West Virginia fisherman aims to make local lake accessible

From The Charleston Gazette:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Jim Brown wants to go fishing at Wine Cellar Park's Laura Anderson Lake. He says he can't.

Confined to a wheelchair for the past three years, Brown believes there is no way he could negotiate the soft ground to get close enough to the Dunbar lake to cast a line.

Dunbar city officials say making the lake accessible to people in wheelchairs would cost at least $500,000.

"The wheels would just sink," Brown said.

In 2000, Dunbar city officials agreed to make the lake area more handicap accessible after a local man went to the Human Rights Commission saying he could not get to the lake to fish. Since then, city officials have kept adding gravel to a road that leads to the lake so those with handicaps can drive up to the facility.

But Brown said the gravel does almost nothing to help those in wheelchairs. Brown said he has been up to the lake in the past few months, but did not get out of the car for fear that his wheelchair would get stuck.

Brown used to be an avid sportsman, and visited Laura Anderson Lake before the results of childhood polio and adult diabetes left him unable to walk.

Brown, 54, is a candidate for the Dunbar City Council in Ward 1. He said improving handicap access at city facilities is one of the reasons he's running for office.

Last year, Brown also filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission about the lake. Lawyers for the city replied that making the lake accessible to wheelchairs would be "prohibitively expensive" and "financially not feasible for the city."

An engineering study last year came up with an estimate of about $526,000 to upgrade the road to the lake and add handicap parking, wheelchair ramps and a fishing pier.

Acting Dunbar Mayor Jack Yeager - appointed after Mayor Roger Wolfe was removed from office in November - said city officials don't have that kind of money. Yeager, though, is not unsympathetic to Brown's complaint.

"I think Jim Brown should be able to fish up there any time he wants to," Yeager said. "Jim Brown is a friend of mine.

"We want to fix this [lake] up, because it's the right thing to do."

Yeager said city officials would contribute what money they can to help make the lake more accessible to people with disabilities, but finishing the job is going to take some kind of grant money.

Yeager hopes to be able to do the job with money from President Obama's economic stimulus package.

"Wine Cellar Park is a gem," Yeager said. "I'm asking for half a million dollars to develop it. If I get half a million dollars, handicapped people could drive up there, roll out of their car in their wheelchair, go down a ramp and do as much fishing as they want to."

That would be fine with Brown, who is trying to draw as much attention to the lake as he can.

"They could have done something years ago," he said. "They can't sweep it under the carpet this time."