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Even though the Main Plaza construction and restoration project is already over budget, the city will have to spend about $250,000 for overall enhancements, including bringing the park to federal disability standards.
Some of the mobility problems at Main Plaza include gravel preventing full wheelchair access (pictured), paving width, sidewalk slope and staircase handrail adjustments for the visually impaired, said Judy Babbitt, the city's disability access officer.
Babbitt said despite repeated e-mails from her to various city staff, she was not consulted in the planning of the Main Plaza construction. Babbitt, a wheelchair-user, said she could have pointed out the various design problems.
About 10 percent of the estimated $250,000 bill will be necessary to bring Main Plaza into compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act, Babbitt said, while the remainder would go to include gravel and flagstone paving to allow for easier mobility for the disabled and mobility-impaired.
Various city officials, including city engineer Mike Frisbie, said city officials failed to include Babbitt in the planning.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From KSAT-TV in San Antonio, Texas:
