[Ohio-Talk] Shared Scooters and Bikes

[Todd Elzey]

Fellow Federationists:

As many of you know one of the areas I work on is covering local government
meetings in the Kettering region. On Monday I pulled up the agenda for the
Tuesday Kettering City Council meeting to prepare for coverage of the
event. I took special note of the proposed ordinance on the agenda that if
passed would allow shared scooters and bikes to operate in the City of
Kettering. The Ordinance appears to allow both docked and dockless devices.
As we know these types of devices can be problematic for many individuals
with disabilities, including those of us who are blind or have low vision.
In fact, the NFB of Ohio passed a Resolution on the issue in 2019.

On behalf of the NFB of Ohio Springfield Chapter and in my own personal
capacity I reached out to the Kettering City Manager, Mark Schwieterman,
and the entire Kettering City Council. I shared our Resolution with them.
Then, although journalists rarely want to become part of the news they are
covering, Tuesday evening during Council's public comment section, as a
resident of Kettering, I spoke on the Ordinance proposal. If you would like
to hear what I told Council, the video of the meeting can be viewed at:
http://vod.mvcc.video:8080/CablecastPublicSite/show/10781?channel=1

I also included the issue in the article I wrote about the meeting for the
Kettering Sentinel. That article can be viewed at:
https://ketteringsentinel.town.news/g/kettering-oh/n/49899/kettering-city-council-approved-2-ordinances-and-7-resolutions-its-november

Fortunately, this work is paying off. City Manager Schwieterman has agreed
to discuss possible solutions to the issues I raised, and I have gotten
some interest in the issue from Kettering's incoming Mayor Peggy Lehner.
But if you have a connection to Kettering, and are also concerned about the
Ordinance proposal I encourage you to reach out to the City to let them
know of your concerns. The text of the proposed Ordinance is attached to
the November 9, 2021, Council agenda which can be found at:
https://www.ketteringoh.org/city-council-meetings/

The Council and Mayor can be emailed
at KetteringMayorCouncil at Ketteringoh.org and City Manager Mark Schwieterman
can be emailed at KetteringCityManager at Ketteringoh.org  If you email the
Mayor and City Council, or the City Manager, it would be great if you could
include me with a copy to toddelzey at gmail.com so that I can be aware of
your comments when we discuss the issue further with the City.

Thank you and I hope everyone is having a great post convention week.

Todd Elzey