Commission on People with Disabilities Candidates' Forum one more time.

Artrrrgh. How on earth can RantWoman expect good sense about inclusive event planning to break out in her faith community if even disability rights organizations and activities cannot get it right? Readers are permitted to imagine an entire faith community at Sunday worship  full of heads with steam rising for numbers of different reasons between the ears, with more chapters of drama to come.

In the meantime, hey, RantWoman is versatile. October is National Disability Employment  Awareness Month #NDEAM, and as long as RantWoman's calendar is overflowing with reasons to rant, RantWoman WILL tag this rant for the occasion.

RantWoman cannot remember whether she has previously posted of one event where the conference room table was too large for the size of the conference room and the number of people in wheelchairs in attendance. Even if RantWoman has already posted, it bears whining about again; RantWoman WILL go to another meeting at said office and hope the promised conference room rearrangement has occurred.

But today????

Today RantWoman cannot physically BE downtown for the entire Candidates forum organized jointly by the Seattle Commission on People with Disabilities and the Alliance for People with Disabilities.

RantWoman does not want to froth at the mouth about this event being publicized with a graphic format flyer inaccessible to many screen reader users and only accessible to those with the newest versions of key software and willingness to stand on their heads and invoke OCR.

Nor does RantWoman want to froth at the mouth about the suggestion in an accompanying email that only blind people would know how to create accessible documents. Creating accessible documents is a skill many people can learn. It's a valuable skill in a diverse workplace, worth PAYING MONEY for, not just something to be expected of volunteers.

But should anyone WANT to volunteer, the revised supposedly accessible document turned out to be...drum roll pleas...an application form seeking new volunteers for the Commission.

Here, at least is text of the announcement for the Candidaates' Forum
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What if elected officials prioritized the 38% of people with a disability? What would your life be like if Seattle were fully accessible?

The Seattle Commission for People with DisAbilities and the Alliance of People with Disabilities invites you to a candidate forum addressing policies and funding affecting people with disabilities.

Friday October 13
3 PM—8 PM
Downtown Seattle
Library Main Auditorium


Start Time

Race

3:00 PM

Introduction

3:05 PM

Seattle Mayor

4:10 PM

Port of Seattle Pos. 1

4:50 PM

Port of Seattle  Pos. 3

5:10 PM

City Attorney

6:00 PM

Seattle City Council Pos. 9

6:35 PM

Seattle City Council Pos. 8

7:35 PM

Port of Port Pos. 4

7:50 PM

Close

CART communication Access Real-time Translation captioning service)Wheelchair accessible.
Getting there and parking: spl.org/locations/central-library/cen-getting-there-and-parking
Although the forum lasts until 8 PM, the library closes at 6 PM. For those arriving after 6 PM, please use the buzzer at the side door that is on the 4th Avenue side, close to Spring Street. Security will let you in!

Thank you,

Cindi Laws
(206) 790-4232

Co-Chair
Seattle Commission for People with Disabilities

RantWoman is GRUMPY. RantWoman received word of this event via an email list. RantWoman did not look on Twitter but she looked on both organization websites and did not find the event. RantWoman did find the event on the Alliance for People With Disabilities Facebook page. Other readers needed to rant as much as RantWoman.

RantWoman is grumpy: it probably does take a good while to coverall the local races, but RantWoman concurs that the timing starting in the middle of a work day is inaccessible for many people with jobs. 

RantWoman is simply going to aggregate rants, her own and rants in the comments off the Facebook event

RantWoman:
Frustrating not to find this event on either organization's website.  Frustrating that this event was publicized with a flyer inaccessible for screen reader users . Frustrating that call to fix document only mentioned seeking blind members of the commission not skills that anyone can learn about making accessible documents.  Frustrating that the event is not live-streamed for people who cannot attend the whole event or who want to be able to review sections for the different races at different times. But other than that great effort!

Other themes in comments:
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Comment 1
Many people with disabilities have jobs, live in areas where public transportation is limited and do not have financial access to transportation options to attend this event - I'm urging you to live stream and record this event for your own organizations as well as to ask SPL to also live stream and record it so people can access live as it's happening and also in the future. Thank you for considering this request and considering this for future events.


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Comment 2, combining accessible restroom and transgender rights issues all wrapped up together. RantWoman is quoting the comment  and not opining on the content.

This is a TERRIBLE location for this event.

FYI disabled people are not allowed to use the only single stall accessible bathroom at this Seattle public library location UNLESS they have a caregiver in the bathroom with them. No exceptions according to library policy. This policy affects single stall accessible bathrooms at multiple library branches, including the central library.

Additionally. The entire children’s area has a policy that excludes adults without children. By reserving the entire area for children and their caregivers only.

This is a problem because many adults have access needs for reading books and materials located in that area. Lots of people need kids and young adult books as an access need. And many people just enjoy reading all-ages books.

The Seattle all-gender restroom ordinance says that all single stall bathrooms in Seattle need to be all-gender but the library policy claims this single stall is NOT a gender neutral bathroom and is NOT for transgender patrons or for single adults, or even single disabled people.

They are saying the law only applies to single-user bathrooms and they are saying this single-stall family bathroom is a multi-user ONLY bathroom just to avoid the all-gender restroom ordinance law and keep people out of the ADA accessible bathroom.

They will tell you to use an accessible stall in a gendered multi-stall bathroom. Or they will make a scene by making everyone in the multi-stall gendered bathroom leave and posting guards outside the door while you use the multi-stall bathroom alone. They will NOT let you use the only single-stall accessible bathroom at this branch.

If you need to use this bathroom and are denied please report it to the Office of Civil Rights which is currently investigating the Seattle Public Library over this issue.

You can also file a complaint with the ADA