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bjbjD Probably. Probably. She goes back to this whole place and I mean she knows the
original members going back around here she knows the current leadership but she knows
we were Wade Blank we were he was one of my best friends I mean we I like to say that
whenever I turned around he always I just you know whenever you were thinking about
him he was coming around the corner and so you know I saw him a lot. I saw him in jail
I saw him socially I saw him as a buddy and we played basketball and you know we raised
kids and we were you know he was really a big deal for me. So I just met him when he
was the director of the youth wing at Heritage House nursing home in the, well actually it
was a renegade at that point and he was leaving he had brought a series of very severe complaints
to the state legislature and the entire staff at Heritage House had been fired. I had already
received Michael Patrick Smith s case because Michael Smith called legal aid to complain
that while he was in the hospital his personal needs check he was supposed to die but he
didn t do that. And his personal needs check was forged with an and he was very angry about
that and very concerned about that and he called also to say that he was writing poems
and that no one would take the time to write the poems down for him with the result that
he was losing his poetry so those seemed like shocking abuses to me even though they aren
t of the kind that you come to associate with nursing home neglect and abuse they were inspirationally
significant to us, and as a reward for coming forward and complaining the nursing home evicted
Michael which is what led to the first action in his case which was a restraining order
preceding and because Wade had started the independent living program in Sun Valley Las
Cosidas he started Atlantis in Sun Valley Las Cosidas which was a housing project not
far from here on 9th and Federal. That s where I actually first met Michael because Wade
had moved out a number of what we called refugees from the youth wing at Heritage House in Lakewood,
Colorado and we actually loaded Michael up to take him to court to testify. In the first
hearing I did was a restraining order in front of Judge Mashe and Michael came in with long
flowing hair in bed to give testimony and the defendants wanted to end the proceedings
wanted to stop the eviction wanted to give up but we told the judge we weren t listening
to them anymore we wanted to be heard and Michael might die and we wanted to sue and
we wanted him to testify and to this day Judge Mashe still says he gets chills up and down
his spine when he thinks about Michael Patrick Smith coming to court to testify in his bed.
So, about that point we re independently proceeding in response to a complaint for somebody whose
in the independent living program and is wanting to assert his rights so we just have to become
friends with Wade and then of course all of the staff got fired because they were so powerful
in voicing the despicable conditions at Heritage House and so we had a never ending supply
of free witnesses as to the evils that occurred and that s kind of the origin of our relationship.
It was called Heritage House Owner Normal Owner Microsoft Office Word Microsoft, Inc
It was called Heritage House Title Microsoft Office Word Document MSWordDoc Word.Document.8