Mobility is a Right... letter to the editor

Here's a letter to the editor from the March 25, 2009 Seven Days...

MOBILITY IS A RIGHT
Talk about old school [“Old School,” February 18]. My sister had mobility issues and attended school in the 1950s and ’60s. By the time she was 14, she was using a wheelchair. She had to stop attending school and be tutored at home, creating intense isolation. To get into a movie, we had to use the back door. To get into church, we had to recruit men to carry her in and out.

No public buildings were accessible, and even private homes had steep stairways and bathroom doors that were too narrow for a typical wheelchair to fit through.

The world said, “You do not exist” to her.

The ADA has been wonderful, but too many people think it’s providing something extra for people with mobility issues. Think about it: If we constructed buildings without stairs and doors and expected everyone to be able-bodied enough to climb a knotted rope to get in and out through the windows, we might gain some perspective. Why then do we assume that buildings are supposed to have stairs and hard-to-open doors, instead of ramps and accessible entrances?

For too many years, opening our public buildings to the disabled has been considered a favor, when it’s just as much a right as stairs and doors.

I’m disgusted with the current so-called fiscal responsibility that once again squeezes out school projects, especially ADA projects. I hope someday we recognize the difference between a favor and a right, especially when most of us enjoy that right.

Pat Goudey O’Brien
WARREN

Winooski working on accessibility... how about Burlington?

Winooski is a fraction of the size of Burlington, and they're solving their accessibility problems... how about Burlington schools? From today's Burlington Free Press...

Committee making Winooski more accessible

WINOOSKI -- A committee has been working quietly for more than a year to improve access to Winooski buildings for people who are physically disabled.

The Winooski Accessibility Committee, formed in September, 2007, is helping people who are disabled deal with problems with getting into public buildings and other areas of the city.

Committee member Lynn Hatin said the group has already contributed to improvements on the railroad tracks on East Allen Street. Wheelchairs tended to get caught on the tracks, so the city made some modifications so that wheelchairs can roll by unhindered.

The committee noticed that doors at the Winooski Community Center initially did not open automatically, making it difficult for people with disabilities to get inside, Hatin said. The doors have since been modified, and Hatin said the city was cooperative when the issue was brought up.

Hatin said people sometimes say that if a building isn't completely handicapped accessible, others can help people in wheelchairs gain access. But she said people like her, who use a wheelchair, prefer not ask for help. "We want to be independent," she said.

The next task is City Hall, said Suzan Maynard, chairwoman of the accessibility committee. It's difficult or impossible for people in wheelchairs to open the building's doors, she said.

The committee is not asking the city to spend money on improvements. The committee will likely seek grant money to pay for the needed work. City officials have been receptive to the idea of altering City Hall's doors, Maynard said.

Maynard said everyone in Winooski deserves to have full access to the city's buildings. "I can no longer walk on my own, but I shouldn't have to sit in a corner now," she said. "Life goes on and people need to realize that we have just as much of a right to access as others," she said.

The Winooski Accessibility Committee meets at 5:30 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month at City Hall. The next committee meeting is in April.

Contact Matt Sutkoski at 660-1846 or msutkosk@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com.

Letters about Edmunds Accessibility

Two spot-on letters to the editor in the March 4, 2009 Seven Days (in response to their feature on Edmunds' lack of accessibility)...

EQUAL ACCESS FOR ALL
To ask that a school embrace children of all abilities is not selfish at all [“Old School, February 18]! If every member within the community had a child with a disability, they would see the importance of being able to enter through the front door. Talk about something that is taken for granted by most! If people would just take a moment and put themselves in someone else’s shoes, we would not have the issues we do.

As the parent of a blind child, I can relate to the requests, and I can remember the waiting and waiting and waiting we endured before getting any response! The squeaky wheel gets the grease, parents — you keep on asking and asking until your children get what they deserve: equality! I get the budget issues, I do, but these are children who deserve the very same as every other child! . . .

The answer is not to separate them from their friends, alienate them more than they already are and say it is about money! There is no price on a child’s psychological well-being; it is time we think about the whole person! In 2009, in the wealthiest country in the world, we continue to have the equality conversations. Maybe we are doing something wrong here.

Ann Atkins
ESSEX

THE PRICE IS NOT RIGHT
Between $10 million and $15 million to retrofit Edmunds to make it handicap accessible [“Old School, February 18]?! Am I the only one who finds the trumpeting of such a figure by the school district to be shameless at best? That figure, without a doubt, is a pile-on wish list of upgrades for Edmunds, most of which have no direct relationship to making the school accessible, however justified or overdue these wish-list upgrades might be in their own right.

Let’s not use the worthy and overdue cause of accessibility to tack on every other wish-list project. Case in point is the suggestion that the school’s entire electrical system will need to be upgraded to handle the elevator. Any electrician knows that one could simply run a separate panel and isolate the elevator from the rest of the building. But, heck, if we can get an upgraded electrical system out of it, let’s inflate the price tag, even if it is at the expense of physically disabled children.

Vermont and Vermonters have long been lauded for their ingenuity, industriousness and independence — not on waiting for the federal government to write a check, not on bureaucratic red tape and feasibility studies, and not on the mentality that breeds defeat. If we were only to put the strength of these disabled children to the task, the job would already be done. Let’s roll, Edmunds!

Daniel Foley
GEORGIA