Gov. George Ryan has no shortage of avowed political enemies in this state. I believe he knows that I have never been among them.
So the governor should not pass off as adversarial rhetoric, or as a partisan attack, what he is about to read here.
Of all the mistakes that he may have made during his time in public office — or the mistakes that may have been made by others in his name — this is one that the citizens of his state will not forgive.
He has already decided not to run for governor again — but there are things even more important than an incumbency.
While Gov. Ryan was in Cuba on a trade mission last week, it was reported that Fidel Castro hinted he might consider memorializing Ryan, who is the first U.S. governor to visit Cuba (he has gone there twice) in 40 years.
Castro was reported to have said:
“Perhaps one day a governor of an American state will have a statue here, or maybe we’ll name a medical school for him.”
That’s nice. But Ryan lives in Illinois, not in Havana. And while he is still governor, Illinois is where he is needed.
You may have read the powerful story on the front page of Sunday’s Tribune by reporter Celeste Garrett — the story about how state officials have begun to ship disabled students from the Illinois Center for Rehabilitation and Education on Chicago’s West Side to nursing homes around the state, because Ryan has cut funds to the school.
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The story centered on a young man named Lorne Mackey, 21, who has lived at the school for seven years — and who said goodbye to his classmates and staff members last week, because he is being moved to a nursing home in Flora, Ill., more than 250 miles from his family.
He has cerebral palsy and is mildly mentally retarded, but he has a high school diploma and can read books. His parents abandoned him when he was 3 years old, because of his disabilities. He was raised by his adoptive mother, Juanita Robinson, 72; she can no longer care for him at her home, because she is unable to lift him. According to Celeste Garrett’s story, his adoptive family often came to ICRE to visit him, cut his hair and nails, and care for him.
Now he is being shipped 250 miles away, to be placed in a nursing home with strangers who are much older than he is (some are reported to be in their 60s and 70s), and who are considerably more mentally impaired. He will seldom be able to see his adoptive family. There are real questions about whether he will be able to receive physical therapy there, or even whether he will be able to go outside.
I won’t try to sum up all of Garrett’s report here; for those of you who did not see it in Sunday’s newspaper, I strongly urge you to read it at chicagotribune.com.
This is not just about Lorne Mackey — it is about all of the 50 students at the school, and about what will be done with them. They were not supposed to be placed in nursing homes — yet the state, in apparent haste to beat the timing of a Cook County circuit judge’s order, appears to be shipping the students to the nursing homes even as court hearings are held in an effort to keep the rehabilitation school open, or at least to find suitable places for these young people to live, where they can learn and be properly cared for and be close to loved ones.
I don’t know if Gov. Ryan has been to the school, at 1950 W. Roosevelt Rd. I have. Your first instinct, after you have spent time there, is to pray — to pray for the people you meet, to give thanks that there is a place that tries to help them, and to ask God to look after them as their lives progress.
Someone — today, Monday — must step in so that these students are not stepped on. Someone — it ought to be the governor, but it may have to be a judge — must stop what is about to be done to these young people until there is some guarantee that they will have at least a fighting chance for a decent life.
Budgets are tight. We all know that. But you don’t kick around people who can’t even lift their arms to defend themselves. You ought to fix this, governor. Now.
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– Bob Greene comments on the news of the day Thursdays on the “WGN News at Nine.”