Dear fellow citizens and friends of Paradise Center Inc.
We hope that you will receive this notice in time to cancel your plans to attend the MHMR of Tarrant County Board of Trustees meeting tonight. It was leaked to us by decent people inside of Hulen Tower right after lunch hour today that MHMR executives and Trustees were somehow alerted this morning to the plan by many of you taxpayers to go and ask questions and/or express your feeling regarding what is now commonly called the Paradise Center Scandal.
As you can surmise from this very unusual notice to "stakeholders", apparently there was not enough time to hire private security guard/s toting side arms before the 5:30 P.M. public meeting tonight. As has been the pattern, these public officials holding positions of immense power, financial and administrative and legal, will do whatever it takes to prevent public disclosure or discussion of all the documented instances of behavior that range from questionable to reprehensible.
The natural questions are why are they behaving this way? And what do they have to hide from "We the People", from whom came the $100+ Million dollars in annual taxes and the attendant authority/power and responsibility/accountability??
This latest act of desperation and evasion (the Trustees adjourned the meeting last month before the public could even get back inside the Moncrief Conference Room) is unbecoming of honorable civic leaders and is in fact a rejection of transparency and public accountability on the part of people given "the public trust".
These facts also make clear that the public (and private) statements and representations about the Paradise Center Matter by MHMR of Tarrant County CEO, executives, and Trustees do not support their claim that this is "just a personnel matter". Those words and actions can only be described as "scandalous". A scandal that is much more damaging than the one involving the Citadel Medicaid fraud in the mid-2000's and the one that ushered out the previous CEO and his regime, which included members of the Board of Trustees.
The people and community leaders of El Paso apparently took constructive actions to mitigate the damages to people and the community by exercising their rights and duties earlier this year relative to the conduct of their MHMR executive/s and Board of Trustees.
What is different about Tarrant County, Texas, U.S.A.? And why has the "fourth rail of our democracy" chosen to ignore this public interest and public policy matter?
It's been said that a community is judged by how it treats its weakest members. The judgment is still out in this particular matter, fellow citizens, taxpayers, and voters.
Paradise Center, Inc.
friends helping friends in mental health recovery
20 comments:
Thank goodness. I wasn't looking forward to fighting rush hour traffic with gas prices costing arm and a leg.
But I sure still want to look this potentate of MHMR Jim McDermott straight in the eye and ask a few of the compelling questions that have been raised in these blog sites.
I'm just as happy to see this arrogant ¢€©®¶ and his minions thrown out on their disgraceful bullycratic a****.
What a cowardly bunch, hanging up on women, elderly, and disabled BUT too scared to face common citizens and hardworking taxpayers! !
I was wanting to go to that meeting. I've heard that last month, the head accounting lady said, out in front of everybody, that they had found an accounting error of $118,000. I almost crapped my pants. How is that possible? Don't somebody check that stuff out. Hell, I'd be embarrassed if I bounced a check. But to make a $118,000 mistake?? I'd think that somebody must have lost their job over that one. I was hopeing to ask that question tonight.
Why would they make a meeting during the daytime? Dont' they know that most of us work? I can't take off work at the last minute. it's already hard enoguh to make it at 5:30.
I called today to see where I could find the posted agenda and information about the monthly Board of Trustees meeting. I was told it's not available electronically. So does that mean I'm supposed to drive to their building and get a copy? That's just stupid. And arrogant. My son goes to the mid-cities clinic. From Grapevine. Now they moved the clinic further away, closer to Fort Worth. It makes my trip that much farther. And the wait when we get there is terrible. I don't think they could run a business that way. Nothing available online. Long waits to see the doctor. If we had other choices, we'd take them!
That's one tough looking dude. He ain't your typical beer- bellied rent a cop you normally see at Wal-mart, either.
That posture tells me he was told to project an intimmidating image to those present.
Saddam and Muammar would New so-o-o proud.
It's confusing to me. What stakeholder notice? Who are the stakeholders? Does that mean taxpayers? And aren't there some type of rules that people have to go by about public meetings. I know with the school board and city council meetings there are rules. Like, posted to the public 10 days ahead of time. Who is in charge of that? Is this still about Paradise Center? Is that why they changed the meeting time? Who can answer these questions?
Quick question: how does this relate to the paradise cener scandal?
Durango, Durango, Durango. What have you gone and stirred up down there? Your fellow Texans may run you out of town for this... The Fort Worth Way that you always reference apparently applies to the County, too.
Glad I got the news and told my elderly neighbors, who btw are long time members and leaders of the local NAMI chapter, not to try and make the trek to Hulen Tower.
Okay, I wasn't ready to agree that this is a scandal but all the factual evidence keep mounting and these MHMR people people acting like they're guilty of some scandalous stuff.
I'm putting my vote for "Yes, it's a scandal" and Hell yes MHMR and their so called leadership screwed up in a major way in invading an independent nonprofit called Paradise Center and terminating an employee of almost ten years Ms. Davis.
I wish there was another voting choice" CEO McDermott and his executive team, including his Board of Trustees,should be investigated and if warranted be TERMINATED".
Man, this MHMR agency just cannot seem to get quality leadership and to keep its nose clean.
I'm retired now but was doing some contracting with Tarrant Co. MHMR Services in the late 1980's and early 1990's when then CEO Kilpatrick was caught in a criminal investigation by the DA's office and the state agency.
To borrow from Yoggi Berra, this current scandal sounds like de javu all over again.
That security guard reminds me of some hard a@#$% MP's when I was serving in the military. Looks like he's ready to bust some skulls. I would definitely have felt intimidated if I was there.
Holy cow,..and unholy corruption, Batman!
I do recollect that massive scandal involving that crooked CEO Kilpatrick and his complicit Trustees, but I just cannot find the newspaper reports. Dang it...because the way this bunch is acting REGARDING THE PARADISE CENTER SCANDAL IS ALMOST EXACTLY HOW IT WENT DOWN DURING THAT SCANDAL IN THE LATE 80's.
I just went by the drop in center a while ago to find one of my clients and man what I read on here is pretty accurate. Hardly any consumer around and the handful who are waiting for clinic appointments were huddled outside in the cold. Could just be that the 4-5 maintenance men painting the walls and turning the place into offices for Medicaid billing purposes.
Man, it is a completely different place than the community center run BY, AND FOR, the members of Paradise. Some people have been lying their asses of when they said everythings exactly the same as before except for a staff change.
I was born at night ...but not last night.
Are they kidding? Who does this Jim McDumbnut think he is? Mumar F**&&* Ghardafi? because this kind of behavior is only acceptable in two bit teeny feudal states.
Is this some kind of a joke? In America?
Where the hell's the public outrage? ??
Of course, the public's that kept in the dark has a hard time feeling outrage, FW Star-telegram, FW Weekly, and all you media types.
Wait til their next Trustees meeting. I WILL BE THERE IF IT TAKES SITTING AND WAITING ALL DAY, McDumbnut!
Okay, it took a little looking around but the shady email "notice to stakeholders (whatever the hell that means)" can be found at www.startelegraph.blogspot.com...not the former local newspaper of record but Star tele-GRAPH.
The writer Janelle Thurman is apparently the "executive assistant to the CEO" and the official liaison for the MHMR-TC Board of Trustees.
The statement was fishy as all get out.
Wonder who else got sent this remarkable notice besides the Paradise People and their Pros?
I am a mental health consumer at MHMR. I have been before to meetings for the trustes. Its not all that great. Its boring and they don't really discuss much. I was going to try to tell them about my caseworker one time. But before the meeting when i signed in a black lady came to talk to me. she said I should call her office that she wowuld take care of the problem. So I did not speak at the meeting that night. And you know what? That lady never called me back. I called 3 times. Her name is Sonya Gains. And you know what my complant about my caseworker was? That I can never get her to call me back. Isn't that funny? The boss of the caseworkses didn't call me back either. Because I have a housing appointment and you can't miss those. But I wanted to move and go to a place that doesn't have so many problems. But since she didn't cal me back in time, i missed the deadline and now i have to stay here another year. So if you went to the meeting they might would not have let you talk either by sending somebody oooout to talk o you first and telling you to call them and never calling you back either.
From reading everything, and NOT just on this blog and other blogs, I have a strong feeling that this brazen coup on the Paradise Center is like the tip of a puss that has been growing in its infection .....and now is ready to POP!!
MHMR-TC under Jim McDermott might have grown and thrived on terms of power, numbers, and influence. These outwardly impressive things belie an internal corruption that very enriched the little emperor and his harem but off the backs of taxpayers, countless professional and ethical employees, and cruelly off the vulnerable people that he and his cronies are entrusted to serve and protect...from abuses and exploitations --in this case being perpetrated. BY the little man and his fellow bullycrats and enablers like the Trustees, County Commissioners, and even advocacy groups like N.A.M.I. & MHA.
Whoa there. A $118,000.00 accounting error? It must be a typo. I gotta see if the Minutes have been posted online because if factual that's a major problem. Not just an "error".
Who's doing their books? Some high school kid or something? Seems like the incompetent CEO oughta take a pay cut and hire real accountants. While they're at it, MHMR-TC should hire a real lawyer instead of taking advice from some pro binoculars bozo that will surely cost the agency a pretty bundle. I guess this Carvan Adkins is a pro bono. If not, they've been robbed by another sleazy incompetent lawyer. Again.
That dude is not a security guard. HE'S A BODY GUARD AND AN INTIMIDATOR. I've heard that McDermott guy's a wussy...but resorting to this tactic just moved him into a MAJOR WUSSYCRAT, thanks to whoever coined the term. This little sissy is more a Wussycrat more than a Bullycrat.
Terry Moore was recruited away from this corrupt county and has been leading the charge inside the Dallas DA's office to free wrongfully convicted prisoners. Not quite the FW Way where scientists brought up compelling flaws on evidence used to pit a father of four on death row. After political game playing with government. Slick Rick, the man was murdered earlier Burnam the state earlier this year anyway, with full approval from the county and FW public officials in the killing of a likely innocent man.
The longer ceo McDermott, the MHMR-TC Board of Trustees, and their enablers like the County Commissioners avoid offering public information and refusing transparency the bigger and darker the cloud of suspicion and doubt grows. Apparently so is the list of questions, public anger, and it would appear the number and level of frustration of MHMR employees.
It's becoming more and more apparent that the ceo and the highest level of leadership have committed significant and possibly substantial wrongdoing. Pulling cowardly stunts like these two previous Trustees meeting only delays the inevitable.
Very bad decisions, poor judgment, and even inadequate legal counsel. The final results are more people suffering, more damage to the reputation and public confidence in the leadership and integrity of the agency, and of the loss of hard earned tax dollars and perception of the community.
That's the price of poor leadership and morally bankrupt society. Right in the midst of the buckle of the Bible belt with the world's largest seminary churning moral and spiritual leaders to literally "go into all the world". Plus leadership laden corporations like Lockheed, BNSF, Pier 1, Bell Helicopter, and universities and law school
and a medical+public health leadership school, just to name a few.
Knowledge without moral and civic foundations is not that powerful at all, as this scandal shows.
I cannot figure out why and what these people are trying to keep from public disclosure. All the shady behavior and silence are doing is declaring that they have something BAD to hide from we the people. Too bad journalist with the skills and experiences to dig up these hidden information won't do their jobs.
I guess it's up the people: is it true that citizens can file for some kind of open records request? If so, I wonder how that works. Any one know?
McDirty and his gang have purposefully schedule the Trustees meetings to minimize public participation and to make it easy on themselves first and foremost. Most people cannot get to a meeting at 5:30 PM. Then they put the public comments and questions part at the beginning of the meeting so that hardly any one with jobs or family could make it. Wickedly clever, but clear denial of public participation regarding how our tax dollars are used and how our friends and neighbors are treated. That's the McDirty way.
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