Bob Segalman writes,

I have always looked up to Governor Brown's appointment of Ed Roberts as Director of the Department of Rehabilitation in the early 1970s. At that time, I was one of the first state employees with significant Cerebral Palsy. Watching Ed establish the independent living facilities in California and eventually worldwide provided me with an excellent role model at a time when many people felt that those of us with disabilities should not be working. Ed gave me the courage to stay in the workforce and eventually enabled me to lead the way to the development of a national telephone assistance service for people with speech disabilities.

It is ironic that while the Governor honors Ed Roberts Day, at the same time, he is instituting huge cuts in IHSS, cuts which undermine the independence of people with disabilities which Ed Roberts fought so hard to establish. While I understand that these cuts simply reflect an oligarchy in which the power is in the hands of industries such as the gas and oil companies and the nursing homes, it is destructive to our society that people with disabilities are becoming unnecessarily impoverished and institutionalized.

Any society can be characterized by how it treats its weakest members and these cuts demonstrate a significant character weakness in our society. I strongly urge Governor Brown to reverse this trend as a first step in moving toward a more just, humane, and productive society.