WHEREAS, Blind Industries and Services of Maryland (BISM) is responsible under the law to provide training services to blind adults in Maryland; and
WHEREAS, upon becoming president of BISM in 1986, Frederick Dewberry made it his first order of business to close BISM's Training Division by pursuing a plan
(1) To eliminate a staff position that had been devoted to job development and placement for the blind, saying that this action would save $30,000; and
(2) To block student referrals for training in order eventually to dismiss or reassign the Training Division staff
WHEREAS, for several months after his arrival at BISM, Mr. Dewberry refused to become involved with the Training Division until he closed the Division and dismissed its director and last student, both of whom were active members of the National Federation of the Blind; and
WHEREAS, to cover up his ill-advised action in closing the Training Division, Mr. Dewberry charged that the program was mismanaged; and
WHEREAS, evidence now shows that Mr. Dewberry's real reasons for closing the Training Division were hostility toward the National Federation of the Blind and its involvement in BISM's programs and Mr. Dewberry's false notions of economy in thinking that money can be saved by denying training services to the blind and firing or reassigning staff; and
WHEREAS, MR. Dewberry has failed to provide a public accounting of BISM's use of training funds that were available when he closed the program; Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland in Convention assembled this 11th day of September, 1988, in the City of Towson, Maryland, that this organization condemns and deplores the closing of BISM's Training Division and the subsequent use of a training review panel to mask the real reasons for eliminating the training program; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we formally invite the Board of Trustees of BISM to work with representatives of this Federation in a joint effort to re-establish a constructive and genuinely meaningful training program for the blind of Maryland.