By Nick SabatoRIVER NEWS REPORTER

Public hearings and MarshfieldClinic’s proposed hospital additionin Woodruff dominated the OneidaCounty Planning and DevelopmentCommittee meeting Thursday atthe Oneida County Courthouse.At a previous meeting, it was

mentioned that the zoning ordi-nance might cause MarshfieldClinic some issues in securing aconditional use permit (CUP) forits proposed 72,000 square-foot,12-bed hospital to be located justblocks from Howard Young Med-ical Center in the town ofWoodruff.On Thursday, the county’s zon-

ing director Karl Jennrich pro-posed an amendment change toBusiness B-1, giving it all theadministrative review uses andconditional uses of District 3 Mul-tiple Family Residential.“This would actually piggyback

all of the conditional uses of Dis-trict 3 Multi-Family Residentialand incorporate that into BusinessB-1,” Jennrich said. “Therefore,because Business B-2 piggybackson Business B-1, all those uses ofDistrict 3 Multi-Family Residen-tial would be allowed. Also,because multi-family has a condi-tional use permit, we are also look-ing at hospitals.”Jennrich said he also believes

heliports should be approved viaseparate conditional use permits. When Howard Young Medical

Center added a heliport it was

required to have a CUP, he noted.The committee approved the

new language and supervisor JackSorensen also proposed an amend-ment that would require a heliportto be placed 1,320 feet away froma single-family residential areasand one mile from another heli-port.Committee chairman Scott

Holewinski said he believesSorensen’s proposal would be amajor change that would require apublic hearing.“There’s nothing wrong with

that. We hold them all the time,”Sorensen responded. “There’snobody at this particular time say-ing, ‘We want to build a helicopter

pad.’ So, what’s the big differenceof a delay? As far as these stipula-tions would come in under a CUP,I think these are fundamental to thebuilding of a helipad. Absolutelyfundamental. They go beyond thequestions of adding them to or notadding them to a CUP.”The committee voted not to add

Sorensen’s proposed languageprior to a public hearing, soSorensen is likely to present theproposal when it appears in frontof the county board later thismonth.Marshfield Clinic assistant gen-

eral counsel Dan Kirschnikexpressed concern about themotion.“The proposed motion is totally

contrary to what we’re pursuing aspart of our CUP application,”Kirschnik said. “We would insiston a public hearing. We didn’thave an opportunity to respond.We want an opportunity torespond. It would clearly prohibitwhat we’re trying to do at our loca-tion. I don’t know what this meansrelative to Howard Young’s exist-ing operation of their heliport.”Howard Young’s heliport is pre-

existing so it would be legal, whichalso did not please Kirschnik tohear. “Isn’t the point to correct and

clarify all of this?” Kirschnikasked.Sorensen had an answer for him

immediately.“There’s legal, nonconforming

From school to productive lives: Autismfoundationconnects the dots

The Lakeland Times April 11, 2017 • Page 3

By Richard MooreOF THE LAKELAND TIMES

Second in a series

In 1994, when a group of determined parents cametogether to form the Foundation for Educating Childrenwith Autism (FECA), they did so because they realizedtheir school-bound children with ASD (autism spec-trum disorder) were not so much heading toward a safeand appropriate educational environment as they wereheading off an educational cliff.For the most part, even stellar public schools in

affluent New York City suburbs could not provide ade-quate services for children with autism.So eight New York families set out to establish a

specialized school for their children on the spectrum ina day and age when autism services were few and spe-cialized schools serving an autistic population were

almost unheard of.Partnering with Devereux

New York, part of a nationalorganization serving a widerange of developmentallydisabled individuals, thefoundation created a newschool with an autism-specif-ic mission, the Devereux Mill-wood Learning Center, now

See Autism. . . page 28

Proposed ordinance amendment mayfurther delay Marshfield Clinic project

See Delay. . . page 21

Nick Sabato/River News

Marshfield Clinic assistant generalcounsel Dan Kirschnik speaks infront of the Oneida County Plan-ning and Development Committeeduring a public hearing at theOneida County Courthouse onThursday, April 6.

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“Our readers should also bethanked for the hundreds of calls thatwere placed into legislative officesover the past several weeks — readersupport made a big impact on the suc-cess of our effort to preserve publicnotice,” Bennett wrote in a memo toWNA members.The provisions were among 83

non-fiscal items identified by theLegislative Fiscal Bureau in the gov-ernor’s proposed 2017-19 budget andremoved from consideration by Sen.Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) andRep. John Nygren (R-Marinette), theco-chairpersons of the Joint FinanceCommittee.“Accordingly, they will be drafted

as individual bills for introductioninto the Legislature,” Nygren andDarling wrote in a memo to JFCmembers.That, of course, means the Legisla-

ture could still pass those bills later inthe session, but they would have tostand and survive on their own policymerits rather than as part of a broaderbudget bill many legislators mightsupport overall despite being opposedto the specific provisions.According to Nygren and Darling,

the committee will use as its startingpoint the governor’s recommenda-tions minus the 83 non-fiscal items.The committee will also exclude thegovernor’s transportation budget. “Thus the committee will vote to

amend the governor’s bill,” theywrote. “A proposed change to the billwill require a majority vote.”For the DOT budget, the lawmak-

ers wrote, the committee will enter-tain motions to amend the adjustedbase of the budget, rather than therecommendations of the governor.“Although the governor’s recom-

mendations will be before the com-mittee, it will take a majority vote forthem (or any proposal related totransportation) to be adopted,” theywrote.Sen. Robert Cowles (R-Green

Bay), a long-time opponent of includ-ing non-fiscal policy items in thebudget, praised the removal of theitems.“I strongly applaud the move made

by the Joint Finance Committeechairs to remove all of the non-fiscalpolicy items from the state budget,”Cowles said. “I have long been anopponent of non-fiscal policy items inthe state budget. I have said, for sev-eral budgets, that these items shouldall be stripped out and discussedthrough the committee process withpublic input, as separate legislation. Icommend my colleagues on thefinance committee for this move andI too, wholeheartedly, agree that thestate budget is no place for policyitems. I look ahead to working withmy colleagues on a much cleanerbudget.”Democrats on the budget-writing

committee applauded the move aswell, observing that other itemskicked out of the budget includeunfunded mandates on the UW,including new degree and transferrequirements, faculty workload poli-cies, and a student allocable segregat-ed fee opt-out provision; repeal of theprevailing wage and project laboragreements; creation of an Occupa-tional License Review Council andthe elimination of certain state boardsand councils; and a study on thetransfer of CAFO oversight from the

DNR to DATCP.“As members of the budget com-

mittee, we’ve heard from peopleacross Wisconsin who have concernsabout the drastic licensing changes,repeal of important worker protec-tions, and unfunded mandates on ourschools and universities in the budg-et,” Rep. Katrina Shankland (D-Stevens Point) said. “Never underes-timate the power of people’s voices— I encourage everyone to keep thepressure up.”Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton)

said Walker has lots of friends in theLegislature and should work non-budget items through the Legislaturein the correct way, with public inputand vetting in committee in stand-alone legislation. “I am glad the co-chairs are

responding to pressure to removemany policy items — it is the rightthing to do,” Erpenbach said.With the non-fiscal policy items

out, Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee)said she was shifting her concern tothe transportation fund.“I worry that Republicans plan to

balance the transportation fund on thebacks of our children’s school fund-ing increase,” she said.Public notice requirementsThe governor’s public notice pro-

visions would have allowed all gov-ernmental units with printing, pub-lishing, and mailing requirements theoption to make most materials avail-able electronically. Election docu-ments and legal notices would havebeen excluded.“The governor also recommends

giving the Department of Administra-tion secretary the authority to waiveparticular printing, publishing andmailing requirements for state agen-cies in part or in whole or to waiveelectronic distribution,” the DOAbudget summary stated.In general, the budget bill provided

that a statute requiring a governmen-tal body to publish a document mustbe construed to allow that body topublish it electronically on its Internetsite; and that interpretation wouldhave been allowed even if the statuterequired publication in a newspaperin a specified location. In addition, if a statute required

publication both on the Internet andin another form, the budget billrequired the statute to be construed asallowing publication only on the gov-ernment’s website.This bill also allowed the secretary

of administration to waive in wholeor in part any statutory requirementfor an executive branch agency tomail, print, or publish any nonexemptdocument, but that waiver power wasdeleted from the budget, too.While the governor’s proposal

excluded certain legal and electionnotices, the impacts on transparencycould have been far-reaching, espe-cially given the new waiver power theDOA would have had.This bill also provided that the

requirement that the sale of timber cutfrom a state, county, or communityforest be advertised in a local news-paper could have been satisfied byposting notice on certain officialInternet sites.The governor’s proposal came

after a legislative study committeelast year concluded that such sweep-ing changes were at least premature.

Richard Moore is the author of TheNew Bossism of the American Leftand can be reached atwww.rmmoore1.com.

Notice From page 1

Devereux CARES (Center for AutismResearch and Educational Services).By all accounts, some 21 years later,

those determined pioneers not only blazeda new trail in special education, they builta superhighway into the future. Today,Devereux CARES still successfully pre-pares autistic children for productive livesthrough the use of applied behavior analy-sis (ABA) as well as by providing anintensive educational setting that stressesvocational training and community inte-gration.Many would consider that to be a job

well done, a mission completed. Thethanks of thousands would surely growexponentially and echo over time.But the FECA parents didn’t see it that

way. They understood they had more todo. They realized that the school, as suc-cessful as it was and is, was only part ofthe vision — only the front end of the mis-sion that was needed if any of it couldreally be called truly successful in the end.For while the parents were hard at work

developing and supporting a sustainableand appropriate educational and therapeu-tic environment at the school, unlockingthe great potential of children with autismto learn, they weren’t happy at all with thepath they saw for those children after theirschool days were over.Living productive lives as adults, using

what they learned in school — that wasthe back end of the mission.But instead of having challenging

mountains to scale and to conquer in theoutside world, the parents saw only morecliffs for their children to tumble from,says Melanie Schaffran, one of the origi-nal parental founders and the long-timepresident of FECA.“In New York, children with develop-

mental disabilities can stay in the schoolsuntil age 21,” Schaffran told The Times ina recent interview. “My son and one of mycolleagues on the board were part of thefirst wave age-wise, and there was noth-ing out there that took what they hadachieved in school so that they couldapply it productively.”A good educational environment and

learning with the use of the right therapy,in their case ABA, was inadequate if noopportunities existed for them to use thoseskills productively, Schaffran said. So, fully embracing the foundation’s

vision to develop and provide vocationaltraining, employment opportunities, andcommunity outreach and integration inaddition to education, the organization setout to do something about the lack ofthose opportunities, with parents for themost part leading the charge.“It was a 5 through 21 school, so right

at the point when these first kids, my sonincluded, started reaching 14 — at 14 inNew York State they have to have a voca-tional plan in place if they are not going toget what is called a regent’s diploma —we helped to locate and hire the first voca-tional director,” she said.The idea, Schaffran says, was to appro-

priately maintain the ABA model as thechildren grew older, and so, among otherthings, they taught the children variousskills and established volunteer sites inthe community where they could putthose skills to good use. “These were places where they could

practice skills because, when they turned21, they basically would fall off the cliffagain because the services in the adultworld are not there, either,” she said.To emphasize the new focus on its mis-

sion to include adults with autism as theytransitioned from school, FECA changedits name several years ago, from the Foun-dation for Educating Children with

Autism to the Foundation for Empower-ing Citizens with Autism.Charting the courseAs the younger children became teens,

progress at the Devereux school had con-tinued, but the landscape for adults withautism looked pretty bleak, Schaffranrecalls.For instance, she said The ARC, a

national organization serving people withintellectual and developmental disabili-ties, was a wonderful program, but itsapproach in the area was a more shelteredone, where individuals with disabilitiesare employed in separate settings.“When the first group of kids started

graduating, there was nothing out there,”Schaffran said. “There were some niceprograms for the developmentally dis-abled, but they were kind of shelteredworkshops, and our kids had reallylearned skills, and so we felt that theycould be out there in the community asproductive citizens.”As so as the school population grew

older, vocational training and communityinclusion programming became moreimportant. A day habilitation program wasdeveloped, and that led FECA to againpartner with Devereux to start the Dev-ereux Adult Program. That program begat another FECA ini-

tiative — the Opportunity Network forEmployers and Employees — when itbecame clear, Schaffran says, that areaday habilitation programs needed help infinding new volunteer and potentialemployment sites for adults.“It required constant oversight because

like any agency that is not fully funded,they (day habilitation programs) are not ina position to go out and actually find newopportunities, so left alone, my son wouldbe going to the same volunteer sites untilhe was 80,” she said.And so, Schaffran says, they began to

knock on doors in Westchester County tofind and develop new opportunities foradults with autism. In so doing, FECAhired a consultant to reach out to business-es and nonprofit organizations to matchvarious opportunities with the skills, inter-ests, and experiences of adults withautism, and the result, she says, was anarray of community inclusion, employ-ment, and volunteer endeavors. “My son and 17 others go out into the

community every day, five days a week,”Schaffran said. “They are picked up intheir driveway in the van at 8 o’clock andthey go out until about 2 o’clock to thevolunteer sites, which were largely creat-ed because of the Opportunity Networkfor Employers and Employees.”Schaffran says their consultant has

moved on to other things, but he helpedFECA establish a way to create newopportunities in the world, at a time whenthe world was just not ready to welcomean adult autistic population. For example, Westchester Medical

Center officials recently extended theirpersonal congratulations to the programteam at its volunteer appreciation break-fast. WMC was one of the first Opportuni-ty Network for Employees and Employerssites matching community need with vol-unteer ability, FECA states.Other examples abound, but whether it

is shredding documents or polishing carsat Mount Kisco Honda or setting thetables at Bethel Nursing Home, or puttingtheir skills to use at other sites, the FECAOpportunity Network’s partnership withDevereux has successfully moved citizenswith autism from a school setting intocommunity settings where they produc-tively use what they have learned and livesuccessful lives within their communities.Other day habilitation programs, as

they are called, are operating, too, Schaf-

AutismFrom page 3

See Autism. . . page 29

The Lakeland Times April 11, 2017 • Page 29

fran said, and FECA has madeadditional strides in helping totransition and integrate individ-uals with ASD into their com-munities.FECA provides financial

support for various programs,for instance, purchasing eightvans for the schools and theDevereux Adult Program. Agrant to SPARC, a local non-profit organization that spon-sors high quality therapeuticrecreational activities for thedevelopmentally disabled,enabled adult participants tolearn to cook and play basket-ball, among other skills.FECA has also supported an

innovative Center for Discoveryfarm-based program, and aFECA grant made it possible forCardinal McCloskey — a non-profit social services agencythat, among things, helps thedevelopmentally disabled —purchase an ABA curriculumthat Schaffran says is used in itsday-habilitation programs andalso in its residential facilities.Even with all this work for

adults, Schaffran points out thatthe foundation is still involvedin the Devereux CARES school.“We still support the school,”

she said. “We did some supportof the construction on theschool and we are helping toreinstitute the vocational pro-gram at the school.”The school moved to a new

location last September as itbegan its 20th year — movingfrom Chappaqua to MountKisco — and Schaffran said itwas heartening to see its currentleadership give a nod to thedetermination and work of theoriginal founding families,which she said underscores thecontinuity of the mission.“I was visiting last Septem-

ber and there were packingboxes still all over, but I wasvery moved to see that theyhad taken the time to bring theplaque of the eight families,the founding families, overfrom the old school and put itup in the main office,” shesaid. “That was very sweet tosee.” Extraordinary VenturesSchaffran and her FECA col-

leagues are not onesto rest on theirlaurels.

On top of all the other activi-ties, a year-and-a-half ago,FECA took the idea of employ-ment to a new and now entre-preneurial level by providingthe seed money for a new enter-prise, a non-profit organizationthat creates small businesses toemploy adults with autism andother developmental disabili-ties. “We just started Extraordi-

nary Ventures in New York,which is creating micro-busi-nesses for adults so that we bothhave them out in the communi-ty volunteering, but also theycan earn a paycheck doing andcreating things or doing serv-ice-oriented kinds of thingsthat are built around the skillsets and the interests ofadults with autism,” saidSchaffran, who also servesas the president ofEVNY.

Schaffran saysEVNY is modeledafter a successfulExtraordinary Ven-tures enterprise thathas been operating inChapel Hill, NorthCarolina, for 10 years.“We mentored with

the group in North Car-olina,” she said. “Westarted with a candle-making business, whichwas in my basement on myping pong table. We startedthat last year. We made a

small investment because I did-n’t even know if our kids wouldlike to do that kind of thing, andso I bought a little kit and Ilearned how to make candles. Istill melt the wax — we haven’tfound somebody to do thatpiece of it — but my son and acouple of his friends get paid toset up the candles.”Schaffran says she pours the

candle wax, and after it sets herson and his companions withASD do all the packaging.“The packaging is all season-

al and we started last year to sellthem at craft fairs and gift fairsand it’s been extraordinarilysuccessful,” she said. “We hireda director for the program, Eliz-abeth Oliveto, who reallyknows our population. Sheworked at our school years ago.She is absolutely terrific.”The days of the basement-

based business may be num-bered, however. Schaffran saysEVNY has signed a lease for afacility in Mount Kisco.“We can expand that busi-

ness and start others,” she said.“We have an office solutionsbusiness that we’ve started andwe’re going to start a laundrybusiness as soon as we get ourspace up and running. They aresmall, but we have the mentor-ing from North Carolina and Iam happy to say they are justgoing gangbusters. So now wejust need to continue to growand hopefully add on new busi-

nesses that will also be success-ful.”Community integrationIn all these enterprises,

Schaffran says, communityintegration is vital. “That was particularly

important to us,” she said. “Ididn’t come up with the candle-making idea. That was theNorth Carolina group’s firstbusiness, but they sold on theInternet, and I decided that ourkids really needed to be out inthe community as much as pos-sible.”In so doing, everybody’s

strengths are discovered and putto their best use, Schaffran said.“There’s a group, like my

son, that is really good at theproduction end and then there’sa group that is really good atselling, so it has created anotherlevel or type of employment,”she said. “We just had anotherfair, and to see a young manwho probably 10 or 15 yearsago was very insulated from theworld because of his autism,well he’s out there approachingpeople and asking them if theywant to buy a candle, and theydo. So it’s been very reward-ing.”Again, though, Schaffran

says you can’t overemphasizethat the people who are mostaffected are the ones who arethe most motivated to do thework.

“Even if there is funding,there is still going to be a needfor parent oversight of how thatmoney is spent,” she said. Ultimately, Schaffran says,

new business models likeExtraordinary Ventures can tapinto the strengths of what is sofar a largely ignored, disen-franchised group in society.The expansion of those newmodels is critical, she says,given that unemployment foradults on the autism spectrumremains at between 80 and 90percent.“Government is an important

employer in our economy, but byfar the largest source of jobs isthe private sector made up ofhundreds of thousands of small,medium, and large businesses,”Schaffran and Gregg Ireland, thefounder of EV North Carolina,wrote for Autism Spectrum Newsin 2016. “But neither govern-ment nor private enterprise hasdone a very good job incorporat-ing the skills and talents of adultswith autism and other intellectu-al challenges into the Americanmainstream economy.”Turning the situation around

is not easy, they wrote. “It requires new ways of

thinking and renewed focus andcommitment of the partiesinvolved —government, busi-ness, families, individuals,”Schaffran and Ireland wrote. “Itwill take risk taking, and who isbetter for that task than theAmerican small business com-munity or the great Americanentrepreneur?”It’s a win-win situation, for

the talents and skills adults withautism bring to a work place canand do boost productivity andbusiness success, while simulta-neously giving adults withautism one of the most valuablecomponents of a rewarding life:work.“As adults, work inevitably

defines us,” Schaffran and Ire-land wrote. “It’s a statement tothe world of what we, as indi-viduals, are capable of, wherewe fit in society and how we arerecognized and valued. TheExtraordinary Ventures modelprovides the opportunity toexplore and experiment with arange of skills within a support-ive environment that providestraining toward future inde-pendence; all, while valuingtime and effort with the simplebut profoundly important earn-ing of a paycheck.”Simple and profound might

be the words to describe FECAand Extraordinary Ventures,both in New York and in itsNorth Carolina birthplace. Foras the pioneering DevereuxCARES school continues toshow others what can be accom-plished educationally, this newcommunity inclusion and entre-preneurial model is takinganother simple and straightfor-ward notion — that adults withautism can and must lead pro-ductive lives — and once againproducing a profound model forothers to follow.

Richard Moore is the authorof The New Bossism of theAmerican Left and can bereached at www.rmmoore1.com.

AutismFrom page 28

Contributed photograph

Extraordinary Ventures president Melanie Schaffran gives Brian his first paycheck from EV.