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Home / Albums / Tag wheelchair bound 56
- ADAPT (169)
Rocky Mountain News 10/26/83 Two PHOTOS (by Rocky Mountain News staff photographer David Cornwell). PHOTO 1: Close up of a man (Mark Johnson) and a woman (Renata Conrad aka Rabe) looking down at a paper, as if conferring. She is holding a microphone in her hand. Beside them sits another man. Caption reads: Mark Johnson and Renate Rabe speak at meeting with transit officials. PHOTO 2: Down a long institutional looking hallway a group of people in wheelchairs and people walking head away from the camera. caption reads: After the meeting, some in wheelchairs exit via hotel's freight elevator. [Headline] Freight elevator raises ill will at meeting By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer The dispute over access by the handicapped to public transportation crystallized Wednesday when wheelchair-bound speakers at a transit convention resisted suggestions that they use the freight elevator at the Denver Hilton to reach the upstairs meeting. “They (transit officials) told us to ride up the elevator that will later take down the garbage and trash from your lunch," Trudy Knutson of Denver told hundreds of bus and rail operators at a meeting of the American Public Transit Association. "This was ordered by ... your leadership," she told the transit operators. APTA officials said they suggest using the freight elevator because it is about 20 feet from the banquet hall where the convention was being held. They said lobby elevators were farther away and were packed with many of the convention‘s 3.500 delegates. "They were free to use whichever (elevator) they wanted." said Jack Gilstrap, APTA executive vice president. “The freight elevator is much larger. You can fit only a couple of wheelchairs in a (lobby) elevator at a time." About 50 handicapped persons from ll states and Washington, D.C., attended the convention‘s morning session as Knutson and others called on APTA to pass a resolution endorsing complete handicapped access on all public transit and other demands. Many of the disabled in the audience used the freight elevator to leave the hotel following the presentation of their demands. Gilstrap said it showed that APTA's suggestion was a practical one. However, Knutson and others said the freight elevator issue was indicative of the way many rail and bus systems treat their disabled riders as a nuisance or an afterthought. She said access to public transit is a civil right, a position many transit operators reject. "A society that puts a man on the moon can surely put a person who is in a wheelchair on a bus," Knutson said. The handicapped protesters received a boost from Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, who met with the disabled outside the hotel after he spoke to the convention. "We have to design public transit to take care of everyone from (ages) 10 to 100," Young said. According to an agreement signed by APTA, handicapped groups and Mayor Federico Pena‘s office, handicapped activists were allowed limited picketing rights outside the Hilton during the convention and a 20-minute presentation during the general session Wednesday. Handicapped speakers asked for federally mandated 100 percent accessibility and a notice by APTA to bus manufacturers that its members will buy only accessible vehicles. Gilstrap said the group's demands would be referred to study groups and a resolution considered late. APTA has resisted 100 percent accessibility requirement because wheelchair lifts, elevators and other equipment are expensive and the number of handicapped riders is comparatively low. "It's tough to put money into services that aren't used" Gilstrap said. “It's a manager's dilemma. It‘s used so lightly that it‘s almost ridiculous." For example, Gilstrap said the Regional Transportation District is one of the leaders in handicapped transportation with 50 percent of its buses accessible during peak hours and 100 percent accessible off-peak. Yet, in 1982, he said, each of those buses averaged only 25 handicapped trips per year. Gilstrap said special van service where handicapped riders call in advance and get picked up at home is a better, albeit expensive, idea. "At least the money spent is spent on carrying people,“ he said. Denver also offers demand service. The trips-per year average is 1,490, making it far more popular than regular bus service. Handicapped groups believe van service is unconstitutional because it is separate but equal service. - ADAPT (157)
The Washington Times 10-2-84 PHOTO 1 (Photos by Richard Kozas, The Washington Times): A mass of ADAPT protesters block the entire sidewalk. Some are in wheelchairs, some are on the ground. In front of them are five or six police officers. Behind the protesters is a mass of people standing. (Among the protesters on the line: Mike Auberger, George Cooper?, Mickey Rodriguez.) Caption reads: Police use a barricade to try to keep protesting wheelchair activists from charging the front entrance of the Washington Convention Center yesterday. PHOTO 2: A protester (Tom Pugh), his face filled with passion, is up against a barricade. Someone appears to be lying across his lap. Behind him you can see other protesters (including George Cooper?) Caption reads: Wheelchair protesters, members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, finally crash the barricades. They blocked the convention center entrance to dramatize their plea tor access. [Headline] Disabled protest at Convention Center The Washington Times About 100 wheelchair-bound activists seeking greater access to public transportation yesterday broke through police barricades and blocked the main entrance to the Washington Convention Center, where the American Mass Transit Association Expo is being staged. Chanting, “Access. Access. We want access," members of the Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit said they were protesting the "historic resistance" mass transit systems around the country have exhibited toward the disabled, said ADAPT spokeswoman Jane Stewart of Poughkeepsie. N.Y. She was one of the demonstrators who parked her wheelchair outside the center. As the protesters shouted outside the hall, Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole, addressing transit officials inside. said she is confident “we can meet our responsibility toward our disabled citizens." The Department of Transportation last year modified its rule on how transit authorities should deal with the disabled after transit officials protested the high cost of equipping all buses and trains with handicapped lifts. Subsequently, DOT provided an option whereby transit officials can meet the requirements of the handicapped by establishing van service exclusively for the handicapped. But protesters yesterday compared the “segregation“ of mass transit today to that of schools in the era of separate-but-equal. "I am personally committed to the principle of providing excellent transit service for all the people of this region, and that includes our handicapped community," Carmen Turner, Metro transit‘s general manager, responded in a prepared statement. “For most of the handicapped, the bus and rail system provides a lifeline of mobility second to none. The Metrorail system is completely accessible to the handicapped," she said. She added that Metro has already spent $50 million on aids for the handicapped on Metrorail, and said the lifts on buses for the handicapped are “expensive to purchase and maintain. . . Our last two purchases of new buses have included lifts, and we intend to continue to increase the number of lifts in our fleet as we make new purchases. “We do feel it is better to operate the lift service we have efficiently than to expand it at great expense at some risk to reliability." — Amy Stromberg - ADAPT (148)
Name of newspaper illegible Los Angeles Times? November 19,1984 Handicapped Stage Protests to Publicize Transportation Needs by Miles Harvey, Times Staff Writer PHOTO: Mary Frampton / Los Angeles Times A tidy looking woman in pants and a vest, with a slight smile on her face, sits in a manual wheelchair on a bus. She is sitting in the accessible doorway, the access symbol visible on the side of the doorway. Below and beneath her is a metal panel, like the barrier on some lifts that keeps the person from rolling off the front of the lift. Caption reads: Barbara Trigg rides a hydraulic lift onto a Los Angeles bus. Article reads: Washington -- It was a scene reminiscent of the 1960s civil rights demonstrations as angry protesters chanted slogans, picketed the White House and stopped traffic before they were finally dragged away by police. And the series of confrontations that ended with 27 arrests last month seemed to come down to a similar central issue— the right to sit on a bus, to have full access to public transportation. There was one striking difference, however. Unlike Rosa Parks and the black civil rights activist who battered down the Jim Crow barriers in the South, these protesters were in wheelchairs, and their goal was equal access for the physically handicapped. “It's a civil right to be able to ride public transportation," said Julia Haraksin, a wheelchair-bound Los Angeles resident who participated in the demonstrations. “In the ‘60s, the blacks had to ride in the back—and we can't even get on the buses." New, Radical Tactics Organizations representing handicapped persons long have urged Washington to require that new buses and rail systems built with funds from the Department of Transportation's Urban Mass Transportation Administration be equipped to accommodate handicapped riders. But Haraksin and other handicapped individuals like her now are beginning to press the old arguments with new, more radical tactics. Frustrated by years of negotiating, lobbying in Washington, going through the courts and staging non-confrontational protests, some members of the handicapped community now are resorting more actively to confrontations and civil disobedience. Thus, early in October, 100 members of a newly formed coalition called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit confronted a national meeting of city transportation heads here, using the kind of civil disobedience tactics used 30 years earlier by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Protesters were arrested when they blocked entrances and buses of those attending the American Public Transit Assn. convention. The strategy was to physically be a barrier because handicapped people have to face barriers all their lives," Wade Blank, a founder of Denver-based ADAPT said. Calling the protests here " Selma," leaders of ADAPT claimed victory and promised that their struggle has only begun. They already are focusing their efforts on what they hope will be a larger demonstration at the next meeting of the American Public Transportation Assn. a year from now in Los Angeles. But they and their cause may be in for a tough battle. Their opposition comes from the Reagan Administration, from many city governments and even from within the handicapped community. And as public attention focuses on the underlying budget choices involved, the opposition may swell with the addition of taxpayers concerned about the possible costs of a national full-access program. ADAPT argues that a legal right to full access for the handicapped already exists. Federal law states that Urban Mass Transportation Administration funds — which account for about 80% of the costs of new and replacement equipment in most municipal transportation systems—cannot be spent on programs that discriminate against, or exclude, the handicapped. The law does not make clear, however, whether handicapped persons must be provided with access to regular bus lines or whether they can instead be provided with alternative transportation systems. Nor does it indicate who should make that decision. Cities Make Decisions Current Transportation Department policy, which is strongly supported by the American Public Transportation Assn., allows each city to make its own decision on what type of transportation it will provide for the handicapped. This is in sharp contrast with Carter Administration policy, which in 1979 interpreted federal regulation to mean full access. Members of ADAPT, opposing the separate-but-equal philosophy of paratransit argue that it does not meet the needs of the handicapped and that it is inherently discriminatory. "It segregates the disabled people from the able-bodied community," Mike Auberger, an organizer for ADAPT, said. Because paratrasit requires advanced scheduling [unreadable] a ride is needed, he said, “you have to schedule your life according to the system. No one else has to do that. That shows the inequality right there." He and other members of ADAPT contend that because of long waiting lists for paratransit, some cities refuse to offer the service to new users - thus cutting off thousands of handicapped persons from any public transportation. Transit authorities, on the other hand, argue that full access can be too expensive, given the low percentage of handicapped riders in many cities. Lift-fitted buses cost an estimated $8,000 to $10,000 more than regular buses. Furthermore, lift systems are often unreliable and time-consuming to operate and maintain, transit administrators say. In Denver, for example, the transportation district has spent $63 million to purchase or retrofit buses with lifts. 80% of which was paid for by the federal government, according to spokesman Gene Towne. Since it started mainline access in 1982, the district has spent close to $1 million in maintenance of the lifts and expects to spend an additional $900,000 this year. Yet of the district's total annual ridership of 38 million, only 12,000 use the lifts, according to Towne. ADAPT counters that the issue is not cost but civil liberties. “In America we have a way of hiding, our prejudices with pragmatism," said Blank, a Presbyterian minister and veteran of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s who now supports handicapped activists. Variety of Approaches Across the country, cities are using a variety of approaches to the problems of providing mass transit for the handicapped. In Los Angeles, mainline access is required by state law. Although 1,850 of the Southern California Rapid Transit District‘s 2,400 buses are fitted with wheelchair lifts some local advocates charge that the RTD gives only "lip service" to access, complaining of broken lifts, drivers who do not know how to use the equipment or refuse to do so and an overall lack of commitment to providing access. The system provides only about 1,400 rides a month according to the RTD. Handicapped activists charge that the low ridership is attributable to the system's poor management. There were and are people in the operation department (of the RTD) back there who were and are opposed to the idea of access from day one," Dennis Cannon, a Washington-based expert who helped to plan the RTD's access program in the 1970s said. But in the last six months, the RTD has made "a major effort" to overcome the problem, according to RTD General Manager John A. Dyer. The system boosted its fiscal year 1985 budget for handicapped service by $3 million, to $4.9 million, to provide for a program to educate drivers and upgrade the quality of equipment and service. In Oakland, half the city's 800 buses are lift-equipped and all of the Alameda — Contra Costa Transit District's new buses will be lift-equipped. Seattle’s Services In Seattle, 570 of 1,100 buses are accessible to the handicapped, providing about 5,900 rides a month. The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle also contracts with private groups to supply paratransit bus and half-fare cab service, providing a total of 8,400 rides a month in Denver. 432 of the city's 744 buses are lift- or ramp-equipped, providing more than 1,000 rides per month. The city also uses 13 vans and small buses in a paratransit system that provides 3,200 rides a month. In New York City, where an estimated 35% of all the transit passengers in the country use Metropolitan Transportation Authority vehicles each day. half of the city's 4,333 buses are fitted with lifts. The city has no figures on how many handicapped riders use the system, but one official calls the number minuscule. A new state law calls for $40 million over the next eight years to retrofit “in the neighborhood of 30" subway stops for handicapped use, according to a transit authority official. In addition the law will increase the percentage of lift-equipped buses to 65% of the fleet, as well as provide a paratransit system in the city by 1988. Minneapolis-St. Paul uses 45 paratransit buses and contracts with private cab companies to carry handicapped persons in all, the city provides 40.000 trips a month. None of Chicago's 2.400 regular buses are fitted with lifts. Instead the city provides 42 paratransit buses, which offer 12,000 rides a month. Additionally, 14 of the city's subway stops have been retrofitted for handicapped access and 300 of Chicago's 1,100 subway cars are accessible. If there is a diversity of approaches to the problem, there is also a diversity of views on the militant new tactics used by ADAPT and its supporters. The views of the handicapped people are all over the lot on what type of transport they'd like," Bob Batchelder, counsel for the APTA, said. But transit specialist Cannon, himself a wheelchair user, counters: “I'm talking to disabled people who wouldn't do what ADAPT does ... but who support what they are doing and think it needs being done." Whether ADAPT's controversial style will work remains an open question. While no negotiations are scheduled, ADAPT leaders vow to continue to harass association meetings. But in Los Angeles, the RTD's Dyer indicated that he hopes demonstrations will be replaced at next year's convention with “serious dialogue and discussion of the issues." "It’s a new thing for the disabled to see themselves with power," ADAPT's Auberger said, "but it's also a new experience for the powers that be." - ADAPT (178)
Photo: A man in an old style motorized wheelchair (Mike Auberger) with long hair sits a half a body length above several people standing on the ground. His mouth is open in a yell and his arms are flung wide. Caption reads: 20 Disabled Protesters arrested in Washington: A wheelchair-bound protester being lifted abroad van after being arrested yesterday in Washington. About 100 disabled demonstrators turned out at the annual convention of the American Public Transit Association, demanding improved access to buses, trains, and subways. About 20 people were arrested after blocking two entrances to the convention center. - ADAPT (159)
Colorado Springs Sun PHOTO (by Mary Kelley): Close up of protester Beverly Furnice's angry face as she reclined in her wheelchair, holding a poster in her fists, which reads "Accessible Bathrooms Now!" Caption reads: Beverly Furnice holds a sign explaining one of the reasons she and other disabled people were picketing a local McDonald's Restaurant Friday. [Headline] Officials Defends McDonalds' Record By Ken Warren, Colorado Springs Sun McDonald’s Restaurants is the industry leader in providing barrier-free access to the disabled, a top official of the corporation said Friday. Robert L Keyser Ill. national director of media relations, rejected as “false" and “inappropriate" charges made by a group of wheelchair bound protesters that McDonald's discriminates against the handicapped. “We think we're the leader in the industry in barrier-free accessibility”, but there are always things we can learn, " Keyser said, watching protesters picket the McDonald's Restaurant at 207 N. Wahsatch Ave. As discussed, six weeks ago, he said, McDonald's plans to meet next week with representatives of the Denver-based Access Institute to discuss their concerns. “We want to listen. We also want them to learn a little more about McDonald's because we're committed to the community." Asked about the potential impact of the second protest against McDonald's in as many days on upcoming talks, Keyser said, "It's certainly not a sign of the good faith" in which we’ve been trying to deal with them in Denver." "He suggested "that the group had targeted McDonald's because of its size and visibility. “We clearly think it's not appropriate, but "they've done it, and we're going to speak proudly about our record." Keyser said ‘McDonald's had been striving since the 1960s to meet the needs of the disabled with ramps, drive-through lanes and other special accommodations. Robert Conrad, a protester confined to a wheelchair because of cerebral palsy criticized McDonald's for failing to do more to make their 6,400 restaurants accessible to the disabled. “We've tried to negotiate with McDonald's, but all they want to do is dialogue," he said. - ADAPT (154)
[Headline] 7 Arrested as Handicapped Protest at Fast-Food Outlet By Jim Kirksey Denver Post Staff Writer Denver police arrested seven persons – six of them handicapped – during a demonstration at a near-downtown Denver McDonald’s Restaurant Thursday. Wheelchair-bound demonstrators from Denver’s Atlantis Community Inc., which represents disabled people in the area, blocked entrances to the parking lot at the McDonald’s at East Colfax Avenue and Pennsylvania Street beginning about 11:0 a.m. to protest the lack of access to the restaurant for the handicapped. All of the arrests were based on traffic-obstruction charges. Police estimated there were about 20 demonstrators, but leaders of the demonstration estimated the number at 30 to 50. Richard Male, an organizer with the Community Resource Center, said the protesters want three things: access for the disabled to McDonald’s current restaurants, such access to be constructed at all new McDonald’s restaurants, and for the fast-food company to advertise its welcome and accessibility to the disabled. Joe Carle, 45, a community organizer at the Atlantis Community and one of the leaders of Thursday’s demonstration, said the point at issue is what he termed McDonald’s failure to live up to agreements made by the company in negotiations last month. He said McDonald’s officials met in Denver with members of the Access Institute, a national organization for the handicapped with which Atlantis is affiliated, following similar demonstrations at two McDonald’s restaurants in Denver in May. Organizers said McDonald’s agreed at that time to a June 19 meeting in Denver with a negotiating team from the institute. Carle said McDonald’s agreed to pay the costs of the Access Institute negotiators to return to Denver and to send a restaurant official with the authority to make an agreement. Now, according to the leaders of the local disabled group, McDonald’s says it won’t pay the transportation costs of the group’s members and won’t confirm that a representative with the authority to make an access agreement with the group will attend the meeting. The manager at the restaurant refused comment and a corporate spokesman for McDonald’s in Chicago didn’t return a telephone call to comment on the demonstration and the allegations. Sgt. Roy Clem of the Denver police said those demonstrators who were arrested had refused to get out of East Colfax Avenue, and they were arrested for obstruction of traffic. The one non-disabled person was arrested when she jumped in front of a car to block its path in support of the demonstration, Clem said. Detective George Masciotro identified those arrested as: Lori Eastwood, 26, of 1222 Pennsylvania St., who isn’t disabled; Donna Smith, 32, of 236 S. Elliot St.; Robert W. Conrad Jr., 35, of 750 Know Court; George Roberts, 36, of 1255 Galapago St.; Lawrence Ruiz, 30, also of 1255 Galapago St.; Terri Fowler, 28, of 3202 W. Gill Place; and Michael William Auberger, 29, of 1140 Colorado Blvd. Masciotro said they were booked into jail, then released on personal recognizance bonds. - ADAPT (175)
Colorado Springs Sun PHOTO (Sun / Mary Kelley): A high level quadriplegic (John Folks) in a motorized wheelchair is tipped back onto his rear wheels by two uniformed officers. His mouth control for driving his chair is in his mouth, his long black hair is held in a headband, and a suitcase-type box is strapped to his lapboard. Another uniformed officer and a plain clothes officer look on from a short distance. Behind them a group of protesters sit in a parking lot. Most are in wheelchairs but Brook Ball sits on a cement block. Caption reads: Police arrest John Folks during a protest by a group of disabled people at the McDonald's Restaurant on North Wahsatch Avenue Friday afternoon. [Headline] 11 Arrested in Protest By Ken Western Eleven protesters – 10 of them confined to wheelchairs – where arrested Friday by Colorado Springs police after they blocked the entrances to a downtown McDonald’s Restaurant. The arrests were the second in two days for some members of the Denver-based Access Institute, which contends that McDonald’s discriminates against the disables by failing to provide complete access to all of its restaurants, tables and restrooms. Denver police arrested seven protesters Thursday in a similar demonstration by the group outside another McDonald’s Restaurant. A spokesman for McDonald’s defended the company’s efforts Friday to provide access to the disabled, particularly in restaurants build since the late 1906s and in the remodeling of older buildings. The nearly two-dozen protesters, who arrived in vans from Denver, began blocking entrances to the restaurant’s parking lot, 207 N. Wahsatch Ave, at 12:15 pm. Four entrances and the drive-through lane were closed for about an hour, with most vehicles exiting through the alley behind the restaurant and, in one instance, driving off a curb. Each entrance was blocked by two to three wheelchair-bound protesters, some holding signs that read “Discrimination Hurts Everyone!!!” and “How Can I Enjoy An Egg McMuffin When I Can’t Get To The Tables?” Leaflets also were passed out urging patrons to boycott the restaurant “to show that you want us to have the right to each with you.” Police began arresting protesters after they blocked the east alley in the 200 block of North Wahsatch Avenue, charging 11 people with obstructing or interfering with traffic. Under an agreement with the Access Institute, police arrested those protesters who wanted to be bookeds in an apparently symbolic protest. Picture caption: Police arrest John Folks during a protest by a Restaurant on North Wahsatch Avenue Friday group of disabled people at the McDonald’s afternoon. - ADAPT (637)
Disabled occupy Morehouse office ATLANTA (UPI) — About 60 wheelchair-bound protesters occupied the Morehouse College president’s office Monday, demanding a meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan. The group, American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, or ADAPT, targeted the predominantly Black college for the demonstration because Sullivan is a former president of the Morehouse School of Medicine. The disabled protesters hoped Morehouse officials would use their influence to arrange a meeting with Sullivan. Morehouse spokesman Robert Bolton said the college’s president was trying to decide on a response to the situation, and was discussing what to do with Health and Human Services officials. ADAPT wants Sullivan to redirect 25 percent of Medicaid’s $17.5 billion nursing home budget to programs that would provide home care for the disabled. “People commit suicide, they die in nursing homes because they don’t have attendant care,”' said Michael Auberger, an organizer of the demonstration. Auberger said ADAPT was not asking for more money. Instead, the group wants funds reallocated to community programs, so disabled people can live at home with assistance. “We’re not talking about nurses,” said Auberger, who is wheelchair- bound. “Typically, most disabled people aren’t sick. For instance, I mostly just need help getting dressed and getting in my(wheelchair). “A national attendant service program would allow people to conceivably become employed when they otherwise wouldn’t" he said. Auberger said ADAPT sent a letter to Sullivan in July requesting a meeting, but had received no response. Dozens of protesters have come to Atlanta from 22 states and as far away as California for a week of demonstrations to dramatize the plight of the disabled. - ADAPT (631)
Atlanta Daily News 10/1990 [very poor quality copy, picture almost impossible to see] IN PROTEST PHOTO by Philip Barry, Daily News A guard stands in doorway in foreground looking toward the camera. On the right side of the picture you can see the wall beside the doorway and a small sign reading: 322 Office of President. Behind this person and mostly below her hip level you can see a mass of ADAPT Protesters, a couple in wheelchairs, others apparently kneeling or staying low. By the guard's leg, you can see Anita Cameron's head and shoulder looking around the door frame. Anita is wearing an ADAPT headband and she seems to be chanting or singing. Protest A Morehouse College security guard stands watch as disabled activists take over the president's office Monday. About 60 wheelchair-bound protesters occupied the office, demanding a meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan as another 150 sat in the hallway. The group, ADAPT or American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, plans additional protests. - 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 (601)
THE DENVER POST / NATIONAL Friday: September 9, 1989 [Headline] Senate approves bill to guarantee rights of disabled By Knight-Rldder News Service WASHINGTON — An estimated 43 million America with disabilities won a major victory last night as the Senate approved a landmark bill aimed at moving them into the nation’s social and economic mainstream. The Senate, on a 76-to-8 vote, passed legislation that would extend for the first time sweeping civil rights protections to persons with hearing impairments, epilepsy, AIDS and dozens of other physical and mental disabilities. The measure, which now goes to the House for expected approval, would ban discrimination in the hiring of the disabled; require businesses, shops and transit systems to make their facilities more accessible to the wheelchair-bound; and force telephone companies to provide special operators for the deaf. The bill was endorsed last month by President Bush, and administration lobbyists joined advocates for the disabled yesterday in opposing efforts to modify the legislation to meet business objections that it will be too costly to small firms. Business leaders warned that the measure could put some employers out of business if.they were required to make expensive structural changes in their buildings to accommodate disabled customers and workers. Critics also said the compliance provisions of the bill were vague and would result in years of litigation in federal courts over what constituted discrimination against the disabled. Major provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act would: * Prohibit employers from discriminating against qualified job applicants with disabilities. Changes to accommodate the disabled in the workplace would be required unless they would cause an “undue hardship," a term critics say is too vague. * Require new business establishments to be accessible to the disabled and require existing establishments be made accessible if the alterations are “readily achievable." * Require new buses and trains to be equipped with wheelchair lifts. * Require telephone companies to provide operators who could relay messages from the deaf to hearing individuals. Deaf persons can communicate with each other by telephone now by using Telecommunications Devices for the Deaf (TDDs), but can't communicate with people who don't have the TDDs. “We’re not asking for special treatment," said Pat Wright, government affairs director of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund Inc. “Whether it’s putting a ramp in or providing a reasonable accommodation in employment, it makes you equal, not special." The bill, as originally written, would have exempted Congress from its provisions — but that exemption was deleted during debate. And in another concession to the intense interest of the disabled in the measure, the Senate for the first time allowed an interpreter using sign language to translate the televised proceedings of the floor debate so that the deaf and hearing impaired could follow the action. Extending civil rights protections to people with AIDS or the AIDS virus had been recommended by a Reagan administration commission on AIDS, but was opposed by President Reagan himself. Bush, however, has supported the protection. The bill bars employment discrimination against persons with AIDS but does permit employers to deny jobs if the employee poses a significant risk of transmitting the infection to others. However, homosexuals are not covered by the legislation. They can still be discriminated against solely on the basis of their sexuality. After an inquiry by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., sponsors agreed to delete transvestites from nation protections. Helms also raised questions about providing protection to schizophrenics, manic-depressives and psychotics, but their status remained intact in the measure.