Gotham City: Wheelchair Avengers or Civil Rights Activists?

Gotham City:
Telling Tales of Our Capital Region’s Politics

by Frank Pizzoli

Wheelchair Avengers or Civil Rights Activists?

Are they wheelchair avengers on a mission? Are they civil rights activists with a just cause? The answer is: it depends.

If you are reliant on wheelchairs or other mobility devices, suing establishments you want to, but can’t, patronize because they are "inaccessible" is your civil right under the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, which called for "accessibility" by 1992.

If you are a Mom and Pop operation on North Third Street or elsewhere in a city that was, not too many years ago, a ghost town on the verge of bankruptcy, being slapped with a federal civil suit may be the last straw.

Who’s to blame? Nah, blame is a useless game. Who contributes to the confusion? Now that’s a long list, beginning with the complainants themselves and ending with government at all levels.

Confusing Letter

According to a one-page letter sent in June to 20 midtown and other city establishments by Center for Independent Living civil rights specialist Linda Riegel, owners were informed in the first sentence of "potential violation/s", namely, "Inaccessible entrance — No entrance at all accessible to people using wheelchairs."

The communication next indicated enclosure of tax credit and tax deduction information available to ease compliance. Later in the text, Riegel wrote that without a 10-day reply, the information "will be forwarded to appropriate enforcement agencies."

There are no "appropriate enforcement agencies," at least none that are identified in ADA law and governing regulations. We’d like to think that the three lawyers who signed federal suits resulting from non-reply to Riegel’s letter would have counseled her to issue a more precise missive. Especially given the serious effects on business owners struggling daily to succeed. Gotcha lawyering at its best. Perhaps they were in Washington making sure that proposed cuts to their federal appropriations weren’t accomplished. Rewarding "busy" rather than "useful" is an old trick, and with legions of federal suits, they would certainly look busy.

The single biggest problem with ADA is uneven enforcement. Instead of a single-point of accountability, there is a dizzying labyrinth of local, state, and federal agencies all too eager to compound confusion. Each has an endless list of "Dos and Don’ts", although no one of them serves as "accessibility central" in order to credibly assist entrepreneurs.

And, oh my, if only readers could hear the glee with which so many officials quickly explain, essentially, "That’s not my job," satisfied that they’ve given callers their isolated piece of information while glad they don’t have to ferret out the numbing details. That’s for a busy entrepreneur to do after working a double shift to make payroll.

Reader Dot Matrix pointed out another flaw in Riegel’s approach. "What if, like, I had a business no one in a wheelchair wanted to patronize? Am I off the hook?"

Every corner turned finds a new banana peel or a new mirror whose glass is fogged by bureaucratic smoke. (See Groups Now Talking, ADA Suits Continue.)

Questions, not answers

Let’s start at the bottom and work our way up the governmental ladder.

For example, at the local level the city planning office offers a starting point as if it were a solution. "We turn around information requests in 48 hours," says planning official David Patton.

By all indications, that is a true statement. His office will assemble a list of departments involved in a property — fire, police, parking, zoning, and historical. Useful, but incomplete. The information is a list of questions, not answers, and sets into motion a series of telephone calls, faxes, night meetings, legal fees, and other expenses to finally figure out what needs to be accomplished.

Then, if you have any energy, customers, and money left, you can pay for a "plan" that all the parties involved get to "pick over" and send back for "changes", some of which conflict with each other. Remember — "That’s not my job."

Riegel told MODE that she’s often found businesses that are given an "o.k." by the city not compliant with ADA.

Then comes the PA Department of Labor & Industry. Accountability administrator Jim Varhola will explain that the state has had accessibility language in its laws since 1965, "but we have no real enforcement powers." That’s a great jobs creation law, we have rules, just can’t enforce them, you get the headache, I get the job.

Regarding ADA, Varhola is quick to point out "that’s federal, we’re state." A lot of good that answer does a busy entrepreneur. Riegel also told MODE of establishments "approved" by the state as handicapped compliant that she found were not ADA compliant. Don’t you just love this?

Finally, there is a federal technical agency (1-800-949-4232) that can bury you in paper, but can’t really provide answers. They do better with generating questions around which there are no conclusions, except one: they keep good paying jobs with salaries and benefits better than the entrepreneurs who pay for it through taxes.

After formulating massive documents weighing literally pounds, federal bureaucrats take a novel approach. They let landlords and tenants solve the problem, while they poke from the sidelines. Eventually, after exhausting what amounts to useless remedies, the landlord ultimately is responsible, and can spend any leftover cash in court.

So, in what looks to be a celebration of perverse glee by all levels of government, a battle is forced between Mom & Pop entrepreneurs and folks in wheelchairs. Folks whose health may already be compromised are left to slug it out with weary business owners with small bank accounts.

"Hi, I’m from the federal government, and I’m here to help you."