Dona SpringAn obituary from the San Jose, Calif., Mercury News:
Berkeley City Councilmember Dona Spring, a trailblazer for disabled rights who championed for the cause even when she was in such intense pain that she couldn't leave her home to attend council meetings, died Sunday evening at Alta Bates hospital of complications from rheumatoid arthritis. She was 55.
"Most of the progressive causes I've worked on in the last decade I didn't really know about or understand until she talked about them and made it clear why they were important,'' said Councilmember Kriss Worthington, her closest ally on the council for more than a decade.Spring fought for affordable housing, the environment, recycling, and more services for people battling drug and alcohol addictions.
"She was always very progressive. Her grandmother was very progressive," said Spring's mother, Paula Althoff, on Monday. "She also got interested in animal rights and even appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show on that issue."
Spring was elected to the council in 1993. She was re-elected to represent central Berkeley in November 2006 with 71 percent of the vote.
"She was the first severely disabled person to be elected to any of the Bay Area city councils. She has been a true champion for people with disabilities and for people who are disenfranchised," said Gerald Baptist Sr., deputy director of the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley who knew Spring for 25 years.
Spring had rheumatoid arthritis, which got progressively worse, for many decades. She had been in the hospital for many weeks and was recovering from pneumonia and thought to be doing better, said Dennis Walton, her companion of 27 years.
Before being elected to the council, she worked for nonprofits that provided services to seniors, the disabled and advocated on issues such as health care, the environment and animal rights.
