Patience is a Virtue
Have you ever gone shopping and couldn't find a handicapped parking spot where you really needed one? Or struggled in a store because the sales clerks had difficulty understanding how to meet your needs? Now, did you actually attempt to correct these situations? Or did you just think you couldn't possibly make a difference? Sometimes all it takes is being a little assertive or just being in the right place at the right time and taking advantage of the moment. Sometimes those moments come when you least expect them!
Last spring the one and ONLY handicapped parking spot in my community's downtown core was removed. I called City Hall to find out why this has happened. It seems in my community, that each and every handicapped parking spot has to have a by-law attached to it, otherwise it's illegal to give tickets to those not entitled to park there. They had discovered that this parking stall didn't have a By-law associated with it. Red Tape at it's finest! My tax dollars at work!
Needless to say I was not impressed, although the Clerk at the City Hall was helpful in providing me with which hoops I had to jump through to have this parking stall re-introduced. At the time I did write a letter to the Mayor expressing my outrage, after all, it was the ONLY handicapped parking stall on public land in the entire downtown core. I received a polite but non-committal response in return.
A few weeks later while taking in a local May Day Celebration I happened to run into a old friend that I hadn't seen in a few years. He now had a business that operated in the downtown core. I asked him if he had any pull with the local government regarding Disability Access to the community. Imagine my surprise when he told me he was on the Board of Directors of the local Businessman's Association! Imagine HIS surprise when I told him that the local business' were flunking Disability Access 101!
Actually he knew they were flunking, as a wheelchair friend of his had recounted several accessability horror stories the day before, but he was surprised that even more mobile disabled person's were having difficulties as well. I happened to mention that I wrote articles on Disabilities and maybe he might be interested in reading one or two of them, hoping that he might pass on some glimmers of hope on my part to some of the other business' in the downtown core. He took the bait and provided me with his fax number and I promptly shipped him 4 of my previous Suite101 articles, strike while the iron's hot is my motto!
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