By Tyrone Reid, Staff ReporterBY MID-AUGUST, members of the disabled community in the Corporate Area will be able to park their motor vehicles anywhere in the city.
Kingston's Mayor Desmond McKenzie made the announcement yesterday while addressing a meeting of the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation's (KSAC) Public Health and Disaster Preparedness Committee.
PARKING STICKERS
Mr. McKenzie also warned that the KSAC's Building and Town Planning Committee will no longer approve plans that do not make adequate provisions for the physically challenged.
To facilitate those who drive, "The KSAC will be providing special parking stickers for disabled persons to park anywhere within the Corporate Area," McKenzie emphasised.
The Mayor added that in an attempt to ensure that unscrupulous persons do not abuse the kind-hearted gesture, the Corpora-tion would be using the Combined Disabilities Association as the medium through which the stickers are granted.
NECESSARY MOVE
Derrick Palmer, regional director for the Disabled People's Organisations of the Caribbean, of which the Combined Disabilities Association is the local arm, was elated when he heard the news and pledged full support. Mr. Palmer explained that the move by the Mayor was necessary because "where parking is available it might be way out of our way and also the route back might be inaccessible, with vendors, obstacles, utility poles and inaccessible sidewalk areas, and in other areas there are no sidewalks and you are out in the middle of the street."
Mayor McKenzie said that he was brought into intimate contact with the issues being faced by the physically challenged when he was invited to their monthly rap session recently. "I was very hurt as a representative of the people to know that people who are physically disabled are finding it so difficult within our city to move around," the Mayor said.
He said he had heard of their vehicles being towed and of the tickets they received for parking in no parking areas in an attempt to gain access to certain establishments. "Although they try to explain to persons who are issuing these tickets and taking away their vehicles that they are disabled, no consideration has been given. As a municipality we need to show due respect to persons who are physically challenged," said the Mayor.
