# Group warns Mechanicville on access for disabled



## mark handler (Sep 12, 2014)

Group warns Mechanicville on access for disabled

Posted on September 11, 2014 | By Dennis Yusko







Mary Sullivan steered her motorized device up Hill Street in Mechanicville, carefully hugging the side of the road to avoid oncoming vehicles that zipped dangerously close.

Sullivan, like her late father, has muscular dystrophy. She began using a four-wheel scooter three years ago, when the degenerative disease made it too difficult for her to walk. She doesn’t let the disability dictate her life. She rides around the one-square-mile city, completing chores and meeting friends.

But Sullivan, 32, learned it wasn’t easy getting around downtown Mechanicville. The pavement on many of the city’s sidewalks is broken, uneven or filled with weeds, making them impassable for wheelchairs and other devices. Some sidewalks were built without curb cuts. That forces Sullivan and others with disabilities to travel on streets because they can’t get onto the sidewalks.

“It’s very dangerous,” said Sullivan, who grew up in the city. “My biggest fear is getting stuck by myself. Then I have to wait for someone to help me.”

Sullivan is leading a fight to bring the city and its commercial district into compliance with access requirements of the U.S. Americans with Disabilities Act. She said she informed city officials about the problems two years ago, but they did nothing. She then filed a compliant with Disability Rights New York, an advocacy group based in Albany, to get Mechanicville to repair its downtown sidewalks and require city businesses to fix theirs.

Last month, members of the disability rights group toured Main Street, Central Avenue, the crosswalk to Price Chopper Plaza and the city’s new waterfront park/dock area with Sullivan and called it a harrowing experience. The group said Sullivan had to dodge vehicles because she couldn’t access sidewalks. Some businesses do not have accessible entrances, Simeon Goldman, an attorney for the group, told Mayor Dennis Baker in a letter dated Aug. 27.

“Not only has nothing been accomplished toward improving accessibility of the existing construction, but your brand new waterfront park has no accessible parking or accessible path to the dock,” Goldman wrote. “Intentionally or not, you have telegraphed the message that Mechanicville could not care less about its disabled citizens.”

The organization has threatened to take legal action against the city if it does not develop a plan within 100 days to fix its sidewalks, create and fix curb cuts and install signs so people with disabilities have equal access to the downtown business district. Disability Rights New York demanded the city respond by Friday. As of Thursday, the group had heard nothing, Goldman said.

Reached by phone about the matter last week, the mayor said he was vacationing in Washington, D.C., and referred comment to Accounts Commissioner Mark Seber, who is deputy mayor. Seber declined comment, citing the possibility of litigation.

Sullivan grew up in Mechanicville and graduated from Siena College in 2004. Her father, Michael Sullivan, also had muscular dystrophy, an inherited disorder that involves muscle weakness and loss of muscle tissue. Michael Sullivan advocated for disabled persons, his daughter said. He died in 2009 at age 68. “My father was in a wheelchair as far as I remember,” Sullivan said. “It was something I was very conscious of since a young age — what’s accessible, what’s not.”

Mary Sullivan works from home as an accountant. She enjoys her independence and wants the freedom to travel on her own. “I want to be able to get around my town safely,” she said.

She said she tried to speak with city officials about the accessibility problems. “All they say is ‘we’re broke, we’re broke, we’re broke,’” she said. The city is responsible for maintaining curb cuts and making sure property owners fix their sidewalks.

Disability Rights New York provided the city information about possible funding opportunities, Goldman said. In its letter, the group told Baker that it will sue the city in federal court if it does not approve a plan to improve access for disabled persons and complete the work within a year.

“I also urge you to take the walk I did accompanying Ms. Sullivan — you might actually see accessibility as more than just another costly, government-imposed mandate,” Goldman told Baker in the letter.


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## Keystone (Sep 12, 2014)

She is being reasonable in her attempts, her attorney is being reasonable in his attempts and via the article the city has taken a stance that has you scratching your head.  I have friends in a bordering city, the taxes are high and at best services are limited.


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## mark handler (Sep 18, 2014)

Mechanicville responds to disabled woman’s concerns

Posted on September 17, 2014 | By Dennis Yusko

http://blog.timesunion.com/saratogaseen/mechanicville-responds-to-disabled-womans-concerns/22165/

The city of Mechanicville is experiencing numerous financial problems and suing it to fix sidewalks and create equal access for disabled persons would only divert funds from achieving those objectives.

That’s what Mechanicville Mayor Dennis Baker told the organization Disability Rights New York in a letter dated Monday. The Albany-based advocacy group warned city officials Aug. 27 that it would, if necessary, take legal action against Mechanicville to force it to comply with equal access requirements outlined in the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In his reply this week, Baker said the city had recently “vastly improved access and ease of movement to all city residents,” and the threat of a lawsuit was premature and counterproductive.

“The city intends to comply with all laws as applicable to the city,” Baker wrote. “The City Council intends to review the concerns set forth in your letter of Aug. 27 with the Building Department and legal counsel and provide a response; however, the city’s sole code enforcement officer is on medical leave for two weeks and is therefore unavailable.”

Simeon Goldman, an attorney for Disability Rights New York, called Baker’s reply way too little and a little too late.

“This letter does not specifically address any of the concerns raised in our letter of Aug. 27th,” Goldman said Wednesday. “While we would welcome the City Council’s review of our concerns with the Building Department and legal counsel, the tone and substance of this letter do little to reassure us that Mechanicville wants to tackle the issue of accessibility.”

Leading the fight for equal access in the one-square-mile city is resident Mary Sullivan, who uses a motorized device for transportation because she has muscular dystrophy. She contacted Disability Rights New York because she felt city officials were ignoring her requests to repair broken sidewalks and create curb cuts on sidewalks so she could safely travel across the city.

Cracked, unequal and weed-ridden sidewalks in the downtown area of the city force Sullivan and others with disabilities to travel on streets because they can’t use or get onto sidewalks. Sullivan, 32, wants city officials to repair the broken sidewalks and the code enforcement officer to require city businesses to fix the walks in front of their shops. The disability rights group said Main Street, Central Avenue, the crosswalk to Price Chopper Plaza and the city’s new waterfront park/dock were dangerous for disabled persons, and some businesses do not have accessible entrances. The organization threatened to sue the city if it does not fix the sidewalks, create curb cuts and install signs for people with disabilities within 100 days. Goldman said Wednesday the group was assessing its options.

Reached at home, Sullivan said that Baker’s letter made her really sad. Here are the two letters cited in this story:


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## jar546 (Sep 18, 2014)

Just another city solicitor with inadequate knowledge firing off a generic letter so he/she can get paid for going through the motions.  TFB


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## mtlogcabin (Sep 18, 2014)

> “All they say is ‘we’re broke, we’re broke, we’re broke,’” s


And it may be a true statement. Hundreds of thousands to fix sidewalks and curb cuts or maybe we should spend it improving our water purification or sewer treatment system as order by some other federal agency. All government relies on taxes for funding and when the money is not there it is not there. Change the name of the city from Mechanicville to Detroit and the response would be the same. Limited funds and priorities that have to be dealt with.


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## jar546 (Sep 18, 2014)

Mismanagement

That is the cause.  Priorities should be taken care of as the earth turns, not excuses.  No money?  Learn to manage it.


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## fatboy (Sep 18, 2014)

I have no sympathy for them, as so often pointed out on this forum, they have had 24 years to comply, at least at some level. And, this isn't a case where they got slapped with a lawsuit out of the blue, several reasonable attempts have been made to get them to make some changes. Looks like it is time to bring out the big guns...........


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## mtlogcabin (Sep 18, 2014)

> I have no sympathy for them


Can you identify who "them" may be?

 Ultimately "them" is the taxpayer.


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## mtlogcabin (Sep 18, 2014)

jar546 said:
			
		

> MismanagementThat is the cause.  Priorities should be taken care of as the earth turns, not excuses.  No money?  Learn to manage it.


Money is finite and can only be managed until there is no more. You should understand this most of all being a private business owner. Sure this is a civil rights law but it is no different than any other law that requires some to spend their money for the benefit of others


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## Min&Max (Sep 18, 2014)

A new facility/public area should be ADA compliant. The city should have a reasonable plan for phasing access at street intersections. Depending on past/current/future construction activity in businesses, some may be accessible and some may not.


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## MASSDRIVER (Sep 19, 2014)

Why should government agencies be held to a different standard? A particar view on this forum is that a business has had 20 years to comply, if they have been around that long. Screw them on cost, what needs to be done has to be done now. They are miscreants if they do not comply. Money will have to be redirected from somewhere else, even if they go out of business.

What's gravy for the goose is gravy for the gander, right?

Or can we come to the conclusion the whole thing is fkked up like Hogan's Goat and needs to be revamped?

The argument for outlandish expenditures for accessibility is weak.

Brent


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## ADAguy (Sep 19, 2014)

The point is being missed that in most cases access costs (not nearly as high as some have stated) are usually a one time thing. They are the gift that keeps on giving.

Unlike an old car which "you" chose to drive and maintain/or not; city streets, sidewalks and public facilities (new and old) are intended to be used by "all" of us, as such maintenance of accessibility is the law of the land.


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## jar546 (Sep 19, 2014)

mtlogcabin said:
			
		

> Money is finite and can only be managed until there is no more. You should understand this most of all being a private business owner. Sure this is a civil rights law but it is no different than any other law that requires some to spend their money for the benefit of others


There is larger, more relevant fact here that is often overlooked.  Many small towns never had the resources to actually function to begin with and are always teetering on the edge of financial ruins.  At a time when different towns are combining services to save money and provide a better service, others are too proud to do what is right.  We see multiple fire and police departments each running separately at a very small scale when there is a better way by creating a co-op with other towns or simply rechartering as a region.  It you want to hold on to nostalgia by keeping your name or trying to remain independent, you will have to do so at a cost.  Just because the town has been around for 150 years does not mean it will make it another 150.

Municipals need to evaluate their situations a bit better and stop trying to have their own kingdom at the cost of the taxpayers and declining infrastructure.  Some states get that and some don't.  I witnessed this first-hand in PA with small boroughs that did not have enough of a tax base yet had a police chief, fire chief and departments that they simply could not afford.  There were enough fire apparatus within several close towns that could have been consolidated and placed in strategic locations to better serve the public.  That never happened and as a result, of this and everyone having their own chief of police, etc. the towns fell apart and are barely holding on.  They are now held by police and fire union contracts that cripple them and often they can't even make the payments into the pension funds.

People need to start waking up and realize that if you start to regionalize and consolidate, you can get more with less.  Until they put away their pride and nostalgia, they will continue to be financially unstable and never provide the best services to their residents.

Again, I have no pity whatsoever.  They've had 24 years to do this and I am guessing that the ADA is only the tip of the iceberg with small towns like this.

So yeah, I get it.  As a small business owner I get it more than they do.  The difference is that I change my lifestyle based on market conditions and adjust my business accordingly.  Trim when necessary and consolidate when needed proactively, not reactively.  Wake up small town America!


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## Frank (Sep 19, 2014)

ADAguy said:
			
		

> The point is being missed that in most cases access costs (not nearly as high as some have stated) are usually a one time thing. They are the gift that keeps on giving. Unlike an old car which "you" chose to drive and maintain/or not; city streets, sidewalks and public facilities (new and old) are intended to be used by "all" of us, as such maintenance of accessibility is the law of the land.


Streets and sidewalks are not a one time expense, one of the complaints here is sidewalks in poor repair.  Frost heave, tree roots etc can make a compliant sidewalk noncompliant in only a few years.  Some areas have removed sidewalks to achieve compliance.   Do we pay the cops and firemen or do we fix the sidewalks?  Always more needs than money.


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## conarb (Sep 19, 2014)

Jeff said:
			
		

> Again, I have no pity whatsoever.  They've had 24 years to do this and I  am guessing that the ADA is only the tip of the iceberg with small  towns like this.


I've heard this "They've had 24 years to do this" _ad nauseum ad infinitum_, this ADA is based upon Lyndon Johnson's Civil Rights law, Johnson also gave is the Viet Nam War and the War on Poverty, all have been failures and done more damage to this nation than any good that they may have been designed to do, I've even posted Johnson's *real reason for the Civil Rights law* which was nothing but obtaining votes for his Democratic party, so these Civil Rights laws are all political.

There is a very important Supreme court case written by chief Justice Warren Burger in 1971 entitled *Griggs v. Duke Power co,. 401 U.S. 424 (1971)* held that Civil Rights law granted special privileges to a Suspect Class because "negroes" had been given inferior educations, in 2001 Justice Sandra Day O'Connor put a time limit on this unconstitutional law of 25 more years, Thomas (and others) dissented:



> *=Grutter v. Bollinger*[/i], 539 U.S. 306 (2003)]A final criticism leveled at Justice O'Connor's opinion was the  length of time the racial admissions policy will be lawful. Justice  Thomas concurred that racial preferences would be unlawful in 25 years,  however, he noted that in fact the Court should have found race-based  affirmative action programs in higher education unlawful now: I therefore can understand the imposition of a 25-year time limit  only as a holding that the deference the Court pays to the Law School's  educational judgments and refusal to change its admissions policies will  itself expire. At that point these policies will clearly have failed to  "'eliminate the [perceived] need for any racial or ethnic'"  discrimination because the academic credentials gap will still be there.  [citation omitted] The Court defines this time limit in terms of narrow  tailoring, [internal citation omitted] but I believe this arises from  its refusal to define rigorously the broad state interest vindicated  today. [internal citation omitted]. With these observations, I join the  last sentence of Part III of the opinion of the Court.
> 
> For the immediate future, however, the majority has placed its  imprimatur on a practice that can only weaken the principle of equality  embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Equal Protection  Clause. "Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor  tolerates classes among citizens."
> 
> ...


To say that businesses and government agencies have had 24 years to comply with civil rights law and that is long enough is tantamount to saying that blacks (the original suspect class for whom the law was designed as redress for past grievances) have had 50 years of unconstitutional special treatment is long enough.   The entire Civil Rights law has been a failure and harmed all classes of citizens more than it has helped any class, Suspect or Semi-Suspect.  Special treatment under the law is unconstitutional in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.





			
				Cornell Law School said:
			
		

> The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment of the U.S.  Constitution prohibits states from denying any person within its  jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
> 
> _See_
> 
> ...


It is too bad that some people are handicapped, I am dealing with it now, my wife had a hip replacement operation a week ago Monday, I am pushing her around in a wheelchair and a walker, today I spent several hours taking her from the rehabilitation center to the doctor and to visit our son at work, all the ADA stuff is bull****, all it is is another way for the NAZIs (Socialists) to take more of our freedoms away, and to give those without conscience the ability to exploit the unfortunate.



¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grutter_v._Bollinger

² http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/equal_protection


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## ADAguy (Sep 19, 2014)

Have you been watching the Roosevelt Special on PBS? Last nights was very sobering, don't compare us to them! Not yet.


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## conarb (Sep 19, 2014)

ADAguy said:
			
		

> Have you been watching the Roosevelt Special on PBS? Last nights was very sobering, don't compare us to them! Not yet.


ADAguy:

No, about FDR or Teddy?  I don't watch television, I have one if anything interesting comes up.  I just saw this on another forum about the Scottish election:



			
				ZeroHedge said:
			
		

> Until people wake up, nothing will change. Sadly the worlds most deadly Weapon of Mass Mind Destruction have  been launched into virtually every Americans living room. And so the  potatoes rot on the couch.


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## ADAguy (Sep 20, 2014)

Both, very good, FDR is entering WWII tonight. Interesting to observe how "related" families disagree.


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## timick1 (Sep 24, 2014)

*Mechanicville responds to advocates for disabled*

I live nearby and this has been on the news and in the newspapers lately...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mechanicville

The city is experiencing numerous financial problems, and suing it to fix sidewalks and create equal access for disabled people would only divert funds from achieving those objectives.

That's what Mayor Dennis Baker told the organization Disability Rights New York in a letter dated Monday. The Albany-based advocacy group warned city officials Aug. 27 that it would, if necessary, take legal action against Mechanicville to force it to comply with equal access requirements outlined in the Americans with Disabilities Act. In his reply this week, Baker said the city had recently "vastly improved access and ease of movement to all city residents," and the threat of a lawsuit was premature and counterproductive.

"The city intends to comply with all laws as applicable to the city," Baker wrote. "The City Council intends to review the concerns set forth in your letter of Aug. 27 with the Building Department and legal counsel and provide a response; however, the city's sole code enforcement officer is on medical leave for two weeks and is therefore unavailable."

Simeon Goldman, an attorney for Disability Rights New York, called Baker's reply way too little and a little too late.

"This letter does not specifically address any of the concerns raised in our letter of Aug. 27," Goldman said Wednesday. "While we would welcome the City Council's review of our concerns with the Building Department and legal counsel, the tone and substance of this letter do little to reassure us that Mechanicville wants to tackle the issue of accessibility."

Leading the fight for equal access in the one-square-mile city is resident Mary Sullivan, who uses a motorized device for transportation because she has muscular dystrophy. She contacted Disability Rights New York because she felt city officials were ignoring her requests to repair broken sidewalks and create curb cuts on sidewalks so she could safely travel in the city.

Cracked, unequal and weed-ridden sidewalks in the downtown area of the city force Sullivan and others with disabilities to travel on streets because they can't use or access sidewalks, according to Disability Rights New York. Sullivan, 32, wants city officials to repair the sidewalks and the code enforcement officer to require owners of city businesses to fix the walks in front of their shops. The disability rights group says Main Street, Central Avenue, the crosswalk to Price Chopper Plaza and the city's new waterfront park/dock are dangerous for disabled people and that some businesses do not have accessible entrances. The organization threatened to sue the city if it does not fix its sidewalks, create curb cuts and install signs for people with disabilities within 100 days.

Goldman said Wednesday the group was assessing its options. Reached at home, Sullivan said that Baker's letter made her "really sad."

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## timick1 (Sep 24, 2014)

How do I edit / delete a post? I see this was already posted above


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## fatboy (Sep 24, 2014)

You can't......unless you are sawhorse. I'll take care of it.

Welcome to the forum!


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## mark handler (Sep 24, 2014)

fatboy said:
			
		

> You can't......unless you are sawhorse. I'll take care of it. Welcome to the forum!


unless you are Administrator.


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