Free parking for disabled people in St. Louis to be eliminated

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

ST. LOUIS – For the last 14 years, anyone with a yellow handicapped sticker could park in metered spots in St. Louis for free — regardless of the severity of their disability.

For someone who works a standard 9-to-5 job and uses one of these permits to park, that's about $1,500 worth of free parking a year.

But for most of the 475 people holding the stickers, the free parking is about to come to an end.

Starting Aug. 1, the city will allow only people who physically cannot put a coin in the meter to have the free parking. Everyone else will have to pay.

The policy shift comes not from some enemy of the disabled, but from one of their leading advocates — David J. Newburger, the new head of the city's Office on the Disabled.

Newburger, a veteran disability rights attorney who uses a wheelchair because of childhood polio, said it comes down to fairness.

"People with disabilities have a right to a level playing field," Newburger said. "But people with disabilities do not have a right to special favors."

The shift in policy has put him at odds with some permit holders and his predecessor in the job, who says Newburger's interpretation of the law is wrong.

"There's no reason to do this," said permit holder Bill Wright Jr., a city employee. "I think it's all about the money."

Not so, said Newburger. Disabled people coming downtown to do business should be able to easily find a place to park near City Hall or other municipal buildings.

Newburger's change has the backing of his boss, Mayor Francis Slay, and one of the area's leading disability rights groups.

Newburger said the city's policy has broadened beyond its original intent. It was designed to let permit holders park at a meter for free, but only for the time limit on the meter — usually two hours. But over the years, he said, those who have the windshield stickers, including at least 20 city employees, began using them as their all-day parking passes while taking away spots intended for the public.

If each permit user parked eight hours a day, five days a week for a year, that would come out to $741,000 worth of free parking a year.

Newburger is working with the city's parking division to find accessible parking for the city's disabled employees. But they will pay for it like most other city employees do, he said. That price varies. At the City Hall lot, it's $80 a month to park; in the Kiel Garage a block west of City Hall, it's $60 a month. (Newburger, as a city commissioner, gets a free spot on a City Hall lot but says he usually takes MetroLink).

"If public employees are supposed to be paying for their parking, the public employees with disabilities should be doing the same," Newburger said.

Newburger's interpretation of the city code differs greatly from that of his predecessor, Deborah K. Dee, who helped set up the program in 1995.

"Never in my memory was the intention to limit it in the way (Newburger) is proposing to limit it," said Dee, the city's first commissioner on the disabled. She retired in March 2008 after 29 years.

Dee said restricting free parking at meters to those who don't have the manual dexterity to grasp a coin leaves those with other disabilities the unnecessary hardship of getting to the meter again and again throughout the day. For people who suffer from diseases such as multiple sclerosis and tire easily, that can make the difference between holding down a job and staying home, Dee said.

"It's an absolute necessity," Dee said.

(St. Louis allows all-day parking at a meter as long as it continues to be fed.)

Taken together, the two sections of the city code addressing the parking permits leave room for interpretation.

One section states that drivers who received a permit displayed on their vehicles along with either a permanent disabled placard or disabled license plate "may park at a parking meter without activating the parking meter."

That would seem to support Dee's claims.

But in a separate section of the same city code, Newburger seems to have the final say.

It states that "the Commissioner on the Disabled is hereby authorized to set standards for the issuing of a permit" to those who have a disabled placard or plate and who are "unable to activate a parking meter because of a physical disability."

Newburger's interpretation is supported by Paraquad, a local nonprofit that promotes independence for the disabled.

"It's hard when a rule is reinterpreted, but this is originally what the (Americans With Disabilities Act) intended," said Kate Thacker, development director for Paraquad. "It's not for everybody who has a disability placard or license plate."

Newburger could not provide an exact number of city employees who have the permits but called it "substantial." A cross-reference of city payroll records with the permit list shows 20 matches. But the payroll list does not include at least 600 people who work in offices autonomous from city government. That includes the sheriff's department and the offices of treasurer, circuit clerk, recorder of deeds, license collector and collector of revenue.

Among those are patronage employees who work in the Carnahan Courthouse and the Civil Courts Building. A dozen cars with the window stickers were found parked all day at meters just outside the two buildings during three recent visits by a reporter.

The change by Newburger has the blessing of Slay, a mayoral spokesman said. Slay appointed Newburger last year.

But Newburger's policy change is meeting resistance. An online petition has been circulating opposing the parking permit change. City employee Dianne Rains is leading the charge.

"Limiting the amount of time to two hours and only allowing people with manual dexterity issues to have the disabled exemption permits is counterproductive to the many disabled people who formerly had permits," said Rains, a neighborhood stabilization officer working out of City Hall. Rain, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, holds a permit.

"If I have to put money in the meter, I will deal with it," Rains said. "My concern is for those who have a much worse disability than I do."

Newburger said no accessible parking will be eliminated for city employees. Anyone with disabled placards and plates will still be able to park at parking meters for the disabled, but not for free.

Newburger is working with city Treasurer Larry Williams, who oversees the city parking division, to find suitable parking in a lot or garage for city employees who have been using the parking meters as their work parking spots. Assistant Treasurer Steve Baker said the priority is opening up spots on the street so that the public has better access to city services. He did not have an estimate on the amount of money possibly lost from the current parking policy.

"We do not view the change of policy as revenue enhancement. Rather, we think of it as fairness," Baker said.

Any disabled city employee who needs accessible parking may apply in person to Newburger's office. City employees who have what Newburger calls a "visually obvious" disability will be assigned a parking spot for the standard fee other city employees pay. For those whose "need is not obvious," they will be referred to Washington University's occupational therapy program for evaluation. The cost of the exam will be paid for by the treasurer's office.

Those requesting an accessible city parking space must already have a state-issued placard or license plate identifying them as disabled. To be eligible for either the plate or placard from the Department of Revenue, a form must be signed by the driver's doctor certifying the disability. A false claim is a misdemeanor. Newburger said that the city is best served by a "third-party expert" to assure there are no abuses.

Wright parks his Chrysler minivan at a meter on Market Street about 7 a.m. each weekday and heads into his City Hall job in the permits office. Some days he uses a cane to help with his rheumatoid arthritis. He said he will fight the additional medical exam, if Newburger finds that his disability is not obvious.

"What do you mean I have to prove?" Wright said was his response when he first heard of the change. "I think it's crazy. I'm not going to do it. It's saying my physician is a liar."

Ruth Nash, a co-worker of Wright's, does not understand the need for an additional exam and would be reluctant to get it. She is concerned that an assigned parking spot by the city will be farther away and make it more difficult for her to get to work.

Barbara Reed got a permit when she was working for a publishing company at Jefferson and Miami avenues. Parking meters just outside a side door were closer to her office than the disabled spots in the building's parking lot. She retired in 2006 but still has a sticker, which was automatically renewed every two years. Reed says she rarely uses the permit.

Restricting the permits, she said, is putting the welfare of disabled people in jeopardy. They could stumble and fall trying to get to the meter to plug it every couple of hours. "If I needed this every day," Reed said. "I'd sure be fighting to keep it."