Above, you can follow the remarkable chain of events that was precipitated by my e-mail to the mayor, city council, and the city manager of St. Marys on August 17th regarding the lack of fully ADA -compliant disabled parking for citizens utilizing the parking at city hall. As you can see, the response was virtually immediate. On behalf of myself and all disabled St. Marians, special thanks to Councilwoman Hase who promptly e-mailed me back that she had put in a word with the city manager in favor of my suggested improvememts. Thanks also to any other elected officials who may have acted similarly outside of my knowledge. Thanks likewise to City Manger Bill Shannahan, to Planning Director Roger Weaver for his excellent work which you see here, and finally to Public Works Director Bobby Marr and his people who will actually do the work.
Addendum, 8/22. Several weeks ago, I sat next to Cookie Johnson at a city council meeting. When I ran into her outside after the meeeting, I mentioned that I had to get down to the other end of the block ( to the only van accessible space on the block, in front of the old police building - now the DDA office) before the rain started. She said that she would see about geting the problem fixed. She now tells me that she spoke to the mayor about it not long thereafter. Thanks to both for whatever role they played.
12 comments:
I really like how you spun a tear jerking issue like disabled parking and turn it into a slam against The Mill. You embarrass yourself with this garbage. From the outside looking in it seems like you're using your disability as a political angle to snipe at people and places you find disagreeable. Why even give any examples of private businesses unless you're wanting to cost them money and do them harm. Quit being bitter dude.
It is, of course, way too late to prevent your making a fool of yopurself, but in case you would like to see just how big of a fool you appear to be to those in the know, you might want to check out what the owner of The Mill thinks passes for disabled parking. You will have to look carefully. There is no sign. You will find the miniscule hand drwan and painted emblem in one space at the north west corner of the building.
Again, why even include an example? Unless you have an ulterior motive behind the otherwise noble act of trying to improve parking for disabled people of course.
Just don't eat there. Let them lose out on the handicapped business then if its that much of an issue.
You say I'm making a fool of myself, but the fact is that I don't even care what kind of parking that place has. It's private property. I know what the regulations are and I'm saying that not only are those regulations bunk, but also you're being a manipulative Democrat by even attempting to invoke those rules on a private place of business. This is a vendetta and you're the fool for even including their business in this whole thing. You could have just shut it, let the city do its job and if they feel like they should enforce state laws then they can do so without you pointing at a place you don't even care to eat at.
There you go again. Are you the obnoxious BNostonian whjo onws The Mill, a soon-to-be candidate, a supporter of such a candidate, or just one of the unfortunate souls with a case of irrational Jay Derangement Syndrome (JDS)?
It is widely known in the community that I am, in fact, a conservative and a Republican.
In point of fact, the one time I tryed The Mill, I inquired of the owner as to why they did not have disabled parking? In typical and consistent fashion ( just as she had done over at Steffen's ) she got her haughty Bostonian ass on her shoulders and ridilculed me for not having seen the one improperly marked, inadequate, non-AD compliant spot she had a do-it-yourself, hand painted disabled symbol painted on. Again - it is located at the north west corner of the building. Hopefully, you can figure out which one that is.
While I do not care to eat there - preferring authenticly prepared southern cuisine, there are obviously hundreds of residents bereft of the culinary and gustatory benefits of having been reared in the South who do. Surely, some of them will need disabled parking as well.
Rumor has it that, the day after you told the owner of The Mill that you would never come back until she had a properly marked handicap parking space, she painted out the existing one and took down the sign. Of course this is only a rumor.
Yeah, that's a good one, but the truth is even better and gives me an opportunity to show just what a bitch she is. I had already told her in response to her inquiiry that everything (food) was satisfactory. While is was not very good, it was satisfactory to the extent that one could find no legitimate reason for not eating it and paying for it. However, when I asked, "Will y'all be getting around to putting in disabled parking soon?" she could maintain her facade of civility no longer. She immediately launched on me, saying in a loud viragoish voice, "What, are you blind!? You had to pass it copming in the building." This was loud enough that we were suddenly the focal point of the few customers in the place. She then stormed off in a huff.
Now, let's try contrasting the personality of the obnoxious, half-baked Boston beaner to the local, Southern owners of Aunt B's.
Last Tuesday, on my way to my 2nd cousin's viewing, I had lunch at Aunt B'S. Cathy Gentry was the owner on site at that time. As I was finishing up, Colman Gentry came in the back door. I asked him to come to the men's room with me to let me show him a problem I was having.
When you are in a wheelchair and you need to use the toilet in a handicapped accessible stall, the best way, unless it is an unusualy large stall, is to back into the stall, then back right up beside the toilet for a sideways transfer. Here, however, is a problem one often encounters. The door to the stall swings outward. Once you have backed your wheeelchair in far enough to allow the door to close, you can no longer reach the door handle to close it behind you. The trick is to be able to stick your finger tips in beweet the door and the fram and give it just enoght of a shove to bring the handle into reach without crushing your fingertips before you can extract them. I showed the problem to Colman and asked him to bolt on a screen door handle for me about 6 inches from the hinge side of the door. He said he would be glad to.
Today,when I had dinner, Cathy made a point of telling me that she had purchased a door handle at Lowe's and that Colman would likely install it tomorrow.
Now, as if that were not nice enough, she told me that based upon what she had read on my blog about the problems folks have with
disabled parking and some of her own observations at her business, she has recently contacted the owner of the strip, Terry Stover, to come out and review all of the strip's disabled parking for ADA compliance. As I told her, most spaces there do, but some do not. The measurements are off.
Now, contrast that with the "go piss up a rope" brand of customer care practiced by a certain bitch from Boston.
P.S.,
Thanks to the manager at Lowe's who did the same thing for me - putting a door handle in the men's disabled stall - about 6 months ago.
Just kidding, of course.
A few years ago, we ran a business in a strip mall in St. Marys. The owner had one handicap parking space marked out in a corner of the lot away from the front. The space was too small and located such that it was impossible for anybody to access the ramp door on a van. Since we had a regular handicapped customer who regularly arrived by van, I marked out a space right by our front door. The owner painted it out because he said he couldn't afford to lose a space to "regular customers." We solved the problem by parking our car right in front of the door when this customer was scheduled to be in and moving for them when they arrived.
We are no longer in that mall but this person has been a valued customer for over 15 years.
As the Aussies would say, "good on ya!"
I know that I really appreciate businesses that have good, ADA compliant disabled parking.
Two really good ones that come to mind are the pet store in front of Walmart and IHOP in Kingsland. Walmart's are laid out properly - there are just not enough of them.
I rather like the "new" Winn-Dixie, but I rarely go there because the parking lot has NO van accessiblle spaces.
How about the handicap spaces in front of Harveys? They use the cross-hatched area which is supposed to allow van-access as a place to put the shopping cart return racks.
Thanks for the heads-up, but I never shop at Harvey's. I think it might be a sublimal fear of lingering Food Lion cooties.
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