[Cagdu] FW: Southern California Transportation Advocacy Effort

Fri Apr 10 16:36:39 PDT 2009

"Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own instead of
someone else's."
- Billy Wilder

  _____  

From: gsdguides at yahoogroups.com [mailto:gsdguides at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Laurie Mehta
Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 4:31 PM
To: lauriemehta at yahoo.com
Subject: Southern California Transportation Advocacy Effort

If you live in the Southern California area, please read and act: 

From: Ken Metz [mailto:
kenmetz at sbcglobal. <mailto:kenmetz%40sbcglobal.net> net
]
Subject: [acb-l] ACCESS SERVICES INC LOS ANGELES AND SERVICE ANIMAL ISSUES
Good evening to all of you.
My name is Ken Metz, and I am the chairperson for our local Access Para
Transit system here in Los Angeles County. The reason I'm sending this email
on such a wide basis is because I'd like to get responses from all over the
country pertaining to the following:
Approximately 10 years ago, a few Access riders in the Los Angeles area
filed a class action lawsuit because a number of the contracted provider's
drivers refused to take qualified riders with their service animals.
This
lawsuit was successful, and I must say that few incidents occur these days
with drivers refusing to take our guide dogs or any other service animals.
Another result of this lawsuit was that Access Para Transit would organize a
"service animal" sub-committee which would look at complaints and discuss
ongoing issues pertaining to riders who use service animals. One of the
major problems we have discussed for most of those nine years had to do with
service animals slipping and sliding in the wheelchair vans when drivers
either made defensive maneuvers during heavy traffic, or in some cases just
had one foot on the accelerator and one on the brake. We in the Los Angeles
area know of two or three guide dogs that needed to be replaced for this
type of situation, slipping and sliding, and even being thrown into the
wheelchair ramp on the right side of the van. Also, the flooring is so thin
that a good amount of heat comes up from the undercarriage of these vans.
We have been asking our Para Transit company to purchase floor mats that
would stay in the back of the vans only to be placed down if they knew they
were going to have a service animal in their van. Our reason for not wanting
to carry these mats themselves is due to the fact that the van floors are
often dirty, and we don't want to carry someone else's dirt with us
especially if we are going somewhere dressed up.
In November, 2007, the Community Advisory Committee (CAC) listened to our
story and voted to bring this issue to the Access Board for approval to pay
for two mats in each van and/or bubble-top bus, all having these slippery
floors. The Service Animal sub-committee then went out and purchased a few
mats to show to the Access Services people and their risk management team.
When nothing was done by the end of 2008, we again approached the Access
team about the November, 2007 vote, and they said that now they were sending
this to a TPAC (Transportation Professionals Advisory Team) committee to
validate the need for the mats. This committee has no Para Transit riders,
one person in a wheelchair, and all driving their own vehicles. These folks
are in the hierarchy of their respective transportation companies in the Los
Angeles and Orange Counties and claim to have all kinds of expertise on all
transportation requirements. They have now submitted their report to Access
Services Inc and have unanimously stated and voted that there is no validity
to our complaints of service animals sliding and being physically and/or
mentally injured. The TPAC stated that the mats would perhaps cause problems
with other riders tripping on them, or wheelchair riders having difficulty
with them. We have only asked that these mats be placed down when the driver
knew that a passenger was going to board the van or bubble-top bus with a
service animal, and then put it away in the back when they disembarked.
For the almost ten years that our service animal sub-committee has been
meeting, we have complained numerous times about these situations, and both
Access and the TPAC stated that there were no complaints of this nature,
completely bogus.
I would very much appreciate any of you who use service animals (guide
dogs)
out of the Los Angeles area to please write me if you have had similar
incidents that I have brought up so that I can present a compilation of
blind folks having similar issues so that Access can't say that this does
not occur anywhere else in the country. Please give me any solutions if
you've found resolution to these issues. For those of you in the Los Angeles
area who can attend the Community Advisory Committee this Tuesday from 12:30
- 2:30 p.m. to give public comment, I would appreciate it very much. The
address of the building is 706 W. 6th Street, 6th Floor Conference Room, Los
Angeles.
Either your written or oral testimony (three minute maximum for
speaking)
will be most appreciated. If you respond to me directly, I will print and
compile your stories and turn them in this Tuesday.
If we don't get this situation overturned, we will then look for someone to
represent us for either structured negotiations or an additional class
action lawsuit.
Your help is badly needed and very much appreciated.

__._,_.___
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