading, especially in the face of the reasonable explanation that Ms. Giglio, a former and present employee of Maxi-Aids (with experience in preparing bids) prepared the Able-Vision bid." We invite readers to examine the response affidavits in search of these "reasonable explanations" of why statistics may be misleading.
From Angela Giglio's response affidavit: "I prepared the bid that was submitted to the Texas Commission for the Blind by Able-Vision referred to by the plaintiffs. I did rely on both my previous experience as a customer service representative with Maxi-Aids and on consultations with Ms. Berlin-Zaretsky in preparing the bid, but the bid was solely the product of Able-Vision, and there was no input or assistance that was provided by any other company."
From Feige Berlin's response affidavit: "Angela Giglio and I worked together on preparing the bid that was submitted to the Texas Commission for the Blind referred to by the plaintiffs, and we received no assistance whatsoever, nor was there any involvement from Maxi-Aids. Ms. Giglio and I were both able to utilize her past experience at Maxi-Aids, and we prepared and submitted an independent bid on Able-Vision's behalf.
From Elliot Zaretsky's response affidavit: ". . . it was Ms. Giglio, as someone who had experience preparing bids on behalf of Maxi-Aids during her term of employment there, who prepared the bid that was accepted by the Texas Commission for the Blind (the Texas Commission). This would account for the similarities that were bid upon and the fact that Able-Vision was able to underbid Maxi-Aids by the same amount of two cents on eighty-five of eighty-eight items that comprised the competitive bids of Able-Vision and Maxi-Aids."
From Teresa Butler's response affidavit: "I was responsible for the preparation of the bid that was submitted by Maxi-Aids to the Texas Commission for the Blind. I am very well acquainted with Ms. Angela Giglio, who worked for Maxi-Aids as a customer service representative before she left to work for Ms. Feige Berlin Zaretsky at Able-Vision. I am aware that Able-Vision also bid on the aforementioned Texas Commission contract and that its bid competed with the bid submitted by Maxi-Aids. Therefore I can state with absolute certainty that I did not in any way collaborate with either Ms. Giglio or Ms. Berlin-Zaretsky in my preparation of this bid and that the Maxi-Aids bid was the sole product of my efforts, and my efforts alone."
Editor's Note: Having examined the statements in the four affidavits, we have failed to find the "reasonable explanations" that the Maxi-Aids attorney said would support his claim that Sandler's statistics might be misleading. Sandler apparently felt the same when he submitted his reply.
From Sandler's reply affidavit (referring to Teresa Butler's response affidavit): "This is an absolute non-sequitur! In what way does knowing Ms. Giglio and being aware that Able-Vision was also bidding provide a conclusion that the bids were prepared independently? It also defies the statistical impossibility that eighty-five out of eighty-eight items wound up with the identical two-cent differential and does not explain why both bids contain the same misspelling of the name of the manufacturer of Item #22 (Bacon Crisper) on the bid. The Maxi-Aids bid and Able-Vision bid each listed the manufacturer as `Top Mfg. Co.,' whereas the correct name is `Tops' and not `Top.' This identical error is proof positive that there was collusion on the Able-Vision and Maxi-Aids bids, which definitely constitutes a deceptive act under the regulations of the bid document . . . . [Referring to the affidavits of Feige Berlin-Zaretsky and Angela Giglio] Both Mrs. Berlin-Zaretsky and Angela Giglio have submitted sworn affidavits claiming that they prepared the bids independently, and both have denied that there was any `input or assistance provided by any other company,' (Angela Giglio's affidavit) `nor was there any involvement from Maxi-Aids' (Feige Berlin-Zaretsky's affidavit). It's a careful choice of words and avoids mention of whether there was input from another person. The two affidavits make no mention of the statistical impossibility of eighty-five out of eighty-eight items having the identical two-cent differential, nor do they address the identical misspelling of the name of Tops."
Editor's Note: As quoted above, Sandler also claimed that both Maxi-Aids and Able-Vision had violated the Texas Commission's requirement that the bidder certify that the firms bidding and their principals were not debarred, suspended, proposed for debarment, declared ineligible, or voluntarily excluded by any federal or state agency. Maxi-Aids was clearly not permitted to bid by virtue of the VA's proposed debarment. Able-Vision was also ineligible to bid, since their own bid documents indicated that they intended to supply most (if not all) of the items using Maxi-Aids as the source-–and the RSA Policy Directive prohibited Maxi-Aids from being a contractor or subcontractor. No response was given on behalf of Able-Vision, but Teresa Butler and Elliot Zaretsky did include statements certifying that Maxi-Aids was not debarred or proposed for debarment, when, in fact, it was. The VA's proposed debarment was lifted by the VA's debarring official by means of a letter dated February 4, 2000. The RSA policy directive (which actually governed the Texas transaction) was not rescinded until April 27, 2000.
From Teresa Butler's affidavit: "I failed to realize that there was language certifying the (sic) Maxi-Aids was not proposed for debarment was buried within the attachments. However, now having had this brought to my attention, I can state that I may have signed the bid anyway because I was aware that the lifting of the proposed debarment was imminent as of December 1, 1999, and that it would have been lifted by the time any of these bids may have been accepted and a contract would have been created with said attachments."
From Elliot Zaretsky's affidavit: The "Debarment Committee . . . . intended to lift the proposed debarment of Maxi-Aids prior to December 1, 1999, and . . . the letter dated February 4, 2000, was simply a written confirmation of said intention. As a matter of fact, the only reason that the Texas Commission for the Blind disqualified the bid dated December 1, 1999, is that the VA was extremely lax in notifying other agencies of the lifting of the proposed debarment. Additionally, since Ms. Butler was aware of the Debarment Committee's decision to lift the proposed debarment . . . she did not believe that she was making any misrepresentation with respect to certification regarding the proposed debarment . . . ."
Sandler strongly opposed these statements as follows:
From Sandler's reply affidavit (referring to Teresa Butler's affidavit): "It is not Ms. Butler's place to speculate when or whether the proposed debarment was to be lifted. The fact remains that the VA's proposed debarment was not lifted until February 4, 2000, more than two months after Ms. Butler submitted the bid on November 23, 1999. The debarment was in full force and effect until the day it was lifted, and she failed to disclose this in her bid. Her statement was false when made. In fact, Maxi-Aids remained on the Rehabilitation Services Administration List of Parties Excluded from Federal Procurement and Non-Procurement Programs until April 27, 2000. This was more than four months after Ms. Butler signed the certification and falsely certified that neither Maxi-Aids nor its principals was [proposed for debarment] . . . .
[Referring to Elliot Zaretsky's affidavit] "Elliot Zaretsky states in his affidavit that his attorneys had been notified that the Debarment Committee of the VA `intended to lift the proposed debarment of Maxi-Aids prior to December 1, 1999, and that the letter dated February 4, 2000 was simply a written confirmation of said intention.' Despite Mr. Zaretsky's protestations and attempts to shift blame for his deceptive acts and conduct, the letter from the VA is quite clear. The VA letter . . . is dated February 4, 2000, and advises that the VA and Maxi-Aids executed an Administrative Agreement `which became effective on January 25, 2000.' It ends with the VA's Debarring Official, in his letter of February 4, 2000, declaring `I hereby lift the proposed debarment . . . . ' It is clear that the debarment was lifted on February 4, 2000, as per the Debarring Official's statement. Despite Elliot Zaretsky's claim that the letter was simply a confirmation of the VA's intent to lift the proposed debarment as of December 1, 1999, there is no reference to that date in the letter. As a matter of fact, how could Elliot Zaretsky claim that the lifting of the proposed debarment was scheduled for December 1, 1999, when the Administrative Agreement was not even signed by his son Mitchel, the President of Maxi-Aids, until January 25, 2000?"
The end of Able-Vision provides an almost amusing coda to this part of Sandler's claim that it was a sham company which had been set up by the Zaretskys to circumvent the VA and RSA debarments. Readers will recall that Sandler wrote that Able-Vision went out of business with a phone call from Angela Giglio to the Texas Commission for the Blind in response to an inquiry from the Texas Commission as to whether there was any affiliation between Able-Vision and Maxi-Aids. The phone call was made on February 10, which coincidentally was less than a week after the VA had lifted its proposed debarment of Maxi-Aids. Sandler claimed that the end of Able-Vision came about partially because the Zaretskys had been caught and partially because Able-Vision was no longer needed, now that Maxi-Aids had been reinstated. Three affidavits contained responses to Sandler's claim.
From Elliot Zaretsky's affidavit: "The only reason Able-Vision went out of business was because Feige Berlin-Zaretsky became pregnant and therefore was unable to continue operating Able-Vision. After Able-Vision stopped its operations, Ms. Giglio returned as an employee of Maxi-Aids."
From Feige Berlin-Zaretsky's affidavit: "I found out on or about late December of 1999 or early January of 2000 that I was pregnant. This required me to make the very difficult decision to forego the Able-Vision/Ilgar venture in favor of having and raising my child. This is why Ms. Giglio informed the Texas Commission for the Blind of the fact that Able-Vision went out of business and was thus not able to follow through on the bid that had been accepted."
From Angela Giglio's affidavit: "I worked as operations manager and sole employee of Able-Vision until approximately January of 2000. This is when Able-Vision went out of business because Ms. Berlin-Zaretsky, who is deaf, became pregnant and closed the operations of Able-Vision at which point I returned to Maxi-Aids, again as a customer service representative."
Sandler disposed of the pregnancy story in a portion of his affidavit that indicated he had indeed done his research.
From Sandler's reply affidavit: "The records of the New York City Health Department reflect the birth of Maxine Beata Zaretsky to Feige and Harold Zaretsky on April 18, 2000, in the Borough of Manhattan [Sandler provided the Birth Certificate number]. If we are to believe Mrs. Berlin-Zaretsky, it would appear that she did not `find out' she was pregnant until she was five and one half months into term. If we are to believe Ms. Giglio, it would appear that the birth took place after a three-and-one-half-month pregnancy. These sworn statements are an insult to the intelligence of this Court . . . ."
With the birth of Feige Berlin-Zaretsky's child we come to the end of the Able-Vision saga. We phoned Sandler to ask for his comments. He said he thought that it would have been appropriate for the sworn affidavits of his opponents to begin with the words "Once upon a time" since he believed that they were nothing more than fairy tales. Frankly, we are inclined to agree. Sandler's affidavit, as quoted above, claims that the affidavits submitted by the defendants and their employees provide more questions than answers. In reviewing those submissions, we note that at times the affidavits even conflict with each other. For example, Elliot Zaretsky states that Angela Giglio was "someone who had experience preparing bids on behalf of Maxi-Aids." Yet Ms. Giglio twice refers to herself as having been a `customer service representative.' The avoidance of a response to Sandler's collusion charge involving the identical misspelling of a manufacturer's name also raises suspicions. Raising even more questions are the statements in the affidavits of both Elliot Zaretsky and Feige Berlin-Zaretsky implying that the establishment of Able-Vision was a mechanism for getting Harold out from under his brother Mitchel's thumb. Yet in fact it is Mitchel who has left the Zaretsky employment fold.
Elliot Zaretsky and his lawyers were offered the opportunity to comment on the facts disclosed in this article. They declined the opportunity to do so unless they were given editorial control over material contained in the article or portions of it. Of course, as has become tiresomely evident in the Zaretskys' pattern of behavior, Maxi-Aids's lawyers repeated yet again that the company and its principals had engaged in no wrongdoing, and they claimed that the Braille Monitor's reporting was unfair.
At the Braille Monitor we present the facts, and then we take our stand. To paraphrase the words of Judge Spatt in the Perkins Brailler matter, we believe that ILA has presented a thorough and compelling presentation that the Zaretskys did indeed establish Able-Vision as a device to help them circumvent the proposed debarment by the VA and the policy directive of the RSA. Although Sandler referred to the opposing affidavits as fairy tales, we see them as more grim than Grimm. Unlike fairy tales, in which people live happily ever after, a lot of unhappiness has been caused by the Zaretskys, especially in the Perkins Brailler matter, as reported last month. Not only has up to $152,000 of Hilton Foundation money wound up in the Zaretskys' pockets, but hundreds or even thousands of blind kids in developing countries have suffered as a result.
As reported above, the VA entered into a written agreement with the Zaretskys which called for a code of ethical conduct, and the ink was hardly dry when the Zaretskys set about circumventing that agreement. We deplore this behavior, and we go on record as saying so. Those who read this article and last month's story must make their own decision. We hope that people of conscience will join us in our condemnation.
Elliot Zaretsky Visits the National Center for the Blind
by Marc Maurer
On December 5, 2001, Elliot Zaretsky, the driving force behind Maxi-Aids, came to visit me at the National Center for the Blind. He had called earlier to ask if he could come, and I consented to the visit.
Prior to the Zaretsky visit, Maxi-Aids had behaved in ways that made the National Federation of the Blind determined not to do business with the company. We are convinced that Maxi-Aids's ethical standards are at variance with our own, and we believe that a level of trust and confidence in Maxi-Aids cannot be established. Therefore we have determined that we will do no business with Maxi-Aids under any circumstances. In fact, we believe that Maxi-Aids's conduct has been sufficiently questionable that others should follow our lead.
With this in mind I wondered what Elliot Zaretsky would have to say to me. His message was not complicated. He told me that Maxi-Aids had never done anything improper and that it had the best interests of the blind at heart. He said that he and others associated with Maxi-Aids wanted only to support blind people and that he wanted to learn what could be done to create a positive relationship with the National Federation of the Blind. I responded to his question by telling him that we did not trust him. He would have to behave in a way to engender trust. If he did, perhaps our opinion of him would change.
He repeated to me that Maxi-Aids had never done anything wrong. I asked him if he had obtained Perkins Braillers from South Africa at the subsidized price and sold them in the United States at his catalog price of $685. He told me that he had obtained the Braillers from South Africa at a subsidized rate but that he sold them in the United States at a very low price. I asked him how people in the United States had learned about the low price. He responded by telling me that he had informed people about the lower price. When I asked what it was, he said $499 or $549. I did not inquire about the method for deciding which people got the $499 price, which people got the $549 price, and which people got the $685 price.
Elliot Zaretsky also offered to sell products to the National Federation of the Blind. He showed me a small barcode reader which, he said, was the latest and greatest. He said he would give me one as soon as they were available, and he intimated that this product would be a very hot seller which we would want to distribute. I reiterated that we would not be doing business with him because we did not trust him.
I still do not know why Elliot Zaretsky came to the National Center for the Blind. Perhaps he thought that the force of his personality would make me reject the vast quantity of evidence that has raised in my mind so many questions about the character of those in charge at Maxi-Aids. However, the oft repeated recital by Elliot Zaretsky that all is well does not make it so. Our policy about Maxi-Aids has not changed.
Address to the 1956 Convention of the Tennessee Affiliate
by Kenneth Jernigan
From the Editor: We recently came into possession of a recording of an address delivered by Kenneth Jernigan to the Tennessee Association for the Blind on Sunday, June 10, 1956. Unfortunately the quality of the recording is too poor to allow us to dub it into the cassette edition of this issue, but it is a remarkable document. Dr. Jernigan was only twenty-nine when he attended the convention as the national representative. In some ways in this speech one can watch him developing the speaking style that he later perfected. Much of his message is timeless; some on the other hand addresses problems specific to the organization of the day. The solutions he proposes, however, are as appropriate and shrewd as his advice always was.
He refers to a publication called What is the National Federation of the Blind? This is not the brief, one-page brochure we use today. Shortly before this address Dr. Jernigan had gone to President tenBroek to say that in his opinion the organization needed a document that would explain what the NFB was and what it stood for. He said that he would try his hand at writing it unless President tenBroek wanted to do something else. Dr. tenBroek was no doubt delighted to have such an offer, and Dr. Jernigan produced the pamphlet that the organization used until the decision was later made to change its nature. It is this more ambitious publication that is referred to in the speech.
Here then is the transcription of the speech delivered to the Tennessee Association for the Blind:
Fellow members of the National Federation of the Blind, it is indeed a pleasure for me to be at this local meeting of the National Federation of the Blind. Now let me begin again; members of the Tennessee Association for the Blind, it is a pleasure to be at this meeting of the Tennessee Association. And let me begin again a third time: ladies and gentlemen of the chapters of this organization, it is a pleasure for me to be at a meeting of these chapters. Now I have said the same thing three different ways. Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a pleasure for me to bring to you as members of the Tennessee affiliate of the National Federation the greetings of the national officers, the national organization all over the country, the other state affiliates. It is a pleasure to meet with our groups in Tennessee and in any other state and to talk with you about some of the things that are common problems to all blind people, some of our aspirations and some of our goals.
Most of you have seen a pamphlet called What Is the National Federation of the Blind? I do not propose to read that pamphlet to you, but I would like to talk to you about one section of that pamphlet. It is the very heart of that pamphlet; it's the heart and essence of the National Federation. And, when I say "National Federation," you already know I mean you, for you are the National Federation; there is no other.
There is a question in the pamphlet, What Is the National Federation of the Blind? which goes as follows: "What is the philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind?" And the answer given in the pamphlet is brief, but it is very significant for the blind of this country. If I had to sum up in one phrase or one sentence what the National Federation of the Blind stands for, I think I could do it like this: it is respectable to be blind. Now that is a thing that many people don't believe. Almost nobody would say that he didn't believe that, and most people don't think that they believe that it is not respectable to be blind, but I think that I can prove to you that many people do believe, in fact, that it is not totally respectable to be blind.
Have you ever seen anybody for instance who said, "You know, folks really forget that I am blind or almost think that I act like a sighted fellow." Or have you heard people say, "Really, I feel self-conscious or sensitive to carry a cane." Now I'm not saying that people should carry a cane, but I am saying this: let us suppose for a moment that it was against the law--not just a misdemeanor, but a felony--for anybody to carry a cane unless the person was a member of the Vanderbilt family. And let us further suppose that no Vanderbilt could carry a cane, have this honor, unless he had at least five million dollars in the bank. Do you think then that anybody would hesitate to carry a cane? I doubt it. As a matter of fact, I suspect that there would be people who, in spite of the penitentiary and all the laws would wear canes in their hats. I repeat, "It is respectable to be blind." And it follows from that that we should be proud of our organization. I was especially glad to see tonight that your president could make an award of a watch to a blind person in this state who is becoming successful, that you could honor one of your own members. For in honoring our organization, we honor ourselves.
I went to the state of Oregon a couple of years ago. An organization of the blind there was debating whether or not it would come into our National Federation. And one man got up, a very good speaker, and used as one of the planks for not affiliating the fact that, if the Oregon group, he said, "affiliates with the National Federation, people are going to know this. We are going to be associated with the group, and," he said, "there's no way that we can keep from being associated with the things that the National Federation would be for."
And I said, "You are certainly right, and we don't want you to feel that you have to apologize for being a member of the National Federation of the Blind"; we're proud of this organization. We are proud to honor the President of this organization. We are proud to honor every state president because it is respectable to be a member of this organization. So the first tenet of our philosophy is the basic respectability of blindness.
As those of you who have read the pamphlet, What Is the National Federation of the Blind? will remember, the answer to the question, "What is the philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind?" is as follows: "the Federation believes that blind people are essentially normal people and that blindness in itself is not a mental or psychological handicap. It is merely a physical nuisance. Legal, economic, and social discrimination based upon the false assumption that blind people are somehow different from sighted people must be abolished, and equality of opportunity must be made available to the blind. Because of their personal experience of blindness, the blind themselves are best qualified to lead the way in solving their own problems. But the general public should be made aware of those problems and should be asked to participate in their solution."
Now I would like to take that statement of philosophy, that announced goal of the organization, and talk about it very briefly sentence by sentence with you and try to tell you what, at least for me, it means and what I think it does in fact mean.
First the belief that "blind people are essentially normal people and that blindness in itself is not a mental or psychological handicap": Blindness means one thing--that you can't see. It means nothing more and it means nothing less than that. Let me differentiate for you briefly between the disability of blindness and the handicap of blindness, for therein lies a problem for us. The disability of blindness is the fact that you can't see, and that can be treated by the doctor. It can be treated medically. You can either cure it, or you can live with it, and that's all there is to it.
Now the handicap of blindness is something else. The handicap of blindness is what people have thought about blindness--what the sighted have thought about it and what the blind have thought about it. Therein lies the problem for the disability of blindness. The physical disability is simply a nuisance. Any of you who have left your rocking chairs, and all of you have or you wouldn't be here--any of you who have got up and traveled at all have bumped your shins on something. That's a nuisance. You may have hit your forehead on an over-hanging bough, and that's a nuisance. But it doesn't make you psychologically different, and it's no more a nuisance than shaving in the morning. There are even times when perhaps you've come into a crowded bus station and you've followed the clicking heels of some lady, figuring that you were going out onto the street and perhaps ended up almost in the ladies' rest room.[laughter] But that is no more than a nuisance.[more laughter]
People very often confuse the disability with the handicap. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Two years ago a young lady in the state of California that I know was teaching in the public schools of that state. She was teaching a fourth-grade class of sighted children. She became blind. She went to her doctor, and he said to her, "Angia," for that was her name, "You have no hope of getting your sight back."
She said to him, "Doctor, you mean I won't be able to teach any more?"
And he said, "I'm afraid that's right, Angia. It may be hard to say to you, but you should prepare yourself now for something which a blind person can do. I would suggest that you try to get a job as a stenographer, that you try to prepare yourself for typing or some other job." He was a doctor. He understood the physical disability of blindness, but he was presuming to advise her about the handicap of blindness, something he knew nothing at all about. She took his word for it. When we of the California organization of the blind met her, she was totally despairing. She said, "I cannot teach again."
And I said, "Why can't you teach?" And she told me the story about the doctor. So I read with her the report concerning the employment of the blind in the teaching profession, and I pointed out to her that thirteen blind people in the state of Ohio alone were teaching in the public schools regular, ordinary classes. I pointed out to her that blind people in other states were teaching in regular elementary schools. Today that girl is teaching again in a fourth-grade class of ordinary sighted students in an ordinary school. She confused the disability of blindness with the handicap of blindness. Blind people, ladies and gentlemen, are normal people. When we say those words, we very often admit them intellectually, but we don't admit them emotionally. They are a fact.
The second item in this philosophy is a three-fold proposition: "legal, economic, and social discrimination based upon the false assumption that blind people are somehow different from sighted people must be abolished." We say those words, you hear people use the word "discrimination," and they talk about legal, economic and social, and they run over them as if they were one word, and most people don't really think about what those things mean.
Sometimes I take a class of students in the agency where I work, and I say to them, "Give me an example of a legal discrimination." I first ask them: "Do you believe that these things ought to be abolished?" And they will usually say, yes. Then I say, "What is it that you want abolished? Give me an example of a social discrimination. Do you know of any?" The answers are interesting. There are legal, economic, and social discriminations. Legal discrimination--what is your National Federation of the Blind doing to abolish legal discrimination? In short, what are you doing?
Well, through your national office, for you are doing whatever the National Federation does, we have had one thing that we call the Civil Service story. A lot of you may immediately say, "But I do not intend to get a Civil Service job, and therefore this doesn't affect me." But it does. Let me first tell you what the Civil Service story is, and then let me try to show you how it affects us. Before 1948 blind people were pretty much excluded from federal Civil Service. There was an occasional instance of a blind person's, because of the goodness of a local Civil Service office, being permitted to take a Civil Service examination, but it was the policy almost universally to exclude blind people.
In that year you, the National Federation of the Blind, succeeded in getting the United States Congress to pass a law that the federal Civil Service Commission could not discriminate against blind people in giving federal Civil Service examinations unless, in the opinion of the Commission, sight was absolutely indispensable to the performance of the duties of the job in question. The commission evaded the spirit of that law by declaring that sight was indispensable to all jobs in the federal Civil Service in effect. Blind people continued to be excluded.
In 1950 a case which most of you know about occurred. A young man named Russell Kletzing was permitted to take a Civil Service examination. He passed it. The examination was for a position as a legal consultant with the federal government. The federal officials in Washington discovered that he had passed it and was a blind person and removed his name from the register on the grounds of blindness and that blind people couldn't perform that kind of work. In the meantime Kletzing had got a job with another branch of the federal government doing exactly the same kind of work.
This was a good case, and you, the National Federation of the Blind, took that case to court. Let me stop right here to ask, "How does that affect you?" I think it affects you like this: the very fact in the first place that we were able to get publicity to the effect that blind people were able to do this kind of work, the fact that, as soon as that case was taken to court, the affiliates all over the country were asked to send in a list of successfully practicing blind lawyers, and we collected a list of over a hundred. That was publicized all over the country. Now that affected you because an employer, a professional man, a businessman, a labor leader--all of those in one way or another were exposed to that publicity. And the next time they met you on the street, although they may not have remembered the publicity, they treated you a little bit differently.
If you doubt that, think for a moment of the effects of advertising. Why does the American business world spend billions of dollars a year on advertising? "You don't know of a man," a person said to me once, "ever who has said to a blind man, `I won't hire you because I have seen blind people on the street begging' or `I've seen other blind people who were helpless and therefore this has had a subtle effect on me.' You don't know of that do you?"
And I said, "I do not." Neither do I know of anybody who smokes Winstons because the radio told him to, but that's the reason he smokes them. If it were not true, the cigarette industry wouldn't spend the money advertising. We are creatures of habit. If we are told a thing often enough, we come to expect it, and we act upon it. The first telling may not do it or the second or the third, but it happens.
Therefore every time a blind man gets a job, it helps you--every one of you, even if, as some of us say, you have it made. None of us have it made. You are exposed to social discrimination even if you are wealthy, if you are a blind person at the current time.
But to go on with the testing case briefly, the Civil Service Commission got scared. They figured that we would win that case, so they abolished the entire Civil Service registry and said that you couldn't restore a man's name to a register that didn't exist and asked that it [the case] be thrown out of court. And the court agreed. We appealed on that case, and we lost the appeal. And a lot of people could have said at that time, and some probably did, "Then what good is this organization to us? What has it ever done for me? Let's pull out of this organization. Why bother with it? We don't need an organization."
But it did do some good because the Civil Service opened up one examination. So much publicity had been given, so much Congressional interest had been aroused, that in the late fall of 1953 the Junior Management Assistant Examination was opened up. Now the Junior Management Assistant Examination is the hardest one given by the federal Civil Service, so there was a good deal of speculation as to the motives of the Commission. If no blind people could pass that examination or if none could qualify for it, then the Commission could say, "You see, we told you so." Of the sighted who took that examination, 3 percent passed. Of the blind who took that examination, 6 percent passed, and we were in business.
Since that time I know of some cases where blind people have actually been employed as a result, and every time one of those blind people has become employed, you individually have been helped, and I have been helped. You can feel proud of the fact that you individually helped to secure it because you are the National Federation.
There is one other case in the legal area that I want to point out along the Civil Service line which is more recent. It only culminated this month, but it proves again the statement that blind people are normal people and that we sell ourselves short far too often. A totally blind boy went through the University of Washington a few years ago as a major in chemistry. His professors in chemistry, the people who ought to know, said to him, "You cannot hope to be a chemist; you would be a hazard as a chemist." And finally they called him down and told him that he could not make ether in an experiment.
And he said,"I intend to do it."
They said, "Then you must sign a waiver that, if you kill yourself, we are not liable," which he did. He came out of that school with good grades and with a Ph.D. degree. This was two years ago this coming June. He had married in the meantime, and his wife was pretty discouraged because nobody wanted to hire a blind chemist. They were polite, but they said, "There's no job in our place that you could do."
His wife said, "We want to live a normal life, and we want to settle down. Just help him get a job as a factory worker; help him get anything." But we kept urging him, no. They had come, by that time, to the Bay Area in California, and we said, "No, let's keep fighting to get him a job as a chemist. He can do chemistry; you know he can do it."
And she said, "Yes, but other people don't know he can do it, and they won't give him a chance." He applied for a Civil Service Examination, and the only examination for Ph.D. chemistry people is that they go down and sign up that they are a Ph.D., and they're on the rolls. They put him on, but then the federal people took him off, and we protested and said, "What about your rulings?" It took us a year, a little over. In February of this year the Federation won its point and also won an admission from the Civil Service Commission that is valuable to you all. In the first place the Civil Service people said that from now on, if any job in any classification is of such a nature that it can be performed by a blind person, that entire classification will now be open to the blind.
Second, Dick Wilborn was given a job by the United States military establishment at Dugway, Utah, at the proving grounds, and he went in at what's called a GS 11 rating, March fifth of this year. I understand that the beginning salary is $6,500 a year. And yet some people say to me sometimes, "What good is this national organization?" There is your answer. That not only helps Dick Wilborn but it helps us all because Dick Wilborn is seen to be working. He is going to be convincing people. Folks will see him at work, and they will believe. They will come to Tennessee, or they'll meet people who are from Tennessee, and all along the strata of American society we'll see the information that another blind man is at work. The advertising effect is there. We are fighting many forms of legal discrimination--and I could give many examples besides the Civil Service story, but there isn't time.
There are economic discriminations. I think I really need not elaborate on those. You know that many employers, in fact, most employers, will not at the present time actually seriously consider giving a blind person a job in regular industry. There are questions of this sort: what kind of jobs can they perform? There are no jobs for blind people and jobs for sighted people. There is almost no factory, almost no office, or almost no plant in these United States that doesn't have many jobs that could be performed by blind people. Many of us really, seriously, down deep inside don't believe that, and until we can believe it and until we do believe it emotionally as well as intellectually, we are not going to achieve real equality. For you can't sell something you don't really believe yourself.
What are we doing to try to sell people on this idea? Well, then we are trying to remove the economic discrimination. And one way that we are trying to do this is to get bigger and better rehabilitation programs, trying to publicize the fact that blind people are working. We are trying to let the public, the average employer know what blind people can do. We are trying to get training for blind people and also let blind people know what other blind people are doing and encourage blind people. All of this is important: economic discrimination.
Now the final one, social: at first the social discriminations seem the most harmless. They are in reality the worst and the most subtle, and the ones that we must remove if we are ever to do anything else. For they are the symptom and the cause of all the rest of our problems. Let me illustrate. Not long ago in one of the cities of these United States a blind man went down to the blood bank to donate a pint of blood. The people at the blood bank, the doctor on duty, said to him, "I'm sorry. You are in good health, but I cannot take your blood because you might get out onto the street and faint." What does that imply? It implies first that blind people are somehow different from sighted people. But secondly it implies that this fellow wasn't capable of knowing whether he could take care of himself or not, that he was a child mentally, that he had something more than blindness the matter with him. He was very indignant about it, but he didn't get to give his blood.
The people who were in that blood bank and who saw that experience went away a little bit more confirmed in their opinion that blind people were different, were helpless. Do you think that any of those people then would turn around and give a blind person a job? Likely not. Advertising. There are YMCA's in the country, and I know of some, where blind people who are unaccompanied cannot spend the night. The theory is that they might hurt themselves, that they might fall down the stairs. Are we really such children that we cannot even be supposed to know whether we can take care of ourselves? Many people would say, "But I was just being kind; I was doing this for your own good." That we call the tyranny of kindness. I'd just as leave not have that sort of kindness.
Have you ever gone to a restaurant and had somebody say to the person next to you, "Does he want cream in his coffee?"[laughter] That's a social discrimination. It is a thing that robs blind people of dignity. It is a thing that robs blind people of equal treatment in society. It is a thing that robs you of dollars in your pocket, of jobs. I have gone places with a sighted person and had somebody say to that sighted person after we have had some food, "Would he like a second helping?" My escort had no way under the sun of knowing whether or not I wanted a second serving.
But I'll tell you whom that situation might have fit very logically. Suppose I took a three-year-old child, a very small child, to any place where we were eating. Somebody might suppose that that child would not be capable of telling them whether he wanted something else or not. But they would figure that, since I was with him and was a responsible adult and was used to him, I would be able to interpret his needs. So they would ask me, "Does he want so-and-so," and I would turn and ask him by whatever sign language we used, and he would tell me, and I would reinterpret his needs and say that "he does" or "he does not." That kind of question is an insult to every last one of us.
Now the people who do that do not do it maliciously. They do it with kindness. They don't do it because they wish to be mean. They would be hurt in many instances if we told them that this was a discrimination, that it really was robbing blind people, but that's what it's doing. And that's what your national organization is dedicated to try to remove--to try to do something about. It's what you are doing something about by being members of this group and by working together. Social discriminations: they are the most subtle of all, and they are the ones that hurt us the most.
We are sending out in the White Cane literature each year pamphlets that describe to people what blind folks are doing. When you figure the entire, nationwide mailing, they're going out in millions. A few years ago there was a pamphlet sent out during White Cane Week called "The Ten Courtesy Rules of Blindness." Many of you may have seen that pamphlet. If we never get a dime back, even if we had to pay money to send that pamphlet, it was worth it to us because it said this: "When you meet me, don't be ill at ease. Remember these rules; they'll help both of us."
And then ten points were given. I won't give you all of the ten, but see what you think of them. One was: "Don't ask my wife, `Does he take cream in his coffee?' Ask me." Another one was, "Don't avoid words like `see'; I use them too. I am always glad to see you." Another one was, "Don't shout or address me as if I were a child; I'm an ordinary person, just blind." And then another one was, "Whatever I have accomplished I've done by hard work, so don't talk to me about the wonderful compensations of blindness." This kind of thing helps to make people think. It helps to change the social discrimination.
Yet some folks say sometimes, "They (whoever the they might happen to be--I don't know what this they is) They, the National Federation of the Blind, ought to have a positive program. They are too critical." And yet they are distributing--whoever they is--are distributing materials like this through the mail. They are fighting the Wilborn case and the testing case and are establishing the changes in the Civil Service, and I have concluded that the they is you--all of us. We are the they.
Now to move on to the last part of this statement of philosophy then: "Because of their personal experience of blindness, the blind themselves are best qualified to lead the way in solving their own problems. The blind themselves must unite and take leadership in solving common problems."
If it is true that we are normal people, if it is true that we are equal to other people, then we certainly ought to know more about our problems than other people would know. And therefore we ought to unite, we ought to take leadership in solving those problems. This is why every person who is blind ought to be in the National Federation of the Blind. You ought to be in your local groups here. I think one of our great problems in this state--and I have been in this state a long time, and I know some of the problems here. They are not peculiar to this state--but one of our great problems has been that people have been able to divide us and conquer. We have not displayed a common front. People have gone into a meeting and voted, and, if the vote didn't go to suit them, they then have gone out and worked as they pleased anyway.
You have no right to do that sort of thing in my opinion. If we participate in an organization, and we ought to, and if we participate in the vote, then it seems to me that we are honor-bound--and not only honor-bound but, if we've got good sense, for our own preservation we are going to go with the majority decision.
I know that in this state individuals have sometimes got ahead a little bit, and then they have decided, "Well, I believe I'll deal with the Governor or the legislature or with some office-holder on my own. I'm not going to deal through the organization.” Every time that happens, it weakens every blind person in the United States, and it doesn't help the individual who does it in the long run, for he is made the victim of his own strategy. For, if he can do it, somebody else can do it, and somebody else has done it.
I saw a letter not many years ago from a very prominent state official which I think is a classic and which illustrates what I am talking about perfectly. The blind of this state wanted something, so a letter was sent to this official stating that the blind would like so-and-so. The official answered very smugly. (He answered one of our friends, by the way, but the person who wrote the letter was in another city from Nashville.) And this official answered, "As you doubtless know, there are several groups in this state, each of whom claims to represent all of the blind of the state. And, as you probably also know, there are several individuals who are not organized who claim individually to represent the blind of this state. And therefore," politely the official went on to say, "I don't propose to do anything about what you recommend, for the blind don't want it at all."
If a blind man goes to the legislature of this state, if a blind man gets an office in this state, if a blind man becomes prominent in his community in this state, he still ought to feel that the Tennessee Association for the Blind is the voice of the blind of this state, and he ought to come into this organization and work through its channels and let the president and the board of this organization speak for him, for if we cannot delegate to our representatives the right to represent us, we cannot make very much advancement. That is a prime principle, and there is no way around it. Those people who talk of going it alone are either very reckless or very foolish and perhaps both.
It is true that in those states in the United States where the blind have had a united and a strong organization, you came to have more employment of blind people, and you came to have a higher living standard all around. And in those states where you have weak organizations or none, you came to have poor and wretched conditions for the blind.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we go away from this convention with nothing else, I hope that we will go away from this convention each one determined that he will not deal independently with state officials and with all sorts of groups outside and say that the blind want thus-and-so but that he will deal through the duly constituted representatives of this organization. You may not like the officers you elected. If you don't, get out and politic and throw them out. But at the same time, for God's sake, as long as they are your officers, as long as they have been elected to represent the blind, then let them represent the blind.
That's one phase of uniting and taking leadership in solving our common problems, and it is perhaps the most important phase on a state or a national or a local level. People have been able to play one group of us off against another group. However, there is a corollary of that philosophy. We say that "The blind themselves are best qualified to lead the way in solving their own problems." That's true, but there is something else. "The general public should be made aware of those problems and should be asked to participate in their solution." The first is of little importance or of little benefit unless we can follow through with the second.
It is true, and I suppose that I need not argue with you on this point, that blind people who have actually learned how to be successful themselves ought to know what is involved in a blind person's becoming successful. Therefore they ought to lead the way and point the way in solving their problems, but it is also true that we are a minority group and that we do have to live in a regular, ordinary community, that we want jobs in regular industry, that we want to be interdependent with our neighbors, that we want to be one and the same with our fellow citizens. If we are to do that, we must educate the public. We must make them aware of our problems.
How can we do it? Meetings like this help to do it. Our own belief in the things that we stand for will do it. Distributing booklets like What Is the National Federation of the Blind? will do it. I have distributed about one thousand copies of this book this year. How many have you distributed? They are available. No one need say that he cannot get literature from the Federation office for it is available in piles if you want it in print. All you have to do is write and say, "I'd like to have it." Clyde Ross in Akron, Ohio, has put copies of this book and also "Who Are the Blind Who Lead the Blind?" which talks about the different jobs that blind people are doing--he's put copies of these out in the public libraries for people to pick up. How many have you put out? That's one thing.
Every radio program, every TV program, every newspaper article that's properly done helps to educate the public. But every fund-raising appeal that goes out that talks about the world of darkness, that talks about, in effect, the helplessness of the blind damages the cause. It reinforces people in their belief that we are basically helpless.
Some people say, "We are all working for the same thing, and therefore let's all get together." That's true, and it isn't true. Every group that is doing work in the name of the blind is not working for the same goal we're working for. If you believe that such is the case, listen just to these two sentences that I copied from a recent publication of one group, which I do not care to name particularly. This is the quote: "A job, a home, and the right to be a citizen will come to the blind in that generation when each and every blind person is a living advertisement of his abilities and capacities to accept the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship. Then we professionals will have no problem of interpretation because the blind will no longer need us to speak for them, and we like primitive segregation will die away."
Now you think about that statement for a moment. That is the announced statement of philosophy of one group. I presume that that which will come is not here now, by logic. And, if you say, "in some future generation," I take it that that's a long time off. So notice the things that the blind will someday in some far-off generation get: "a job, a home, and" if you please "the right to be a citizen." I have the right to be a citizen now; don't you?
There's a second part to that statement: "Then we professionals will have no problem of interpretation." If I go to a foreign country and I am so different from the people that I don't speak their language, I hire an interpreter to interpret my needs. I am not so different, I feel, from regular people that I cannot interpret my own needs. "For the blind will no longer need us to speak for them"--do we really need anybody to speak for us now? So I repeat, we are not all working for the same thing, and there are times when, even if it appears to be critical, we must stand up and speak. I do not care to exist as a well-fed slave, and I don't think you do.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, I know that sometimes, when you work in a locality, in a state organization, or when you are working in your own community, maybe by yourself, you can feel, "I'm really kind of carrying this fight alone." That's not true as I think has been amply demonstrated in this convention. You've seen leaders of the North Carolina Federation here. In other state conventions your state president has appeared. We are beginning to exchange visitors at these conventions and to swap ideas. And more than that, the blind all over the country have united themselves into one organization, and we are moving, almost forty thousand of us, for that is how many members the NFB has all over the country, forty thousand. We are moving in one common cause, and we are moving together.
It's coming slowly, but we are winning for the blind independence and the right to be normal, regular citizens. The issue is not in doubt; we are going to win it. During this two-day convention I feel that we have had one of the most constructive meetings, perhaps the most, that I've ever attended in this organization. I have seen a kind of enthusiasm here which convinces me that the Tennessee group is on the verge of the biggest expansion it's ever had.
I have known for a long time and respected your president. I still know him and respect him, and the same for the other officers and leaders of this group. Although it has been a pleasure for me to come back and visit you and bring the greetings of the national office to you, I have not felt like a visitor at this convention, for I don't think I am a visitor with you. In California, wherever I go, I am still a Tennessean, so this has really been for me coming home. It's been a real pleasure to be with you. I hope to see many of you in California this summer. I thank you.
Vending Opportunities for the Blind on Military Bases:
A Victory in the Courts
by Andrew Freeman
From the Editor: Andrew Freeman is an attorney with the law firm of Brown, Goldstein, and Levy. Except for Jim Gashel, he probably knows more about vending cases in the United States than anybody else. He was the attorney handling our most recent efforts to protect the rights of blind vendors. He addressed the NFB convention Thursday morning, July 5, in Philadelphia. This is what he said:
Do any of you object to successful blind people? Do any of you object to blind people working hard and running large and profitable businesses? Do any of you object to blind people becoming rich?[cheers and applause in response to each of these questions] Well thanks to the Federation's enforcement of the Randolph-Sheppard Act, there are now blind businessmen and women successfully operating cafeterias and military mess halls throughout the country. Well, thanks to the Federation's enforcement of the Randolph-Sheppard Act, there are now some rich blind people. But it doesn't come easy. It doesn't come without some very hard work by some very talented vendors. It doesn't come without overcoming opposition and jealousy. And it doesn't come without the Federation's clout or without its willingness to enforce our rights in court.
Twenty-seven years ago, in 1974, Congress amended the Randolph-Sheppard Act to give blind vendors a priority to operate vending facilities, including cafeterias, on federal and state properties. The Act was explicitly intended to provide opportunities for blind entrepreneurs. Earlier this week twenty-seven years later, I was given a copy of a letter that complained a blind entrepreneur on an Air Force base in Texas is earning a million dollars a year. The writer seemed to think that it's okay for small business people to get preferences that allow them to work hard and become millionaires. He seemed to think that it's okay for minorities and other disadvantaged groups to get preferences that allow them to work hard and become millionaires, but somehow he was distressed that blind people should be given an opportunity to work hard and become millionaires. Some people think that sort of success is to be ashamed of. We say it's something to be proud of and something to repeat.
Some of our opponents don't like the idea of rich blind people. They prefer to keep blind people in sheltered workshops, but blind merchants in Texas and Oklahoma and Louisiana, blind merchants in Kentucky, Ohio, Colorado, and New Mexico, blind merchants in New Jersey and Maryland and Virginia and the District of Columbia and states all over America are saying, "Hell, no. Let blind merchants walk through the door that Congress opened over twenty-five years ago. We have the experience and skills to operate multi-million dollar food service contracts. Where we don't have the experience and the skills, we know how to get them." Blind vendors around the country have proved they can offer high-quality food at competitive prices. They have proved and are proving it every day that they have what it takes to satisfy their customers on a large scale, to feed thousands of meals--good meals--a day to military personnel, and to earn a good living while doing so.
A year and a half ago the folks at NISH, who operate sheltered workshops and operated some cafeterias on military bases began to feel threatened. They felt threatened by the idea of blind entrepreneurs, so they filed suit challenging the decision of the contracting officer at Fort Lee, an Army base in Virginia, to apply the Randolph-Sheppard priority to the mess halls at Fort Lee--mess halls that feed several thousand meals a day. Mind you, the contracting officer hadn't just gone out and arbitrarily awarded the mess hall contract to a blind person. After a lot of ground work by advocates for the blind, she had determined that the mess halls are cafeterias covered by the Randolph-Sheppard Act, so when the Virginia State Agency for the Blind and its blind vendor demonstrated that they could provide good food at good prices, they were entitled under the law to operate those mess halls. Well, NISH and Goodwill and the sheltered-workshop folks claimed that the Randolph-Sheppard priority shouldn't apply to those mess halls. For political reasons the Commonwealth of Virginia refused to defend its own programs, so the National Federation of the Blind stepped in to the case and underwrote the legal costs on behalf of the Virginia vendors and others.
A year ago we won the case in federal trial court, but NISH appealed. The NFB kept fighting and sent me to Richmond to argue the case in front of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. In April we won a resounding victory. The Fourth Circuit adopted all three of our arguments. The court agreed that the Randolph-Sheppard Act applied to military mess halls. The court agreed that the interpretation of the Secretary of Education and the Commissioner of Rehabilitation Services is entitled to deference, and it agreed that, because the Randolph-Sheppard Act applies more specifically to cafeterias than does NISH's Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act, the Randolph-Sheppard Act controls those situations.
The result is the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marines are now somewhat reluctantly complying and recognizing the Randolph-Sheppard priority for many, though not yet for all, of their mess halls. We taught the same lessons to the Department of Veterans Affairs in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals a few years ago, and we will teach it again to any other agency or organization that seeks to deprive blind people of their rights.
These victories require follow-up, follow-up by blind vendors, follow-up by the courts when necessary; but we are not going to sit on these individual victories until blind people are operating the cafeterias and the mess halls in VA hospitals and military bases all across America. These victories have established precedents that allow blind merchants to operate those contracts, and where blind merchants have gotten through the door, they are proving that they have what it takes to operate these multi-million-dollar food service operations.
Victory and opportunity--victories in court by which the NFB has made sure that blind vendors had the opportunities that Congress established twenty-seven years ago in the Randolph-Sheppard Act, blind vendors who are making the most of those opportunities. Let's keep up the great work.
First-Timers' Convention Reports
From the Editor: The NFB of Virginia conducts a program which provides assistance for two members to attend the National Convention for the first time. They call these grants McDonald Fellowships in honor of a longtime leader of the affiliate. Chancey Fleet and Joann McSorley were the 2001 McDonald Fellowship winners. These two women, at very different stages in their lives, struck the same note of wonder and excitement. Chancey is a student at William and Mary College, and Joan is a newly blind mother with college-age children. Here is what they had to say as first published in the Summer, 2001, issue of The Vigilant, the publication of the NFB of Virginia:
Chancey Fleet: Before I even arrived in Philadelphia, I knew I would be in good company at the National Convention. Standing at the gate from which my flight would take off, I discovered that another Federationist would be on my aircraft. In the few minutes before we got on the plane I learned that this blind Texan was outspoken and independent--just that week she was defending her right to continue her job at a local childcare center despite the doubts of some of her colleagues. She was reasonably upset at the challenge to her competence, but I could tell that she had the resolve to win and the backing of the Federation to help her stay confident.
Once I arrived at the Philadelphia Marriott, I became fully aware of (and a little overwhelmed by) the complexity of National Convention. I was given a several-page pre‑agenda covering just two days of meetings and activities. I found that my hotel and the one across the street were both almost exclusively booked by blind people (much to the bewilderment of a handful of sighted vacationers).
Each day I spent in Philadelphia I expanded my understanding of how the Federation works. I learned that we have fifty thousand members. We have been instrumental in the decline of sheltered workshops for the blind. We have divisions of every kind from one for writers to one for educators and a plethora of other things I hadn't known before. What struck me most about the national organization was discovering that we reach out to every sector of the blind population. During general session I heard about a program called "Braille Is Beautiful," designed to increase the understanding and acceptance of Braille in our society by introducing it to sighted middle‑schoolers in classrooms.
I also heard about our involvement in the World Blind Union and our commitment to working with blind people outside the United States. A bill designed to use Medicare funds for blind senior citizen rehabilitation services and another which would increase the incentive to work for those of us who receive Social Security Disability Insurance were discussed.
I spent a few fascinating hours in the exhibit hall, a huge space on one of the lower floors that was filled to capacity with gadgets, daily‑living aids, books, souvenirs and information of every kind. I have a particular interest in technology and was instantly drawn to booths with names like "Clever Devices" and "Beyond Sight."
The innovation I was happiest to find was the Bank of America's talking ATM, which operated smoothly through a speech interface. I was able to use my Bank of America card to make a bank transaction without sighted assistance for the first time in my life. Thousands of other blind people will be able to experience this financial liberation in the coming months. Talking ATMs are being installed in a few cities now, and they'll be popping up all over the country soon.
The best gadget I discovered was the Atlas/GPS‑Talk, a compilation of nonvisual maps of the entire country (stored on CD‑ROM), a vast collection of points of interest (also on CD), and a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver the size of a cell phone. The CDs alone allow the buyer to explore his or her city from a computer or learn the lay of the land in an unfamiliar area. In combination with the receiver, the maps can be used on a notebook computer to tell travelers exactly where they are and how to get to where they want to be.
Inevitably new technology isn't always what the manufacturers or consumers expect. At one booth I happened upon a little magic wand that didn't work--a small device which purported to know and announce the color of any object. I've never actually observed the color of my hand, but I'm fairly certain that the little wand was lying when it told me my skin tone is "mat‑black."
I spent seven days in Philadelphia, but two moments stand out in my memory like none of the others. The first occurred while I was watching the annual play put on by the Louisiana Center for the Blind. This year the focus was the achievements of the NFB in general, with particular attention to Kenneth Jernigan. Toward the conclusion of the play three children took the stage to sing about Kenneth Jernigan and their desire to "teach the blind like he did." The genuine feeling in the voices of these members of the fourth generation was a strong reminder of how the Federation changes lives.
The other highly memorable moment took place during the banquet, and I can't ascribe my feelings to a single sentence that I heard or a single idea that I gathered. Instead it was Marc Maurer's entire speech that left me feeling both impressed and invincible. His speech was by turns witty and stirring, and his command of language was amazing. I felt as if the power of his speech represented the power of the Federation, an organization of people as competent in their own walks of life as Dr. Maurer is as a leader.
I'm intensely grateful to have been given the opportunity to go to Philadelphia and to learn and experience so much in one short week. Thank you to everyone in the Virginia Affiliate who made my trip possible--I hope that the fellowship can be continued in future years so that other Federationists in Virginia can experience the National Convention firsthand.
Joann McSorley: Overwhelmed does not begin to describe my feelings accurately as I entered the lobby of the Marriott Hotel in Philadelphia on July 1. There were hundreds of people, hundreds of white canes, many dogs, and twice as much luggage. This was my first solo trip with my cane, and I admit that I was somewhat anxious. It hadn't occurred to me that I am almost always with a sighted family member or friend, but now I was totally on my own. And I am happy to report that I survived, quite well I think.
Being in Philadelphia was going home for me. It's my hometown, and I still have many family members in the city and the surrounding areas. It just felt right hearing and seeing the sights and sounds of a familiar city.
But I must get back to the convention. Another first for me was that I had never attended a convention of any kind before, and I really did not know what to expect. My education began immediately--people and more people from all over the world, people talking, people laughing, and sometimes engaging in impromptu fencing matches with white canes right before me.