Word: oeo
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...from winning rent-strike rights for tenants in Washington, D.C., to the expansion of welfare services nationwide. Such a record hardly seems to call for the firing of the program director, Terry Lenzner, and his deputy, Frank Jones. But that is exactly what happened (TIME, Nov. 30). Now the OEO legal services division is full of deepening suspicion that the firing was a clear sign the Administration intends to gut the program...
...central question is whether the program's most visible achievements were successes or excesses. OEO Director Donald Rumsfeld, who did the firing, apparently felt that Lenzner's activist approach failed to take account of political realities. When California legal services offices won expansion of the medical aid rolls, for instance, the state government somehow had to find an extra $200 million. Governor Ronald Reagan's complaints could be heard clearly in Washington...
Presently the program is funded by a grant from the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), but it is uncertain whether OEO will continue to provide the subsidy. For 1971-72 Matthai is approaching private as well as government funding sources...
Besides the Moynihan shift, there were two other significant items on the Administration's personnel front. Donald Rumsfeld, chief of the Office of Economic Opportunity, fired Terry Lenzner, 31, head of OEO's program providing legal services to the poor (TIME, Oct. 26). The OEO recently tried to turn over to field offices some of Lenzner's administrative responsibilities. Lenzner accused Rumsfeld of "caving in" to politicians "who are determined to keep us from suing special interests close to them on behalf of the poor." Rumsfeld said Lenzner was "either unwilling or unable" to carry out OEO...
Largely because of its success, the program has been able to retain its independence. Until now, however, it enjoyed the active protection of its parent OEO. Rumsfeld says that he is not likely to decide on decentralization until he hears the results of a study by the National Advisory Council for his legal services later this month. He may further defer the matter until after the November elections. But Legal Services lawyers fear that they will soon, in the words of Terry Hatter Jr. of Los Angeles' Western Center on Law and Poverty, "end up handling nothing but divorces...