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Mayor Berated For Refusal to Let Disabled Speak Early at Council Meeting

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday November 13, 2007

Berkeley is home to the movement for the independence of disabled people and winner of the National Organization on Disability’s 2006 Accessible America competition, yet the disabled community expressed outrage at what people said was the mayor’s insensitivity at the Nov. 6 council meeting. 

Near the beginning of the meeting, Mayor Tom Bates refused a request by Councilmember Dona Spring to allow the issue of the warm pool, a swimming pool heated especially for the needs of frail seniors and disabled people, to be heard early in the evening.  

“There are a lot of elderly and disabled folks here to talk about the warm water pool. Could we take that up as the first item so that they can make their comments and then go home?” Spring asked the mayor, explaining, “They’ve got rides waiting for them?”  

Spring, who told the Planet she was “very upset at the treatment of the disabled by the mayor,” plans to bring a resolution to council in the near future to establish a rule permitting disabled and elderly people the right to speak early in council meetings. 

Many disabled people use paratransit services and must schedule transportation needs in advance. In addition, many depend on assistants to get them to bed, so they cannot be late getting home. Some disabled and frail people find it difficult or impossible to sit through a meeting.  

Responding to Spring’s request, Bates said that before the council heard the warm pool issue, it would address a zoning matter—telecommunications antennas, listed as Items 22 and 23 on the agenda. Then, Bates said, the council would hear his item on a solar financing district, Item 30 on the agenda. 

The warm pool issue was Item 28, part of the larger discussion of measures that might go on the ballot in 2008.  

“It should be [heard] relatively soon,” Bates told Spring, responding to her request. 

However, the item wasn’t heard for almost three hours. By that time, at least five people who had wanted to address the council had left the meeting, according to Joann Cook, who co-chairs One Warm Pool, the group advocating for the facility. 

“[Bates] was so disrespectful,” Cook told the Planet on Friday, stating further that she had noted the time the mayor used for his “pet” solar-financing issue. “He boasted about his idea for 37 minutes,” she said. 

“The mayor obviously wanted to make [the warm pool item] wait till after he got media coverage for his solar thing,” Worthington said. “He disenfranchised disabled people and senior citizens.”  

Gary Marquard was among those who had to leave early. He told the Planet Friday that his body cannot take the stress of sitting in a regular chair for long periods of time.  

“When Dona brought up [the idea of hearing the issue early in the evening], the mayor was dismissive,” Marquard said. “I wasn’t intending to speak. I wanted to see what happened and hold my [warm pool] sign to bear witness.”  

Worthington said in order to get his item heard while the TV cameras were still in the council chambers, the mayor violated council regulations. 

“Under council rules, Item 28 should come before Item 30,” Worthington said. “The rules say they should be taken in order unless there’s an action of the council.” 

Unsuccessful in getting the issue heard earlier, Worthington asked Bates, when the issue of the council ballot measures came up late in the evening, to allow speakers to address the council before staff gave its report. 

The mayor, however, had the deputy city manager give her report on the ballot measures before calling on the public to speak.  

He apologized for the lateness of the hour. “We’re sorry about that,” Bates said. “It’s not exactly our fault.” 

The Planet tried without success to reach the mayor for further clarification. 

Spring responded to the mayor’s comment in a phone interview Friday: “He had the audacity to say, we had no control over it,” Spring said. “He wanted to showcase his solar project.”  

Wearing his trademark black derby, Mark Hendrix, executive director of the Center for Accessible Technology, had rolled into the council meeting before its 7 p.m. start time. He was among those who had wanted to speak to the council, but had to leave early. 

Hendrix uses a wheelchair and public transportation to get around, but if he gets home late, his assistant is no longer available to help him get to bed, he told the Planet on Friday. Then, he said, he has to call emergency services and ends up getting to bed very late, which makes it difficult for him to get up early for work. 

“I wish Shirley Dean were mayor,” Hendrix said of the former Berkeley mayor. She allowed people with disabilities and small children to speak early in the evening, “unlike the current mayor,” he said. 

Reached Friday, Dean told the Planet that she could not recall if it had been written into council rules, but it was her policy to allow people with young children, seniors and the disabled to speak first. “It was so they didn’t have to sit through a long meeting,” she said. 

Dean said she had watched the Nov. 6 council meeting on TV. “I am outraged at what happened there,” she said. “I don’t understand why those things keep happening.” 

Something similar had happened to Richard Devylder in Los Angeles in 2001, Barbara Blinderman, attorney with Los Angeles-based Moskowitz, Brestoff, Winston & Blinderman told the Planet on Friday.  

Currently deputy director at the California Department of Rehabilitation, Devylder has no limbs and uses a wheelchair. He came to a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting to object to the appointment of a particular person named to the Commission on Disabilities, but after waiting hours for the item to come up, he had to leave.  

Blinderman filed a lawsuit on Devylder’s behalf in federal court. “It was a civil rights action,” she said. “He was denied the opportunity to speak.” 

Blinderman said her client didn’t want money. “He wanted to speak,” she said. Devylder won his case in 2002, mandating that the L.A. supervisors write rules assuring disabled people the right to speak early in the evening, Blinderman said.