By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, July 26
The Big Tent Coalition appointed three committees Thursday to figure out where it wants to go and how best to get there.
“We”re trying to get back on our feet,” said Rick Cagan, the advocacy group”s temporary chairman.
The committees and their leaders:
*
Structure
Cagan, executive director at the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Kansas.
*
Legislative
Tom Laing, executive director at Interhab, a state association representing programs for the developmentally disabled.
*
Mission
Barb Bishop, executive director at ARC of Douglas County and head of the Self-Advocate Coalition of Kansas.
Each committee will develop proposals for how the Big Tent Coalition will work in the future. The proposals will be discussed at the group”s Aug. 23 meeting in Topeka.
Much of the discussion Thursday focused on which groups” interests would be represented by the coalition and which, perhaps, would not.
Sixteen people attended the morning meeting. Most represented groups that advocate for people with disabilities.
Several in the group said they felt uncomfortable lobbying for issues
child care or services for the elderly, for example
they knew little about, yet, at the same time, they wanted the coalition to be open to all in need.
“I think that”s still an open question,” Cagan said. “If I had to guess, I”d say the group”s primary focus will like be on issues affecting the disability community but with a willingness to take on other issues as they intersect.”
Craig Kaberline, executive director at the Kansas Area Agencies on Aging, predicted his board would want to remain active in coalition.
Laing let the group know that he would propose reaching out to the legislators in the fall rather than waiting for the 2008 legislative session to begin.
The all-volunteer coalition was founded in 2002 after then-Gov. Bill Graves cut state spending on social services by $32 million, resulting in the loss of an additional $61 million in federal funds. The cuts have since been restored.
The coalition”s original leaders, Shannon Jones and Robert Harder, resigned in May.
Harder is a former cabinet secretary at both the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services and the Department of Health and Environment. He retired from state government in 1995 and is now a volunteer lobbyist for the United Methodist Church of Kansas.
Jones is executive director at Statewide Independent Living Council of Kansas.
Neither Jones nor Harder attended the meeting Thursday. Both have said they have other priorities to pursue.
Five years at the helm, they said, was enough.
-Dave Ranney is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
dranney@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 128.