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ADAPT (457)
The Daily Sparks Tribune Wednesday, April 5, 1989 - Vol. 77, No. 233 © 1989 Sparks Tribune Co, [Headline] Protest from page 1A [we don't have part one of this article] Auberger, who arrived in town Monday to prepare for the protests, said he expects about 150 handicapped people from around the country to show up. Auberger said he met with members of the Sparks and Reno police, the Washoe County Sheriffs Department and court marshals Tuesday. “It's definitely threatening but I think the people coming in here are well aware of what could happen to them,” Auberger said. Already Auberger has had a confrontation, albeit a friendly one, with Nugget security and Sparks police. Monday when Auberger was casing the outside of the Nugget, with video camera in hand, a security guard and a police officer approached him and knew him by name, he said. “It gave me a real feeling for how the police are going to respond and how the casino security will respond,” Auberger said. “It was like the casino burped and the police said ‘Excuse me,’ and that's not normal.” Auberger said his group has yet to begin drawing up strategy on how it will carry out its demonstration. However, Auberger predicted his group won’t be happy with being confined to B Street. “(The location) is very visible to traffic on B Street but it won't be visible to APTA members" Auberger said. “The spot is perfect if your issue is with the public or it‘s directed at the Nugget.” Auberger said his group is not violent although it is confrontational. Zamboni showed the press a 10-minute video tape of an ADAPT demonstration held in San Francisco Sept. 28, 1987. The video tape showed demonstrators blocking a SAMTRANS bus and tying their wheelchairs to the vehicle’s wheelspokes and sitting on the Powell Street cable car turn-around. It also showed police handcuffing protestors to their wheelchairs and the protestors chanting “We want to ride,” and “We want access.”
ADAPT (456)
PHOTO by Patrick Forden/Gazette Journal; The photo is looking up at Mike Auberger in a non-ADAPT T-shirt and jeans, with a short beard and mustache, hands on his hips. His chair is somewhat visible and his left leg elevated. He is sitting in the doorway of a fancy Casino with a Nugget Casino sign over the door. Caption reads: ORGANIZER: Mike Auberger of Denver says his cause is worth going to jail for. TITLE: Disabled group plans protest at transit meeting in Sparks By Susan Voyles/Gazette-Journal Up to 150 wheelchair-bound people are expected to protest outside John Ascuaga’s Nugget beginning Sunday, and Sparks police say they are ready. The protest is being staged by a national group called The American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, and its target is the western regional meeting of the American Public Transit Association. As many as 700 people representing public bus systems, including many that don’t have buses with lifts to handle wheelchairs, are expected to attend. In protests at 16 other cities in recent years, disabled protesters have held marches, crawled onto or chained themselves to buses, and barricaded hotels where the public transit association held its meetings. “We try to make their conventions as inaccessible to them as they have made transportation to disabled people ” said protest organizer Mike Auberger of Denver. “They can’t just come and have fun." Auberger, 34, said he met earlier this week with representatives of Sparks police, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Department and Nugget security. He was handed a 32-page list of possible violations, including felonious assault, that his group could be charged with. “From what I heard, the police department’s tactic is going to be to intimidate,” Auberger said. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see the police on Sunday in riot gear.” Auberger, who arrived in town Monday to prepare for the protests, said he expects about 150 handicapped people from around the country to show up. Auberger said he met with members of the Sparks and Reno police, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Department and court marshals Tuesday. “It’s definitely threatening but I think the people coming in here are well aware of what could happen to them,” Auberger said. Already Auberger has had a confrontation, albeit a friendly one, with Nugget security and Sparks police. Monday when Auberger was casing the outside of the Nugget, with video camera in hand, a security guard and a police officer approached him and knew him by name, he said. “It gave me a real feeling for how the police are going to respond and how the casino security will respond," Auberger said. “It was like the casino burped and the police said ‘Excuse me,’ and that’s not normal." Auberger said his group has yet to begin drawing up strategy on how it will carry out its demonstration. However, Auberger predicted his group won’t be happy with being confined to B Street. “(The location) is very visible to traffic on B Street but it won’t be visible to APTA members,” Auberger said. “The spot is perfect if your issue is with the public or if it's directed at the Nugget." Auberger said his group is not violent although it is confrontational. Zamboni showed the press a 10-minute video tape of an ADAPT demonstration held in San Francisco Sept. 28, 1987. The video tape showed demonstrators blocking a SAMTRANS bus and tying their wheelchairs to the vehicle's wheelspokes and sitting on the Powell Street cable-car tum-around. It also showed police handcuffing protestors to their wheelchairs and the protestors chanting "We want to ride,” and "We want access."
ADAPT (439)
The Daily Sparks Tribune April 14, 1989 page 4A [Headline] Push a wheelchair through Sparks by Andrew Barbano In all the heat generated by die wheelchair protests this week at the Sparks Nugget, the central issue has been lost: does every bus in the country need wheelchair lifts? I thought Donna Cline might shed some light on the real reason behind the ruckus. Cline, 30, was injured in a rural Nevada accident. She and Debra Donlevy were driving to Carson City late one night 11 years ago. Their car overturned near Hawthorne. Donna survived the long ride to Reno, Debbie was not so lucky. We buried her in Carson City while Cline lay in Washoe Medical Center. Debbie was my wife's daughter. Donna, who has not walked since, worked her way through broadcast school and became a television reporter. In 1985, while working at KVBC in Las Vegas, she was asked to compete for the Miss Wheelchair Nevada title. She won. And added the Miss Wheelchair America title in 1986. She took the cause of better access for the handicapped all the way to Ronald Reagan in the White House. “I leaned a lesson in it all," she told me this week from Springfield, Missouri, where she is a news co-anchor. "I found out that you'll get some awareness but you may not get what you set out to get.“ Peter Mendoza would probably agree. The unemployed Bay Area police dispatcher was here to attend the protests during the American Public Transit Association convention. He lost his job because of transportation problems, and has been protesting at APTA conventions for the past three years. “I‘m not used to being treated like a criminal,“ Mendoza says. “We're not a bunch of violent radicals. There are children here and people who’ve worked all their lives. We’re not radicals. We just want to make a point." He says that a lot of this week's problems could have been avoided. “In San Francisco, we sat down with APTA and the police and worked out the parameters of a demonstration. We even arranged for the peaceful arrest of those who thought they wanted to do so. We worked out training and helped arrange transportation. The judge sentenced those arrested to the overnight time served. There were no hard feelings. Sparks is 20 years behind the times when it comes to protests." Cline says “protest to increase awareness is wonderful but has anything more actually been accomplished? In the four cities I've live in, the demand (for wheelchair ramps) does not meet the number of buses. If you're going to take that amount of money, you should look at usage." She favors a specialized transportation system such as this area's Citilift. One caller to my radio show did not agree. "Separate is always unequal," he snapped. Mendoza, a member of the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District‘s advisory committee on services for persons with disabilities, backs up this argument with numbers. “The Alameda-Contra Costa transit system did a study which showed a $10.84 cost per trip on a ramp-equipped bus. A paratransit system (like Citilift) costs $12.46 a trip." He says that nationally, the paratransit system is more expensive. Citilift figures bear him out. Such service is very specialized and will always cost more. “A bus ramp costs about the same as an air conditioning system, and I consider that a luxury. If you want to get rid of something that costs a lot, get rid of air conditioning." Mendoza feels specialized paratransit systems are good for rural areas, but Metropolitan areas need bus lifts. “Only three percent of the 37,000,000 disabled in this country are working and transportation is the number one reason," he passionately adds. Since I started doing talk shows, I've never had a week where one issue totally dominated as this one has. Many of my phone calls were from wheelchair users. Some Sparks residents feel that Mendoza and his group are just a bunch of out-of-town agitators who should leave. Others have accused the Sparks Police, John Ascuaga and his people of failing to defuse the situation upfront, as was done in San Francisco. Another said Nugget security guards were poorly trained and they have been the main problem. Mendoza's organization, ADAPT, almost seems to be contradicting itself by its actions. ADAPT has made its biggest gains in court and in Congress, not on the protest lines. After Congress passed a law mandating lifts on all buses, APTA got the law watered down to provide for local option. ADAPT sued and won on appeal. The protests this week centered on convincing APTA not to take its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ironically, a small news item appeared Tuesday noting the “Disability Awareness Festival" starts April 14. Wrong. It started Sunday at the Nugget. Maybe Sparks just needs to promote better understanding. The best suggestion I've heard came from a retired Sparks Teamsters Union worker named Mitch. He suggested a handicapped awareness day where civic leaders work a day in a wheelchair to see what it's like. I like that idea. So does Donna Cline. Any takers? (Andrew Barbano is a Reno-based syndicated columnist. He host a weekday morning news and talk show an Reno AM radio station KOLO 92.) Photo: President Ronald Reagan standing, head slightly tipped to his left. Seated beside him, and coming up to about is waist, is a woman in a wheelchair with conservatively coiffed hair and attire. Both are looking at the camera and smiling. Caption reads: Donna Cline, a former Miss Wheelchair Nevada and Miss Wheelchair America, with former President Ronald Reagan.