[nfbmi-talk] columbus dispatch on rs issue

[joe harcz Comcast]

Deborah Kendrick: Blind vendors fear effort to commercialize highways | The Columbus

 

 

Jeff Tolle is living a version of the American dream. He has his own business and loves his job. His wife, Michelle, is his No. 1 employee. Family time

consists of frequent trips to the Columbus Zoo, Kings Island and Cedar Point. Tolle takes his sons, ages 8 and 13, fishing whenever possible at one of

two ponds near the family’s Delaware home. They don’t spend much time worrying about the fact that both boys have inherited Tolle’s eye condition because

life is good, and Tolle always has provided the family with a more than respectable income.

 

Tolle is just one of thousands of blind Americans who have benefitted from the Randolph-Sheppard Act, a law whose 75th anniversary was recognized in January

by a memorandum from President Barack Obama, encouraging more federal agencies to participate.

 

If you’ve ever bought snacks or beverages in a post office, courthouse, military base or any other federal agency, chances are you’ve supported blind business

owners.

 

Tolle’s business, like hundreds of other entrepreneurs in the program called Business Enterprise, consists of vending machines adjacent to rest areas on

interstate and secondary highways.

 

Under the law, priority is given to blind entrepreneurs in food-service facilities on government properties and, since 1982, vending machines at highway

rest areas. About 40 enterprising individuals in Ohio service the machines that dispense coffee, beverages, snacks and ice cream at rest areas up and down

our major and minor corridors. They buy the supplies, fill the machines, buy their own vehicles to transport goods and equipment, hire others to drive

those vehicles, pay all the necessary taxes for self-employment and balance their own books.

 

I spoke with several of those Ohio business owners last week, and there were definite refrains in every conversation. They love the work they do. They take

pride in providing a service to the public. And they are terrified that an amendment to the surface-transportation bill, Senate Bill 1813, proposed by

Sen. Rob Portman could have devastating consequences.

 

If approved, the amendment would render the highways open country for commerce. Historically, commerce on interstate and secondary highways has been permitted

only in the form of the vending machines operated by blind and visually impaired merchants.

 

The National Federation of the Blind, the National Restaurant Association and the National Association of Truck Stop Operators are just a few of the many

organizations representing both business and disability sectors who are vehemently opposed to any change in the law.

 

Brendan Flanagan, a spokesman for the National Restaurant Association, said, “This legislation threatens private businesses of all sizes and their employees

who rely on drivers exiting the highway in order to purchase food and conveniences. .?.?. It is anti-competitive and will kill jobs.”

 

Julie Russell, president of the Ohio Blind Vendors, says that even though her own business is a bank of machines at the Ohio Department of Job and Family

Services, the proposed legislation would have a negative impact on her and others whose businesses are not on the highways.

 

Everyone in the program pays a percentage of profit into the statewide fund, operated by the Bureau of Services for the Visually Impaired, which is used

for training, maintenance and repair.

 

Because the rest-area businesses are among the most profitable, those operators pay a much larger share into the statewide pool, thus enabling smaller businesses

such as Russell’s to stay in operation.

 

“It sounds like we’re just a small number of people,” Tolle said, “but many of the vendors have other employees, both with and without disabilities, and

then there are all those people who are hired on a different contract to clean and empty the trash.”

 

He is referring to the scores of people, many with developmental disabilities, who are hired for cleaning and general maintenance in the rest areas, whose

jobs depend on the status quo.

 

An unemployment rate of nearly 70 percent among people with disabilities is something of a national disgrace. The Randolph-Sheppard Act was a big step forward

75 years ago and is one of the smartest things we’re doing to alter that reality. To create any law with the potential to displace hundreds of gainfully

employed people with disabilities — people who are providing a service and taking pride in the work they do — well, it just doesn’t make sense.

 

Deborah Kendrick is a Cincinnati writer and advocate for people with disabilities.

 

dkkendrick at earthlink.net

List of 2 items

 

 

The Columbus Dispatch