[Colorado-Talk] Keep Making Noise

[Kevan Worley]

Hey guys, I did speak with two senators. Two of our friends. They are looking into it as well. Put this on Facebook and Twitter! Everyone! Use some of the text that Scott has just sent to us. Use your own words or cut a couple of lines out of Scott’s note. Let’s roll on this now!

At Your Service,
Kevan Worley

> On Jun 1, 2021, at 1:46 PM, Scott C. LaBarre via Colorado-Talk <colorado-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> Keep sending emails, dialing up phone calls, tweeting, Facebooking, and do the voodoo you do to keep pressuring the General Assembly.  Here is the text of the message that I have been sending.  Feel free to steal from it.
>  
> Senate President Garcia:
>  
> I am Scott LaBarre, President of the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado, the state’s oldest and largest organization of the blind.  We have deeply appreciated your support over the years.  Now, I hope we can count on you once again.
>  
> It has come to our attention that “leadership” has decided to pull funding of $331,000 for H.B. 21-1110.  This would be a grave mistake because it would gut efforts to address significant barriers that blind, low vision, and others with disabilities have faced for years.   Even though   the ADA has been law for nearly 31 years and widely accepted web content accessibility guidelines have been around for well over 20 years, over 98 percent of the top million visited websites contain at least one accessibility barrier for those who use assistive technology to access digital information.  Not surprisingly hundreds of websites operated either by the State or local governments here in Colorado manifest significant accessibility barriers making it exceedingly difficult for someone like me, who is blind, to get my digital hands on critical information.
>  
> Two weeks ago today, on May 20th which also happened to be Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we were delighted that H.B. 21-1110 unanimously passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee, and we thought we were well on our way to taking real steps to address the accessibility barriers we have faced for far, far too long.
>  
> That is why we were shocked and deeply dismayed when we discovered that H.B. 21-1110 had been pulled from Senate Appropriations, apparently for lack of funds.  Is the Colorado General Assembly trying to tell us that people with disabilities in Colorado are not even worth $331,000?  In total, we estimate that there are 115,500 blind and low vision individuals in Colorado?  So, are you trying to tell us that the we cannot find a way to spend $2.86 for each blind and low vision person in the State to provide legally mandated access to our State’s critical public websites?  I guess a drink at Starbucks is worth  more than my right to access public information that everyone else takes for granted.
>  
> Senator Garcia, we implore you in   the strongest terms to back your verbal commitment to the blind and others with disabilities  in our State with your actions!!  Please fund fully H.B. 21-1110 and pass it this week!!!
>  
> Respectfully,
> Scott C. LaBarre, President
> NFB Colorado
> 303-520-3584, Mobile
> slabarre at labarrelaw.com
>  
>      
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