Meeting Today : Officials Look at Guide-Dog Trainer Dispute

A unit of the state Department of Consumer Affairs will hold a special meeting in Burbank this morning prompted by complaints from blind people about the dismissal of the head instructor at a Sylmar school for guide-dog training, authorities said.

The state Board of Guide Dogs for the Blind, which licenses guide-dog schools and instructors, received about 30 letters and numerous phone calls from blind people concerned that the firing of the lead trainer at International Guiding Eyes may diminish services at the school, said Mary Anne Thomas, board president.

“Our board is concerned about guide-dog users and their services,” Thomas said. “We felt we should listen and hear what they have to say.”

State officials acknowledged, however, that they have no authority to interfere with personnel matters at the private school, one of three guide-dog training facilities in the state and one of 10 in the country. They could only move to suspend the school’s license if it were without all four of its instructors, Thomas said.

Voicing Concerns

“What we are trying to do is give the blind people a forum to announce what they feel,” Thomas said. “Then perhaps this will make it clear to the board of directors at IGE that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction over this.”

The school, which state officials said has earned national respect for its training program, provides free guide dogs and training in how to handle them.

Robert Acosta, an activist for the blind who resigned in anger from the school’s board of directors following the dismissal, said graduates of the school had come to respect and trust the fired head trainer, Lee Mitchell.

“A trainer becomes very important to a blind person, especially for follow-up instruction and help,” said Acosta, who is blind and has received guide dogs from the school. “We are the ones who are the most vulnerable here, and we worry when we lose the great experience of our trainers.”

Budget Problems

Merrill Melvin, director of the nonprofit International Guiding Eyes, said a $230,000 budget shortfall this year led to the July 15 dismissal of Mitchell, who supervised all school activities.

The salaries of the school’s four instructors and two apprentice trainers “are the most expensive part of the operation,” Melvin said. He described having to fire Mitchell as “an agonizing decision.”

Melvin said he could not discuss why he chose to dismiss the school’s head trainer since it was a personnel matter.

The cancellation of an annual fund-raising dinner and dwindling revenue from bingo games resulted in the budget shortfall, Melvin said. In 1987, the school’s budget was $1.3 million; this year it is just over $1 million, he said.

About 70% of the budget is donated by the International Assn. of Machinists union, which founded the school in 1948 after a blind machinist had trouble getting a guide dog. Melvin’s salary is paid by the union.

Jay Roth, an attorney for the union and a member of the school’s board of directors, said today’s meeting is an “unnecessary and inappropriate attempt” by the state board to interfere in a personnel matter.

Mitchell, who had taught at the school for six years, said Friday he was “obviously disappointed” by his termination. He said he was dismayed that he was not consulted on the cutbacks until “20 minutes before I was told to leave the premises.”

Following Mitchell’s firing, the trainer who was second in command resigned. State officials described him as a close friend of Mitchell’s.

The school’s third instructor is on maternity leave, leaving one licensed instructor, Melvin said. The school is not holding any of the monthlong classes in which blind people receive instruction while living at the school. The next class is scheduled in November.

Melvin said the shortage of instructors will be resolved, but he refused to discuss details.