Longtime Mothers Against Drunk Driving activist Joyce Wrend has objected to the closing of MADD’s Berkshire office by the organization’s state chapter.
In a recent interview she also spoke of her difficulty in dealing with MADD’s current executive director in Massachusetts, Barbara Harrington. In Wrend’s view, recent developments indicate that the structure of MADD in Massachusetts is crumbling, for reasons including poor morale and resignations and because of a financial crunch.
“MADD itself is a great organization, make no mistake about it. It’s done a lot of good,†Wrend said.
All of MADD’s services are provided without cost. She noted a local billboard stating that drunk driving deaths have gone down 41 percent. This decrease has happened during MADD’s 20 years of existence, she said.
“Does that give you some idea?†she asked. “MADD has done a fantastic job, it really has, and I’ve always been proud to be associated with it. It’s just this particular situation is very worrisome.â€
A resident of North Adams, Wrend has become well-known in the Berkshires for her passionate commitment through MADD to the prevention of drunken driving and assistance to victims of drunken driving and their families. Her daughter Alison died at age 18 in 1990 as a passenger in a one-car crash in Clarksburg. The site of the accident has become a memorial park to her through a partnership between, MADD, the Wrend family, and the state.
Joyce Wrend started as a volunteer victim advocate in 1992 and continued this for a number of years. When the Dalton MADD office closed several years ago, she stepped in and brought the office to her home.
“Then it was decided that I should become victim services coordinator, with additional training,†Wrend said. “I was only part-time, 20 hours a week, and I was the only person for all of Berkshire County.â€
She was continuing in this position at an office in downtown North Adams when she submitted her resignation in mid-December of last year. She has continued, however, as a volunteer victim advocate and is working with the victim services coordinator for the Pioneer Valley chapter of MADD.
Wrend did not expect the state organization to close the Berkshire office completely after her resignation.
“Within hours she closed the Berkshire office. I didn’t even know it was closing,†Wrend said. “The landlord knew before I did.â€
She said she had written to the state organization board before they closed the office asking them not to do so, and then asking them to reconsider and at some point reopen a Berkshire office.
“The bottom line is that we could have kept the office open as long as I continued to volunteer,†Wrend said. “It would have cost at the most to keep that office open for all of Berkshire County $300 a month, and that doesn’t seem like a great deal.â€
A Berkshire office is needed, she said.
“I can work with families as a volunteer. What it needs is an organizer, a program director to come in and direct programs that are needed in Berkshire County,†Wrend said. “That’s not my forte. I did the best I could, but that’s not really my strength.â€
“Now, in all of Berkshire County there isn’t anyone. And I worked very hard to get some credibility in Berkshire County,†she said. “I worked very closely with the DA’s office and the police chiefs and anybody that needed it.â€
Wrend said the state office was supposed to put a recording on the business telephone line after the office closed telling victims’ families to call her at home, but this was never done.
She said a personality problem developed between her and Harrington.
“I felt she didn’t understand what I was supposed to be doing up here,†Wrend said. “I can’t remember a suggestion I made that was ever accepted by Miss Harrington.â€
“And my husband and I decided for own emotional health that I needed to to leave the organization as a paid person,†she said.
“We all used to work together, whether you were a chapter or a satellite, like I was. We all exchanged information and helped each other with different cases,†Wrend said. “But this particular director wants everything to flow from the state office outward with very little interaction between the different groups.â€
A concern with MADD in Massachusetts is the loss of a major source of funds through MetLife Auto, which no longer offering drivers a discount on their insurance rate if the driver has a $20 membership in MADD. A state mandate requiring all auto insurance companies to lower rates by Jan. 1 prompted the company to drop the program.
Wrend said MADD officials knew the loss of the MetLife money was a possibility two years ago, and one of her main efforts was to get what is called the “trust fund bill†through the legislature.
This said that “if you’re convicted of drunk driving and lose your license, that when you get your license back $10 or $15 of that money will go to the Registry, which would in turn give it to the state and then that money would come back to victims’ services,†Wrend said. “But [Harrington] was doing everything but. It hasn’t been pushed. When I agreed to help push it, she told me, when I expected to be there at a meeting with state leaders, that my presence might prove to be a distraction. So obviously I’m not going to push for it.â€
“But the most important thing is to have the funds to be able to do the job,†Wrend said. “And I really think that if given the opportunity for somebody to go to the Hill, make appointments ahead of time, and explain precisely what is happening, MADD is going to be out of existence in Massachusetts, unless we get some financial help.â€
There will be no possibility of getting a professional victim services coordinator in Berkshire County unless the trust fund bill goes through and money is generated, she said.
Wrend pointed to the firing by state MADD earlier this year of the Bristol County chapter of MADD’s longtime Executive Director Linda M. Pacheco, and the resignation in the wake of her firing of both the president and vice president of the Bristol MADD board of directors. A member of the Cape Cod and Islands Chapter of MADD board of directors also quit in protest of the firing.
According to a Feb. 28 editorial in the Herald News, which serves the greater Fall River Area, “Pacheco claims that MADD has shifted its mission from helping people to being a big business. ...She believes the state organization wants to have one central office in Boston and eliminate the local boards.â€
Said Wrend, “Maybe it needs to be that way, maybe it needs to be more commercial, but my problem is that the ones who are being forgotten are the victims and that’s supposed to be our first consideration. That was why MADD was started. We’ve added to our mission since then, but that is our original purpose of MADD.â€
Does Wrend feel that MADD in Massachusetts is crumbling?
“I really think it is. I really do. And I’m not only saying that because I’m leaving, because ... I’m just a volunteer,†she said. “I have nothing to gain and nothing to lose, but I am really concerned about the morale of the other staff members. It’s not a good situation, it’s very bad. And I don’t know what’s going to happen.â€
Mass. MADD responds
Harrington said last week she was disappointed that Wrend chose to debate MADD issues in the press.
She said the decision to close the Berkshire office was not prejudicial to the region, and MADD has only six offices statewide. Such heavily populated counties as Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex have no office as well. Though Wrend did a good job in running an economical office, MADD in the state has lost 45 percent of its income due to the loss of revenue from MetLife.
Conditions changed almost concurrently with Wrend’s decision to resign, and allowed the office to be closed without anyone losing a job. No staff person was going to be put into the office, and the state board of directors made the decision to close it, she said.
“It’s nothing personal to the Berkshires,†said Harrington, who noted that she once ran a nonprofit in the poorest county in Connecticut and that she’s MADD’s only paid staff person at the state level. “I’m constrained by resources here.â€
She said the phone company was supposed to put on a recording directing Berkshire callers to Wrend’s home number after the Berkshire office closed, but when the state office found out it hadn’t been done, they made sure it was.
She noted that most states in the country have areas that are not covered by MADD chapters. People in the Berkshires have the option of creating a Community Action Team, which beginning in July will be called a Level 1 Chapter, which is all-volunteer with no paid staff.
Harrington, who has been executive director of Mass. MADD for a little over two years, said the trust fund bill has been refiled and efforts to move it through the state legislature are going forward. This is one of 13 bills MADD filed in the state legislature this year.
Wrend was not allowed to lobby for legislation because part of her salary came from the state as a victim advocate, Harrington said.
Last year the trust fund bill was passed through the Public Safety Committee, but was left to languish in the Ways and Means Committee. This year the refiled bill has again made it out of Public Safety, but has a much better chance in Ways and Means, as the new chairman of this committee is a sponsor of the bill. It is normal for a bill to take more than one legislative session to pass, she said.
It would take time for money to accumulate if the trust fund bill is enacted, and the bill is not only about generating money, it’s also about stopping victimization, Harrington said.
In the face of the loss of income, Massachusetts MADD has not cut victim advocates and everyone in the state who is a surviving victim of drunk driving gets helped within 24 hours. No services have been cut; losses have been covered by additional fund-raising and by eating into capital reserves. Fund-raising by MADD will be to keep in place existing services and grow new programs, Harrington said.
She had no comment about the firing of Linda Pacheco, as it is a personnel decision.
As to Wrend’s contention that she had personality conflict with Harrington, Harrington said, “I think I’m a total sweetheart ... but everybody’s entitled to their opinions.â€
Matthew Shedd is the state chairman of Massachusetts MADD and is on the MADD national board of directors.
He said MADD officials have met with appropriate officials at the State House to push the trust fund bill: “These things take some time.â€
Addressing increasing centralization, Shedd noted that MADD is a grass-roots organization and most of its money comes from donations. At one time, volunteers across the U.S. had established between 1,400 and 1,500 MADD bank accounts. Eventually the national organization created state chapters. As an organization adds staff and moves forward, it becomes necessary to professionalize the workplace and establish uniformity of practices, he said.
“It’s a delicate balance,†Shedd said of combining grass-roots involvement with the need to professionalized operations. “The Red Cross has gone through the same thing.â€
Is MADD in Massachusetts crumbling?
“Clearly not,†he said.
The only people who resigned after Pacheco was fired were from her local board of directors in Bristol County, and not all board members resigned.
State MADD has rotating meetings of its board of directors at its various chapters and had its most recent meeting the previous Sunday at the Bristol office, as the remaining local board members wanted.
The Bristol board is renewing its lease and recruiting to find a replacement for Pacheco, Shedd said.
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Winter Storm Warning Issued for Berkshires
Another snowstorm is expected to move through the region overnight on Friday, bringing 5 to 8 inches of snow. This is updated from Thursday's winter weather advisory.
The National Weather Service in Albany, N.Y., has posted a winter storm warning for all of Berkshire County and parts of eastern New York State beginning Friday at 4 p.m. through Saturday at 1 p.m.
The region could see heavy to moderate snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour overnight, tapering off Saturday morning to flurries.
Drivers should exercise caution on Friday night and Saturday morning, as travel conditions may be hazardous.
Saturday night should be clear and calm, but warming temperatures means freezing rain Sunday night and rain through Monday with highs in the 40s. The forecast isn't much better through the week as temperatures dip back into the teens with New Year's Eve looking cloudy and frigid.
Many homeowners are showing their holiday spirit by decorating their houses. We asked for submissions so those in the community can check out these fanciful lights and decor when they're out.
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