I understood the federal agencies like the VA are under the federal
rehabilitation act, not the ADA. Is this correct? Then (if I am
Correct)you would have to fgo through the federal rahabilitaion act
to see if this is discrimination by  the VA denying the application
of reimbursement eqauly for physical disability service dogs as for
guide dogs as regards the reimbursement from the prothetics
department of the VA.But I dont remeber anything but guide dogs being
mentioned in that particualr law. So this may be a big loophole they
can use and legally deny reimbursement despite their recent
regulations to supply a service dog to a veteran who needs one
through the VA. Lets Hope I am incorrect. But all the inforamtion I
have says a federal agency is exempt from the ADA. be it a post
office ,federal court house ,the military. ect. ~~~~~Nora Terrell

It probably turns on whether the lack of response to requests for service
dogs as a prostetic is based upon a determination that the animal meets
whatever the regulatory definition is.  I recall in the message that it
had been determined that this is the case at one level and hence the
question becomes whether the determining unit has the authority to make
the determination and bind the other units to it?  Can you share what
knowledge you have on this?

	 If the lack of response to a legitimate claim is based upon
anything other than the criteria appropriately applied; then probably the
ADA is violated.

-- Charlie.

---- Original Message ------
From: "Russell Schermer" <schermer@...
Subject: [peejay@...: [GuideDogs] Fw: O/T targeting blindness lists]
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 13:35:21 -0800


Hi all,

I wish I didn't have to write messages like this, but there are some

sick

people out there.

Rick and I as list moderators have been getting messages addressed to

the list owner from several people using hotmail addresses.

Now it seems they are targeting lists with blind members.  The CC

fields of

the messages contain such lists as those dealing with JFW,  and other

lists

with the words Guide" or "Blind" in them.

It is always someone from another country who has lost a family member,

usually the father, and they are asking you to help them get funds that

the

supposed now dead person had deposited in a Swiss bank account.

This is a SCAM of the highest order.

Do not let them con you or anyone you know into cooperating with them.

They want you to set up a bank account and they will give you some of

the

funds.  You won't ever see any money from this, and you may very well

wind

up in jail or at the very least out of some of your own cash.

Up till now, we have been just deleting and ignoring these messages,

but

when Rick spotted addresses of list dealing specifically with blind

people

we decided to put the word out.

The person or persons who are making up this false information must be

surfing the net, looking for groups of people they consider gullible.

Don't

become a victim and don't let anyone else you know become one either.

Spread the word.

The message subjects are-

"I NEED YOUR HELP" or "URGENT".

The message is usually not addressed to any one person but to "Dear

Sir" or

"Dear friend".

And it's always the same story.

Someone has recently died or been killed, and the family needs your

help to

get large amounts of cash before their government seizes it.

Remember, this is not real, but a scam to get your bank account number

or at

the very least money from you.

Forward this to any list owners or lists you feel might benefit from

the

Heads up.

PeeJay

List owner and moderator

[guidedogs@...]






Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/


----- End forwarded message -----

--

Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV/3   | "And if the ground yawned,

Phone: (814) 455-7333     | I'd step to the side and say,

Email: davros@...  | "Hey ground! I'm nobody's lunch!"

http://www.ycardz.com/    | --Eddie From Ohio


===================END FORWARDED MESSAGE===================



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Hello all,

The judge continues to permit the NFL, City of San Diego and others to
violate ADA and State Civil Rights Laws dealing with disabled access to the
Qualcomm stadium.  In fact, they have removed most of the handicapped
parking.  No personal vehicles will be allowed in the stadium parking lot,
so it won't matter they said.  Many seats that were set up special for
those who use wheelchairs have also been removed.  Of course, access issues
that affect people who are deaf/HOH or blind/VI and other PWD have ALL BEEN
TOTALLY IGNORED.

The Judge is Federal court Judge Leo Papas. I have limited address and
phone for him but possibly you can find something at:   www.govengine.com
  or one of the other government sites.  If you do please share it with us.
Here is the address and phone info that I do have.  Let's let them know
what we think of their failure to provide access.  Remember, Time is
running out.

U.S. Federal Court
880 Front St
San Diego, CA
619-557-5600

Judge Leo Papas
619-557-6384

Mayor Dick Murphy
City of San Diego
202 "C" St
San Diego, CA 92101
619-236-6330
fax 619-236-7228
dickmurphy@...

David Washburn --  Reporter who has been doing the stories (a FRIEND to
PWD)  A BIG THANK YOU TO HIM AND THE PAPER MIGHT HELP
San Diego Union Tribune

Thank you

Rev Clyde Shideler

Hello Robin,

      Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I am certain that most of the IRBs
are staffed by well-intentioned competent people who want to do the right
thing. Though I am skeptical of IRBs, I do not suggest that I know about all
of them. I do know about some of them. In Cambridge, MA where I live and
where Harvard and MIT exist, I've had a lot of trouble simply speaking with
any member of the many IRBs in this area.
      Harvard refused to identify the members of their IRBs though it is
public information. The current Director (who announced his resignation) of
the Office of Human Research Protection, is a Harvard Medical School
professor, Greg Koski. When he was the Chair of the Mass General Hospital
IRB, I called to ask for the names of those members and he opened a police
investigation of me. I realized then, that he was more concerned with
protecting the researchers than the subjects.
      The Cambridge City Hospital IRB's (now called the Cambridge Health
Alliance) community rep, refused to speak with me, though as I understand it
that member of IRBs is supposed to represent the community.
      At MIT their community member is a retired doctor from MIT. There is
much more I could share with you, but it would take a lot of time.
      As for the diligence that an IRB expends I suspect it varies greatly
from IRB to IRB (compare the quality of treatment from one physician to
another). I've heard from numerous IRBs that they seldom have time to
scrutinize ANY of the many experiments they oversee. The only time that they
do, is when there are adverse events. This was quoted in the New York Post
in 1998 when they ran a series on abuses in New York State.
      When you say that, "No person can force research on another in the
United States." you do not consider how many persons have been used for
research without being told. See for example, Jay Katz's book, "Human
Experimentation," Russell Sage Foundation, 1970. Some of these unlawful
experiments (radiation laced foods fed to retarded citizens of state homes,
without their knowledge, by MIT for Quaker Oats) are still being litigated
though they occurred from 1944 to 1974. No lawyers acted until AFTER the US
government admitted in 1993, what they did.
      You say, " ... when an institution acts out of accordance with the
Federal Regulation, all research at that institution can be suspended." I am
trying to have that done at Harvard and MIT currently and they are brutally
harassing me because of their unlawful research.
      What you say is true, but there is no penalty to the researcher who may
have been negligent harming or killing a subject. The family or estate of
the deceased must sue for damages in a civil court which seldom grants
substantial damages to these victims of professionals.
      Your suggestion to investigate, is well taken. But it takes a lot of
effort and persistence. I have yet to speak with any members of any area IRB
though I've asked many times a few years ago in writing and by fax and
phone. It is effectively a secret group with no public access.
     Finally (Please do not take this personal. It cannot apply to you for I
have not met you.) though I am sorry to hear that you are disabled, I find
that many persons with physical disabilities are as biased toward mental
patients as non disabled persons. Mental patients and others who are
marginalized by the society in which we live are easy targets for abusive
researchers. The current president of the Amer. Psychiatric Asoc. openly
promotes the use of mental patients in custody for research.
      Though most people thought to be mentally ill are denied basic rights
and privileges of citizenship, the psychiatrists want to use them for
research saying that they "have lucid moments when they are able to give
informed consent. Huh?
      You say that "There are an increasing number of protections currently
being put into place to more closely monitor Institutional Review Boards."
But under Harvard's Greg Koski at OHRP, he lobbied to remove some of the few
protections. For example he wanted to eliminate the rule that if
identifiable medical information was used by professionals, the person whose
information was being used, was defined as a human research subject and
gained the few protections that exist. This would allow a non consensual
human research subject's information to be used by teaching hospitals
without the subject ever knowing he was used as a subject. My reports are
that the few rules, they are laws without any penalties for non compliance,
are being weakened.
       Currently the biotech companies and the pharmaceutical industry try to
weaken protections. Indeed the new general counsel for the FDA is a former
industry lawyer who undermined protections from misleading ads by
pharmaceutical companies.
      But most importantly the CFR only applies to US taxpayer funded
research. If a team gets money from a corporation and hires a corporation
who conducts research, there is NO, repeat, NO oversight. The CFR does not
apply.
      During recent years many doctors have quit treating patients and opened
clinical research offices. Last month an advertising agency began doing
medical research. They promote the drugs in the media and conduct the
research.
     Many instances of conflict of interest, researchers getting money and
free trips from the corporations who pay for the research have been
reported, even at prestigious institutions. I suppose you did not see those
reports.

Roy Bercaw



Mr. Bercaw,
I am a layperson member of an Institutional Review Board (IRB).  I have
multiple disabilities and am not affiliated with the university where I
serve.  While the histories of some research you have chosen to mention are
valid lessons,  I can state that the IRB I am a member of takes very
seriously the potential risks and benefits of all research involving any
human participant, including "protected populations."  Risks and benefits of
a given study are examined in accordance with Federal Regulations.
Furthermore, the ethical principal of the therapeutic alliance is closely
adhered to in considering research design to ensure the trust of the
participant is not violated , thereby ruining the very alliance persons rely
upon for treatment and cure.  The trust of  the participant is highly
valued.  Concerns on the IRB I sit on are addressed directly and with the
greatest care.  Your wide-sweeping statements are not valid for every
institution.  However, I will validate the following points:  Any research
participant has a right to make an informed choice via the full consent
process.  This process is monitored closely and most researchers take to
heart their responsibility to any participant.  Any person has the right to
refuse consent or to withdraw consent from a research study at any time.  I
strongly recommend each person considering participation in a research study
ask the primary investigator for a copy of the research protocol.  Read the
protocol and consent fully and ask questions until you understand the study
for which you are considering participation.  If you have any reservation
about participation in a study, ask questions until you are comfortable
signing a consent or do not participate in the research.  This is your
right.  No person can force research on another in the United States.
Additionally, I am one of many persons with disabilities currently sitting
on Institutional Review Boards in this nation.  Your statement alluding to
the idea that institutions do not include community members is incorrect.
Community members act to balance Institutional Review Boards and in the
process we protect the interests of all persons who might participate in
research.
There are a number of ways that an Institutional Review Boards are regulated
and when an institution acts out of accordance with the Federal Regulation,
all research at that institution can be suspended.  There are an increasing
number of protections currently being put into place to more closely monitor
Institutional Review Boards.
I encourage any person to independently investigate methods of research
monitoring and the potential actions that can be taken if participants are
not properly protected.



_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

>Delivered-To: mkw84@...
>Subject: Information Sharing On Public Right-of-way
>Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 13:49:31 -0800
>X-MS-Has-Attach: yes
>X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
>Thread-Topic: Information Sharing On Public Right-of-way
>Thread-Index: AcK+clD/d8KiB2SMSa2IVyEsVpqUuw==
>From: "Wilkerson. Marc" <WilkersonM@...>
>To: <mkw84@...>
>Cc: <lozanoe@...>
>X-OriginalArrivalTime: 17 Jan 2003 21:49:32.0221 (UTC)
>FILETIME=[5178B6D0:01C2BE72]
>X-Spam-Rating: mail.velocitywest.com 1.6.2 500/2000/N
>
>Please see attached a transcript of a speech by Lois Thibault of the U.S.
>Access Board. The Access Board is tasked with drafting accessibility
>guidelines on Public Right-Of-Way, transportation, recreation facilities,
>Buildings and Facilities  etc.  In most instances, the Access Boards
>guidelines are then adopted by the U.S. Department Of Justice as
>standards.  You will note that the Access Board has been concerned about
>access to the Public Right-of-Way for People With Disabilities since the
>passage of the ADA.  However, in the scheme of things access to buildings
>and facilities were a higher priority for the Access Board and the Justice
>Department.  Please note the careful distinction Thibault makes between
>new construction, and alterations.  You will see that the Access Board has
>always contemplated that a critical component of providing access to
>critical programs and services for the disabled involved providing "access
>routes" in the public Right-Of-Way, which includes sidewalks.  The U.S.
>Justice Department, which is the lead enforcement Agency  for the
>ADA,  also shares this view.  The vehicle by which State and local
>Governments are to meet this mandate is through developing transition
>plans, meeting existing standards, to the maximum extent
>feasible/technically feasible, when alterations take place, and meeting
>existing standards when new construction occurs.  This is why the
>standards review that takes place as a part of an ADA transition plan for
>streets and sidewalks is so critical.  The same process needs  to take
>place for Facilities.
>
>
>Thanks Marc
>  <<Distance Learning Program TranscriptPublic Rights of Way.htm>>
>  <<Distance Learning Program TranscriptPublic Rights of Way.htm>>
>

The idea of right of way is that the public, the local jurisdiction, has control over it. And the land is not really bought or sold in the way that sites where buildings are constructed are dealt with, but is provided as a service to the residents and taxpayers of a particular jurisdiction. Because the right of way is constrained in a lot of ways, perhaps, by underlying slope, by narrowness, width, something that's already developed along it, which kind of fixes its edges, and because it's linear as opposed to constrained on four sides like a site is, it conceivably could go on almost forever, or at least until you get to the boundaries of a jurisdiction.  So it has very different characteristics and those characteristics tend to act to limit the possibilities, what you can do to make the right of way accessible. 

For our purposes at the Access Board we have looked at the right of way as being sidewalks, street crossings and the related pedestrian facilities that the sidewalk may support, benches and things like that, perhaps telephones, drinking fountains and so on. We started looking at rights of way issues back in 1992.  Right after the board finished its work on developing guidelines under Title III of the ADA. Guidelines for buildings and facilities covered by Title III. Title III facilities and also some Title II facilities, say state and local government buildings, for instance, are all built on sites, very little is actually constructed in the public right of way. So you have on a site a stopping and a starting place, you can require an accessible route that goes from the boundary of the site to the accessible entrance.  That's what the ADA accessibility guidelines were developed to describe, those accessibility requirements that provided a usable building or facility on a site. When the ADA was passed, and the Access Board was given responsibility to develop guidelines that covered entities could use to measure whether they were meeting the intent of the ADA, most of our focus was on making sure that the guidelines we developed would guarantee an accessible building or a facility. And we reserved the access issues for the public right of way until later after we had gotten the ADAAG under our belts. But we always intended to do it and we used it, the development of ADAAG as an opportunity to think about rights of way issues before starting it in 1992.

Now, the ADA requires that all new construction, regardless of where it is, public right of way, on a site, even in some cases on passenger vessels, and in places that we are just now also getting around to regulating, be constructed, designed and constructed to be accessible. When they are new and if they are being altered they also have to be accessible to the maximum extent feasible. The guidelines that we developed are measures of how that is done. You can follow the guidelines and be confident that if you build according to them that you have met the requirements under the ADA for accessible design and construction. Of course there are many other ADA requirements, this is actually just a fairly limited one. So from the beginning, people who were designing and constructing in the public right of way if a downtown was having a downtown improvement project, if a city was newly laying out roadways for a commercial center, all of those things were covered by the ADA. But what they didn't have was a recipe, if you will, for how to design and construct them so that they would be accessible. 

In these circumstances, where there aren't guidelines specific to a particular kind of use, the Justice Department, the enforcing agency, has said look to what is already out there in terms of guidelines, look to the ADA accessibility guidelines, perhaps to the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS) or even a state or local guideline of equivalent usability, and apply those guidelines and standards as best you can to the situation that you are facing. In many places that works fairly well. But the public right of way is so different from a route or a walkway on a site, that it clearly demanded a special set of provisions. 

A really good example, I think, is in some places, Seattle, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, if you applied the ADAAG requirements for an accessible route you would have to make ramps with landings and handrails out of all your sidewalks.  We knew that we didn't want to do that. That would fundamentally alter what sidewalks were constructed for, which was to provide for pedestrian transportation at the edge of a roadway. So that was one of the first issues that we addressed in 1992 when we began our work on developing guidelines for public rights of way. In December of that year we proposed some draft guidelines for public rights of way that eventually in 1994 became an interim final rule. Because this was a fairly new issue for people who do the design and construction work in the public right of way, these proposed guidelines aroused a great deal of both comment and concern. It's only been recently that highway engineers who are responsible for the design of our roadways have become much sensitized to the needs of pedestrians and pedestrians with disabilities were particularly low on their list. So there was a substantial learning curve needed in order to bring transportation industry designers to an understanding of the basic rationale behind accessibility provisions.  And to help them understand what they needed to do to their standard procedures and planning methods to make sure that their new sidewalks and related facilities and the work that they did in alterations would meet the needs of pedestrians with disabilities. 

The Access Board in 1994 after the interim final rule was published embarked on a fairly comprehensive outreach program to the highway industry . We developed manuals, a videotape, several technical assistance bulletins, we did some syntheses on key issues like detectable warnings and accessible pedestrian signals all in an attempt to reach industry with the information they needed to design for accessibility.  Much of this information I think has been posted in advance of this program and it's all with one exception, available on our web site directly for download. The videotape you would need to call us, specially to order but copies are available free if you are interested, just so dial up our toll free number 800-872-2253 and ask for one of the technical assistance staff to send you a copy of the videotape. 

In 1998 the Access Board decided that it would reserve the rights of way proposals that had been published as an interim final rule in 1994. The Justice Department had not taken any action on any of the four sections that had been published in 1994 and by then the board had started on a revision, a very substantial revision, to its basic ADAAG document and we wanted to fold in several of those recently proposed sections into this major rule making.  So we chose to reserve the sections on housing and public rights of way and in essence begin our rule making again feeling that by this time the industry would have come to a better understanding of accessibility requirements and would be both more sympathetic and more helpful in comment to what we were proposing. So, we started by convening the public rights of way access advisory committee, which was the largest of the federal advisory committees that we have ever worked with. We now do most of our rule making through this consensus process bringing together stakeholders from industry, from consumer groups, from state and local governments and the private sector, manufacturers, operators, and so on, in what usually is a one or two-year effort to look at key issues, make recommendations to the board, and from those recommendations then encourage the board to develop more broadly consensual standards. Working through a advisory committee has a lot of benefits for us because it helps us to identify areas of particular concern, issues that may be specific to a field, an industry, that the Access Board may not be fully familiar with. We are then able to understand industry regulations, practices and requirements and accommodate them in a way that makes for a more well rounded and balanced proposal. 

The rights of way committee included 12 from the transportation industry, about that number representing organizations of consumers.  For instance, we had the American Council of the Blind and the National Federation of the Blind and also AAR which is the organization that represents orientation and mobility specialists. We had representation from Seeing Eye in New Jersey, from a number of state and local governments, from the Department of Justice and the Federal Highway Administration, and several state and local transportation and public works agencies, we had ADA coordinators from cities and states, we had private sector consultants, transportation and traffic engineers, and architects, landscape architects, planners, it was a huge group. Overall about 55 members, 33 of them full members and 22 alternates. In addition, we worked to keep our meetings both informational and we met around the country. We often conducted on the street exercises, that looked at local conditions and considered specific sidewalk and street crossing problems. We did this in Portland, Oregon and Atlanta and San Antonio. And tried to involve not only just the membership of the committee and the alternates, but local engineers and disability advocates. Overall several hundred people were involved in the meetings and presentations and information gathering. 

This committee, that we call it PROWAC, was I think one of the most collegial that we have ever had at the Access Board. In fact they are still working on our behalf, developing a technical assistance manual that we will issue when we publish our notice of proposed rule making to help engineers understand how to apply the proposed guidelines to alterations which is largely what happens in the public right of way. There is very little actual new construction in the public right of way. Well, sometimes, you know, a new town is established or a new commercial center, but much of the construction that occur in the public right of way is a reworking of what's already there: street widening or narrowing, a change in you know the design of a downtown or several city blocks.  All of those situations, which we would consider alterations, require engineers to have a high degree of understanding of the rationale behind accessibility because it's impossible unless you are doing a fairly wholesale reconstruction to achieve the full range of new construction requirements in most alterations.  You will encounter underground drainage of vaults, a building wall that is in a location that prohibits widening, there is a conflict between the needs of vehicular and pedestrian circulation, there is safety issues, transportation practice issues, and so most engineers when they are working in the public right of way, are making engineering judgments about what can be achieved when you are trying to drop in a curb ramp at a specific location and you can't achieve all of the requirements that you could if you had total control as you would in new construction. So you may have to sacrifice a little bit on cross slope, there may be a width issue, you may have to think of a different way of achieving access between the sidewalk and the street because there isn't enough width to put in a standard curb ramp. 

These are all critical issues that engineers are dealing with more of the time than they are dealing with new construction. The rights of way committee has spent the last year developing a technical assistance manual that we hope will be published about mid-year in 2003. Partial funding for the manual is coming from the Federal Highway Administration, which has been our partner in this rule making. And it's being produced under the direction of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, which is the major membership organization for highway engineers in the U.S, particularly urban engineering and public agency staff. That document should be ready about mid-year, which is when we hope that we will be able to go on to the next step in rule making and the two will be companion publications. 

The document that I'm going to generally describe today is actually a preliminary document. It's a draft, not yet an official notice of proposed rule making, and it was published in order to assist the rights of way committee in developing the technical assistance manual they are working on and to obtain preliminary industry and public input to some of the changes that we have proposed. The publication that the PROWAC committee delivered to the Access Board in January 2001, their recommendations for an accessible public right of way were presented to the Transportation Research Board. And then once the board became familiar with them, we began our staff work on a regulatory document that would reflect their regulations.  For a number of reasons, the membership of the board, the interests of the board, staff concerns, and issues, even politics is involved, the board's proposals differ somewhat from the recommendations of the rights of way committee and in a few key areas, particularly with respect to the width of the passageway that's required to be accessible in a public sidewalk. And so we wanted to give good notice of these changes before we actually began the official rule making process and make sure that everybody understood.  Those of us who do rule making every day, get very frazzled with the details and we are very comfortable with phrases like proposed and guidelines and standards and notices, proposed rule making and things like that, but we find that we often confuse the public with all of these terms. And the public doesn't understand the difference between a guideline which is what the Access Board produces, and a standard, which is what the Justice Department produces.  With respect to the standards under the ADA, they are one and the same document. For the most part, the Justice Department has simply adopted our guidelines into the standards that they publish under the ADA. But that won't always be the case. And in fact, we have now produced at the board many more guidelines than the Justice Department has incorporated into their standards. So we have sections on judicial facilities, correctional facilities, children's elements, some changes to Title II issues, generally. And upcoming very soon, the final rule for recreation, it's just been approved by the office of management and budget. So those are all going to be guidelines but not yet standards. And we will be adding the public rights of way guidelines to that list, we hope, sometime next year or possibly the following year. 

But first, we want to take public comments and maybe either the temperature or the pulse of the transportation industry to make sure that we are all on the same page, that industry finds our proposals doable, and that people with disabilities who are the pedestrians who use these facilities will find them usable. So, we are going through that preliminary process now. It will culminate in a public meeting, an all day public meeting in Portland, Oregon on October 8th, where our board will meet and listen to public comment. We are doing it in Portland because both the chair of the public rights of way access advisory committee and the editor of the committee's recommendations to the board are Portland residents. One Jerry Marcusino, the supervising engineer for the Transportation Department in Portland, who was our chair, and the other Ellen Vander slice, who edited very ably and under a tight deadline, the recommendations of the committee to produce the committee's report. So when we are in Portland we are going to be able to recognize their contributions. 

So this is very much a, we think, a consensus document. We have heard because it's been out on the streets since June 17th, that there remains some concerns on the part of traffic and transportation engineers.  Some of those I think are probably misunderstandings others are in areas where we have proposed a requirement but asked a number of questions in our discussion and commentary material about ways to achieve certain objectives that would meet more nearly with industry practices. 

A very key issue really for the ten years that this rule making has been in process is the distinction between new construction and alterations. This is, of course, a fairly arbitrary thing. And with respect to buildings and facilities and in our own rule making efforts, at the Access Board we have one understanding of it. But the transportation industry has its own set of practices and terminology and so on. And there has been confusion, I think, since the very beginning of the process of developing the guidelines about what we meant by new construction. The advisory committee I think said it best. It means a cornfield in Kansas that's being newly turned into a public right of way. Where you have lots of control over how wide the right of way might be, how much of it will be roadway, how much sidewalk, where you can carefully manage running slope, cross slope, and all of those other issues. Most other work as I have indicated earlier, is going to be work that would be considered alterations. When industry engineers read our earlier proposals, they came to believe, though, this wasn't an accurate understanding, that if the guideline was adopted that they would then have to improve all of their existing streetscapes, sidewalks, crosswalks and so on to the standards that we were proposing for new construction.  And we have had a difficult time explaining ourselves to industry helping them understand that when they do an alteration, obviously the new work that gets put in place whether it's a curb ramp or a segment of a sidewalk, must as best it can, meet the new construction standards, just as an alteration to a building must attempt first to meet the new construction standards, but that there are lots of situations of technical infeasibility that may preclude the full  achievement of the new construction standards. And when those situations are encountered, then the engineer needs to make judgments about what must be sacrificed, if you will, in order to achieve a usable product that's the best that can be achieved under the conditions in which they are  working. I think we are finally starting to make progress in this area, and that engineers understand a little bit more these issues, but much remains, I think, to be explained. 

The fact that the ADA unlike a building code, also requires public agencies and private sector entities to actively retrofit, whether it's under program access or barrier removal, is also a problem because those things get conflated in the minds of engineers and  it isn't easy to discriminate what is a program access improvement required just to make sure that someone with a disability isn't precluded from using a facility and what might be new construction and alteration, so we are working hard on commentary and we are doing a lot of training going to industry events and so on, to make this a bit clearer. 

Let me just list the key issues that we have identified and I guess I will start with the first issue, which is one of width. The Access Board's proposal says that every new sidewalk and altered sidewalks to the maximum extent feasible, should contain what we call a pedestrian access route, it's like an accessible route but it's not as stringent. That pedestrian access route should be 48 inches wide. The advisory committee recommended 60 inches, we looked at common practice in sidewalk design and in a number of different places while industry is certainly transitioning to something wider, 60 inches is recommended, we felt that we could be more comfortable right now at 48 inches.  

Other issues detectable warnings which is both a hot issue currently because the temporary suspension of detectable warnings in ADAAG has expired and the Federal Highway Administration has let its customers know its state and local government agencies they expect to see detectable warnings on curb ramps. We have proposed a new technical standard on detectable warnings, still composed of truncated domes, but a shorter width of them only two feet, the same 24 inches that's required still on platforms at transit. Set this surface back about six inches from the curb line on the curb ramp for the blended transition ask then orient the domes in a grid pattern as opposed to the offset pattern that we first called for, so that wheelchair users can track between them. This is a compromise that was worked out between disability organizations and we and the Federal Highway Administration are encouraging agencies that now are installing detectable warnings on curb ramps to use the new specification as a they say an equivalent facilitation. 

Accessible pedestrian signals, typically audible and vibro-tactile.  When new signals are installed, pedestrian signals, they should include a visible and audible and a vibro-tactile component, any place that pedestrian signals are installed. We have newly suggested requirements for alternate circulation paths at construction projects that affect sidewalks and other pedestrian routes and will require where feasible, same side temporary routes. 

We have suggested that walking speeds are set too high in industry documents and need to be reduced to about three feet per second when industry calculates how much time needs to be allotted for a signal cycle, etc. We have seen that a lot of agencies seem to be dealing with this by installing technologies that allow them to see with either microwave or video or infrared technology if there is a pedestrian still in a crosswalk at the end of a signal cycle and then to just extend the vehicle red until the pedestrian clears, so this is certainly one way of achieving that goal. 

The other highly controversial issue is roundabouts, which are no stop or continuous passage round circulatory intersections where traffic yields to traffic in the circle, but basically is not required to stop if there is a gap that they can occupy. Roundabouts are very efficient movers of traffic, and are being welcomed by traffic engineers as a way of relieving congestion. So we are seeing more and more of them put in, particularly in some states where they have been adding them in great numbers, Maryland, the northwest.  They have proved to provide confusing cues to pedestrians with vision impairments and we are working hard to develop some standards for roundabout design that will provide the cues that blind pedestrians need to recognize and safely cross in a gap at roundabouts, but we are a long way from having good solutions.  In the interim, in the draft proposal, on the advice of the advisory committee we have proposed that roundabouts have signal control, whether it's a signal that a pedestrian can activate and isn't operating most of the time but only when a particular pedestrian needs it. We haven't determined that yet and we are really looking to industry to give us advice on what may be feasible in the various kinds of roundabouts that there are. 

We are also working very closely with industry groups to coordinate their development of a pedestrian guide so that we are all talking about the same thing and to harmonize the regulations that each of us propose. Once we have finished analyzing public comment and all the other comment that we receive on this draft, we will move forward with preparation of a notice of proposed rule making which will have more extensive commentary than the current version does and which we will be able to incorporate many of the suggestions we hope to get from the public, from industry, on some of these issues that may be still somewhat controversial. So look for that document in the spring of 2003 with the usual rule making process, then to follow. I think that's about it. In fact I think I have used perhaps more time than I ought to have. Jennifer?

Caller: So the access aisle is considered street? 

Lois Thibault: The access aisle may be a street, yes. I think there are locations where an access aisle may occupy a circulation route. The access aisle issue if you are talking about a curb ramp that goes to an access aisle in a parking lot I think is a very special case. In most instances may not require a detectable warning on a site. Those of you who have looked at the detectable warnings issue may know that the proposal of the ... in the revised ADAAG that will be coming out will not have a requirement for detectable warnings on any work on site, since they will ultimately as things go forward as we currently anticipate, detectable warnings will be a product required in the public right of way. At transit platform edges and where sidewalks cross streets, essentially, where the danger is greatest. 

Jennifer Skulski: Good, thanks for your question, Chris. Lois, let's talk about on street parking. 

Lois Thibault: Okay. 

Jennifer Skulski: I see there is a new definition of what an accessible on street parking parking space actually looks like. You can't actually just put up a sign that says accessible parking, we have to have an access aisle now?

Lois Thibault: Well, you may just put up a sign. If you are working in an existing developed environment, that may be what the accessible space is, a sign. Where you have got wide sidewalks and you have the ability to provide an access aisle, we expect that it will be provided again in new construction. Those are fairly rare occurrences, sometimes a downtown is, you know, streetscape is rebuilt and we would expect to see accessible spaces. Typically they will be at the head or foot of a block where you can use the curb ramp that's at the intersection. The access aisle may be indented into the sidewalk if there is adequate width in big developed urban areas. In many cases it may be just the balance of a curb lane sufficient width to open your door and exit your car. 

Jennifer Skulski: Good. What about parking meters? Is that going to be covered? 

Lois Thibault: Parking meters are a item that requires operation. So we have some reach range and operation issues there. We are also seeing a lot of sort of new mainly European technologies now where you put some money in a device and get a little slip that you put on the dashboard of your car, so all of those mechanisms will have to be accessible within reach ranges and so on. 

Caller: Hi. My name is Judith, I actually have three questions. Has there been another design guide since the one that was put out in 1999?

Lois Thibault: No. But we are working on it. The advisory committee is working on a design guide specifically for alterations 

Caller: I mean the one you are talking about in existence right now 

Lois Thibault: Yes, that's the only one right now. The Federal Highway Administration has a design guide also, called "Designing Accessible Sidewalks and Trails" in two volumes which is very useful, too. 

Caller: Okay. And is there any proposals in the new guidelines for extended block parking? I gather that I can't remember offhand, but in the existing proposed guidelines, you are proposal at least one space per block.

Lois Thibault: Yes 

Caller: If the block is three blocks long, we have been trying to recommend that they put several curb side parking areas along that block but the argument that we are getting is there are no crosswalks so we don't need to have accessible parking.  Between the two corners which are three blocks apart 

Lois Thibault: Block sizes vary enormously in the U.S. And some pedestrian friendly cities like Portland you have very short block, 200 people in Portland are saying gosh that's a big inventory of accessible spaces and other cities you go for a considerable distance. I think cities will have to arrive at their own understanding of what the a block face is. This was a tough issue for the advisory committee to develop a common standard that would apply. I think if there are very long blocks with spaces at the head and foot on both sides would be very appropriate. But it may require more definition in a locality that doesn't have a standard way of... that we would understand as a block. 

Caller: Like maybe ten per mile or something like that? 

Lois Thibault: Uh-huh, yes. That's certainly a possibility. One of the things we found in working in the right of way is how very many different ways cities are designed and built. How many different kinds of curb ramps there are and parking arrangements and so on. And it's been very difficult to feel that we have even got a small handle on all of the things that might need to be covered. So I don't think that we have necessarily done it, you know, perfectly or well even, yet, and that might be a really good subject for comment to this draft proposal. 

Caller: My name is Pam. I'm just I have a question about the crosswalk situation where it's three foot per second and then you said you said if the person is still in the crosswalk they would be delayed? That they would be delayed. How is that... is that technology that would let the driver to know to wait or signs saying yield to pedestrians? We are in a situation where people are in crosswalks, they are in the middle and drivers are not seeing them and almost hitting them. You know, they are turning, pedestrians are going the same direction as the traffic, pedestrians and traffic are going parallel. But when they make a turn, they would be turning into the path of the pedestrians. And it's a really dangerous situation and we are trying to work with it, but I don't know if that's something that's going to be mandated? Am I understanding you correctly about the delay to traffic? 

Lois Thibault: Well, what I was describing was technology that is in place in some cities that can actually extend the time that there is a red light for vehicles if there is still is a person in the crosswalk. That is done with infrared or video technology, there is a lot of ways that it can be done. It would be one of the ways of satisfying the demand that we are expressing in our guideline that the crossing time be extended because many pedestrians don't walk at the four feet per second that the timing is based on now. Things have changed enormously in the U.S. in the last ten or 15 years, pedestrians and cars are fighting for the same time and space, this has had a particularly difficult effect on pedestrians with vision impairments, and we are trying to adjust the balance a little bit to return some safety to being a pedestrian and to making sure that people with disabilities aren't inequitably affected by some of those things that have changed, right turn on red, for instance, roundabouts, and things like that. But this is a process that we are not driving. The whole issue of pedestrianism I think is a bigger issue than accessibility and we are aligning ourselves with pedestrian interests, but a lot needs to be done still to bring transportation engineers to an understanding that this is space that needs to be safely shared by a number of users, bicyclists as well, this is a start to the process. We welcome, you know, comments about this issue particularly there are other people in the transportation industry who are working on these issues also which are not strictly speaking, disability issues. 

Caller: Which are four way stops rejected? Four way stops to traffic for pedestrians to go all the way around? 

Lois Thibault: They haven't been rejected, no. I think there are a lot of different ways of satisfying this particular need. And that's one of the reasons that we have put this proposal out, you can think of it perhaps as a start or a baby proposal where we are trying to both suggest what the issues are. Identify some possible ways of dealing with them and then asking for public recommendations and input on the kinds of situations that they are facing, what the issues are, so that when we go to the next step in our rule making, when we develop our notice of proposed rule making, while we will have more comprehensive answers, maybe a wider range of answers for different situations and so on. This is really a very preliminary notice that we have put out and we are looking for answers as much as anything else. 

Jennifer Skulski: Thanks for your question. Lois we are coming up at the top of our hour and unfortunately we could probably talk about pedestrian access routes and public rights of way all day long but we have to come to a close. I think you make a really good point even though this is a draft, people are still able to comment on it right now; is that right? 

Lois Thibault: Absolutely. Until the end of October they can comment to us by mail, by e-mail, by fax, the directions are actually right on our web site where the draft is posted. www.access-board.gov. 

Jennifer Skulski: Thanks very much for joining us today, Lois, we appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule before you leave on vacation. 

Lois Thibault: Thank you for your hospitality. 

Jennifer Skulski: Thank you to all of our sites for joining us today, we were excited you were able to spend this afternoon with us and hope you will join us next month on September 17 when we talk about accommodations for students with psychiatric disabilities in the classroom. As a reminder the transcript for this session will be posted to the Great Lakes web site next week on www.ADAgreatlakes.org. And in the event that you have questions about the ADA or upcoming sessions, please call your regional Disability and Business Technical Assistance Center at 800-949-4232. 

Lois Thibault: Or the Access Board at 800-872-2253. 

Jennifer Skulski: Very good. Thanks Lois and thanks to all of you for joining us today. 

Previous Session Transcripts

The idea of right of way is that the public, the local jurisdiction, has control over it. And the land is not really bought or sold in the way that sites where buildings are constructed are dealt with, but is provided as a service to the residents and taxpayers of a particular jurisdiction. Because the right of way is constrained in a lot of ways, perhaps, by underlying slope, by narrowness, width, something that's already developed along it, which kind of fixes its edges, and because it's linear as opposed to constrained on four sides like a site is, it conceivably could go on almost forever, or at least until you get to the boundaries of a jurisdiction.  So it has very different characteristics and those characteristics tend to act to limit the possibilities, what you can do to make the right of way accessible. 

For our purposes at the Access Board we have looked at the right of way as being sidewalks, street crossings and the related pedestrian facilities that the sidewalk may support, benches and things like that, perhaps telephones, drinking fountains and so on. We started looking at rights of way issues back in 1992.  Right after the board finished its work on developing guidelines under Title III of the ADA. Guidelines for buildings and facilities covered by Title III. Title III facilities and also some Title II facilities, say state and local government buildings, for instance, are all built on sites, very little is actually constructed in the public right of way. So you have on a site a stopping and a starting place, you can require an accessible route that goes from the boundary of the site to the accessible entrance.  That's what the ADA accessibility guidelines were developed to describe, those accessibility requirements that provided a usable building or facility on a site. When the ADA was passed, and the Access Board was given responsibility to develop guidelines that covered entities could use to measure whether they were meeting the intent of the ADA, most of our focus was on making sure that the guidelines we developed would guarantee an accessible building or a facility. And we reserved the access issues for the public right of way until later after we had gotten the ADAAG under our belts. But we always intended to do it and we used it, the development of ADAAG as an opportunity to think about rights of way issues before starting it in 1992.

Now, the ADA requires that all new construction, regardless of where it is, public right of way, on a site, even in some cases on passenger vessels, and in places that we are just now also getting around to regulating, be constructed, designed and constructed to be accessible. When they are new and if they are being altered they also have to be accessible to the maximum extent feasible. The guidelines that we developed are measures of how that is done. You can follow the guidelines and be confident that if you build according to them that you have met the requirements under the ADA for accessible design and construction. Of course there are many other ADA requirements, this is actually just a fairly limited one. So from the beginning, people who were designing and constructing in the public right of way if a downtown was having a downtown improvement project, if a city was newly laying out roadways for a commercial center, all of those things were covered by the ADA. But what they didn't have was a recipe, if you will, for how to design and construct them so that they would be accessible. 

In these circumstances, where there aren't guidelines specific to a particular kind of use, the Justice Department, the enforcing agency, has said look to what is already out there in terms of guidelines, look to the ADA accessibility guidelines, perhaps to the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS) or even a state or local guideline of equivalent usability, and apply those guidelines and standards as best you can to the situation that you are facing. In many places that works fairly well. But the public right of way is so different from a route or a walkway on a site, that it clearly demanded a special set of provisions. 

A really good example, I think, is in some places, Seattle, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, if you applied the ADAAG requirements for an accessible route you would have to make ramps with landings and handrails out of all your sidewalks.  We knew that we didn't want to do that. That would fundamentally alter what sidewalks were constructed for, which was to provide for pedestrian transportation at the edge of a roadway. So that was one of the first issues that we addressed in 1992 when we began our work on developing guidelines for public rights of way. In December of that year we proposed some draft guidelines for public rights of way that eventually in 1994 became an interim final rule. Because this was a fairly new issue for people who do the design and construction work in the public right of way, these proposed guidelines aroused a great deal of both comment and concern. It's only been recently that highway engineers who are responsible for the design of our roadways have become much sensitized to the needs of pedestrians and pedestrians with disabilities were particularly low on their list. So there was a substantial learning curve needed in order to bring transportation industry designers to an understanding of the basic rationale behind accessibility provisions.  And to help them understand what they needed to do to their standard procedures and planning methods to make sure that their new sidewalks and related facilities and the work that they did in alterations would meet the needs of pedestrians with disabilities. 

The Access Board in 1994 after the interim final rule was published embarked on a fairly comprehensive outreach program to the highway industry . We developed manuals, a videotape, several technical assistance bulletins, we did some syntheses on key issues like detectable warnings and accessible pedestrian signals all in an attempt to reach industry with the information they needed to design for accessibility.  Much of this information I think has been posted in advance of this program and it's all with one exception, available on our web site directly for download. The videotape you would need to call us, specially to order but copies are available free if you are interested, just so dial up our toll free number 800-872-2253 and ask for one of the technical assistance staff to send you a copy of the videotape. 

In 1998 the Access Board decided that it would reserve the rights of way proposals that had been published as an interim final rule in 1994. The Justice Department had not taken any action on any of the four sections that had been published in 1994 and by then the board had started on a revision, a very substantial revision, to its basic ADAAG document and we wanted to fold in several of those recently proposed sections into this major rule making.  So we chose to reserve the sections on housing and public rights of way and in essence begin our rule making again feeling that by this time the industry would have come to a better understanding of accessibility requirements and would be both more sympathetic and more helpful in comment to what we were proposing. So, we started by convening the public rights of way access advisory committee, which was the largest of the federal advisory committees that we have ever worked with. We now do most of our rule making through this consensus process bringing together stakeholders from industry, from consumer groups, from state and local governments and the private sector, manufacturers, operators, and so on, in what usually is a one or two-year effort to look at key issues, make recommendations to the board, and from those recommendations then encourage the board to develop more broadly consensual standards. Working through a advisory committee has a lot of benefits for us because it helps us to identify areas of particular concern, issues that may be specific to a field, an industry, that the Access Board may not be fully familiar with. We are then able to understand industry regulations, practices and requirements and accommodate them in a way that makes for a more well rounded and balanced proposal. 

The rights of way committee included 12 from the transportation industry, about that number representing organizations of consumers.  For instance, we had the American Council of the Blind and the National Federation of the Blind and also AAR which is the organization that represents orientation and mobility specialists. We had representation from Seeing Eye in New Jersey, from a number of state and local governments, from the Department of Justice and the Federal Highway Administration, and several state and local transportation and public works agencies, we had ADA coordinators from cities and states, we had private sector consultants, transportation and traffic engineers, and architects, landscape architects, planners, it was a huge group. Overall about 55 members, 33 of them full members and 22 alternates. In addition, we worked to keep our meetings both informational and we met around the country. We often conducted on the street exercises, that looked at local conditions and considered specific sidewalk and street crossing problems. We did this in Portland, Oregon and Atlanta and San Antonio. And tried to involve not only just the membership of the committee and the alternates, but local engineers and disability advocates. Overall several hundred people were involved in the meetings and presentations and information gathering. 

This committee, that we call it PROWAC, was I think one of the most collegial that we have ever had at the Access Board. In fact they are still working on our behalf, developing a technical assistance manual that we will issue when we publish our notice of proposed rule making to help engineers understand how to apply the proposed guidelines to alterations which is largely what happens in the public right of way. There is very little actual new construction in the public right of way. Well, sometimes, you know, a new town is established or a new commercial center, but much of the construction that occur in the public right of way is a reworking of what's already there: street widening or narrowing, a change in you know the design of a downtown or several city blocks.  All of those situations, which we would consider alterations, require engineers to have a high degree of understanding of the rationale behind accessibility because it's impossible unless you are doing a fairly wholesale reconstruction to achieve the full range of new construction requirements in most alterations.  You will encounter underground drainage of vaults, a building wall that is in a location that prohibits widening, there is a conflict between the needs of vehicular and pedestrian circulation, there is safety issues, transportation practice issues, and so most engineers when they are working in the public right of way, are making engineering judgments about what can be achieved when you are trying to drop in a curb ramp at a specific location and you can't achieve all of the requirements that you could if you had total control as you would in new construction. So you may have to sacrifice a little bit on cross slope, there may be a width issue, you may have to think of a different way of achieving access between the sidewalk and the street because there isn't enough width to put in a standard curb ramp. 

These are all critical issues that engineers are dealing with more of the time than they are dealing with new construction. The rights of way committee has spent the last year developing a technical assistance manual that we hope will be published about mid-year in 2003. Partial funding for the manual is coming from the Federal Highway Administration, which has been our partner in this rule making. And it's being produced under the direction of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, which is the major membership organization for highway engineers in the U.S, particularly urban engineering and public agency staff. That document should be ready about mid-year, which is when we hope that we will be able to go on to the next step in rule making and the two will be companion publications. 

The document that I'm going to generally describe today is actually a preliminary document. It's a draft, not yet an official notice of proposed rule making, and it was published in order to assist the rights of way committee in developing the technical assistance manual they are working on and to obtain preliminary industry and public input to some of the changes that we have proposed. The publication that the PROWAC committee delivered to the Access Board in January 2001, their recommendations for an accessible public right of way were presented to the Transportation Research Board. And then once the board became familiar with them, we began our staff work on a regulatory document that would reflect their regulations.  For a number of reasons, the membership of the board, the interests of the board, staff concerns, and issues, even politics is involved, the board's proposals differ somewhat from the recommendations of the rights of way committee and in a few key areas, particularly with respect to the width of the passageway that's required to be accessible in a public sidewalk. And so we wanted to give good notice of these changes before we actually began the official rule making process and make sure that everybody understood.  Those of us who do rule making every day, get very frazzled with the details and we are very comfortable with phrases like proposed and guidelines and standards and notices, proposed rule making and things like that, but we find that we often confuse the public with all of these terms. And the public doesn't understand the difference between a guideline which is what the Access Board produces, and a standard, which is what the Justice Department produces.  With respect to the standards under the ADA, they are one and the same document. For the most part, the Justice Department has simply adopted our guidelines into the standards that they publish under the ADA. But that won't always be the case. And in fact, we have now produced at the board many more guidelines than the Justice Department has incorporated into their standards. So we have sections on judicial facilities, correctional facilities, children's elements, some changes to Title II issues, generally. And upcoming very soon, the final rule for recreation, it's just been approved by the office of management and budget. So those are all going to be guidelines but not yet standards. And we will be adding the public rights of way guidelines to that list, we hope, sometime next year or possibly the following year. 

But first, we want to take public comments and maybe either the temperature or the pulse of the transportation industry to make sure that we are all on the same page, that industry finds our proposals doable, and that people with disabilities who are the pedestrians who use these facilities will find them usable. So, we are going through that preliminary process now. It will culminate in a public meeting, an all day public meeting in Portland, Oregon on October 8th, where our board will meet and listen to public comment. We are doing it in Portland because both the chair of the public rights of way access advisory committee and the editor of the committee's recommendations to the board are Portland residents. One Jerry Marcusino, the supervising engineer for the Transportation Department in Portland, who was our chair, and the other Ellen Vander slice, who edited very ably and under a tight deadline, the recommendations of the committee to produce the committee's report. So when we are in Portland we are going to be able to recognize their contributions. 

So this is very much a, we think, a consensus document. We have heard because it's been out on the streets since June 17th, that there remains some concerns on the part of traffic and transportation engineers.  Some of those I think are probably misunderstandings others are in areas where we have proposed a requirement but asked a number of questions in our discussion and commentary material about ways to achieve certain objectives that would meet more nearly with industry practices. 

A very key issue really for the ten years that this rule making has been in process is the distinction between new construction and alterations. This is, of course, a fairly arbitrary thing. And with respect to buildings and facilities and in our own rule making efforts, at the Access Board we have one understanding of it. But the transportation industry has its own set of practices and terminology and so on. And there has been confusion, I think, since the very beginning of the process of developing the guidelines about what we meant by new construction. The advisory committee I think said it best. It means a cornfield in Kansas that's being newly turned into a public right of way. Where you have lots of control over how wide the right of way might be, how much of it will be roadway, how much sidewalk, where you can carefully manage running slope, cross slope, and all of those other issues. Most other work as I have indicated earlier, is going to be work that would be considered alterations. When industry engineers read our earlier proposals, they came to believe, though, this wasn't an accurate understanding, that if the guideline was adopted that they would then have to improve all of their existing streetscapes, sidewalks, crosswalks and so on to the standards that we were proposing for new construction.  And we have had a difficult time explaining ourselves to industry helping them understand that when they do an alteration, obviously the new work that gets put in place whether it's a curb ramp or a segment of a sidewalk, must as best it can, meet the new construction standards, just as an alteration to a building must attempt first to meet the new construction standards, but that there are lots of situations of technical infeasibility that may preclude the full  achievement of the new construction standards. And when those situations are encountered, then the engineer needs to make judgments about what must be sacrificed, if you will, in order to achieve a usable product that's the best that can be achieved under the conditions in which they are  working. I think we are finally starting to make progress in this area, and that engineers understand a little bit more these issues, but much remains, I think, to be explained. 

The fact that the ADA unlike a building code, also requires public agencies and private sector entities to actively retrofit, whether it's under program access or barrier removal, is also a problem because those things get conflated in the minds of engineers and  it isn't easy to discriminate what is a program access improvement required just to make sure that someone with a disability isn't precluded from using a facility and what might be new construction and alteration, so we are working hard on commentary and we are doing a lot of training going to industry events and so on, to make this a bit clearer. 

Let me just list the key issues that we have identified and I guess I will start with the first issue, which is one of width. The Access Board's proposal says that every new sidewalk and altered sidewalks to the maximum extent feasible, should contain what we call a pedestrian access route, it's like an accessible route but it's not as stringent. That pedestrian access route should be 48 inches wide. The advisory committee recommended 60 inches, we looked at common practice in sidewalk design and in a number of different places while industry is certainly transitioning to something wider, 60 inches is recommended, we felt that we could be more comfortable right now at 48 inches.  

Other issues detectable warnings which is both a hot issue currently because the temporary suspension of detectable warnings in ADAAG has expired and the Federal Highway Administration has let its customers know its state and local government agencies they expect to see detectable warnings on curb ramps. We have proposed a new technical standard on detectable warnings, still composed of truncated domes, but a shorter width of them only two feet, the same 24 inches that's required still on platforms at transit. Set this surface back about six inches from the curb line on the curb ramp for the blended transition ask then orient the domes in a grid pattern as opposed to the offset pattern that we first called for, so that wheelchair users can track between them. This is a compromise that was worked out between disability organizations and we and the Federal Highway Administration are encouraging agencies that now are installing detectable warnings on curb ramps to use the new specification as a they say an equivalent facilitation. 

Accessible pedestrian signals, typically audible and vibro-tactile.  When new signals are installed, pedestrian signals, they should include a visible and audible and a vibro-tactile component, any place that pedestrian signals are installed. We have newly suggested requirements for alternate circulation paths at construction projects that affect sidewalks and other pedestrian routes and will require where feasible, same side temporary routes. 

We have suggested that walking speeds are set too high in industry documents and need to be reduced to about three feet per second when industry calculates how much time needs to be allotted for a signal cycle, etc. We have seen that a lot of agencies seem to be dealing with this by installing technologies that allow them to see with either microwave or video or infrared technology if there is a pedestrian still in a crosswalk at the end of a signal cycle and then to just extend the vehicle red until the pedestrian clears, so this is certainly one way of achieving that goal. 

The other highly controversial issue is roundabouts, which are no stop or continuous passage round circulatory intersections where traffic yields to traffic in the circle, but basically is not required to stop if there is a gap that they can occupy. Roundabouts are very efficient movers of traffic, and are being welcomed by traffic engineers as a way of relieving congestion. So we are seeing more and more of them put in, particularly in some states where they have been adding them in great numbers, Maryland, the northwest.  They have proved to provide confusing cues to pedestrians with vision impairments and we are working hard to develop some standards for roundabout design that will provide the cues that blind pedestrians need to recognize and safely cross in a gap at roundabouts, but we are a long way from having good solutions.  In the interim, in the draft proposal, on the advice of the advisory committee we have proposed that roundabouts have signal control, whether it's a signal that a pedestrian can activate and isn't operating most of the time but only when a particular pedestrian needs it. We haven't determined that yet and we are really looking to industry to give us advice on what may be feasible in the various kinds of roundabouts that there are. 

We are also working very closely with industry groups to coordinate their development of a pedestrian guide so that we are all talking about the same thing and to harmonize the regulations that each of us propose. Once we have finished analyzing public comment and all the other comment that we receive on this draft, we will move forward with preparation of a notice of proposed rule making which will have more extensive commentary than the current version does and which we will be able to incorporate many of the suggestions we hope to get from the public, from industry, on some of these issues that may be still somewhat controversial. So look for that document in the spring of 2003 with the usual rule making process, then to follow. I think that's about it. In fact I think I have used perhaps more time than I ought to have. Jennifer?

Caller: So the access aisle is considered street? 

Lois Thibault: The access aisle may be a street, yes. I think there are locations where an access aisle may occupy a circulation route. The access aisle issue if you are talking about a curb ramp that goes to an access aisle in a parking lot I think is a very special case. In most instances may not require a detectable warning on a site. Those of you who have looked at the detectable warnings issue may know that the proposal of the ... in the revised ADAAG that will be coming out will not have a requirement for detectable warnings on any work on site, since they will ultimately as things go forward as we currently anticipate, detectable warnings will be a product required in the public right of way. At transit platform edges and where sidewalks cross streets, essentially, where the danger is greatest. 

Jennifer Skulski: Good, thanks for your question, Chris. Lois, let's talk about on street parking. 

Lois Thibault: Okay. 

Jennifer Skulski: I see there is a new definition of what an accessible on street parking parking space actually looks like. You can't actually just put up a sign that says accessible parking, we have to have an access aisle now?

Lois Thibault: Well, you may just put up a sign. If you are working in an existing developed environment, that may be what the accessible space is, a sign. Where you have got wide sidewalks and you have the ability to provide an access aisle, we expect that it will be provided again in new construction. Those are fairly rare occurrences, sometimes a downtown is, you know, streetscape is rebuilt and we would expect to see accessible spaces. Typically they will be at the head or foot of a block where you can use the curb ramp that's at the intersection. The access aisle may be indented into the sidewalk if there is adequate width in big developed urban areas. In many cases it may be just the balance of a curb lane sufficient width to open your door and exit your car. 

Jennifer Skulski: Good. What about parking meters? Is that going to be covered? 

Lois Thibault: Parking meters are a item that requires operation. So we have some reach range and operation issues there. We are also seeing a lot of sort of new mainly European technologies now where you put some money in a device and get a little slip that you put on the dashboard of your car, so all of those mechanisms will have to be accessible within reach ranges and so on. 

Caller: Hi. My name is Judith, I actually have three questions. Has there been another design guide since the one that was put out in 1999?

Lois Thibault: No. But we are working on it. The advisory committee is working on a design guide specifically for alterations 

Caller: I mean the one you are talking about in existence right now 

Lois Thibault: Yes, that's the only one right now. The Federal Highway Administration has a design guide also, called "Designing Accessible Sidewalks and Trails" in two volumes which is very useful, too. 

Caller: Okay. And is there any proposals in the new guidelines for extended block parking? I gather that I can't remember offhand, but in the existing proposed guidelines, you are proposal at least one space per block.

Lois Thibault: Yes 

Caller: If the block is three blocks long, we have been trying to recommend that they put several curb side parking areas along that block but the argument that we are getting is there are no crosswalks so we don't need to have accessible parking.  Between the two corners which are three blocks apart 

Lois Thibault: Block sizes vary enormously in the U.S. And some pedestrian friendly cities like Portland you have very short block, 200 people in Portland are saying gosh that's a big inventory of accessible spaces and other cities you go for a considerable distance. I think cities will have to arrive at their own understanding of what the a block face is. This was a tough issue for the advisory committee to develop a common standard that would apply. I think if there are very long blocks with spaces at the head and foot on both sides would be very appropriate. But it may require more definition in a locality that doesn't have a standard way of... that we would understand as a block. 

Caller: Like maybe ten per mile or something like that? 

Lois Thibault: Uh-huh, yes. That's certainly a possibility. One of the things we found in working in the right of way is how very many different ways cities are designed and built. How many different kinds of curb ramps there are and parking arrangements and so on. And it's been very difficult to feel that we have even got a small handle on all of the things that might need to be covered. So I don't think that we have necessarily done it, you know, perfectly or well even, yet, and that might be a really good subject for comment to this draft proposal. 

Caller: My name is Pam. I'm just I have a question about the crosswalk situation where it's three foot per second and then you said you said if the person is still in the crosswalk they would be delayed? That they would be delayed. How is that... is that technology that would let the driver to know to wait or signs saying yield to pedestrians? We are in a situation where people are in crosswalks, they are in the middle and drivers are not seeing them and almost hitting them. You know, they are turning, pedestrians are going the same direction as the traffic, pedestrians and traffic are going parallel. But when they make a turn, they would be turning into the path of the pedestrians. And it's a really dangerous situation and we are trying to work with it, but I don't know if that's something that's going to be mandated? Am I understanding you correctly about the delay to traffic? 

Lois Thibault: Well, what I was describing was technology that is in place in some cities that can actually extend the time that there is a red light for vehicles if there is still is a person in the crosswalk. That is done with infrared or video technology, there is a lot of ways that it can be done. It would be one of the ways of satisfying the demand that we are expressing in our guideline that the crossing time be extended because many pedestrians don't walk at the four feet per second that the timing is based on now. Things have changed enormously in the U.S. in the last ten or 15 years, pedestrians and cars are fighting for the same time and space, this has had a particularly difficult effect on pedestrians with vision impairments, and we are trying to adjust the balance a little bit to return some safety to being a pedestrian and to making sure that people with disabilities aren't inequitably affected by some of those things that have changed, right turn on red, for instance, roundabouts, and things like that. But this is a process that we are not driving. The whole issue of pedestrianism I think is a bigger issue than accessibility and we are aligning ourselves with pedestrian interests, but a lot needs to be done still to bring transportation engineers to an understanding that this is space that needs to be safely shared by a number of users, bicyclists as well, this is a start to the process. We welcome, you know, comments about this issue particularly there are other people in the transportation industry who are working on these issues also which are not strictly speaking, disability issues. 

Caller: Which are four way stops rejected? Four way stops to traffic for pedestrians to go all the way around? 

Lois Thibault: They haven't been rejected, no. I think there are a lot of different ways of satisfying this particular need. And that's one of the reasons that we have put this proposal out, you can think of it perhaps as a start or a baby proposal where we are trying to both suggest what the issues are. Identify some possible ways of dealing with them and then asking for public recommendations and input on the kinds of situations that they are facing, what the issues are, so that when we go to the next step in our rule making, when we develop our notice of proposed rule making, while we will have more comprehensive answers, maybe a wider range of answers for different situations and so on. This is really a very preliminary notice that we have put out and we are looking for answers as much as anything else. 

Jennifer Skulski: Thanks for your question. Lois we are coming up at the top of our hour and unfortunately we could probably talk about pedestrian access routes and public rights of way all day long but we have to come to a close. I think you make a really good point even though this is a draft, people are still able to comment on it right now; is that right? 

Lois Thibault: Absolutely. Until the end of October they can comment to us by mail, by e-mail, by fax, the directions are actually right on our web site where the draft is posted. www.access-board.gov. 

Jennifer Skulski: Thanks very much for joining us today, Lois, we appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule before you leave on vacation. 

Lois Thibault: Thank you for your hospitality. 

Jennifer Skulski: Thank you to all of our sites for joining us today, we were excited you were able to spend this afternoon with us and hope you will join us next month on September 17 when we talk about accommodations for students with psychiatric disabilities in the classroom. As a reminder the transcript for this session will be posted to the Great Lakes web site next week on www.ADAgreatlakes.org. And in the event that you have questions about the ADA or upcoming sessions, please call your regional Disability and Business Technical Assistance Center at 800-949-4232. 

Lois Thibault: Or the Access Board at 800-872-2253. 

Jennifer Skulski: Very good. Thanks Lois and thanks to all of you for joining us today. 

Previous Session Transcripts

>Delivered-To: mkw84@...
>Subject: Barton Case
>Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 13:42:28 -0800
>X-MS-Has-Attach:
>X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
>Thread-Topic: Barton Case
>Thread-Index: AcK+cVUedztjbCCXRXG+7GVKcAk2FQ==
>From: "Wilkerson. Marc" <WilkersonM@...>
>To: <mkw84@...>
>X-OriginalArrivalTime: 17 Jan 2003 21:42:28.0974 (UTC)
>FILETIME=[553258E0:01C2BE71]
>X-Spam-Rating: mail.velocitywest.com 1.6.2 500/2000/N
>
>Please see below the ninth circuit court opinion in Barton.  The opinion
>is quite easy to read and understand and merely substantiates what
>everyone who provides comments, input, or otherwise advice relative to the
>coverage of the ADA should know:  I would kindly request that this  be
>distributed widely on your lists.
>
>Sidewalks are a program, service, or activity under the control of State
>and local governments.  Additionally, sidewalks were contemplated by
>congress to be a critical component of providing access to individuals
>with disabilities, when drafting the ADA.  The U.S. Department of Justice
>clearly stated that curb ramps should be at the corners of blocks which
>housed State and local government buildings, social service locations,
>hospitals, schools, transportation hubs, places of public accommodation,
>etc. logically, the sidewalks leading to these critical locations must
>also be made accessible.
>
>In fact, the Justice Department has said that,Sidewalks, like all
>programs, services and activities of State and local  governments, must be
>made accessible by State and local Governments, through a transition plan,
>when major alterations occur, and certainly when new construction takes
>place.  Also, please note that, any ordinance that discriminates against
>people with disabilities must be reasonablly modified so as to provide
>access  to individuals with disabilities.
>Please read carefully:
>Marc
>
>UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
>FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
>
>JOAN BARDEN; SUSAN BARNHILL;
>JEFFREY EVANS; TONY MARTINEZ;
>BRENDA PICKERN; JEFF THOM;
>SUZANNE FITTS VALTERS; MITCH
>WATKINS, and all others similarly
>situated, No. 01-15744
>Plaintiffs-Appellants, D.C. No. CV 99-0497 MLS
>
>CITY OF SACRAMENTO; MIKE OPINION
>KASHIWAGI, Director of the Department of Public
>Works of the City of Sacramento, in his official
>capacity,
>Defendants-Appellees.
>
>Appeal from the United States District Court for the
>Eastern District of California
>Milton L. Schwartz, District Judge, Presiding
>
>Argued and Submitted
>March 12, 2002-Berkeley, California
>Filed June 12, 2002
>Before: Procter Hug, Jr., Richard D. Cudahy,* and
>
>A. Wallace Tashima, Circuit Judges.
>Opinion by Judge Tashima
>*The Honorable Richard D. Cudahy, United States
>Circuit Judge for the
>Seventh Circuit, sitting by designation.
>
>COUNSEL
>Laurence W. Paradis, Disability Rights Advocates,
>Oakland, California, for the plaintiffs-appellants.
>Gerald C. Hicks, Deputy City Attorney, Sacramento,
>California, for the defendants-appellees.
>Kevin Russell, Department of Justice, Washington,
>D.C., for amicus curiae United States of America.
>Gregory F. Hurley, Kutak Rock LLP, Newport Beach,
>California, for amici curiae National League of Cities
>and 76 California cities.
>Janice M. Kroll, Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, Los
>Angeles, California, for amicus curiae Western Law
>Center for Disability Rights.
>
>OPINION
>TASHIMA, Circuit Judge:
>We must decide whether public sidewalks in the City of
>Sacramento are a service, program, or activity of the
>City within the meaning of Title II of the Americans
>with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), 42 U.S.C. � 12132, or �
>504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. � 794. We hold
>that they are and, accordingly, that the sidewalks are
>subject to program accessibility regulations
>promulgated in furtherance of these statutes. We
>therefore reverse the order of the district court and
>remand for further proceedings. We have jurisdiction
>pursuant to 28 U.S.C. � 1292(b).
>
>BACKGROUND
>Appellants, various individuals with mobility and/or
>vision disabilities, commenced this class action against
>the City of Sacramento. Appellants alleged that the City
>violated the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act by failing
>to install curb ramps in newly-constructed or altered
>sidewalks and by failing to maintain existing sidewalks
>so as to ensure accessibility by persons with disabilities.
>[note 1] The parties stipulated to the entry of an
>injunction regarding the curb ramps; however, they did
>not reach agreement on the City's obligation to remove
>other barriers to sidewalk accessibility, such as benches,
>sign posts, or wires.
>
>The parties filed motions for summary judgment and
>summary adjudication on the issue of whether
>sidewalks are a service, program, or activity within the
>meaning of the ADA and are therefore subject to the
>program accessibility regulations, found at 28 C.F.R. ��
>35.149-35.151. The district court denied Appellants'
>motion for partial summary adjudication and granted
>in part the City's partial motion for summary
>judgment. It held that the public sidewalks in
>Sacramento are not a service, program, or activity of
>the City and, accordingly, are not subject to the
>program access requirements of either the ADA or the
>Rehabilitation Act. Because that holding obviated the
>need for trial,[note 2] the district court certified the
>issue for interlocutory appeal, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. �
>1292(b), which we granted.
>
>STANDARD OF REVIEW
>The interpretation of a statute is a question of law
>subject to de novo review. Bay Area Addiction Research
>& Treatment, Inc. v. City of Antioch, 179 F.3d 725, 730
>(9th Cir. 1999) ("BAART").
>
>DISCUSSION
>[1] Title II of the ADA provides that "no qualified
>individual with a disability shall, by reason of such
>disability, be excluded from participation in or be
>denied the benefits of the services, programs, or
>activities of a public entity, or be subjected to
>discrimination by any such entity."[note 3] 42 U.S.C. �
>12132. Similarly, � 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
>provides that "[n]o otherwise qualified individual with
>a disability . . . shall, solely by reason of her or his
>disability, be excluded from the participation in, be
>denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination
>under any program or activity receiving Federal
>financial assistance." 29 U.S.C. � 794(a). One form of
>prohibited discrimination is the exclusion from a public
>entity's services, programs, or activities because of the
>inaccessibility of the entity's facility-thus, the program
>accessibility regulations at issue here.
>
>The access requirements are set forth in 28 C.F.R. ��
>35.149-35.151.4 Section 35.150 requires a public entity
>to "operate each service, program, or activity so that
>the service, program, or activity, when viewed in its
>entirety, is readily accessible to and usable by
>individuals with disabilities." 28 C.F.R. � 35.150(a). The
>public entity is required to develop a transition plan for
>making structural changes to facilities in order to make
>its programs accessible. Id. at � 35.150(d)(1). The
>regulation also requires the transition plan to include a
>schedule for providing curb ramps to make pedestrian
>walkways accessible.[note 5] Id. at � 35.150(d)(2).
>Section 35.151 similarly requires newly-constructed or
>altered roads and walkways to contain curb ramps at
>intersections. 28 C.F.R. � 35.151(e).
>
>[2] The district court's order was based on its
>conclusion that sidewalks are not a service, program, or
>activity of the City. Rather than determining whether
>each function of a city can be characterized as a service,
>program, or activity for purposes of Title II, however,
>we have construed "the ADA's broad language [as]
>bring[ing] within its scope 'anything a public entity
>does.' " Lee v. City of Los Angeles, 250 F.3d 668, 691
>(9th Cir. 2001) (quoting Yeskey v. Pa. Dep't of Corr.,
>118 F.3d 168, 171 (3d Cir. 1997), aff'd, 524 U.S. 206
>(1998)); see also Johnson v. City of Saline, 151 F.3d 564,
>569 (6th Cir. 1998) (finding that "the phrase 'services,
>programs, or activities' encompasses virtually
>everything that a public entity does"); Innovative
>Health Sys., Inc. v. City of White Plains, 117 F.3d 37, 45
>(2d Cir. 1997) (reasoning that the phrase "programs,
>services, or activities" is "a catch-all phrase that
>prohibits all discrimination by a public entity,
>regardless of the context"), superseded on other
>grounds, Zervos v. Verizon New York, Inc., 252 F.3d
>163, 171 n.7 (2d Cir. 2001). Attempting to distinguish
>which public functions are services, programs, or
>activities, and which are not, would disintegrate into
>needless "hair-splitting arguments." Innovative Health
>Sys., 117 F.3d at 45. The focus of the inquiry, therefore,
>is not so much on whether a particular public function
>can technically be characterized as a service, program,
>or activity, but whether it is " 'a normal function of a
>governmental entity.' " BAART, 179 F.3d at 731
>(quoting Innovative Health Sys., 117 F.3d at 44). Thus,
>we have held that medical licensing is a service,
>program, or activity for purposes of Title II, Hason v.
>Med. Bd., 279 F.3d 1167, 1173 (9th Cir. 2002), as is
>zoning, BAART, 179 F.3d at 731, and parole hearings,
>Thompson v. Davis, 282 F.3d 780, 786-87 (9th Cir.
>2002). See also Johnson, 151 F.3d at 569-70 (reasoning
>that the word " 'activities,' on its face, suggests great
>breadth and offers little basis to exclude any actions of a
>public entity," and thus holding that a contract to
>operate the city's public access cable station was an
>activity within the meaning of Title II); Innovative
>Health Sys., 117 F.3d at 44 (holding that the ADA and
>the Rehabilitation Act encompass zoning decisions
>because zoning is "a normal function of a governmental
>entity").
>
>[3] In keeping with our precedent, maintaining public
>sidewalks is a normal function of a city and "without a
>doubt something that the [City] 'does.' " Hason, 279
>F.3d at 1173. Maintaining their accessibility for
>individuals with disabilities therefore falls within the
>scope of Title II.
>
>This broad construction of the phrase, "services,
>programs, or activities," is supported by the plain
>language of the Rehabilitation Act because, although
>the ADA does not define "services, programs, or
>activities," the Rehabilitation Act defines "program or
>activity" as "all of the operations of" a qualifying local
>government. 29 U.S.C. � 794(b)(1)(A). The legislative
>history of the ADA similarly supports construing the
>language generously, providing that Title II "essentially
>simply extends the anti-discrimination prohibition
>embodied in section 504 [of the Rehabilitation Act] to
>all actions of state and local governments." H.R. Rep.
>No. 101-485 (II), at 84 (1990), reprinted in 1990
>U.S.C.C.A.N. 303, 367 (emphasis added); see also id. at
>151, reprinted in 1990 U.S.C.C.A.N. 303, 434 ("Title II .
>. . makes all activities of State and local governments
>subject to the types of prohibitions against
>discrimination . . . included in section 504 . . . .")
>(emphasis added). In fact, the ADA must be construed
>"broadly in order to effectively implement the ADA's
>fundamental purpose of 'provid[ing] a clear and
>comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of
>discrimination against individuals with disabilities.' "
>Hason, 279 F.3d at 1172 (quoting Arnold v. United
>Parcel Serv., Inc., 136 F.3d 854, 861 (1st Cir. 1998))
>(alteration in the original).
>
>Requiring the City to maintain its sidewalks so that they
>are accessible to individuals with disabilities is
>consistent with the tenor of � 35.150, which requires the
>provision of curb ramps, "giving priority to walkways
>serving" government offices, "transportation, places of
>public accommodation, and employers," but then
>"followed by walkways serving other areas." 28 C.F.R.
>� 35.150(d)(2). Section 35.150's requirement of curb
>ramps in all pedestrian walkways reveals a general
>concern for the accessibility of public sidewalks, as well
>as a recognition that sidewalks fall within the ADA's
>coverage, and would be meaningless if the sidewalks
>between the curb ramps were inaccessible.
>
>Moreover, the conclusion that sidewalks are subject to
>the accessibility regulations is the position taken by the
>Department of Justice ("DOJ"), the agency responsible
>for issuing the regulations. See 42 U.S.C. � 12134
>(requiring the Attorney General to promulgate
>regulations implementing � 12132). An agency's
>interpretation of its own regulation is entitled to
>deference when the language of the regulation is
>ambiguous and the interpretation is not plainly
>erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation. Auer v.
>Robbins, 519 U.S. 452, 461 (1997); see also Alhambra
>Hosp. v. Thompson, 259 F.3d 1071, 1074 (9th Cir. 2001)
>("The 'agency's interpretation must be given
>controlling weight unless it is plainly erroneous or
>inconsistent with the regulation.' ") (quoting Thomas
>Jefferson Univ. v. Shalala, 512 U.S. 504, 512 (1994)).
>The regulation is ambiguous because, while it does not
>specifically address the accessibility of sidewalks, it does
>address curb ramps. The curb ramps, however, could
>not be covered unless the sidewalks themselves are
>covered. The DOJ's interpretation of its own regulation,
>that sidewalks are encompassed by the regulation, is not
>plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation.
>We therefore defer to the interpretation of the DOJ
>under Auer.
>
>CONCLUSION
>Title II's prohibition of discrimination in the provision
>of public services applies to the maintenance of public
>sidewalks, which is a normal function of a municipal
>entity. The legislative history of Title II indicates that all
>activities of local governments are subject to this
>prohibition of discrimination. This conclusion is also
>supported by the language of � 35.150, which requires
>the provision of curb ramps in order for sidewalks to be
>accessible to individuals with disabilities. The order of
>the district court accordingly is reversed and the case
>remanded for further proceedings.[note 6]
>
>REVERSED and REMANDED.
>
>----------
>
>NOTES:
>1. Appellants also alleged violations of California law
>that are not at issue on this appeal.
>
>2. Appellants represented to the district court that a
>holding that sidewalks are not a service or program
>negated their theory of the case, and that they had no
>interest in litigating a case in which they would be
>required to identify "every other discrete public activity
>that goes on" at a facility in order to invoke the
>accessibility requirements.
>
>3. The City of Sacramento is a public entity for
>purposes of Title II. See 42 U.S.C. � 12131(1).
>
>4. Section 35.149 is the general prohibition against
>discrimination, � 35.150 governs the accessibility of
>existing facilities, and � 35.151 governs the accessibility
>of new construction and alterations.
>
>5. The regulation provides:
>(2) If a public entity has responsibility or authority over
>streets, roads, or walkways, its transition plan shall
>include a schedule for providing curb ramps or other
>sloped areas where pedestrian walks cross curbs, giving
>priority to walkways serving entities covered by the Act,
>including State and local government offices and
>facilities, transportation, places of public
>accommodation, and employers, followed by walkways
>serving other areas. 28 C.F.R. � 35.150(d)(2).
>
>6. At trial, the City will have the opportunity to present
>evidence concerning any "undue financial and
>administrative burdens," pursuant to � 35.150(a)(3), an
>issue which it raises on this appeal, but which we do not
>address.

>Delivered-To: mkw84@...
>Subject: US Senate - Amtrak Imperiled/Transit Cuts Loom
>Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 13:25:53 -0800
>X-MS-Has-Attach:
>X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
>Thread-Topic: US Senate - Amtrak Imperiled/Transit Cuts Loom
>Thread-Index: AcK+bwQLt5V1xZ4ITke/mDrKKfA0tQ==
>From: "Wilkerson. Marc" <WilkersonM@...>
>To: <amor@...>
>Cc: <mkw84@...>
>X-OriginalArrivalTime: 17 Jan 2003 21:25:54.0152 (UTC)
>FILETIME=[043C8E80:01C2BE6F]
>X-Spam-Rating: mail.velocitywest.com 1.6.2 500/2000/N
>
>US Senate - Amtrak Imperiled/Transit Cuts Loom
>
>Re: Senate vote on Amtrak funding.  Vote may occur as early as Tonight!
>
>The Omnibus Appropriations bill that is currently being considered in
>the Senate does some nasty stuff to Amtrak and public transit.  The bill
>would cut funding
>for Amtrak by $374 million, or 31 percent below the $1.2 billion
>approved by committee last July.  The bill would fund Amtrak at $732
>million, which is the amount the House approved in Committee last year.
>The Democrats are circulating a document that says "This funding level
>will result in the bankruptcy and termination of Amtrak."
>
>The bill redirects much of this funding to the Transportation Security
>Administration.
>
>You may also want to express opposition to the proposed elimination of the
>Mass Transit Account in TEA-21 reauthorization.  Senator Max Baucus, Ranking
>Minority Member, Senate Finance Committee, has announced his opposition to
>a gasoline tax increase and is supporting the elimination of the transit
>program
>as a way to finance the growth of the highway program.  Likewise, Senator
>Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has also identified
>elimination
>of transit as a way to increase resources for the highway program.
>
>For phone/fax information call 202/224-3121 or visit
>http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.
>
>********* Sample Letter **********
>
>Friends of the Earth * Natural Resources Defense Council
>
>January 16, 2003
>
>Dear Senator:
>
>On behalf of the millions of concerned Americans represented by our
>organizations, we write to urge you to support the bipartisan
>Murray-Hutchison-Byrd-Snowe-Hollings-Chafee-Specter
>Amendment to restore funding to Amtrak.  The Omnibus Appropriations bill
>cuts Amtrak funding by 31 percent down to $726 million.  If funding is not
>restored,
>Amtrak will be forced to shut down, and the dismantling of America's
>national passenger rail system will begin.
>
>The federal government provides a tiny proportion of its transportation
>funding to rail.  In 2002, Congress provided $33 billion to highways, $17
>billion
>to aviation, and just half a billion to Amtrak.  If Amtrak is allowed to
>die, 20 additional highway lanes would be need to be built in midtown Manhattan
>and 10 more tunnel lanes under the Hudson River to handle all the people
>entering Manhattan.  And this statistic just covers New York.  Nationwide, the
>airline industry would have to come up with 7,500 757s each year to handle
>the influx of passengers.
>
> From an environmental perspective, passenger rail is a good alternative
> to air travel.  Amtrak is 1.6 times more energy efficient than domestic
> airlines,
>and 4.5 times more efficient than the rapidly growing general aviation
>sector.  The General Accounting Office found that commercial jet aviation makes
>a significant contribution to global warming.  Emissions of greenhouse
>gases from aviation are projected to increase as air travel grows.  Trains
>generate
>just one-third the greenhouse gas emissions of airplanes.  For short hops
>between major cities, passenger rail makes good sense.  And increased use of
>trains reduces America's dependence on foreign oil
>
>Amtrak is an important part of our nation's transportation system and
>infrastructure, and deserves a strong and stable federal investment.  We
>urge you
>to support this bipartisan amendment to provide Amtrak the $1.2 billion in
>FY 2003 it needs to survive.
>
>In addition, we are deeply concerned about the $75 million, or 6 percent
>cut in the Federal Transit Administration's "New Starts" program.  This program
>provides capital funding for major new transit project.  We urge you to
>support efforts to restore this funding.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Brent Blackwelder
>President
>Friends of the Earth
>

Hello all,
I have received some complaints about the advertisements that Yahoo
tacks onto the emails.  I am looking into this and appreciate any
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Also, there is a daily digest feature, where you can get all the
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Thank you,
Group Moderator

You may not think it is true, but it is. Look for yourself. Read Title
45 of the Code of Federal Regulations Section 46, which is the Common Rule.
There are no penalties.
      Only New York, Virginia and California have state laws on Human
experimentation. Only California has penalties; fines of up to $1,000 for
not obtaining consent. Indeed Mass state law provides penalties for
violations on animal experimentation but they have no, laws at all on human
experimentation. Moreover, the City of Cambridge has a laboratory animal
commissioner who has authority to issue fines. But there is no commissioner
of human experimentation.
      As for the difference being that humans can speak, consider that the
preferred subjects for experiments are vulnerable persons: mental patients,
persons with incurable diseases, AIDS, cancer. Though animals cannot speak
for themselves, researchers on humans employ psychiatrists to discredit
their subjects who are used for non consensual experiments. There is no need
to do so for animals.
       Further do you think that you can understand all of the risks involved
with testing new devices or chemicals? Even if you are a scientist? Do you
think that researchers always tell the truth? That they openly tell all of
the known risks, never mind what they do not know?
      Do you know any of the history of non consensual human experiments for
70 years in this country which began before the depraved experiments on
humans by the Nazi doctors in Germany in the 1930s?
      As for your comments about a review process, only experiments funded by
the US government are required to be reviewed. The review boards seldom do
their jobs. Have you ever tried to speak with any of the members of those
boards? They are paranoid for fear of liability and refuse to talk to anyone
not on the board. They are Potemkim villages, false fronts. Plus the
institutions who conduct the research appoint their own members.
      As for lawsuits, have you ever asked an attorney to bring an action for
such experimentation abuses? There is one I know of who chooses carefully
his suits. Most professionals believe that people who complain of being
abused in an experiment are "schizophrenic." One more example of this
created disease like all mental illnesses created by consensus.
      I realize how difficult it is to learn that there is no Santa Claus nor
any reliable method of addressing experimentation abuses, but those are the
facts my friend.
       All of any deaths are not caused by negligence. But negligent deaths
in human experiments remain unaddressed. The local and state police leave
the determination of the cause of death to the people who caused the deaths.
That is also the facts. How many doctors do you know who will admit that
they were negligent?

Roy Bercaw



I do not think it is correct that medical research using humans has no
penalties for violations. Comparing experiments on animals with those on
humans is like comparing apples with oranges.

There are penalties. The differences are that humans have a language.  They
also have a choice about participating in research (not having a choice IS
against the law).  The consent they sign has remarks about the risks taken
and the kinds of things they are consenting to. All experiments must go
through a review process.  And finally, there are the courts where lawsuits
happen, costing universities (quite rightly for once) mega amounts of
damages. A death occurring in an experiment is not ALWAYS due to negligence.




_________________________________________________________________
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I think that you imagine that elite celebrities which support PETA will
take an interest in humans over animals. This is misguided hope. It is US
Government policy that animals merit more protections than humans from human
experimentation abuses. The Animal Rights Act of 1966 provides penalties for
violations of research laws on animals.
    But 45 CFR 46, The Common Rule, which applies to 17 US agencies funded
human experimentation, medical research using humans, has no penalties for
violations. This is US government policy.
     In the 1990s 7 deaths occurred in Boston (Harvard) teaching hospitals in
gene therapy trials. The deaths were not reported to the FDA nor the Mass
Medical Examiner nor the District Attorney. Thus 7 deaths had no scrutiny.
The FDA shut down the experiments. That is like stopping  a serial murderer,
but not putting him in jail. Researchers are not held accountable for their
mistakes.
      Negligent homicide is homicide nonetheless; but for some misguided
reason medical researhers at prestigious medical institutions are above the
law. They have cleaner genes?
      This is consistent with your observations on foster care.


Roy Bercaw



Children are placed in foster Care every day. The system , neither protects
nor cares well for their charges.

[...]

We have humane rights groups for pets, animals for food, and embyos, yet
children and those with disabilities are routinely abandoned and not
represented. Its an issues of humane human Rights effecting millions since
1972!

A call for action and discussion....


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CI has a sp ed conference 2/13.  A panel rep is Kaleem Caire; Project Dir.; 
American Ed Reform Foundation.  It co-sponsored an ad campaign with former House
Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX).  He is the 1 who took "credit" and was "proud
of it" for adding an Eli Lilly Amendment to the Homeland Security Bill
exonerating EL for MMR vaccine negative results such as possibly autism. 
msherrett.

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Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 10:03:07 -0800
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: "Marty Omoto, Legislative Director" <martyomoto@...> (by way of Mike Collins <mcollins@...>)
Subject: CA UCP/CA CAN ACTION ALERT #06 & #07-2003
X-Spam-Rating: mail.velocitywest.com 1.6.2 0/2000/N

CA UCP/CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY ADVOCACY NETWORK
ACTION ALERT #06-2003
January 13, 2003 - Monday morning

CALL TO ACTION ON FUNDING CRISIS!
WHY YOU SHOULD ACT - AND WHAT YOU CAN DO!

WHO SHOULD ACT AND RESPOND TO THIS CALL TO ACTION?
* People with developmental (and other disabilities) people with cognitive
disabilities and their families and providers, advocates
* People with mental health needs and their families, providers, advocates
* People with low incomes, providers and advocates
* People who are Medi-Cal recipients, seniors, their families, providers, direct
care staff, advocates, and other organizations

WHAT IS BEING LOST, CUT, REDUCED AND ELIMINATED
Just SOME of what is being lost, cut, reduced or eliminated include the following (see UCP Capitol Update for more details). All of these potential and actual cuts impact the people who should respond to this call to action (see above):
* RIGHTS OF CALIFORNIANS BEING THREATENED
- The "civil rights" act for people with developmental disabilities and their families - the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act is under serious attack, with proposals from the Governor that would narrow eligibility, significantly reduce or delay services and programs, or outright eliminate them entirely.
- Proposed cuts and funding crisis are devastating community-based services and supports that many advocates say seriously undermine continued implementation of the 1999 US Supreme Court Olmstead Decision, and other federal law including the Americans with Disabilities Act.
* MEDI-CAL
- Massive, massive cuts to Medi-Cal to narrow eligibility and cut useage.
- Proposed cut of $302 million by the elimination of 18 of 34 critically needed benefits for adults - especially for those with developmental or other disabilities, that include medical supplies, equipment, adult dental care, podiatry, psychology, independent rehabilitation centers, occupational therapy, non-emergency medical transportation, optician/optical lab services, hospice, durable medical equipment, optometry, prosthetics, speech/audiology services, physical therapy and more (referred to as 'optional benefits' by the federal government - meaning it is optional for the states to provide these benefits - not that the benefit is not critically needed).
- Huge Medi-Cal provider rate reductions totaling 15% (cut of nearly $665 million)that will likely result in providers leaving the program - creating a significant problem of access to health services by people with developmental and other disabilities, seniors and people with low incomes, and people with mental health needs.
* COMMUNITY BASED SERVICES/SUPPORTS FOR PEOPLE WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES
- Proposed cut of $100 million cut to regional center purchase of service budget that funds community-based services and supports for over 180,000 people with developmental disabilities in California that will result in significant reductions or outright elimination of community-based services, programs and providers across the state.
- Governor's proposed $31.6 million cut (for families) to regional center purchase of services for many many families due to co-payments that would require families with incomes at over 200% of the federal poverty level, with children with developmental disabilities between ages of 3 and 17 years, to share the cost of services. The Department of Developmental Services (DDS) estimates that a two-parent family earning an income of $50,000 annually and having two children between ages of 3-17 and one of them with developmental disabilities, would pay 100% of the costs of regional center services purchased services up to $5,000 (the average purchased service costs in 2001-02 was $3,750 according to DDS). However the other impact is that largely lower and middle income families will be forced to pay potentially thousands of more dollars for the very community-based supports, programs and services that, at the same time, are also being reduced, cut or eliminated by the funding crisis and the Governor's budget proposals.  Note: the State sees the $31 million as "revenue" and not a cut.
- Huge cuts to more community-based services, currently funded through the Department of Rehabilitation Habilitation Services Programs (including work activity programs, supported employment programs) that the Governor is proposing to take effect THIS year (by April), including suspension of any rate increases for work activity programs that, by law, were scheduled to take effect this year, including a cut of $2.1 million to be effective in April this year - and another $8.8 million to be cut in 2003-2004 (reflecting 5% reduction in rates paid to community-based providers).
- Potential and actual reductions and outright elimination of adult education programs for people with developmental disabilities across the state.
* ELIGIBILITY BEING NARROWED
- $2.1 million proposed cut to regional center purchase of services due to proposed changes that will have impact of narrowing eligibility for community-based services for people with developmental disabilities with a the result that beginning July 1, 2003 through June 30, 2004, about 405 persons new to the system, will be deemed not eligible for services, who, under the current standards, would have been eligible. That number is likely to grow each year.
- Eligibility is also being narrowed in other areas, including Medi-Cal, compounding the crisis for the same population of people with developmental and other disabilities and seniors.
* SSI/SSP
- Proposed cuts by the Governor to Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Payment (SSI/SSP) including suspension of state cost of living increases scheduled for this year, that will roll back payments to levels before January 2000.
* SENIOR PROGRAMS
- Huge cuts proposed by the Governor of over $5.1 million to senior services and programs, including senior nutrition program, and cuts to adult day care programs.
* MENTAL HEALTH
- Big cuts and reductions proposed by the Governor, including elimination of the early mental health services program (cut of $15 million); $46 million cut to mental health managed care (reflecting 10% rate reduction); and moving Integrated Services for Homes and Children's System of Care programs to counties, while getting the promise this year of dedicated funding for it at the same time the Governor proposes to cut other funding going to counties.
* ALL COMMUNITY BASED PROVIDER COSTS CONTINUE TO RISE
- Workers Compensation costs - this crisis continues with no immediate relief from the state, with premiums doubling, even tripling, costing community-based providers  everywhere in the state hundreds of thousands of more desperately needed dollars that the state is refusing to reimburse  - pushing hundreds of community based providers to the brink of closure.
* THERE IS MUCH MUCH MORE BEING LOST....

WHAT CAN PEOPLE DO?
In ALL instances below, we are all working to change the way we advocate by linking and coordinating actions and our messages statewide.
* ADVOCACY IN SACRAMENTO
- Attend upcoming Assembly Budget Subcommittee #1 on Health and Human Services hearings THIS week on January 15 and possibly Jan 16 in Sacramento (see UCP/California Community Advocacy Network Alerts for details. If you have not received it, please email to Marty Omoto at the email address below).
- Attend upcoming regular budget hearings beginning in March through May.
- Come up to the State Capitol and join teams of other people with disabilities from across the state, for planned coordinated weekly office visits to key legislators and other state officials beginning this month through the end of the year. These visits will be twice a week - and coordinated with the letter campaigns, rallies, related hearings, and visits or meetings that occur in legislator's district offices with different groups of people each time.
* ADVOCACY AT HOME - IN YOUR COMMUNITY
- Help organize a community meeting and rallies to help train, coordinate, educate and share strategy on these issues (see below for organizing and mobilizing), including outreach to people who never before have been involved (especially minority communities). This includes helping with or actually participating on a state legislative district team (called "10/10 legislative team" - see below)
- Join people within your legislative district (this will be coordinated) to visit and talk with your local legislator in his or her district office. These visits will be on-going and coordinated with visits in Sacramento, the letter campaigns, hearings and other events.
- Write letters (see below)
- Write letters to the editor to your local paper (see letter writing regarding focus on the same message)
- Contact your local news station and other media to highlight our targeted issues and message.
- Participate in planned statewide (to be announced) video conference to update people on strategy and issues regarding the funding crisis.
- Volunteer to work in your legislator's district office.
- Make phone calls (which are coordinated with other actions) as needed to certain legislators and other state officials.
* LETTER WRITING
- Write letters to policy makers at the RIGHT time, to the RIGHT people with the SAME message (the list of WHO and WHERE  you should send letters changes depending on the issue, the time and which committee or house or person is looking at the issue. See latest UCP/California Community Advocacy Network Alerts for current information regarding this)
- Write letters pushing the same message as everyone else in the State.
- See latest UCP/California Community Action Network Alerts for latest person(s) to write to, addresses and sample letters and other suggestions.
* ORGANIZE! MOBILIZE YOUR COMMUNITY!
- As previously announced a new non-partisan permanent statewide effort to organize people with disabilities, families, advocates, direct care workers and  providers, and others, called the "California Community Advocacy Network" continues.
- This effort includes establishing permanent teams of volunteers in every legislative district (referred to as a 10/10 legislative team made up of 10 individuals who reside in that legislative district and 10 organizations or groups that provide services or programs in that legislative district).
- Several organizing meetings in communities across the state have been held and many more are planned.
- The network is an effort to link all groups (statewide, local - large or small) and individuals with coordinated action and message on a statewide and local basis to maximize the message, the voices and every resource.
The network includes links to existing self advocacy, leadership training and development and also new training and development in those areas.
- The network also includes links and coordination to development of solutions to help solve the funding crisis on a short and long term basis - and research to help provide critically needed information and data.
- If you are interested in participating or helping with a community meeting on the
funding crisis (and to mobilize your community to take next steps) please
contact:  martyomoto@...
* SAVE THE DATE FOR STATEWIDE MEETING IN SACRAMENTO
- Statewide advocacy organizing strategy meeting will be held in Sacramento soon possibly later this week or next week. In addition, a second part of the meeting will focus on the impact of staggering workers compensation costs to community providers and what can be done. Watch for special UCP/CA COMMUNITY ADVOCACY NETWORK ACTION ALERT on this meeting! [note: this replaces meetings set for 1/9]. Also, a follow-up meeting with a march on the Capitol followed by a rally there is being planned for late February or March.
* MAKE THIS ISSUE IS A CIVIL RIGHTS AND FUNDING A PRIORITY FOR YOU AND YOUR
ORGANIZATION!
- If you have not already done so, you should put this funding crisis (and for people with developmental disabilities and their families, it is also a critical civil rights issue with the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act at stake) at the very, very top of your organization or group's agenda.
- If you are person with other disabilities or mental health needs, or a senior (or an advocate or an organization providing services and supports) you should also place the funding crisis at the top of your agendas.
- Devastation of community-based services and supports has potential impact on the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, etc., and how the US Supreme Court 1999 Olmstead Decision implementation in California proceeds.

WHAT CAN I DO AND WHEN?
* The time is NOW! We are looking at a long term, consistent, coordinated statewide advocacy effort based in every legislative district!
* Check out the latest UCP/California Community Advocacy Network Action Alerts that are specific to a hearing (such as the hearings this week in Sacramento) or to particular letter writing effort.  If you belong to an existing organization - check with them and get them to coordinate actions with others in the state.

Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 08:13:15 -0800
From: "Marty Omoto, Legislative Director" <martyomoto@...>
Organization: CA Coalition of United Cerebral Palsy Associations
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Win98; U)
X-Accept-Language: en
Subject: CA UCP/CA CAN ACTION ALERT #07-2003: REMINDER - COME TO SACRAMENTO 1/15

CA UCP/CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY ADVOCACY NETWORK
ACTION ALERT #07-2003
January 13, 2003 - Monday morning
ACTION NEEDED: COME TO SACRAMENTO FOR ASSEMBLY BUDGET HEARING 1/15
WHO SHOULD ACT AND RESPOND TO THIS CALL TO ACTION?
* People with developmental (and other disabilities) people with cognitive
disabilities and their families and providers, advocates
* People with mental health needs and their families, providers, advocates
* People with low incomes, providers and advocates
* People who are Medi-Cal recipients, seniors, their families, providers, direct
care staff, advocates, and other organizations
WHEN ARE THE HEARINGS IN SACRAMENTO?
There are two hearings THIS (week of January 13th) so far that will be considering the $10 billion in proposed cuts to the current budget (covering the period from July 1, 2002 to June 30, 2003) that the Governor proposed in December.
* JAN 15 - WEDNESDAY
What: Assembly Budget Subcommittee #1 on Health and Human Services
Time: not set yet - "upon the call of the chair"
Where: State Capitol, Room 4202
Note: dates and times are subject to change, so always check latest information.
JAN 16 - THURSDAY
What: Assembly Budget Subcommittee #1 on Health and Human Services
Time: not set yet (will be held only if business was not completed the day
before and meeting is "upon the call of the chair")
Where: State Capitol, Room 447
WHO IS ON THE ASSEMBLY BUDGET SUBCOMMITTEE?
This subcommittee has 3 Democrats and 2 Republicans and is a subcommittee of the Assembly Budget Committee, which will also review what this subcommittee does before actions on the Governor's proposal is voted on by the full Assembly.
* CHAIR:
Assemblywoman Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) [previous member of this committee]
* VICE CHAIR:
Assemblyman Ray Haynes (R-Murrieta) [new member elected November/former senator]
* Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton) [new member elected November]
* Assemblywoman Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) [new member elected November]
* Assemblyman Robert Pacheco (R-Walnut) [previous member of this committee]
BACKGROUND
* The Assembly Budget Subcommittee #1 on Health and Human Services, chaired by
Assemblywoman Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) covers budget issues impacting programs
for people with developmental and other disabilities, mental health, seniors,
people with low incomes, In Home Supportive Services (IHSS), SSI/SSP, health care including Medi-Cal). The hearings on Jan 15 and 16 will review the Governor's proposed $10 billion in cuts to the CURRENT year budget (that took effect July 1, 2002 and ends June 30, 2003).
* It is not certain yet whether the Senate will hold their hearings jointly with
the Assembly or separately at a different date and time. If held separately, we will issue an alert for those hearings too.
* Hearings on the proposed 2003-2004 budget that the Governor submitted January 10 won't be held until probably early March.
IS IT IMPORTANT TO GO TO THE HEARINGS THIS WEEK?
* YES! Though, given the short time frame, most people coming will be from the
Northern California area - but people from other parts of the state should come
if possible. This is yet another step towards building a permanent,powerful and
effective grassroots network that can make change.
* It is very very important for policy makers to see the faces and hear the
voices of people whose services, supports and programs could be cut or
eliminated.
* Even if you only sit and listen - that helps! Please attend! Time to speak
(testify) will be very very limited, so keep your remarks brief and to the point.
WHAT TIME SHOULD I BE THERE? WHERE SHOULD I GO?
* A time for the hearing might be announced later on Monday (1/13). We will send out word when a time is set. Until then, plan to be in Sacramento as early Wednesday morning as possible.
* We are organizing a briefing/orientation just prior to the hearing time on
Wednesday morning to brief and answer questions, provide some talking points,
discuss strategy and ideas to self-advocates, families, direct care workers,
providers and others.
* We have not yet set a time or location yet, until a time for actual hearing is set. It will either be outside the Capitol (west steps area) or in the Capitol cafeteria basement or possibly in a meeting room across the street from the Capitol. Final details will be released late Monday. Watch for it!
WHAT SHOULD I BRING AND WHAT SHOULD I SAY OR DO?
* See separate Alert for information about lodging, transportation, etc (UCP/California Community Advocacy Network Alert #08-2003)
* The briefing/orientation being held prior to the hearing will have suggested
talking points, and other information for you to consider using.
* We do not know how the hearing will be conducted - and how much time will be
allowed for public testimony, but normally, time for people to make comments is
very, very limited and not everyone may have the chance to speak.
* People should focus, (and very very briefly), on the critical need for the
specific critical services or supports THEY are receiving and that they depend
and need. Providers and workers can focus (briefly) on the specific services and
supports they provide, perhaps even naming a specific family or person the
service is critical for.
* Avoid being rude. Avoid lecturing or making general or rhetorical statements.
* Whether you are in the audience or able to speak - bring and hold up (for the
entire hearing) the picture of the person you are speaking for - or of a person
who needs these services who could not be at the hearing, or a picture of a
person who receives the services or supports you provide.
WHAT ELSE CAN I DO AND WHEN?
* The time is NOW! We are looking at a long term, consistent, coordinated statewide advocacy effort based in every legislative district!
* Check out the latest UCP/California Community Advocacy Network Action Alerts that are specific to a hearing (such as the hearings this week in Sacramento) or to particular letter writing effort (see separate alert for letter writing - #08-2003) If you belong to an existing organization - check with them and get them to coordinate actions with others in the state. See UCP/California Community Advocacy Network Alert #6-2003.
NOTE: This is a report for Californians with developmental (& other disabilities),
families, providers and other advocates from the California Coalition of United
Cerebral Palsy Associations. If you would like to get on this distribution (and conversely, get off of it) please send an email with that request to: martyomoto@.... Please allow some time to be removed from the list (it takes time to delete names from distribution listing). Additions can be added immediately. Please also send announcements of meetings, and any alerts or legislative reports you or your organization sends out etc. Sharing information is part of our organizing effort. Please feel free to forward/copy this (attribution is nice). Thanks! Remember - we are all in this together.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Marty Omoto, Legislative Director
CA Coalition of United Cerebral Palsy Associations
1225 8th Street Suite 480 Sacramento, CA 95814
916/446-3204 FAX: 916/446-3206 email: martyomoto@...
Coalition Chair: Michael Williams (UCP of the Golden Gate)
Immediate Past Chair: Ron Cohen (UCP LA and Ventura Counties)

Mary Johnson, editor of Ragged Edge, has a new book
(www.makethemgoaway.com), subtitled "Clint Eastwood, Christopher
Reeve, and the Case Against Disability Rughts" with lots of
observations on disability law, politics, and journalism..  I've got
a review of it at www.mainstream-mag.com Many of the cases mentioned
are from California.


Art

There are ways and compassionate ways for same but I will not barter in
those methods. Sorry. That is the realm of those in the Hemlock Society,
Peter Singer, et al.

I will not broker their methods and genocidal methods to achieve their
philosophical goals of a newfound "master race".

Sorry...

But before that one hundred thousand were gassed tens of thousands were
euthenisised and more were sterilized by "doctors courts" in Nazi germane.
And remember that sterilization was created here in the U.S. and was widely
used into the 1980's for persons deemed disabled. Even the great civil
libertrain Oliver Wendal Holmes commented in a famous case in the twenties
that,"Three generations of idiots is enough>'

Ethnic cleansing anyone? I think not.

Sorry if this is stern sounding but our rights are being dismantled as I
write. The final solution is not far away for many of us as I write.

Millions of us are in "concentration camps" of a sort against our
wills...They are called nursing homes and state institutions.

We are deemed by the public as expendable. Thus the "slippery slope".

Mr. Batavia was living in an enlightened period where promise of civil
rights was becoming a legislative reality. We now know that reaction has
neutered that reality and that it is indeed not real in fact.

I will consider talking of death with dignity when life with dignity has
been afforded myself and my disabled peers. We'll dicer on that one when the
ADA, IDEA, 504 and other civil rights laws have truly been implemented.
We'll talk when we have true community placement options and even true
hospice/palliative care options.

We'll talk of dispatching oneselves when we aren't hovering at the seventy
percent unemployment range and when the bulk of us oare not living in
poverty.

Remove the stigma, discrimination and similar equations from the equation of
disability in America and then we might start a reasonable dialoged on PAS.

Until then it is not something that most of wished to be proffered for in
fact we believe it will be come enforced.

Joe


----- Original Message -----
From: <tamar40@...>
To: <disability-civil-rights@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 11, 2003 1:07 AM
Subject: Re: [disability-civil-rights] Drew Batavia Obituary in Miami Herald


> True. I didn't realize it was such a high number of disabled people gassed
in
> Hitler's gas chambers. I knew we were the first to go. I look forward to
> learning more as I pursue disability studies after I complete my previous
> degree studies.
>
> What would you recommend instead, for those who find life unrewarding, for
> those who can't jump off a bridge or something?
>
> Tamar
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> disability-civil-rights-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
>

True. I didn't realize it was such a high number of disabled people gassed in
Hitler's gas chambers. I knew we were the first to go. I look forward to
learning more as I pursue disability studies after I complete my previous
degree studies.

What would you recommend instead, for those who find life unrewarding, for
those who can't jump off a bridge or something?

Tamar

I will never be one to tell one he/she may not take ones own life if that is
ones choice. However, to enter into third party arrangements is rife with
conflicts, coercion, etc. I consider PAS as an oxymoron in that once a third
party is involved then it is not by definition suicide but murder.

I am also informed by the eugenics and reletively recent examples of forced
sterilization, incarceration and indeed the ultimate solution of the Nazis.

Please remember my friend that the first persons gassed in the Nazi "Final
Solution" were approximately one hundred thousand mental and physical
disabled persons in 1941.

I suppose there was propaganda at the time that this was compassionate.

I am not equating you or Mr. Batavia with these actions but I must insist
that those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.

I do worry about the "Camel's Nose". It is very long and we are not far from
it bigting us on the behind right now.

But it is late and I truly welcome your opinion on this or other matters. It
is how we all learn.

Peace,

Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: <tamar40@...>
To: <disability-civil-rights@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 11, 2003 12:36 AM
Subject: Re: [disability-civil-rights] Drew Batavia Obituary in Miami Herald


> Dying with dignity is better than being starved to death for two weeks
like
> some other people are being, because they are denied the medication that
will
> pass them on to the death bed. Like you, though, I think it's always a
> concern when doctor assisted suicide legislation is passed. Still, if I
had
> my choice I'd go with death with dignity, and I'll be the one in control.
>
> Tamar Raine
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> disability-civil-rights-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
>

Dying with dignity is better than being starved to death for two weeks like
some other people are being, because they are denied the medication that will
pass them on to the death bed. Like you, though, I think it's always a
concern when doctor assisted suicide legislation is passed. Still, if I had
my choice I'd go with death with dignity, and I'll be the one in control.

Tamar Raine

----- Original Message -----

From: Larry Paradis

To: Disability-Civil-Rights (E-mail)

Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 1:10 PM

Subject: [disability-civil-rights] Drew Batavia Obituary in Miami Herald

Miami Herald
Posted on Tue, Jan. 07, 2003

Andrew Batavia, helped write ADA

BY ELINOR J. BRECHER
ebrecher@...

Andrew Batavia, the quadriplegic Miami Beach lawyer who
helped write the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act
and crusaded for legalizing doctor-assisted suicide, died
Monday at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. He was 45.

His wife, Cheryl Nicholson Batavia, said he had been suffering
complications from a chronic urinary tract infection and had
been hospitalized twice in the past month.

Batavia was an associate professor of public-health policy
at Florida International University and a former partner at the
Miami law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery.

He had been in a wheelchair since he was injured in a car
wreck when he was 16 in Yonkers, N.Y.

From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, he worked in
Washington, where he helped write the ADA in 1989. He
was a special assistant to Attorney General Richard
Thornburgh in the first Bush administration, associate
director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and
executive director of the National Council on Disability.

He was a White House Fellow and later served as Arizona
Sen. John McCain's legislative assistant.

A prolific writer on disability and right-to-die issues, he briefly
wrote a disability issues column for The Herald in 1997 after
moving to South Florida because he liked the warmer weather.

Batavia filed a Friend of the Court brief with the U.S. Supreme
Court in 1997, favoring a terminally ill person's right to choose
his or her time of death, a position vigorously opposed by
many other disability activists who feared it would lead to
abuse of disabled people's rights.

Batavia spent a year in rehabilitation following the car crash in
which he was a passenger and returned to Lincoln High
School in Yonkers, becoming class president.

He graduated from the University of California at Riverside and
Harvard Law School and earned a master's degree in health
services research at Stanford University Medical School.

'If I have one sentence to say about him it would be: `Give me
a challenge, because I love challenges,' '' said his mother,
Renee Batavia of Boynton Beach. ``That's how he spent his
whole life. I never regarded him as disabled because he didn't
regard himself as disabled and never used it to get anything
for himself.''

In 1997, Cheryl and Drew, as he was known, adopted two
Russian children: Joe, now 12, and Katerina, now 11. Drew
feared they would be denied the adoption because of his
condition, so Cheryl traveled alone to an orphanage in
Ekaterinburg, near Siberia.

He recently declared a ''new joy initiative'' for his family, said
Cheryl, a sixth-grade teacher at Florida International Academy.
``Negativity would not be tolerated. It was sort of annoying, but
I found that he was right. He never took anything for granted.''

Batavia also is survived by his father, Gabe; brother Mitch
Batavia of New York; and sister Ellen Maher of North Miami.

A memorial service is planned for 3:30 p.m. Saturday at
Temple Beth Israel, 5008 W. Atlantic Ave., in Delray Beach.
His family plans to scatter his ashes at sea, according to
his wife.


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-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Davis [mailto:ddavis@...]
Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2003 9:10 PM
To: dansdavis@...
Subject: FWD: JFA Action Alert -- ADA Watch SUTTON petition being
circulated


Sorry if this is a repeat. I am resending it because it appears that my
mail earlier today did not go out. Thanks for understanding,
Daniel

>ACTION ALERT!!  Join Sutton Opposition!
>
>A petition is now being circulated by ADA Watch to mobilize
>opposition to Sutton.  This petition is provided below and
>available on the web at www.adawatch.org. Also below is a
>letter from AAPD President Andy Imparato to President
>George Bush, urging the president not to renominate Jeffrey
>Sutton.
>
>Numerous organizations, including AAPD, decided to oppose
>President Bush's nomination of Jeffrey Sutton to the Sixth
>Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes Michigan, Ohio,
>Tennessee and Kentucky) shortly after his name was put
>forward in May of 2001.  Sutton is the attorney who argued
>the Garrett case in front of the Supreme Court on behalf of
>the State of Alabama holding that the ADA was
>unconstitutional as applied to State employers in suits for
>damages.  He also argued on behalf of the State of Georgia
>in the Olmstead case, thankfully losing in his contention
>that that ADA did not prohibit unnecessary
>institutionalization of two women with mental
>disabilities.  In part because of the substantial
>opposition his nomination produced from the disability
>community, he was never scheduled for a hearing in the last
>Congress.  According to recent press reports, it looks like
>he will be renominated by President Bush next week and
>possibly scheduled for a hearing as early as January 14.
>
>Don't Delay, Take Action Today!
>
>Jonathan Young, PhD
>JFA Editor, AAPD
>
>=========================
>
>ADA WATCH
>National Coalition for Disability Rights
>
>Please Distribute:
>Urgent Reply Requested
>
>Dear ADA Supporter:
>
>Your help is urgently needed to prevent the confirmation of
>Jeffrey Sutton to a lifetime seat on the Federal Court.
>Sutton is expected to receive a hearing before the Senate
>Judiciary Committee on January 14th. Hundreds of
>nonpartisan disability organizations and many more
>individuals are opposing Sutton because he is a States
>Rights activist who has weakened the ADA and other civil
>rights laws. If you have not joined us - either as an
>organization or as an individual - now is the time to act.
>
>Even if you have already opposed Sutton, here is what we
>need you to do:
>
>1. Sign the Stop Sutton! Petition at www.adawatch.org -
>organizations should also FAX a statement opposing Sutton
>on your letterhead to: 202-318-4040
>
>2. Distribute the attached petition and FAX completed
>copies (without a cover letter) to:  202-318-4040 (We will
>hand deliver petitions to the Senate.)
>
>3. Call your Senators/Come to Washington! We need you to
>join us on January 14th to send a message to the Senate to
>reject judicial nominees who oppose disability rights.
>(Check www.adawatch.com for the scheduled hearing time.)
>
>4. Organize a Stop Sutton! Rapid Response Team. Distribute
>this notice and petition broadly; manage phone banks to
>call the Senate; mobilize disability rights supporters to
>come to DC; write letters to the editor (using background
>information at www.adawatch.org); organize editorial board
>meetings; etc.
>
>Please join our bipartisan effort to ensure that lifetime
>seats on the Federal judiciary are filled by those who
>support the right to equal opportunity.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>
>Jim Ward
>President and Founder, ADA Watch
>
>1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 300
>Washington, DC 20004
>Phone: 202-661-4722
>FAX: 202-318-4040
>Email: adawatch@...
>WEB: www.adawatch.org
>
>=====================
>
>Stop Sutton!
>
>To President George W. Bush, Senator Orrin Hatch, Senator
>Patrick Leahy, and members of the U.S. Senate:
>
>WHEREAS
>President George W. Bush has declared that: "Every day our
>nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful
>to our founding ideals. And the founding ideals of our
>nation and, in fact, the founding ideals of the political
>party I represent was, and remains today, the equal dignity
>and equal rights of every American";
>
>WHEREAS
>Numerous editorials have called for a reassessment of
>President Bush's judicial nominees, including the New York
>Times editorial of December 22, 2002 which stated: "It
>seems clearer than ever that the White House and the Senate
>should conduct a more rigorous review of current and future
>judicial nominees' records"..."and disqualify any whose
>commitment to equal rights is at all in doubt;"
>
>WHEREAS
>People with disabilities are fully deserving of the federal
>civil rights protections included in Section 504 of the
>Rehabilitation Act, Individuals with Disabilities Education
>Act (IDEA), and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA);
>
>WHEREAS
>Jeffrey Sutton, nominated last year to the U.S. Court of
>Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, has been a leader in the
>effort to limit congressional power to enact laws
>protecting civil rights. Sutton has prevailed in a series
>of 5-4 cases before the Supreme Court that have curtailed
>civil rights, including the Board of Trustees of Alabama v.
>Garrett, which successfully challenged the
>constitutionality of applying the Americans with
>Disabilities Act of 1990 to states as employers. (Sutton
>argued that the protections of the ADA were "not needed" to
>remedy discrimination by states against people with
>disabilities. This decision prevents persons with
>disabilities from collecting monetary damages from state
>employers. Most significantly, it has resulted in fewer
>attorneys being willing to represent individuals in ADA
>cases against state employers.);
>
>WHEREAS
>Sutton filed a brief representing the state of Georgia
>before the Supreme Court in Olmstead v. L.C. arguing that
>unnecessarily keeping people with disabilities in
>institutions was not discrimination. (Ruling against the
>segregation and unnecessary institutionalization of people
>with disabilities, the Supreme Court reversed in a
>groundbreaking decision supporting desegregation.)
>
>WHEREAS
>Sutton has successfully argued against civil rights in
>Sandoval v. Alabama (holding that there is no private right
>of action under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act's
>disparate impact regulations); and United States v.
>Morrison (holding that the civil remedy provisions of the
>Violence Against Women Act was beyond Congress's power to
>enact).
>
>AND WHEREAS
>Sutton has not just acted as an advocate for his clients,
>but has admitted that he is often "on the lookout" for
>cases that support his hostility towards Federal civil
>rights protections and has strongly advocated going far
>beyond the Court's 5-4 majority in restricting Congress's
>power to protect civil rights;
>
>THEREFORE, BE IT KNOWN
>The undersigned joins hundreds of disability and civil
>rights organizations in opposing the confirmation of
>Jeffrey Sutton to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and
>respectfully requests that the U.S. Senate vote against his
>confirmation. The undersigned further requests that
>President Bush select judicial nominees supportive of
>disability and civil rights.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Name:                  Email:
>
>Address:               Date:
>
>
>Telephone:
>
>Please Distribute and Fax Completed Petitions (without
>cover) to:   202-318-4040
>
>=======================
>
>January 3, 2003
>
>The Honorable George W. Bush
>The White House
>Washington, DC  20500
>
>Dear President Bush:
>
>On behalf of the American Association of People with
>Disabilities (AAPD), I write respectfully to urge you not
>to renominate Jeffrey Sutton to the Sixth U.S. Circuit
>Court of Appeals when the new Congress assembles next week.
>Jeffrey Sutton's activist efforts to limit Congressional
>authority in the area of disability rights has undermined
>your father's legacy as the signer of the Americans with
>Disabilities Act (ADA) and represents a real threat to the
>civil and human rights of all Americans.
>
>In Garrett v. University of Alabama, Mr. Sutton argued
>successfully that Congress did not have the authority under
>the Constitution to apply the ADA to States in employment
>discrimination suits for damages.  He argued that
>unnecessary institutionalization should not be a violation
>of the ADA in the  L.C. v. Olmstead case, but thankfully
>the Supreme Court declined to follow his lead in that case.
>
>Mr. President, you have repeatedly indicated your support
>for the ADA.  You have signed an executive order calling
>for widespread and coordinated implementation of the
>Olmstead decision throughout your Administration.  You have
>promoted a New Freedom Initiative with the goals of opening
>opportunities and removing barriers to full participation
>for the more than 50 million Americans with disabilities.
>Why, then, elevate someone to a lifetime appointment to a
>federal appeals court whose view of the Constitution will
>erect new barriers for Americans with disabilities seeking
>to assert their rights in federal court?
>
>Since you nominated Jeffrey Sutton in May of 2001, AAPD has
>joined literally hundreds of national, state and local
>disability organizations to oppose his appointment.  It is
>unprecedented for our community to speak out so loudly in
>opposition to a judicial nominee, and we do so because we
>are convinced that his extreme views represent a real
>threat to our civil rights.  Please honor your commitment
>to a strong ADA and refrain from renominating Mr. Sutton to
>a federal judgeship.  Please listen to the strong protests
>of your constituents with disabilities and put forward
>candidates who understand the importance of Congress's
>ability to remedy this nation's abysmal history of
>exclusion, segregation, sterilization, institutionalization
>and impoverishment of its citizens with disabilities.
>
>Mr. President, we need your leadership to help us stem a
>tide of activist court decisions that are weakening the
>Constitutional underpinnings of disability rights laws and
>threatening your agenda on behalf of Americans with
>disabilities.  Having ridden that tide to national
>prominence, Jeffrey Sutton does not deserve your support.
>
>Sincerely yours,
>
>Andrew J. Imparato
>President and CEO
>American Association of People with Disabilities
>
># # #
>
>=====================
>
>JUSTICE FOR ALL -- A Service of the
>American Association of People with Disabilities
>www.aapd-dc.org    www.jfanow.org
>
>There's strength in numbers!  Be a part of a national
>coalition of people with disabilities and join AAPD today.
>www.aapd-dc.org
>
>
># # #
>
>=====================
>
>JUSTICE FOR ALL -- A Service of the
>American Association of People with Disabilities
>www.aapd-dc.org    www.jfanow.org
>
>There's strength in numbers!  Be a part of a national
>coalition of people with disabilities and join AAPD today.
>www.aapd-dc.org
>
>
>
>
>=====================================================================
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