The real story behind the muck-raking article that appeared in the D&C on Sunday August 29, 2010, began about six months ago. At that time, County Executive Maggie Brooks or someone in her administration decided to use the county’s payrolled investigators to try to dig up dirt on the Center for Disability Rights (CDR). The limited findings of those investigators have since been blown far out of proportion, misconstrued and lied about by county officials in an effort to end the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP) of CDR.

Fast forward a few months. CDR received a five sentence letter from Monroe County on July 22, 2010, stating that they would no longer be using our services, effective immediately, with no explanation of why. At about the same time, Monroe County issued a full press release and three page letter to the press detailing the supposed findings of the “investigations” performed by the county’s staff.

CDR, our consumers, attendants and staff were shocked by these allegations and by the county’s refusal to talk to CDR or the CDPAP consumers. The home care programs of nearly 300 people and the jobs of well over 700 attendants and staff were suddenly in serious jeopardy. People’s lives were in tumult because of the misconstrued and falsified findings of a handful of Monroe County investigators.

About 6 days into that tumult, CDR received a call from a person representing herself to be an excellent researcher with information on why Maggie Brooks was really making the decision to end CDR’s contract to provide CDPAP. She spoke with one of CDR’s administrative staff and left a set of references. Ordinarily, I would not consider returning such a call. At no time have I reached out to find anyone to investigate this situation. As the D&C correctly states, I’ve never employed an “investigator” in the past. However, these are not ordinary times in which we are living. In my role, and my long commitment to this agency and the people we serve, I feel I need to consider all legal options in order to maintain the services and jobs our people know and love.

Furthermore, one of the references this person named was Darryl Porter, special assistant to Mayor Bob Duffy. Mr. Porter is not someone I know well, but I’ve met him on many occasions and have had numerous short conversations. The person, who identified herself as both Sue Stiles and Wendy Howe, left Mr. Porter’s cell phone number as a means of reaching him. Mr. Porter’s cell phone does not seem to be generally available, so this further implied that the caller had a legitimate connection to Mr. Porter. Given his position with the Mayor, it felt that if Mr. Porter would vouch for this person, then it would seem to be wise of me to return the phone call.

I was able to reach Mr. Porter on his cell phone the day after the caller first contacted us. At that time, despite his suggestions in the D&C, I indicated to Mr. Porter that the person had said the he could vouch for the person’s ability to access information and ability to research and find information. Mr. Porter told me something to the effect of, “Yes, she’s given me good information before. She’s always been straight with me.” There were a few more short statements of support. This all said, it seemed clear to me that it was worth returning the call from this person.

I spoke with the caller and agreed to meet with her and pay her an upfront retainer fee. If the information she had and was able to find was as good as she promised it to be, I would have been absolutely willing to pay more. Again, I am fiercely committed to maintaining the stability of the services provided by CDR to the CDPAP consumers who choose us as a vendor, even if it costs me a significant amount of personal money. Please be clear, at no time did CDR pay this person in any way. She was paid exclusively by me.

Over the next few days, the person’s behavior and temperament were erratic. Her follow through was definitely not what I expected and her theories on what was really behind the Maggie Brooks’ decision to end CDR’s contract became increasingly absurd. I agreed to meet with her one more time to see the information she had supposedly gathered. When I saw what she had, it was a scraping together of notes and documents with no bearing on the situation. I made an additional payment to her, because I had promised I would and I don’t break promises. I left the situation and contacted her the next morning to indicate that I was ending the business relationship and wanted no further contact.

She persisted to contact me, trying to convince me that she had great work to show me and that I needed to pay her. I told her no, and reminded her to stop contacting me. This, while annoying, was nothing about which I would ever contact the police. The situation changed for me in the afternoon of August 3, 2010.

On or about that time, I received two voice mail messages from a man identifying himself only as “John” and indicating that he was her “friend”. He went on to say that he had a lot of money invested in this and that I needed to give her her money or that I would be “meeting” with him and that it would “not be pleasant”. To be honest, this scared me. I am myself in a wheelchair and I have a wife and two small children at home. I was afraid for my safety and theirs.
To make matters worse, a few hours after I received the threatening phone calls, my wife saw a strange vehicle with two men driving down our street slowly.

They looked at our house as they drove by, turned around at the end of the block and came back, driving slowly and looking at our house again. Needless to say, we were scared. My wife was home with my sick daughter and I was out with my little boy. I wanted to protect my family so I called people I know.

It was in this window of time that I spoke with Molly Clifford who put me in touch with RPD Chief Moore. I think it’s worth noting that Molly and I speak on a regular basis, probably weekly and we are friends outside of our professional relationship. Chief Moore and I have spoken on many occasions and in particular had been in contact recently to ensure that the protest outside the County Office Building went smoothly between police and protestors. Given my position with CDR and my engagement in the Rochester community, these are the people that I know. Despite the D&C’s implicit suggestion that there’s some big cover-up and scandal, I simply turned to the people that I know at a time of great duress when I thought my family might be in danger.

Fortunately, the van that had driven down our street was later identified by a neighbor as a non-threat. But at the time that I talked to Molly and Chief Moore, it was absolutely scary. My understanding is that the police increased surveillance of our street for that night. I met with officers from RPD the next day.

When I met with the various RPD officers, they took down my report and ultimately must have made contact with both the woman that had contacted CDR in the first place and the man that had left me the threatening messages. Both of these individuals stopped contacting me and there was no more suspicious or threatening behavior. I felt much more safe and chose to not press charges.

I feel that the D&C omitted a number of the important facts from above and that the individuals interviewed in the story from the City of Rochester are conveniently mis-remembering our conversations. Regardless, you now know the real story of my purportedly trying “to get dirt on Maggie Brooks.” There was never an effort to get dirt in Ms. Brooks. There was an effort to get information that would show the true motivations behind Monroe County’s attack on CDR.

They made allegations about neglect and investigations by state agencies which we’ve thoroughly refuted with evidence. That continues to leave many people, including the D&C’s own editorial page, wondering what the real motivation behind the attack is.

The real story of the county’s motivations is as yet unknown. Ms. Brooks’ wild suggestion that this is some sort of effort to blackmail her is baseless and even the D&C indicates that no one interviewed, nor the RPD documents, suggest anything like blackmail. This seems to again be the county trying to distract from the real matter at hand: their allegations against CDR are slanderous and baseless and they’ve disrupted the lives and care for nearly 300 people without cause or due process.

The real story told, I am sorry that you’ve had to hear and see all this ugliness. I believed with a positive reference check from a staffer to the Mayor, I was doing the right thing for CDR’s consumers and staff. Apparently, I was wrong. I made a mistake and I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry if I have damaged the reputation of CDR or the fine people associated with the agency as consumers, staff, volunteers and members of the board.

I remain committed to doing what is in my power to ensure that CDR’s consumers get the services they want from the vendor they want. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.

Sincerely,

Chris

The D&C article can be viewed here:

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20108290355