Thursday, July 28, 2016

Emphatic Position: Vote NO on Initiative 123

Emphatic RantWoman Position: vote NO on Seattle Initiative 123

RantWoman recommends the Urbanist for many strands of useful background and links to related press items:
https://www.theurbanist.org/2016/07/19/vote-no-on-seattle-initiative-123/

In a spirit of presenting opposing points of view if only to eviscerate them, the Seattle Times guest piece by initiative sponsor Kate Martin
http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/imagining-an-elevated-mile-long-waterfront-park-in-seattle/

RantWoman encourages readers, even those persuaded by the  above to read on for some specific disability-related concerns. The views here are RantWoman's. RantWoman wants to make clear, she is speaking for NO ONE else and does hope to generate constructive comments.

The short version

RantWoman does not like the proposed initiative 123 financing for one thing because it will soak up resources that should better be spent making the existing process work better.

RantWoman does not like the proposed accountability AT ALL and does not like being presented with proposed board members all tied up in the initiative rather than in some kind of an inclusive application process.

Most of all, RantWoman does not like the initial pitch she was offered awhile ago about the proposed garden bridge solving some accessibility concerns that have emerged as different citizen bodies try to evaluate design features as presented by the numerous governmental entities involved in waterfront projects.

RantWoman heard this pitch along with an offer to come brief local blindness organizations about the proposal. RantWoman truthfully just never got around to following up. Nothing RantWoman has learned is makes her regret not following up.

RantWoman means to opine in more detail about a recent meeting convened by WSDOT ADA Coordinator Larry Watkinson about accessibility concerns and the replacement of the Colman Dock. The main point for purposes of evaluating Initiative 123: the people at that meeting represent people with a number of disabilities. One big takeaway is that there are what RantWoman will call accessibility choke points: points in the network around the Colman dock where solving big accessibility and ADA compliance concerns will require a number of different local and state entities to work together about project design and the timing of different pieces of work.
There are people for whom ADA compliance is already their job description. Nothing about Initiative 123 addresses any of this. RantWoman has no idea and is not going to check whether any people with disabilities were included in the development of the Initiative 123 plan. RantWoman needs to focus more energy on other things. Just Vote NO on Initiative 123!

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