On The Tandy Hills With A Gorilla & No Answers Blowing In The Wind

That is today's new Tandy Hills wildflower you're looking at on the left.

I was late to the hills today, due to a lot of distractions.

When I don't get my usual aerobic stimulation and its resultant endorphin fix, I get cranky.

Today Elsie Hotpepper sent me an invitation to go saloon hopping next Wednesday. Saloon hopping in the middle of the week seems borderline decadent to me.

The Paradise Center Scandal continues to astonish me with the amount of comments and level of vitriol. The people commenting who associate themselves with the MHMR-TC agency come across as so incredibly dumb, logic and grammar challenged.

While the proponents of the Paradise Center sound so reasonable.

Today one of the dumb Anonymous MHMR-TC con comments had a double-negative that rendered it amusing, meaning the opposite of what the commenter intended. I'll go see if I can find the double-negative sentence.

Okay, there have been a lot of comments from Anonymous today along the theme that MHMR is moving on and will no longer be commenting on the Paradise Center issue.

Anonymous said, "Well, Folks the Grownups are not feeling a need to no longer speak with you."

Not feeling a need to no longer speak? Which means you are now feeling a need to speak.

Anyway, it's been a day. Started off good with a nice soothing swim.

Driving back from the Tandy Hills I saw something on top of my neighborhood Firestone store, next to my neighborhood Chevron that appeared to be a perfect visual metaphor for the MHMR Bullycrat thugs.

A big gorilla waving a shark in the air.

I have no idea why the big gorilla is there. Or how it got the shark. But it sure looked weird blowing in the wind.

I wish there was an answer blowing in the wind to all that perplexes me.

But there isn't. Windows open. Wind blowing. No answers.

The Tandy Hills Sprouts A New Wildflower With Me Pondering Fort Worth's Various Scandals

A couple wildflowers made their first appearance of the year on the Tandy Hills today. With one of the two being the pink wildflower you see on the left.

It was very cloudy and windy when I hiked the hills around noon. There was no Shadow of the Tandy Hills Thin Man today.

But now, 3 hours later, shadows have returned, with the removal of most of the clouds.

Change of subject.

The Paradise Center Scandal is wearing me down. I thought when I made a blog, just for the Paradise Center Scandal, that the comments would go there. Instead there are a lot of nasty con and nice pro comments still coming to this blog. As well as the new one.

Yesterday someone called Jessie Girl commented on the the Paradise Center Scandal blog, to a blogging titled "Scandal Madness Fan is Appalled at the Lack of Civility and Decency of the MHMR Cons," asking "Just one quick question. What is the scandal? I'm confused."

I thought way back on March 4 County Commission Gal did a pretty good job of breaking down the MHMR-Gate/Paradise Center Scandal.

In many ways the Paradise Center Scandal is a worse scandal than Watergate. No one was actually hurt in Watergate, except for the perpetrators of the break-in and those who tried to cover up the crime. In the Paradise Center Scandal you have actual victims who have suffered damage due to the perpetrator's bad, likely illegal, behavior.

Unlike Watergate, the city where the Paradise Center Scandal took place has no real newspaper of the Washington Post sort.

And Fort Worth definitely has no Woodward and Bernstein in town doing any sort of investigative reporting regarding the wanton wrongdoing perpetrated by MHMR of Tarrant County.

Maybe the Washington Post could send a reporter or two to Fort Worth. In addition to learning about the Paradise Center Scandal the rest of America would likely find it interesting that Fort Worth has a mayor who has made millions of dollars from the Barnett Shale Natural Gas Drillers poking holes all over the town of which he is mayor.

Maybe the Washington Post could find a way to explain to the people of Fort Worth what a conflict of interest is.

After telling the story of Fort Worth's corrupt mayor the Washington Post might want to tell the rest of America about Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision and explain what nepotism is to the people of Fort Worth.

I would think the rest of America would be a bit surprised to learn that their tax dollars are helping fund a huge, unneeded public works project.

And that Fort Worth's Congresswoman Kay Granger's son, J.D., was given the job of running this huge public works project, a job for which he had no qualifications.

But those who practice what is known as 'The Fort Worth Way" figured it would make the congresswoman beholden to them if they gave her son a job, with Ms. Granger getting behind sending some earmark money to help fund Fort Worth's unfunded Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.

Unfortunately for the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, that earmark funding method is not working out too well.

Meanwhile, J.D. Granger has been having himself a real fine time on the public's dime, with fine dining, junkets, parties, expensive hotel rooms, a steady supply of liquor and all sorts of other perks.

I wish my mom was a congresswoman so she could get me a cool job with lots of booze and broads.

Not really.

Looking At The Forlorn Skyline Of Dull Downtown Fort Worth While Thinking About How To Compile The MHMR-Gate Scandal

In the picture we are on the Tandy Hills looking west at the forlorn skyline of the dull downtown of Fort Worth, Texas.

As you can see, today at noon, the forlorn skyline of dull downtown Fort Worth is under a gray, hazy sky. It has brightened up a bit since noon.

Usually I describe this view as looking at the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth.

Then a couple days ago, someone asked me if I really think the Fort Worth had a beautiful downtown with a stunning skyline.

Or was I being sarcastic?

I thought the sarcasm was obvious, but I guess I need to start using my sarcasm font when the sarcasm is not sarcastic enough for easy discernment.

The Tandy Hills hiking was nice today. Not too hot, not too cold.

Despite yesterday saying I wouldn't, this morning I braved the 8 degrees of freezing temperature and went swimming. Just like yesterday, due to the air being way colder than the water it made it almost seem like a heated pool.

Change of subject to the MHMR-Gate Scandal.

A "Sick-n-Tired Employee," of the Paradise Center or of MHMR asked me....

Mr. Durango,

Could we suggest that you, if feasible, combine all the various postings and comments about this foul smelling scandal in one section or something like that so that we and the public could examine more closely this major scandal?

Well, this is a blog, I don't really have the ability to arrange the blog postings. It doesn't work like a website. I suppose I could webpage the various bloggings and postings. But that would take some time to do. I'll think about it.

Daylight Savings Time Has Me Up Too Early Thinking About Fort Worth's MHMR-Gate Scandal

Due to Daylight Savings Time messing with the time I am up way before the sun this second Monday of March of 2011, as you can see looking through the bars of my patio prison cell at the blue oasis below.

It is only 44 this morning and very windy.

I think the videos I have been watching of the tsunami in Japan have been causing me some bizarre water related nightmares. Every morning the news out of Japan seems to be worse than the morning before.

Total switch of subject from a Mother Nature disaster to a man made one.

I keep getting blog comments regarding the MHMR-Gate Scandal. This has been going on for several weeks now. A strange pattern has emerged with the comments. The pro-Paradise Center comments have been articulate, level-headed and well-written.

While the anti-Paradise Center, pro-MHMR and its CEO Jim McDermott comments have been mean-spirited, vitriolic, inarticulate, badly written and sort of nonsensical.

Like the comment I got this morning from the Ubiquitous Anonymous to the blog post titled "County Commission Gal Explains Fort Worth's MHMR-Gate Scandal In Detail....."

I agree with the short tv report on WFAA two weeks ago that a disgruntled employee and a few followers was picketing outside Paradise Center. Anon I agree that Fort Worth Star Telegram does not find this news worth reporting. The clients are not suffering. Ther are having fun with new staff and new peer leadership. Sebrina and Dale are back from Teresas little group. Paul is back and back to ordering supplies. Lynn has condensed alot of the paperwork to a smoother running center. Two of the male clients volunteered to keep the four bathrooms clean on a daily basis. Time to move on like the clients have. 

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has shrunk back so deeply that it really does not function as a real newspaper anymore, leaving a town with a population over 700,000 with no real newspaper of record.

Let me see if I can sum up a short version of my understanding of the MHMR-Gate Scandal.

MHMR CEO, Jim McDermott and his staff came up with a scheme to use the Paradise Center to generate revenue. The woman who ran the Paradise Center, Teresa Davis, refused to agree to things she knew to not be true. Ms. Davis was then fired, with the reason given that she failed to attend a meeting.

At the same time Ms. Davis was fired, MHMR locked up the Paradise Center, denying Ms. Davis and her staff entry.

Inside the Paradise Center building were a lot of possessions of the Paradise Center which did not belong to Tarrant County MHMR.

Eventually, after complaints and protests. MHMR removed the Paradise Center possessions to a POD storage container.

The actions of MHMR was a major disruption for a lot of people who depended on the Paradise Center.

There is a lot more to this scandal than my short version. To me it is sort of like the Watergate coverup. The fact that Tarrant County officials seem to have done nothing to rectify this wrong, just adds to the scandal.

Muammar Gaddafi Doing It The Fort Worth Way Being An Example Of How To Deal With The MHMR-Gate Scandal

I tell you, Anonymous and the Paradise Center MHMR-Gate Scandal is one of those gifts that just keeps giving.

I got a couple comments from the ubiquitous Anonymous today in which I learned some things.

I learned MHMR CEO Jim McDermott is so rich and powerful he will survive the MHMR-Gate Scandal just like he has his previous scandals.

I learned that Jim McDermott is a survivor, just like Muammar Gaddafi, who will crush his opponents just as ruthlessly as the Libyan dictator.

I learned Teresa Davis is a whiney "boohoo."

I learned the reason MHMR has not addressed the concerns of the Paradise Center people is because they are little nobodies.

I learned if the Fort Worth Star-Telegram does not report a story, this means the story is not worth reporting.

The most interesting thing, to me, that I learned from Anonymous, is that this blog is a pathetic news source. I knew my blog was pathetic, but I had no idea it was a news source. I did know I was a damn Yankee and a nobody. Which Anonymous also pointed out quite poetically.

And now for your informative reading pleasure, the two comments I got from an Anonymous MHMR thug today.....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "County Commission Gal Explains Fort Worth's MHMR-G...":

Dr. McDermott has so many political connections and money at his disposal that this scandal will just fade away, like other ones during his twenty something years as the top dog.

Like the powerful Col.Kadafi in Libya, Jim McDermott will get his political allies to crush these loony birds and that hard headed woman many seem to see as a saintly figure. P-l-e-e-z. She can't hold a candle to the awesome women in charge now Lynn and Ellen.

You all go get a life. Or a job, like that whiney Teresa "bohoo" Davis.

BTW, it's not any kind of suppression of freedom by MHMR, it's just that they have more important things to do than answer questions from you little nobodies. 

Especially the damn yankee owner of this pathetic news source. If the Star-Telegram doesn't report it, it ain't worth the time. Period. 

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Paradise Center Scandal Has Me Mad As Hell At ..."

To answer your question, yep it's all over. Move along. There's nothing to see here. 

Just FYI to all the fools and this blog owner, you think a handful of crazies and an unemployed (probably unemployable now) woman can win against a PhD. and a $100M government McDermott agency? Really?

County Commission Gal Explains Fort Worth's MHMR-GATE SCANDAL In Detail

The Paradise Center Scandal now has a blog covering the ongoing scandal.

A few days ago in response to a blogging about the Paradise Center Scandal, which I had renamed the MHMR-Gate Scandal, someone Anonymous hoped that I knew what I was talking about. And that the public needed and deserved to know about this "so-called scandal."

Wikipedia's definition of "Scandal"....

A scandal is a widely publicized allegation or set of allegations that damages (or tries to damage) the reputation of an institution, individual or creed. A scandal may be based on true or false allegations or a mixture of both. From the Greek σκάνδαλον, a trap or stumbling-block. The metaphor is that wrong conduct can impede or "trip" people's trust or faith. Some scandals are broken by whistleblowers who reveal wrongdoing within organizations or groups.  Sometimes an attempt to cover up a possible scandal ignites a greater scandal when the cover-up fails.

This afternoon I heard from someone calling herself County Commission Gal. Read what County Commission Gal has to say about the MHMR-Gate Scandal and you will easily see that the MHMR Tarrant County shenanigans clearly are a scandal. And those shenanigans are scandalous.

From County Commissioner Gal...

I don't want to risk losing my job, especially as retirement nears, so I won't use my real name.  I heard talk last week around the county administration offices about Paradise Center and like many people wanting to know more about this interesting but disturbing story I was forced to use a search engine to find some kind of reporting.  I was rather shocked to see only the brief piece in the FW Weekly about the protest. And the posts on your blog. 

Again I don't want to have problems with my job as a County employee, with extensive experience in government operations and analytical work.  But I want to honor my brother's shortened life and memory by sharing with the only information dissemination source about this scandal--yes, from all my years of experience and from reading the evidence presented to the County Executive and the Commissioners, it looks like a pretty major and costly scandal.

I am using my own computer and time to share with the public what appears to be the hard truths about disturbing issues surrounding this scandal, which is so ugly that it appears even the County government is trying to dismiss it and hoping that it just goes away.  Because these courageous Paradise Center folks are weak and powerless in almost every way. Their main powers are their resolve to demand that they not be exploited and treated as second or third class citizens. Their hope of holding on to their hard earned resolve and rights as citizens rests in the truth getting out (hello, media/journalists) and the public raising a chorus of questions and protests until the wrongdoers are held accountable.

Because I am convinced that this is so very important for our friends and neighbors suffering from severe mental illness and that it serves the public interest, I will share some selected facts I know about this scandal.  Based on written material I've seen and from discussions I've heard (plus some of my own research of publicly available information, the essence of this scandal is that MHMR Trustees approved of the CEO and his executive team's scheme to bring in needed "revenue" (vs. funding, which are from grants or government budgets) by cleverly exploiting the well established community center operated by the "consumer-run" non-profit organization Paradise Center Inc. in the following main ways:

-- MHMR signed a contract with the private profit-driven HMO group called Bravo Health  to begin enlisting MHMR clients who qualify for Medicaid. 

--Medicaid pays pretty good for services that help people with severe and persistent mental illness recover from their disabling illness and to reintegrate back into society (e.g. classes or training groups to learn how to take care of their hygiene needs, paying their bills so they won't lose their housing and end back up on the streets as homeless people, managing their medical and pharmaceutical needs such as making and keeping appointments and getting prescriptions filled and organizaing their many medications in pill boxes to ensure that they follow the psychiatrist's treatment plan and control the negative symptoms of their mental illness, how to budget their limited income, buy groceries and eating healthy meals, making friends and a support network like most people have and take for granted, etc.).   

--Bravo and MHMR would "share" employees and infrastructures in order to maximize profit for the company and revenue for the taxpayer-funded government agency.

--The executives told their "bosses" the Board of Trustees, who are appointed by the Commissioners Court to be their surrogates in overseeing a governmental agency under the "sponsorship" (see their websites) of Tarrant County government, in meetings last summer that this business agreement/contract "is projected to bring over $600,000 of revenue in the first year".  That's not small change any way you look at it, especially if MHMR doesn't have to provide the costly outlays to set up such a state-approved "program" to help their very sickest/debilitated clients increase their likelihood of staying in their own place in the community instead of on the streets, in shelters, or the most costly inpatient hospitalizations or in the criminal justice system.

--The reason that MHMR could expect to gain such a large "revenue" and not really having to do much of the work was the assumption that the extremely low overhead would continue by using the 8,000 man hours of volunteer work by the Paradise Center team to operate a well-known and well-loved community center for the people with chronic and severe mental illness. 

--The "foundational grant" that MHMR had signed contracts to provide for the most basic operational needs of Paradise Center the organization and its community center is a shockingly low $150,000 per year, which covers the paltry salary package of the well-educated (two masters degrees from the world's largest and most influential seminary) and extremely competent professional staff whose decades of unblemished record working with the sickest of the sick (i.e. the psych hospital or "ward") made her 9 and 1/2 year work a success that produced significant and very positive results for many people who participate in the array of services, programs, and opportunities offered by Paradise Center.

--Apparently due to her personal and professional ethics, Teresa Davis resisted 5 months of harsh and really shameful pressure tactics by the MHMR executive team, including holding toilet paper and other products for the Center's four bathrooms that serve the 80 or so average unique people who attend the tiny community center as ransom to force her to attend another two hour long meeting where 3 or more MHMR executives would gang up on her using verbal and emotional assaults to break down her will and ethical stance,  to go along with their false representation (to Bravo Health and the state agency that oversees Medicaid/HMO) that "Paradise Center is just another one of our many programs" and that she was just another one of their 1,300 employees subject to their complete control and domination.

--MHMR knew that it was critical for this influential person to go along with this falsehood since the contract, and the detailed proposal to the state for approving their partnership to provide Medicaid billable services with the profit-driven HMO, had stated that everything about Paradise Center and its operations (i.e. legal status as an independent 501/c/3 non-profit organization, it's Charter and By-laws which vests the authority for its operations and other important issues in the all-volunteer Board of Directors) was under the direct control of MHMR.  

--Contract law experts could see the problems easily: we have three separate legal entities/organizations here and two of them had entered into a contractual business partnership but intentionally not letting the other, smaller and weaker, legal entity Paradise Center Inc. know about their deal. Very serious legal and financial consequences would jump out, to all three parties and the state agency overseeing Medicaid/HMO, when the Bravo Health team comes in and takes over most of the internal operations of the community center operated by Paradise Center Inc. with the complete assurance that it is "a program of MHMR" their business partner.

--Paradise Center Inc. leadership team and their 500+ official members would surely raise objections and whip out their legal documents and contracts that would expose the lie concocted by MHMR's leadership team and Trustees.  Bravo Health, a major HMO who is new to this market, would then likely ask MHMR's team to do some serious explaining, privately and/or in the courts since lawyers with knowledge of this scheme said it would be a basic fraud case.

--Paradise Center and its well-loved community center is crucial to the calculation of the projected profit and revenue by the two business partners because most of the people with mental illness do not like to attend required meetings, classes, or training sessions because they remind them of their time locked up in restricted institutions like psych hospitals/wards and even prison where "the mental patients" or "inmates" were under complete control of those in power over them.  

--A major factor in Paradise Center's success and "popularity" (80 people choosing to walk for miles or take tedious 1-2 hour long bus rides in all kinds of weather  to come be around friends and participate in fun and helpful activities daily is extraordinary) is the warm atmosphere and "culture of acceptance and support" that Teresa Davis had worked over her 9 and 1/2 years to promote and inculcate, which had become an expected characteristic as new people come asking to join and participate based on recommendations by friends, family, and various professionals.  THIS IS A KEY PART OF THE SCHEME: unwitting people who come to their community center were seen as "fish in the barrel" for the Medicaid-billable rehab services as "the authority" pulls those qualified for such financially profitable activities in to nearby meeting rooms for 30-minutes or longer rehab services.

--This is a clear case of arrogance, bullying, as well as deceptive and exploitive behavior.

--For MHMR's leadership team, the expected easy money and the potential consequences of the legal issues just described, made it imperative that Ms. Davis be gotten out of the way, whatever it took. The community center and organization operating successfully out of 505 S. Jennings had to be successfully passed off as completely MHMR's by a date certain, knowing that the already delayed enrolling period was quickly approaching on 05/01/11. If they could convince the state agency that everything is kosher and thus their business enterprise was now "operationally ready" to start doing business and billing Medicaid.

--Thus Ms. Davis's resiliency and principled stance had to be overcome somehow: the shockingly devastating and extremely foolish act by MHMR's Trustees, CEO, executive team, and legal counsel in "terminating your employment immediately" on 02/17/11.  

--The very next morning the MHMR-Bravo team took over the community center and busily walked around looking at their design plans for the facility, discussing how to keep people coming in such large numbers (bought pizzas and gave out free drinks all days to the 30 or so unknowing people who showed up), and more importantly trying to figure out how to find people to replace the exiled Paradise Center Inc. leadership team and their 8,000+ hours of volunteer work to make THEIR community center and organization the "jewel of the community" and an "easy" prey for their scheme to exploit the name/reputation, "warmth"/culture, and free labor of the people with serious mental illness in order to maximize the HMO's profit margin and to empower and enrich the executives of MHMR. Trustees praise and give them raises for such a "creative" business solution, especially in this budget-reducing era.

--They don't get or don't care about the cruel irony of their willfull actions and motivations: exploiting and abusing the very people that they righteously declare to the public and taxpayers they are committed to helping "improving quality of life" and dedicated to prevent them from being abused, neglected, or exploited by those with more power and sophistication.

 Tell the truth and the whole truth, Mr. Durango.  Please help me protect my anonymity.

_____________________________________

To protect County Commission Gal's anonymity I edited out her detailing of her personal reason that motivated her to look into the MHMR-Gate Scandal. I thought those details would make her identifiable. Suffice to say, she has a relative who died who would have benefited had he been able to access the type of help provided by the Paradise Center before MHMR destroyed it.