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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 2, 2018)
1C THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2018 CONTACT US Erick Bengel | Features Editor ebengel@dailyastorian.com WEEKEND BREAK FOLLOW US facebook.com/ DailyAstorian Joan Herman Joan Herman, an Astoria resident, outside Street 14 Cafe in summer 2016. ADA threatened by federal legislation Congress tries to chip away at rights of people with disabilities Life By JOAN HERMAN For The Daily Astorian U nbeknownst to me at the time, 1990 would be a fortuitous year. Working full-time as a newspaper reporter during the week, on week- ends I was more often than not adven- turing out on some long-distance bike ride or another with my then-husband, the late Richard Fencsak. We owned Bikes & Beyond in Astoria, so cycling — and athletics, in general — con- sumed our lives. Not surprisingly, the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act that year did not even register a blip in our household. Even if it had, the land- mark legislation did not affect us — or so we thought. We were young and believed ourselves invincible, inhab- iting bodies that could take on even Astoria’s steepest hills on our sleek racing bikes. What could happen to us? Eighteen years later, Rich, would be dead from prostate cancer at 57, despite having lived a textbook-healthy lifestyle. We had divorced by that time but remained friends up to the very end. And I? After several years of expe- riencing strange symptoms, such as a floppy foot when I ran or acute hear- ing loss in one ear, I would be diag- nosed in 1998 with multiple sclero- sis, a sometimes progressive (as in my case) neurological disorder. Twenty years post-diagnosis, I am in a wheelchair full-time. I am extremely fortunate and grateful to have a loving husband, John Gaas- land, who is also my caretaker. And, thanks to the Americans with Disabilities Act, I am able to live a full life — a much different one from what my youthful, physically arrogant self could have imagined in 1990, but a full one nonetheless. Why am I writing about the Amer- icans With Disabilities Act, or the ADA, as it is often referred to, today? Simply, because it is threatened by a seemingly innocuous piece of federal legislation. First, just a bit of background about the ADA. It is “the nation’s first com- prehensive civil rights law address- ing the needs of people with disabil- ities, prohibiting discrimination in employment, public services, pub- Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Alex Brandon/Associated Press — Mary Oliver, American poet Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., right, waits with an aide for the elevator on Capitol Hill. Joan Herman Supporters of the Americans with Disabilities Act lic accommodations, and telecom- munications,” according to the fed- eral Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The ADA protects not only Amer- icans with obvious disabilities, phys- ical ones such as mine, but also invisible ones, such as mental and intellectual impairments. According to the U.S. Census, nearly 57 million Americans, or 19 percent of the pop- ulation, qualify as disabled, with more than half of those disabilities described as “severe.” The legislation that concerns me and disability rights advocates across the country would mandate that any- one wishing to sue a business due to lack of access first give written notice detailing the problem. The business would then have 60 days to devise a plan to address the complaint and an additional 60 to actually implement an accommodation. The bill passed the House a week ago Thursday along mostly partisan lines by a vote of 225-192. No com- parable bill is pending in the Senate at this time. On the surface, the bill sounds rea- sonable. The bill‘s proponents claim it is needed to ward off frivolous law- suits by unscrupulous lawyers looking to make a buck. Yet disability rights advocates argue that, if enacted, the bill would essentially do away with any incen- tive businesses have to comply with the law, unless a complaint is filed. In other words, rather than obey the law to begin with, a business could flaunt it and ask for forgiveness later — and, again, only if a complaint were filed. “If you don’t live with a disability, you might not think of #ADA viola- tions as significant at 1st glance,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a dou- ble-amputee veteran of the Iraq War, tweeted in response to the bill, “but I assure you they’re significant for those of us who do live with disabilities.” Thanks to the ADA, I can inde- pendently ride my power wheelchair around town without worrying about whether there will be curb cuts to pro- vide access. Newly constructed build- ings must include access, such as ramps, and significant building remod- els must incorporate access as well. Parking lots must set aside spaces for people with disabilities, which is particularly important for those of us with vans that require two spaces to extend a ramp, allowing us to roll out of our vehicles (by the way, that’s what those spaces with hash marks are for). These are just a few of the many kinds of access for those of us with physi- cal disabilities required under the law. But even 28 years after the ADA’s enactment, many places still are inac- cessible. I have learned to always call ahead to a restaurant or other business I have not visited before to see if there is a literal barrier to my entering the building. Some places I simply cannot access, such as the upper level of the 50-year-old Astor Library, where browsing through my favorite genre, fiction, remains tantalizingly out of reach. The librarians are always more than accommodating in fetching any titles. Still, it’s not the same as roam- ing through the stacks myself. The city is conducting a fundraising cam- paign to remodel the pre-ADA-con- structed library to, in part, make it fully accessible. Our country was founded on the principles of “life, liberty, and the pur- suit of happiness” for all Americans. Thanks to the ADA, I and millions of other Americans have a shot at those most fundamental of American values. How ironic that such an august body as Congress, elected to represent we the people, should attempt to chip those rights away.