[fcb-l] Time to contact your legislators

[Sherri]

Unlikely pair have
the blind in mind



Written by



Jim Ash
News Journal capital bureau



12:00 AM, Mar. 28, 2011|



TALLAHASSEE - With the exuberance of a typical 9-year-old, Alan Williams 
ignored the rules and ran full speed through the house - only to slam face 
first into an open closet door.

Wearing an eye patch for four days in
Tallahassee Memorial Hospital saved the vision in his damaged eye.

Decades later, the close call has thrust the young, black liberal Democrat 
from
Tallahassee into the same obscure House club as Dennis Baxley, a middle-age, 
white, ultraconservative Republican from Ocala who until recently worked as
executive director of the Christian Coalition.

Few legislators could be further apart on
the political spectrum. No two legislators

both members of the "Vision Caucus" -
could be more dedicated to preserving
services for the blind and visually impaired.

"I had an incident when I was a child, I have a friend whose child is 
visually impaired and my mother has been fighting glaucoma since 1980," 
Williams said.

This year, Williams is handing out legislative business cards printed in 
Braille. He is sponsoring a bill that would encourage the rest of the 
Legislature to do the same.

"If we're going to make government more transparent, we're going to have to 
make it transparent for everyone," he said.

Baxley and his wife, Ginette, raised an
adopted son, Jeffrey, who lost his vision as an infant. Navigating a 
complicated system of rehabilitative services, and grateful for the success 
they brought his son, Baxley founded the caucus in 2005.

When the committee chairman isn't
championing gun rights or anti-abortion
legislation, he is working quietly behind the scenes with advocates to 
protect the
Division of Blind Services, an arm of the
Department of Education.

This year, as the Legislature struggles with a $3.7 billion budget 
shortfall, Baxley and his fellow caucus members have their work cut out for 
them.





On Thursday, House leaders put the final touches on an education spending 
proposal that would slash K-12 spending nearly 10 percent and cut $800,000 
from the division.

DBS serves 36,000 Floridians and gets
most of its nearly $40 million budget from the federal government. Advocates 
say an $800,000 cut would seriously threaten a program that serves about 
1,000 blind babies a year.


Blind babies and another program that
serves blind and visually impaired seniors would be at greatest risk, 
advocates say, because they get most of their funding from state general 
revenue.

Baxley winces at the thought.

"Of course, these are times when every
program is being asked what it can give,
not what it can take," Baxley said. "But
blind babies ... As caucus members, we're just going to have to hold our 
position and see what we can do."

The Senate does not propose cutting the division. Gov. Rick Scott's budget 
proposal, which calls for $5 billion in spending cuts, also does not target 
blind services.



If $450,000 was cut from the state's Blind Babies program, it would 
translate into 180 unfunded babies. A similar amount of unfunded 
adults/seniors would result from a $450,000 cut," said Skip Koch, executive 
director of the Florida Association of Agencies Serving the Blind. "We 
encourage the acceptance and passage of the
Senate's version."

House Democratic leader Ron Saunders of Tavernier said the threat to the 
program proves that Republicans aren't just looking to trim fat.

"This says a lot about their priorities,"
Saunders said. "We're not just talking about laying off a bunch of 
bureaucrats; we're talking about blind babies."



_,_._,___
Sherri Brun, NFBF Secretary and Newsline® Coordinator
Vice-president NFB Greater Orlando Chapter
Secretary FDCP INC
E-mail: flmom2006 at gmail.com
www.nfbnewsline.org
http://www.nfbflorida.org
http://nfbfgoc.org

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." John 
Lennon


Sherri Brun, NFBF Secretary and Newsline® Coordinator
Vice-president NFB Greater Orlando Chapter
Secretary FDCP INC
E-mail: flmom2006 at gmail.com
www.nfbnewsline.org
http://www.nfbflorida.org
http://nfbfgoc.org

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." John 
Lennon

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