Written by Sid Harris
Community Accessibility Advocate
September 8, 2024
Imagine having a disability and dealing with health issues every day, you have to agree that is challenging in itself. Another challenge for a person with a disability is to be independent as much as possible. to have the ability to move about their community with minimal effort to enjoy the vast opportunities a community has to offer in its services and programs, a requirement under the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)
Now imagine a city that has no oversight in the field of accessibility. Yes, it does exist in this city. Here depicted in the image above is one of the so many examples of a city that continues to fail to recognize and implement accessible features that accommodate those with disabilities. The image above is a sidewalk that the city installed in 2018 at the entrance of the city hall, also known as the Searles building. The walkway is required to provide an accessible route to the main accessible entrance. As you can see in the picture, no curb ramp is provided that would allow a person with a disability to exit the walkway and gain access to the main accessible entrance of the building thus violating the rights of people with disabilities by denying them access to public services that they have a right to access.
I’ve been advocating for the city to implement a curb ramp since 2019. Under the current administration, I notified the mayor as well as the disability commission about this, and to date, no action has been taken. I have many options to get this done as I have with many other accessibility failures by this city and I guess I’m once again forced to have to take the necessary steps moving forward to have state regulatory agencies take action. Unfortunately, I’ve had to take such action on many similar issues. The failure of the city to implement accessible features outside the High Should when it was built in 2015 and the city’s (this mayor) inability to seriously address my concerns led to a civil rights violation I filed with the DOE (Department of Education). The city was forced to comply with ADA requirements thus the reason you now see the construction phases at the high school being completed.
When will this city recognize how important accessibility is to people with disabilities? The local Commission of Disability should provide the oversight to review all plans requiring disability issues to avoid so many failures during the construction process. By not providing the disability commission the same opportunities of oversight that all boards and commissions currently have… is this another example of discrimination in the city?
Sid Harris