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AC Transit does indeed ignore riders needs
Editor:
You sure hit a nerve with your AC Transit cover story of January 4. It is common practice to omit runs on the line 64 that goes from Merritt College, through Montclair (near my home) and into Berkeley when there is a shortage of drivers. Family members have been late for work many times because a bus fails to arrives.
In addition I had a distressing experience when taking the bus while my car was in the shop. While waiting at Rockridge BART I noticed a blind woman with her guide dog struggling to make sense of her surroundings. In case you have never caught a bus at Rockridge, let me explain that buses wander into the general area, but do not stop at any specific place.
Sometimes they load in the middle of the street. Unlike BART, they do not announce what bus they are or where they are going.
I learned the woman was looking for the line 51 and she asked if it would stop near her. I knew it could stop just about anywhere in a half block area, so when my bus came I asked if he had any kind of radio to contact the line 51 and let the driver know someone needed assistance. His response was to tell me to pay attention to how I was inserting my transfer and to mind my own business.
Instead of getting off the bus right away to help her, I continued to work, not wanting to be half an hour late by waiting for the next bus. I still feel guilty about it.
We have reported problems and written letters but we never have received a response or apology. A friend, who knows I am writing this letter, has asked me to mention the driver who told a wheelchair-abled passenger there was no room on his bus (even though there was). The driver just didn't want to be bothered with helping the him on board.
Andrea Daniel
Oakland
Clarification of ADA statement
Editor:
I read Robert Lauriston’s letter titled “Liars can take pets anywhere,” in the Jan. 17 issue, and thought it important to clarify a statement made therein.
Mr. Lauriston writes: “As Minasian would have it, anyone wishing to bring a pet into a restaurant need only claim they are disabled and that their pet is a service animal.”
California Penal Code Section 365.7 states that “...Any person who knowingly and fraudulently represents himself or herself...to be the owner or trainer of any canine...identified as a guide, signal, or service dog...shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by both that fine and imprisonment.”
Business owners in Berkeley have a right to expect diligent enforcement of this provision by the Berkeley Police Department, and those who would seeks to gain entry to public establishments while misrepresenting their pets as service dogs should be forewarned of the serious consequences.
Michael Minasian
Berkeley
Good intentions are taken to an absurd level
Editor:
Thanks for the January 12 article “Service Animals Provoke Quandary.” This part of the A.D.A. is an example of good intentions taken to an absurd level.
Trained seeing-eye dogs have been used by the blind for decades and the health and safety laws regarding dogs have correctly been waived for these situations, and it’s worked because the need is constant and obvious, and the frequency is modest.
Unfortunately, “service animals” under A.D.A. has come to mean that one group of people gets to bring their pets into virtually any indoor public place and the health, safety and comfort of others is legally disregarded. I have observed “service animals” in various places here in the East Bay and they are indeed pets. Rationalizations abound for “service animals” in public indoor places but factually if a person falls out of a wheelchair, another person, not a dog, will remedy the situation.
If a person has a seizure a fellow human, not a dog, will place an object between the teeth and phone for medical help. If a disabled person in our library drops a pen or book, it is vastly easier and quicker if a staff person or patron picks up the object. And so on.
If a disabled person wants to have a dog, great! If the dog is a comfort in that person’s home, better yet, however there are other people here in our community and the restrictions on dogs are quite necessary. Why can’t dogs go anywhere? After all, dog is god spelled backward, for some folks their dogs are even a “co-pilot.” And isn’t it a nice gesture to let the disabled have their pets in indoor public places?
Tens of thousands of people are injured yearly, some severely, from bites, scratches and knockdowns by dogs. Even today we still caution our children about dogs as a single bite can be fatal in the case of rabies. Hundreds of thousands of people suffer respiratory and/or skin allergies from the skin and fur of dogs. Symptoms or exposure include cold-like respiratory problems, rashes and asthma.
The allergens from dogs can remain in the indoor environment for hours or days after the animal has left. Md.’s treating such allergies always advise avoidance over drugs, but this is increasingly difficult, with frequent encounters with “service animals.”
For millions, dogs are intrusive, smelly nuisances, best avoided - they have fecal matter on both ends, the mouth parts may have been in contact with rotting garbage or dead animals, the fur can be laced with poison oak, herbicides, pesticides, ticks and fleas. Dogs are, after all, just dogs and they can make us ill. I certainly want to avoid restaurants where there are animals.
The A.D.A. has generally been good for our country and good for my immediate family. My partner is in a wheelchair and better access has helped. The “service animal” part of the A.D.A. should be changed to give special access only to seeing-eye dogs.
Recently an uncaged, 200 pound plus pig was allowed in the cabin of a U.S. Airways flight. The airline didn’t want the pig onboard, but was afraid of a lawsuit under the “service animal” section of the A.D.A.
The pig provided “emotional support” for it’s owners, they claimed; it also roamed around, made loud noises and defecated. What of the emotional well-being and health of the other people on board?
John Ayra
Berkeley
Green with envy, or Green with indigestion?
Editor:
It’s not much of a surprise that the Green Party letter (well, advertisement) you ran on Wednesday betrays the same cluelessness we’ve come to expect from the party whose slogan ought to be “Not just a symbolic vote anymore – now we're doing real damage.”
Green Party members seem determined to ignore the differences between the European parliamentary system, in which Greens have sometimes been able to secure a share of power (despite the repugnance of many Greens for actual participation in government), and the presidential system in the United States, which has thwarted power-sharing.
In a nutshell: While in a parliamentary system chief executives serve at the pleasure of a legislative body, in the states we chose them by periodic direct election (unless they're Democrats, in which case they need judicial approval as well).
While you can bargain in a parliamentary system, exchanging the votes of your party's legislature bloc for positions in the executive, no such negotiating is possible here. Any attempt to affect the outcome of a presidential election must take the form of "promise us something and we'll try to throw our support your way," which is how in previous elections Jesse Jackson tried to employ what muscle the Rainbow Coalition could muster.
Instead, while acknowledging they couldn't win, the Greens argued that the two parties were so disappointingly alike that the best thing their supporters could do was to help the Greens get enough votes to qualify for federal election funding, so they could run a "real" campaign in 2004.
With such a pathetic platform, it's not hard to see why they didn't come within spitting distance of their already minuscule 5 percent goal.
If the Green Party is ever going to recover from the the Nader candidacy devastation, they need to stop alienating their natural constituencies and proclaim their intention to only run candidates in races where there is some realistic hope of victory. (Meaning basically, for the foreseeable future of this very weak party, municipal offices and a handful of state legislature races where they can actually argue clear and tangible differences with the Democrats.)
The considerably wiser heads of the small, also left-wing New Party recognized the cause of the third-party dilemma three years ago, and sued to force all states to allow them to endorse candidates from other parties for offices for which they chose not to put forth a candidate.
In New York, for instance, the Liberal Party has their own line on the ballot, but lists major party candidates they've cross-endorsed for statewide races. Had they prevailed, smaller parties would have been able to run statewide and nationwide campaigns without having to be spoilers.
The New Party lost their case in a predicable split vote before the Supreme Court, the composition of which will be determined, should any vacancies occur, by the man Ralph Nader kept absurdly insisting was in practice indistinguishable from Al Gore.
Dave Blake
Berkeley
