Public Comment

Dear Mayor and City Council:

We’re writing as a follow-up to disability issues mentioned by Mary Behm-Steinberg during the public comment period.

Ironically, that meeting also had accessibility issues, and they were issues that would cost little or nothing to correct. In the case of one of them (having at least 2 copies of the agenda in 18 point type), we have been asking for well over a year and it still has not happened. This is absurd, especially for something so simple and cheap, particularly in the home of the disability rights movement, and especially when both Oakland and San Francisco have demonstrated that it is easy and possible to do.

The other problem last night a lack of seating designated for mobility impaired individuals, especially during a meeting everyone should have known would be packed. We both have mobility issues, and we had to move multiple times to have a place to sit. There were very few individuals who offered a seat, and while we are always thankful for those who do (and we did accept), the lack of awareness on this issue only grows when it is reinforced by an administrative structure that demonstrates similar types of insensitivity to basic needs. 

There is a huge stigma around disability in the greater community. It is taboo in many circles to talk about it, because “no one wants to hear about it,” (as many of us have heard many times), or, and this is important, because everybody wants to believe that if they’re just “responsible” enough for their own health, it won’t happen to them. Even when we try to bring attention to this issue, as Mary Behm-Steinberg did in her non-agenda remarks, the people who most need to hear the message will often just ignore it, as Councilmember Kesarwani did when Mary brought up her inaccessible public town hall event. Getting up and leaving the room when your constituent is speaking about a vital issue that you have still not demonstrated even the most basic respect or concern for is unacceptable, and Mary meant it when she said she would keep you on the hot seat about this until and unless you start behaving in a substantively compassionate way on these issues. It is not just “too bad” if someone can’t attend one of these meetings because of accessibility issues, as Ms. Kesarwani said to me (although I do thank her for carrying my walker up the stairs). It is a violation of basic civil rights, and seeing as we spoke at length about homelessness and so many people on the streets that couldn’t get up the stairs with an assist I did, that won’t fly. This is life and death for them. 

All of these things combine to discourage participation from some of the most vulnerable people in the community. We span all other threatened groups as well, from people of color, women, seniors, LGBTQI people, and people who are indigent (often from discrimination for membership in multiple other threatened groups). This makes many of us double, triple, or quadruple disadvantaged. If we can’t even count on our leadership to hold space open for us, how can we ever expect that our needs will be understood, let alone met? 

We realize that some of these things take more thought to work out, and are very open to having those discussions and to creatively collaborating to do make these things possible within the challenging constraints of the budget and personnel issues. What we are not willing to do is to simply buckle under to “democracy is imperfect, and it’s just too bad.” We are as important as any other constituency and we will, as so many others have admirably done, stand up for our basic rights.  

Please join us. It’s far more rewarding to celebrate all of our hard work building a just and equitable society together than it is having to constantly police ignorance and bad behavior when accommodation requires a little bit of extra work or doesn’t “pencil out” with a beloved set of plans. We look forward to more celebration and less strife. 

Thank you for all your hard work, and for your time and attention to these details. We look forward to working with you to create a more just and harmonious city where everyone’s basic rights are respected.