A few weeks ago we finally heard from the Attorney General's Office to schedule our hearing with the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH). The conversation was brief and the contents of the conversation had been totally predicted. The call came from an attorney named Patricia Fernandez a person that we had met previously in San Antonio when she represented Childcare Licensing for closing my daycare when my wife, Marla, spoke to a parent about a sale at an HEB Plus grocery store.
Please keep in mind that after the traumatic experience that we experienced in San Antonio we went through a period where I suffered the horrible effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. One positive from this was that I thought about what they (Adrienne Driggers, her staff, the Attorney Generals Office) did to us daily. I would go through nights being unable to sleep just thinking about how crooked they were and the tactics that they used not to mention how they destroyed our family, and made our family suffer.
One of the things that I thought of was how the Attorney Generals office had a tendency to schedule SOAH hearings on Wednesdays as if that were the only day that SOAH operated. I figured that the reason that they did this was to make it harder for people like us to even attend much less any witnesses that would otherwise come to testify. So when Ms. Fernandez called to schedule the hearing she insisted on having the hearing on a Wednesday. We were adamant that we wanted the hearing to be held on either a Monday or a Friday. She tried so hard to force us to agree on a Wednesday that she made a pathetic attempt to lie to us by stating that she had to come to Corpus Christi on a Wednesday two weeks from the time she called and she would like to schedule it for that day so as not to have to make two trips. We refused. She, Marla, and I agreed on 4 dates for November all of which were either Mondays or Fridays.
This Friday, October 24th, we received a letter from the Attorney Generals office. They had apparently ignored the dates selected and scheduled a date on their own for January 7, 2015, a Wednesday.
This underhanded action made a huge statement. One, that we were absolutely correct in believing that they were intentionally trying to schedule hearings in the middle of the week to put us in a disadvantage. Another statement it made is by making it more difficult for our witnesses to attend the hearing, the Attorney Generals office was going to do what ever it took to protect Adrienne Driggers and allow her to continue to place children in danger and to continue to violate the rights afforded American citizens under the United States Constitution.
When I say "allow her to continue" to endanger the lives of children and to continue to violate the rights afforded American citizens under the United States Constitution is this. The Attorney Generals office was well aware of the abuses being committed by Adrienne Driggers office long before Adrienne Driggers closed our daycare in Corpus Christi.
Patricia Fernandez herself was aware that Ms. Driggers staff ordered one of Marla's staff in San Antonio to leave a child unattended at a diaper changing table, just as she was aware that Adrienne Driggers bi-passed the Texas Legislature in creating her own rule that Marla could not "appear to be more knowledgeable nor be a go-to person" to prevent Marla from being able to work in a daycare. The Attorney General's office is also well aware of how one of Ms. Driggers most important staff members, Geneva Hudel, ordered a daycare owner named Josie Sanchez into her dumpster to "fetch" some orange peels to prove that the children ate oranges that day. The thing about this is that Ms. Sanchez was contracted with a food sponsor with the USDA meaning that childcare licensing no longer had supervision of the food being provided by the daycare. Regardless, Ms. Hudel needed to only look at the receipt showing the purchase of the oranges, or ask the children or employees. Ms. Hudel ordered Ms. Sanchez into her dumpster simply to humiliate Ms. Sanchez in front of her staff. Ms. Sanchez had to endure much more including having licensing representatives park for hours outside of her house as well as one license representative ( I will name later) that attempted to break into her house. This harassment resulted in Ms. Sanchez calling State Senator Leticia Van De Putte's office for help. Ms. Van De Putte's office promptly called Adrienne Driggers and her superiors in Austin to stop harassing Ms. Sanchez and if they continued to harass her, Ms. Sanchez was to call the police on childcare licensing. The attorneys for the Attorney Generals office were aware of this and more yet did nothing to correct the behavior of Adrienne Driggers or her staff.
So I say this: If Adrienne Driggers did nothing wrong, then she nor the Attorney Generals office should have nothing to fear. If the Attorney Generals office is so certain that they are in the right then they should let us have what ever day we want for the hearing. After all, we are just two people that wanted to help children for the rest of our lives by operating a small mom and pop daycare. By forcing the hearing to be held on a Wednesday to prevent our witnesses from being able to attend, the Attorney Generals office is showing that they do not care to hear the truth about how Adrienne Driggers. They just want to crucify us, win the hearing, and endanger the lives of tens of thousands of children in Texas that attend daycare.
Please take the time to sign our petition demanding that my wife, Marla, be removed from the Texas Central Registry, for the State of Texas to overturn the revocation of her license, and for the investigation and removal of Adrienne Driggers from her position as the Southwest District Director of Childcare Licensing:
https://www.change.org/p/end-the-abuse-of-power-by-the-san-antonio-department-of-family-and-protective-services-undo-the-unwarranted-placing-of-marla-gonzales-on-the-dfps-central-registry
