Baton Rouge, La., hears complaints about its inaccessibility

From The Advocate in Louisiana:

The wheelchair-bound former president of the NAACP’s local chapter and a visually impaired resident told a task force today that the city-parish isn’t doing enough to make government buildings and public facilities accessible to the handicapped.

G. Washington Eames, president emeritus of the NAACP’s Baton Rouge chapter, and Buck Rastegar, who is visually impaired, outlined their complaints at a meeting of a mayoral task force on the American with Disability Act.

Eames talked about the scarcity of handicapped parking for retrofitted vans downtown and the lack of wheelchair accessible porta-potties for downtown festivals.

He also said police are not monitoring to make sure people parking in handicapped spaces are actually handicapped.

“Handicapped spaces should not be used as a convenience,” Eames said.

Rastegar told of almost being run over by a car on Corporate Boulevard because there were no sidewalks to walk on.

Both said their complaints about those and other access issues over the years have not been addressed.

“I give up,” Rastegar said. “I’m afraid to venture out unless I’m in a familiar place.” Eames said he expects the city-parish to take action to deal with some of his complaints within the next few weeks.

He said he will decide within the next 90 days whether to file suit in federal court alleging that the city-parish is in violation of the American Disability Act.

Anita Bookter, the city-parish’s human resources director and chairwoman of the task force, said she plans to set up “sub teams” to look into the complaints of Eames and Rastegar. “We’re going to try to fix it,” Bookter said.