[nfbmi-talk] Fw: are things fixed mr. zelley

[joe harcz Comcast]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: joe harcz Comcast 
To: Mike Zelley TDN 
Cc: Gary Kidd TDN 
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2014 7:23 AM
Subject: are things fixed mr. zelley


Dear Mr. Zelley,

For years and in the attached article you've stated that the ADA Celebration will be compliant with the ADA, which is after all our civil rights anniversary.

So I'm wondering if all the deficiencies in Kearsely Park have been addressed as promised here and elsewhere such as in your 704 reports?

Simply cordoning off inaccessible elements or locking doors on a public (City of Flint) park, aren't a solution.

And if this park isn't fully compliant on the very day we celebrate the ADA then how can it be the other 364 days of the year?

I'll remind you sir that one of the major missions of any center for Independent Living is systems and individual advocacy and also will remind you that as a recipient of federal funds your agency is supposed to hold all events in fully compliant venues.

The ADA will turn 24 years old on July 26. Section 504 is forty years old. How long will people with disabilities have to wait for full and unequivocal compliance?

Sincerely,

Paul Joseph Harcz, Jr.

Attached:
Americans with Disabilities Act event in Flint highlights Michigan's non-compliance with law

 

September 16, 2013   |

with Disabilities

Act event in Flint highlights Michigan's non-compliance with law

ADA anniversary celebration site not ADA-compliant

 

ADA anniversary celebration site not ADA-compliant: The site chosen in Flint to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act was

not ADA-compliant, due to problems with wheelchair ramps and other issues. Activists from the group ADAPT recorded shortcomings on video.

ADA anniversary celebration site not ADA-compliant

 

ADA anniversary celebration site not ADA-compliant

Activists talk with organizer about ADA celebratio...

 

Activists talk with organizer about ADA celebratio...

list end

Paul Egan

 

By

Paul Egan

 

Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

 

Carol Cain: People with disabilites celebrate freedom to make choices

list end

The site chosen in Flint to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act was not ADA compliant due to problems with wheelchair

ramps and other issues.

Zoom

 

The site chosen in Flint to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act was not ADA compliant due to problems with wheelchair

ramps and other issues. / ADAPT

 

 

 – It was billed as a celebration of the landmark federal law intended to make sure disabled people have equal access to public facilities.

 

But the site in Flint chosen to celebrate the 23rd birthday of the Americans with Disabilities Act — Kearsley Park — did not meet requirements of the ADA.

 

A wooden ramp had unsafe railings, broken planks and protruding bolts. Sidewalks weren’t level. A playground area was inaccessible. People who used wheelchairs

had to roll across grass to reach portable toilets that lacked raised signage for the blind.

 

“It was supposed to be an ADA anniversary celebration,” said Scott Heinzman, 51, an organizer with the group ADAPT who uses a wheelchair because of a spinal

cord injury at age 20. “That’s why it makes it kind of weird to hold it in a place that I wouldn’t say is compliant with the ADA.”

 

The July 26 event at a Flint city park, one of a handful of events held around the state, was sponsored by the Disability Network, a nonprofit agency, and

the Genesee Health System, the county mental health agency.

 

Disabled activists say it was a poignant example of the frustrations and indignities they experience at state and local public facilities on a daily basis.

 

State buildings still fail to meet many requirements of the ADA, and the state still lacks a transition plan — required under federal law — for coming into

compliance.

 

Though data comparing Michigan with other governments is lacking, a 2010 survey by the Chicago-based Great Lakes ADA Center gave Michigan an overall grade

of C on its ADA report card and a C+ for removal of physical barriers from buildings. That was slightly better than Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin fared,

the same as the grades Indiana received, and slightly worse than Minnesota’s score.

 

Joe Harcz, a Mt. Morris resident who is blind, pointed out that even the state’s library for blind people inside the Michigan Library and Historical Center

in Lansing — recently renamed the Braille and Talking Book Library — does not have an entrance sign in raised lettering and Braille, as required by the

ADA.

 

Harcz said he has not found a single state building, including the Capitol, that fully complies with that requirement. And state officials do not dispute

that.

 

The state is trying to negotiate the settlement of a federal lawsuit brought against it last year by Michigan Economic Development Corp. employee Jill Babcock,

who uses a wheelchair and sued over accessibility problems at Cadillac Place, a huge state office complex in Detroit’s Midtown area that includes an office

for Gov. Rick Snyder.

 

Late last year, the Snyder administration appointed Sharon Ellis as its first statewide ADA compliance director. She will help oversee a transition plan

spelling out how and when the state plans to come into compliance with the law.

 

“We hope to have the transition plan completed within the next six months,” Department of Technology, Management and Budget spokesman Kurt Weiss said Sept.

4.

 

“While the current administration cannot speak to what occurred prior to 2011, the current focus is on improving our state facilities and signage so that

we are meeting the needs of people with disabilities,” he said.

 

A statewide ADA compliance audit — the first since 2008 — is under way, and improving signage across state government buildings will be a major piece of

the transition plan, Weiss said.

 

For the Flint event, a group of ADAPT activists that included Heinzman, Harcz and Bill Earl, who uses a wheelchair because he has cerebral palsy, went prepared.

 

They brought video cameras to document the deficiencies and confronted organizer Mike Zelley, who is president and CEO of the Disability Network in Flint

and chairman of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission.

 

In the videotaped interview, Zelley — who uses a wheelchair because he was paralyzed in a motor vehicle accident 35 years ago — acknowledged most of the

shortcomings the activists cite.

 

“We’re rebuilding the ramp right now to make it to code,” Zelley said in the video. “The rails are too tall.”

 

“The park is not fully accessible; it’s pretty accessible,” Zelley told Earl in the interview. “We’re improving it as we go along.”

 

Zelley said Sept. 4 that he had 100 volunteers on hand to make sure people could cross the ramp safely and to assist with other accessibility shortcomings.

Flint is strapped for cash and volunteers built the ramp, unfortunately not to code, he said. It will be fixed in time for next year’s celebration, Zelley

said.

 

Tisha Deeghan, senior vice president and chief operating officer of co-sponsor Genesee Health System, said the Disability Network handled logistics for

the event, which has been held at Kearsley Park in previous years. Her agency had not heard of complaints this year, she said.

 

“If there were individuals who could not fully participate, we would apologize,” Deeghan said. “It’s tough to find a venue that’s as compliant as we would

like things to be.

 

“We’ll strive to do better next summer.”

 

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or

pegan at freepress.com

 

 

Source:

http://www.freep.com/article/20130916/NEWS/309160014/Americans-with-Disability-Act-Kearsley-Park-Flint