John Tote As (Maybe) The Director Of N.C. Mental Health: A Blast From The Past Getting Blasted

5/24: This post has been updated. Scroll to bottom.

As I've blogged before, my thirty-year Asheboro High School reunion is coming up this year. Old friends planning the event have encouraged me to come.

I'm most likely going to take a pass.

One of the reasons I have balked has to do with something that happened at the ten-year high school reunion (at the time, I was in my fourth year of medical school). I'd come home and gotten all dolled-up and made the grand entrance at the Asheboro Country Club, only to watch a number of my old classmates make total drunken fools of themselves at the pseudo-open bar.

At the time, the unavailability of alcohol in every store and on all corners mercifully spared Asheboro's general populace such spectacles. Of course, now we've been "re-vitalized" and can have titty-bars within 500 feet of a church or a elementary school because our oh-so-concerned City Council is scared of rolling up their sleeves and taking on a few lawyers.

That's progress folks!

(Dancing local "celebrity/star" and "right person", Randolph Hospital CEO, Bob Morrison, told the gullible/kept-in-the-dark populace that Asheboro was having trouble recruiting doctors because the town was dry. He left out the part about Asheboro having the well-deserved far-and-wide reputation of being a black-hole for any young medical professional who did not worship at his altar.

And remember all the promises Schmidly's "pro" crowd made about Asheboro's citizenry being able to preserve the history and character of the town through local ordinances and responsible alcoholic beverage control?)

I digress. Looking back to a pseudo-open bar twenty years ago at the Asheboro Country Club, part of the spectacle that night was watching an old childhood friend . . . someone that the locals would kindly call "slow" (or big brave GSO bloggers like Roch Smith, Jr. and Jeff Martin would unkindly call "mentally-impaired" or a "moron") . . . was "courted" by several of those drunken fools. Of course, in her naivete and innocence, she was oblivious to the fact that they were making fun of her . . . and was actually grateful for their attention.

It was nauseating to watch.

(I guess this is the kind of fond reminiscence of my life in wholesome Asheboro that Clark Bell, Asheboro City Council member and noble defender of cyber-stalkers, doesn't like me blogging about "every day". Doesn't' exactly fit in with the new plans to market our town-drenched-in-small-town-values.)

I poured out what was left of my watered-down/country-club drink, left the "party" and swore off high school reunions for good.

In retrospect, I probably should have sworn off Asheboro.

Anyway, last week, I got an e-mail from one of the reunion organizers . . . addressed to the entire class and entitled, "Good News!" . . . congratulating a fellow AHS classmate on his appointment to a really-big-job in Raleigh (director of N.C. Mental Health Services):

Congratulations, Joe Tote!

Now I do not remember John Tote from high school. But I zipped off a response to the sender:

That is not a job I would touch with a ten-foot pole under the current circumstances/administration.

North Carolina kills its patient advocates.

She responded:

Then I guess he is courageous and brave. Eternally optimistic, I am.

Nice to hear from you. Change your mind about the reunion? You are among friends.

My retort:

Courageous and brave - or gullible and naive. I hope the former. I suspect the later.

And, I think it matters not given the way things are in Raleigh right now.

I have not decided.

I am certain there would be friends in the room. But also enemies. I've always had trouble telling the difference. Asheboro is not and will not ever be again for me what it is for others. Eternally sad, I am.

The price of being gullible, naive, brave and courageous.

I've done some thinking since the e-mail exchange. And I'm thinking that oftentimes it's not a matter of being gullible, naive, brave or courageous. Oftentimes it's just about being "right people" (i.e. having lots of lovely money, or a "good" name, or floating around in the "right" orbits).

There is follow-up on the job-offer today from the Raleigh News & Observer that may not be such "good news" for John Tote. It seems that Tote's job offer may not be a lock.

. . . Wednesday, reports surfaced that Tote is leaving behind a big financial mess at the Mental Health Association of North Carolina, a nonprofit advocacy group he helped lead for the past 24 years. The association faces liens on nearly $1.5 million in unpaid payroll taxes going back to 2006, according to records on file at the N.C. Secretary of State's Office.

In short, Governor Perdue is re-considering the offer made to Tote (made by NCDHHS Secretary Lanier Cansler).

God knows Dumpling doesn't need more bad PR.

As the victim of another pair of non-profiteers operating under the cover of the sorry excuse that passes for DHHS (Department of Health & Human Services) "oversight" (not-to-mention North Carolina law enforcement), I'm enjoying the comments on the story . . . like this one:

(This is a) Symptomatic episode of deeper systemic problems in mental health care. What frightens me the most is that after all is known, Tote's Board of Directors at MHA-NC still supports him. What does that say about non-profit board responsibility?

More and more ordinary plebes are not buying what Perdue & company are selling. And while I'm pretty-much on-board with the "Easley is an idiot" rhetoric Tote was spewing in 2007, when it comes to fighting corruption in state government, window-dressing and lip service doesn't cut it anymore . . . especially when a lot of "right people" are turning out to have been made of the wrong stuff.

You cannot say one thing and be/do another.

Alas, our problems are not just confined to mental health care.

And you really don't want "stupid", "crazy" old Dr. Mary to get started on that.

For if what "non-profit" Randolph Hospital did to Dr. Mary Johnson twelve years ago on Sleazley's watch was put under the same microscope her classmate, John Tote, is currently squriming under, Perdue might have to throw a few more of her Asheboro buddies under the bus.

5/24 Afterthought: Oh. And I have decided. About the reunion. As my Daddy used to say, I haven't lost anything at the Asheboro Country Club - or Pinewood - or "the Pig" - or any of the other places where all of the "right people" hang.

I was never part of that scene. No reason to start now.

5/24 Update: Tote has withdrawn his name from consideration.

Tote, whose salary doubled between 2001 and 2007, had this to say about the public scrutiny of his public appointment after serving at the pleasure of a "non-profit": "Nobody should ever have to be put in the position myself and my family have been ever again in this political appointment process."

I know we're ex-classmates and all, but I could not disagree more. As someone who, for twelve years, has been on the wrong end of a "non-profits" double-dealing and outright lies (only to have North Carolina's press corps & law enforcement turn a blind eye and deaf ear), I've got ZERO sympathy for this mind-set.

You see, I am of the opinion that NOBODY should ever have to be put in the position that my family and I were put into because one night twelve years ago I decided to put my Oath and an innocent child/her family first.

We need MORE scrutiny of "non-profits" and their executives, not less.