[nfbmi-talk] Sounds ALL Too Familiar!

[Terry D. Eagle]

Based upon Mark Eagle's meetings with Michigan Capitol officials, it sounds
all too familiar that We the blind and other persons with disabilities in
Michigan are on the same path as Idaho citizens with disabilities, to full
independent accessibility to visit and utilize Our state house without
barriers.

 

The NFB needs to join with other persons with disabilities to file a
complaint with the U.S. DOJ to get the same result as citizens of Idaho did.
This is especially true since the courts are not inclined to follow and
enforce the word and spirit of civil right statutes, such as the Americans
with DisAbilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. 

 

Longtime Idaho disability-rights leader calls Capitol ADA settlement
'bittersweet'

 

U.S. Attorney for Idaho Wendy Olson, left, and Idaho Attorney General
Lawrence Wasden, right, announce final settlement Thursday afternoon on
accessibility

improvements to Idaho's renovated state Capitol 

 

When Kelly Buckland and Bobbie Ball rolled their wheelchairs into a meeting
with state public works officials, bringing a list of specific changes
needed

in Idaho's state capitol restoration project to accommodate people with
disabilities, they thought they'd gotten the state's attention. "They seemed
really

interested in all of the recommendations we were making," said Buckland.
"They seemed very appreciative that we had come in and talked to them and
gone

over it all."

 

Buckland was the executive director of the State Independent Living Council
at the time; Ball was the director of the Idaho Task Force on the Americans

With Disabilities Act. The two went over the blueprints for Idaho's $120
million capitol renovation and expansion with state officials, pointing out
things

like the need for wheelchair-accessible seating in the House and Senate
galleries and issues with elevators and doors.

 

Buckland had moved to Washington, D.C. to head the National Council on
Independent Living by the time the Statehouse renovation was completed in
2010; he

was stunned when he started getting reports from Idaho that none of the
changes he and Ball suggested had been made. Instead, new obstacles for
people

in wheelchairs had been added: The new underground wings had new stairs
separating their two levels, with the only alternative route a long and
circuitous

series of side hallways leading to a hard-to-find accessible elevator.

 

"We told them what they needed to do, and they ignored it," he said. So
Buckland filed a complaint under the Americans with Disabilities Act,
triggering

a federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.  Now, federal
authorities and the state have reached a settlement calling for $400,000 in
modifications

to the renovated capitol, five years after the renovation project was
completed. They include many of the same items on Buckland's original list,
plus

more.

 

"To me, it's sort of bittersweet," Buckland said. Ball died a year and a
half ago after a serious illness. "It's the public's building, right?"
Buckland

said. "So obviously it should be accessible to the public, and that includes
people with disabilities. I mean, we have a right to be there to do the
public's

business." You can read my

full story here

at spokesman.com.

Posted May 28, 2015, 2:46 p.m. in:

 

Source:

http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/boise/2015/may/28/longtime-idaho-disability-r
ights-leader-calls-capitol-ada-settlement-bittersweet/