From: Julianfwheeler@aol.com
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 2:10 PM
To: tim.ceis@seattle.gov
Subject: Letter to the Mayor - Regarding Proposal for Seattle Disability Commission
Deputy Mayor Ceis,
If you can forward this communication to Mayor Nickels, that will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your assistance. -j.
Julian Wheeler, J.D.,
On behalf of CESDC.
1201 NE 52nd Street, # 7
Seattle, WA 98105-4340
Friday, July 24, 2009
The Honorable Gregory J. Nickels
Mayor of Seattle
City Hall
7th Floor, 600 Fourth Avenue
Seattle, WA 98124-4749
Dear Mayor Nickels,
On behalf of the ad hoc Committee to Establish a Seattle Disability Commission (CESDC), please accept this letter as our request for the City of Seattle to establish a commission on the subject of issues that concern People with Disabilities (PWD's), e.g., a Seattle Commission for People with Disabilities.
Further, we request that your office provide sufficient budget to the Seattle Office of Civil Rights (SOCR) so that it can administer this new Commission as proposed herein in order to more fully pursue its mission of social justice for everyone, including as it pertains to disabilities issues. We also request that this commission be a volunteer body and as such modeled on the foregoing Seattle Women’s Commission and Seattle Commission on Sexual Minorities.
We respectfully advance this request for the following reasons:
1. The Disability Community is at once unique and widely defined.
As stated in the federal Americans with Disabilities Act:
“Individuals with disabilities are a discrete and insular minority who have been faced with restrictions and limitations, subjected to a history of purposeful unequal treatment, and relegated to a position of political powerlessness in our society, based on characteristics that are beyond the control of such individuals and resulting from stereotypic assumptions not truly indicative of the individual ability of such individuals to participate in, and contribute to, society.”
The characteristics that have long-defined many PWD’s are just as immutable as those that define classes by gender and sexual orientation. These two classes in particular, as subject matters, benefit from volunteer commissions that are staffed by SOCR. Therefore our request includes the desire to have SOCR staff this commission as it has staffed the Seattle Women’s Commission and Seattle Commission for Sexual Minorities.
Such a commission as requested would be a visible venue and serving to direct petitions for redress of grievances by the disability community and its supporters to the City. Also, it would provide a tool for ascertaining the extent of concerns that impact the disability community, and will give the City, and the office that will staff it, the ability to gain an advance sense of issues that arise at any given moment, including through the activities of its volunteer commissioners.
2. Demographics about Seattle disability community:
The largest minority population in Seattle is composed of individuals with disabilities. In the 2000 Census there were 167,258 people over the age of five living with a disability in Seattle. The population of Seattle consists of 1.9% of its residents having sensory disabilities, including vision, hearing and both. In addition, there are 4.4% with chemical or environmental issues, 4.7% who have a physical disability, and 4.0% with a mental disability. Over 25% of the individuals require the use of either assistive technology or a service animal in order to participate in community activities.
3. Appropriate venue:
This commission as requested herein would provide the disability community the opportunity to express its concerns in a forum where it will be heard as one community, wherein its concerns will be heard by a body of commissioners whose definition and majority will be composed by those whose affinities should favor pursuit of disabilities issues, discussions and solutions. Currently, addressing disabilities issues through different bodies with at least one representative of the disability community puts its input at risk of marginalization, given the possibility that disability community representatives can be out-voted on these bodies, i.e., advisory boards, task forces, other city commissions, etc.
A commission as requested will give the disability community a chance to thereby speak with one coherent and united voice. It will further provide the disability community with an opportunity to resolve issues that are internal to the community, so as to build on what unites it and thereby strengthen its ability to ascertain emerging issues. And therefore, such a commission will enable PWD’s to thereby influence policy decisions by the Mayor and City Council.
4. Current disproportionate impact:
There are issues currently impacting the disability community disproportionately, where the shares of people with disabilities who are so impacted are greater than its share of the population in general, resulting in needs that are not being adequately met. These issues include, but are not limited to: housing, pedestrian safety, employment, transit, institutionalization, homelessness, and lack of medical access. For example, specific to Seattle is the need to increase access to Channel 21 to public meetings and the City of Seattle web site.
These disproportionate impacts increase during times of recession, such as mark current economic conditions. And it is during times like these, visited by fiscal austerity overall, that our City in particular, and society overall, especially needs to ascertain and more readily and visibly address the needs of PWD’s, and others whose increase in age, or others who incur injuries in the course of military duty, are compelled to deal personally with disabilities issues. And everyone who ages will eventually confront one kind of disability or another. Therefore, discrimination against PWD’s, while it is not felt immediately or visibly by the population at large, is discrimination that can and will eventually visit everyone.
These issues are going either unmet, or are characterized by the broader community as being of lesser importance. This can lead to, for instance, community projects not incorporating sufficient accessibility as to be usable by many PWD’s. Ultimately, this makes it more difficult for people with disabilities to pursue and succeed at employment, entertainment, community or civic engagement, among other opportunities. It also unnecessarily incurs costs to the city for litigation as well as belated, postponed, or otherwise delayed modifications.
5. Preventative cost savings:
There are preventative cost-savings that the city and businesses of Seattle can expect to realize if a commission as requested herein is created. Accordingly, the SOCR reports more than 25% of all current complaints cases involve individuals with disabilities. Also, each year there are violations around public accommodations, service animals and employment. Due to lack of knowledge by public facilities around disability, accommodations and service animals, the City of Seattle has observed civil rights violations towards this protected class. The disability commission of Tacoma, WA, has been effective at reducing building violations around parking issues. Working with a commission as requested herein, the City of Seattle can work on captioning on the city owned television station and thereby prevent a possible lawsuit, creating an effective tracking system on affirmative action regarding the employment of people working for Seattle or receiving contracts, and reducing and eliminating the under-representation of individuals with disabilities on city appointed boards and commissions.
If a commission as proposed herein is established, it can play a role in educating the public, including businesses and city agencies in Seattle, and thereby avert the inconvenience and costs to the system of addressing issues through disability-based complaints that would be filed with SOCR.
6. Other cities are setting an example:
Most cities larger and many smaller than Seattle already have Commissions for PWD’s. And it is time that Seattle provide this type of essential representation to its residents. In our region, local examples of these commissions exist in Tacoma, Washington, and Portland, Oregon.
This request represents an opportunity for the City of Seattle to join the ongoing development in society to allow marginalized constituents to claim their fair share of the role of determining their own civic destiny.
Thank you for your consideration on this extremely important issue.
Sincerely,
The ad hoc Committee to Establish a Seattle Disability Commission (CESDC): Partial List of Supporters:
Julian Wheeler, J.D., Volunteer Convener,
Ms. Lucille Walls,
Mr. John Denooyer,
Ms. Marybeth Lum,
Mr. Christopher Leman,
Mr. Doug Hildie, and
Ms. Charity Ranger.
Cc: The Seattle City Council, and
Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis.
Forthcoming attachments include supportive correspondence and petitions.
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