On April 14th, ADAPT learned of a letter, published in the Legislative Gazette, from Monroe County Executive Brooks that proposed several questionable Medicaid reforms. The most drastic and immediately damaging of these "reforms" was a proposal to cut community-based personal care hours for seniors and people with disabilities in HALF. We immediately contacted the County Executive and asked for a retraction of this proposal and meeting to clarify her true intent. After a week of letters and a flurry of phone calls by all our members to County Executive Maggie Brooks, Rochester ADAPT could not wait any longer.
Despite a public statement saying that her proposals were to initiate "discussion", neither Executive Brooks nor anyone in her office made any attempt to contact us and arrange an actual discussion. Since Ms. Brooks wanted discussion, but did not want to come to us - ADAPT decided it was time to go to her.
About 40 ADAPT members gathered Wednesday, April 21st, to pay a visit to Maggie Brooks in her office in downtown Rochester. Our group included some returning old-timers like EZ Massa, Barb Forgione and Sadie. And we had some faces new to ADAPT: Barb King and Michelle Nicoletti. We were a few minutes late getting started on our march down town, so by the time we arrived, the media was already there! Though this was a little awkward, it probably made for some excellent television footage as our line of people with disabilities turned the corner to head into the accessible entrance to the county offices.
Once inside the building, our group went directly to the office of County Executive Brooks. We asked for Ms. Brooks while our people continued to flow into the waiting room. The receptionist explained that Ms. Brooks was out of the office all day - our people continued to cram into the room. We got as many people inside as we could and said that we would wait for Ms. Brooks or Assistant County Executive Jerry Helfer.
Our group exploded into chanting, almost immediately disrupting the entire county office building thanks to its marble flooring and wide open atrium! The reverberation of "Don't Cut Personal Care!" could be heard throughout the building. Some passersby told us they came into the building just because they could hear the chanting from outside!
County security was on hand quickly, but everything remained smooth. Our people were here to make it clear to Executive Brooks that cutting personal care was not an option! We cranked up the volume and soon the County relocated the receptionist to another location and replaced her with a security guard assigned to keep an eye on us.
County representatives continued to say that Ms. Brooks would not be back at all and could not be reached. They also said that Assistant Executive Helfer was tied up in meetings, but may be able to meet with us later. He never emerged.
To demonstrate the reality of Executive Brooks' plan to cut personal care services in half, ADAPTer Cindy Thrush was suspended in air by two thugs (Lisa Brophy and Sue Norwood) while "Maggie Brooks" began her miraculous work! "Maggie" started pulling money out of Cindy's rear… $100 bills with Brooks' face and "It's Pataki we distrust" printed on the back. More... "Maggie" pulled and pulled - two hundred feet worth of $100 bills. "Maggie" never even thanked Cindy for her brave contribution to the county coffers.
ADAPT made every effort to explain why people were angry with Ms. Brooks and why we were even more angry that they had not even returned our letter or phone calls. Mr. Doyle explained that all of the County staff were very busy. ADAPT also explained the damage that would be done by a cut in personal care, not just to people, but actually to the County's budget as well. Mr. Doyle agreed that a meeting with Ms. Brooks within the next three weeks was a reasonable resolution for the day and he went upstairs to get a letter committing to such a meeting. To show that we were negotiating in good faith, ADAPT's powerful chanters took a break while Mr. Doyle was working on getting the letter.
When Mr. Doyle returned he had no letter, and no ability to commit to a meeting between our representatives and Ms. Brooks. From there, negotiations soon broke down and we were all back to square one. Our ADAPTers began a rolling "Maggie… Where are you?" (Some of the County Legislative staff would stop by and actually give us updates as to where Executive Brooks had been seen politicking in the Rochester community in the past few hours!)
Anita O'Brien and Susan Norwood got lunch from a hotdog vender who must now be one of ADAPT's biggest supporters - after we bought 50 hotdogs, water and soda for the group. Despite some resistance by County Security, ADAPT was soon having lunch in the County Executive's lobby. This was probably the only time our group was quiet all day, but it didn't last.
As it got later in the day, more security was assigned to us. Also, the County began to bring in Sheriffs and Police Officers to get ready to deal with our group. With incredible timing, ADAPT erupted into "I'd rather go to jail than die in a nursing home" as County Sheriff Patrick Flynn appeared with several deputies. It was clear that ADAPT was not intimidated.
While the police presence increased, so did our chanting. Our crowd roared "2-4-6-8 Why won't you negotiate?" The situation was pretty intense, similar to what we experienced in the Senate Finance Committee room in DC, when 129 of us were arrested just one month ago. This was a smaller group, and a smaller room, for the same effect!
After hours of no official contact, finally another representative from the county joined us. The Deputy Executive, Mel Walczak, overseeing Health and Human Services, who had met with us under the prior Executive's administration, noticed our group and came to meet with our leadership. He was quick to listen to and understand our concerns. We began negotiating with Mr. Walczak and another County staffer… this time in the echoing atrium near all of our group and their chanting.
We soon reached an agreement - we would arrange a meeting within two weeks between the Assistant Executive Jerry Helfer, Mel Walczak, their Medicaid program specialist, and our representatives. Mr. Walczak spoke to our group for several minutes, expressing his understanding and willingness to look at better proposals for Medicaid reform, including Medicaid Waivers to get people out of nursing homes. With this discussion and the letter committing to a meeting with ADAPT, our group was satisfied. We cleaned up, packed up and went back to the CDR office to have dinner and wait for paratransit rides home.
All in all, it was an excellent action. It was more hectic than we had expected while planning the activities. The theatre of "Maggie" pulling money from Cindy's bum and having the money, latex gloves and "Babbling Brooks" buttons made for great fun for our group. We have a meeting with the county representatives most involved in overseeing Medicaid and Personal Care services and we hope to make progress in that meeting. And if the County fails to retract its proposal to cut personal care services - ADAPT will be back!
Rochester ADAPT