DRAC and UTA-Again!

UTA recently came out with a deal they didn't believe we could refuse. Raise our rates, do away with our monthly unlimited Flextrans passes, eliminate several of our routes and stops and tell us that it all for the good--to make UTA more efficient. Somehow, we were supposed to see that this would benefit us. Somehow, we don't see it that way. Moreover, it appears that many UTA riders agree with us. UTA recently began to hold a series of public hearings on the route changes, but when they saw the intensity of the anger of the riders who would be affected they quickly decided to change their "format." Instead of allowing the public to meet and openly share and exchange viewpoints, they now have each member of the public go through a carefully orchestrated series of presentations designed to shape our opinion before we give it. Also, knowing that our communal anger can feed off of each other, UTA has us record our comments one at a time.

Accordingly, DRAC members, members of the Utah Center for the Blind and other affected individuals decided to give truly public testimony during the public comment period at the UTA Board meeting on March 28. In our comments, DRAC members made the following demands:

1)  Require that John English apologize and retract his statement that people with disabilities are irresponsible. In a recent CAT (Committee on Accessible Transportation) Mr. English made a statement that individuals who qualify for Flextrans and use their unlimited monthly passes "excessively" are irresponsible. We ask how can you use an unlimited pass excessively?

2)  Let the public know exactly what changes UTA is planning to make on route restructuring before holding public hearings. When we have approached UTA officials at the so-called "public hearings" (see #3 below) they have told us it is unfair for us to become angry at proposed route changes because they haven't definitively decided what routes and stops will be cut. If UTA doesn't have definitive proposals for us to respond to they shouldn't be having public hearings. On the one hand they tell us we can't criticize what hasn't been decided, but then they will claim there were no criticisms at the public hearings, paving the way for them to do what they want to.  

3)  Hold a true public hearing and publish the results before rate or route changes are put into place. UTA started out with true public hearings, but then apparently decided they didn't like facing the collective wrath of the public they are supposed to be serving, so they changed the format where citizens go through a series of presentations, one on one, where UTA can attempt to shape the citizen's perceptions of the changes UTA is proposing. At the end of the presentations the citizen is invited to dictate or write a statement. However, we have a right to assembly that is very important. When we share our concerns in a public hearing we shape each other's perceptions in vital communal process, as opposed to having UTA do all the shaping. We therefore demand that UTA go back to a true public hearing format and then publish the results of the comments before moving forward with any decisions.

4) Hold an independent review to access the fare increase will have on services and financial impacts on low income people and those with disabilities. When Salt Lake City was considering making changes to their ground transportation ordinances (governing taxi service) they brought in an outside expert consultant, who could view the overall situation with fresh and professional eyes. The consultant met with varying taxi users/constituents, the taxi companies and government officials before presenting an evaluation of various options that the city could take, along with a critical analysis of which groups various options would help and which groups would be harmed. We don't believe the UTA Board or CAT has sufficient expertise to provide this kind of analysis, and we don't trust the analysis provided by UTA--it will obviously be biased. Federal oversight agencies, while important, don't always do a thorough analysis. We therefore feel that bringing in an outside expert to do an independent evaluation of any plans proposed by UTA--before any final decisions are made would be money well spent and would help the Board carry out their responsibilities.

Speaking of federal oversight, at one so-called "public hearings" Jerry Costley challenged one of the UTA officials on what appears to be the disparate impact on low income communities of the route and stop eliminations UTA is considering. The official assured Mr. Costley that there is no such disparate impact. As evidence of the lack of disparate impact he noted that their plans will have to be approved by the Federal Transit Authority for such disparate impact, as required by the Civil Rights Act. We believe that many such reviews tend to be very cursory unless red flags are raised for these agencies. DRAC has raised such a red flag by sending a formal complaint to the FTA. Our frequent partner, the Anti-Hunger Action Committee has done some analysis of the UTA's proposed plans. According to Bill Tibbitts, "Ethnic and racial minorities only compose 13.7 percent of the population in Salt Lake County as whole but make up 25.5  percent of the population in downtown Salt Lake City and 35.1 percent of the population in the Rose Park neighborhood.  Under UTA's proposal, bus operations in those two communities will be reduced by over 50 percent. At the same time, UTA's proposal creates new commuter bus services that primarily serve more affluent communities with lower concentrations of racial and ethnic minorities than average in Salt Lake County." Bill is working to get various organizations to sign on to a Title VI civil rights complaint against UTA based on this analysis. To view the complaint click here. (Adobe Acrobat free reader required).

After making our demands known, members of DRAC and other individuals with disabilities chanted outside the UTA Board meeting. For the Deseret News article of our demands and action click here: For the Salt Lake Tribune article, click here: (Adobe Acrobate Free Reader required). To download the Adobe Acrobat reader, click here:

DRAC and AHAC Play Nice at the Legislature

Several Utah legislators have stated that DRAC and our partner, the Anti-Hunger Action Committee's (AHAC) aggressive tactics last year led the legislators to refuse vision and dental funding for Utah's 65,000 adults on Medicaid. Threats have been made this year that any actions that we engage in will result in a refusal of funding. We find is somewhat instructive of what our legislators are like when they threaten to cut off vital funding for 65,000 adults because they are angry with 30 some odd of us who have expressed our frustration, pain, suffering and anger over the lack of funding and caring from our state legislators. It certainly seems to say something about their compassion and maturity.

We would like it to be known that we don't bow to threats. However, as an experiment, as we did last year, AHAC and DRAC have agreed to be nice and play by all of the rules for at least the first few weeks of the session as we "wait and see". AHAC members have taken to public prayer that the legislators will see the light. On the first day of the legislature, DRAC joined AHAC and several other organizations for a "Health Day" to highlight Utah's need for access to affordable health coverage and Senator McCoy's proposed legislative amendment that would make providing such access a constitutional responsibility of our state government. Members of DRAC gave public press statements and were interviewed for a documentary piece.

On January 24, members of DRAC testified at the Health Appropriations Subcommittee public hearing on behalf of critical funding for Medicaid covered vision and dental services, Money Follows the Person and efforts to prioritize community long-term care funding. A small delegation met on January 29 with Senator John Valentine to request his support for vision and dental funding, but were told that he would only support recommendations of the Health Appropriations Subcommittee. They haven't yet released their prioritized list, so we will wait a little longer, but it doesn't look promising for the "nice" approach. We will continue to post our activities and the response we are receiving. On January 31, we will be testifying before the Human Services Subcommittee to insist that they fund and eliminate the waiting list. Stay tuned to see if laying low pays off! Click on our menu link to alerts to see what you can do to help us get this vital services funded!

UPDATE!!! We are pleased to report that our efforts at the legislature, both this year and in past years paid off!! The Legislature funded vision services, albeit through a single source provider--Standard Opitical. They also funded vision services. This was only with one time money, which means we have to be back next year. As much as the legislators say they don't like us you would think they would want to fund vision and dental on an ongoing basis and not have us back, but that just doesn't seem to be the way it works. We will be back.

DRAC's Notable Legal Successes

Not all of DRAC's successes come from direct action. Sometimes we use legal means—bringing lawsuits where the law is on the side of our civil rights.

Since many of these successes often occur with little fanfare, we would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of our legal successes from the past year.

 ☼ The University of Las Vegas MAAC Center expanded their floor space for rodeo events by eliminating accessible seating. Through filing a lawsuit we convinced them of the need to end this practice. In addition, the National Rodeo Association will now insure that all of their venues,  are fully accessible.

☼The Jordan Valley, Granite and Davis School Districts had schools with parking lots that didn't meet ADA standards. Many families with children who had disabilities were unable to find parking when they attended school events. In spite of several attempts to negotiate, both school districts kept making the same meaningless promise—"We'll fix it when we have the money." Finally, Brian Barnard filed suit on our behalf. Soon, all school districts committed to quickly bring their parking lots into compliance. This compliance issue first came to light when one of our members, Barbara Toomer was attending a conference  that was housed in a school and she couldn't find an accessible parking spot.

☼ Hospitals should be the most accessible of all buildings. However, one of our members encountered numerous illegal barriers in an IASIS hospital. After negotiations proved fruitless, a lawsuit resulted in IASIS hiring a top ADA consultant and agreeing to bring all eighteen of their of their facilities into full ADA compliance.

☼ In the spring of 2006 Springville City refused to allow Curt Brinkman, a world-class marathon athlete to participate in their local marathon because he uses a wheelchair. Attempts to get the organizers to listen to reason, or the law were dead ends, so he turned to DRAC. We finally filed a lawsuit, with the result that all marathons run by this organizer will now be accessible.

☼ While at the legislature last year members of DRAC the Anti-Hunger Action Committee (AHAC) passed out various pieces of informative literature. Some of these were pictures Medicaid recipients whose teeth had rotted out for a lack of proper dental care. The condition of these mouths was directly attributable to the refusal of the legislature in past years to provide Medicaid dental care funding. We entered a hearing wearing these pictures around our necks, and stood up in a hearing to ask where the funding for our dental needs was in the budget. At that point Sgt. Guy from the Utah Highway Patrol informed us that he would immediate confiscate any printed material he found us carrying. He also targeted one DRAC representative and one AHAC representative for immediate arrest if any of our group assembled where we were not supposed to be or passed our any unapproved literature. So, DRAC and AHAC sued the state for free speech violations. We prevailed, the rules were rewritten and now our State Capitol has true free speech for all.

☼ Pacific Properties has 374 ground floor apartments that will now be accessible. 48 ground floor units in Pinnacle Apartments will be accessible. Thus, over 900 apartments in this year alone will be accessible through DRAC's efforts. At our last count, over 4,500 apartment units had become accessible through our efforts.

☼ A major Albertson's and the Red Garter Casino joined the more than 400 businesses and 200 restaurants that have become accessible through DRAC's legal activities. In addition, the Summit County Health Department agreed to issue a letter to all restaurants informing them of their need to accommodate service animals.

These outcomes are not the result of DRAC beating the bushes for "frivolous" lawsuits. Rather, they represent the last recourse for individuals who were experiencing blatant discrimination that flew in the face of years of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Federal Fair Housing Act. Our sincere thanks to the outstanding civil rights attorneys who work with us. Because of their efforts, thousands of citizens with disabilities are exercising their rights to live, shop, recreate, work, congregate and speak.

DRAC and Money Follows the Person

As one result of our actions with Renee Baturin (See story below) DRAC representatives have been invited to two meetings with Michael Hales, head of the state Medicaid office and Tonya Keller, head of the state Medicaid Long Term Care office. We have been pushing for the state to formally adopt a Money Follows the Person program. We have also pushed for the state to adopt a plan with specific goals for numbers of people they will move out. Unfortunately, we weren't able to convince the state to apply for the federal Money Follows the Person grant, but we have been successful in getting them to agree to work on the following:

1)  Meet with the local housing authorities to discuss setting aside housing vouchers from individuals who are moving out of nursing homes so we can better coordinate having housing available when the services and funding finally come together.

2) Work on a better process for reaching and educating people who are living in nursing homes such that they clearly understand that there is a way for them to move out of the nursing home, who to contact and how to contact them.

3) Let us know which public and private agencies have qualified as case managers for helping people to move out of nursing homes so we can direct individuals who want to move out to the more creative and aggressive case managers.

4)  Work with workforce services to encourage them to develop means of providing attendant care training to TANF recipients who are in need of work. Also develop a means of matching TANF recipients in need of employment with individuals with disabilities who are in need of hiring personal attendants.

5)  Look into a Money Follows the Person-Cash and Carry program that would allow parents who have children who are in nursing homes to be paid for a set number of hours to take care of their children when the following circumstances apply:

    a) The children are already in an institution
    b) Paying the parent would be more cost effective than paying the institution.
    c) There are no other cost-effective non-related individuals who are willing and qualified to do the work.

With a critical nursing shortage parents who desperately want their children home can't hire nurses even when the funding is available. However, many of these parents are willing to learn all nursing duties and take full responsibility for carrying them out. However, they are two-salary households who just can't afford to have one of the parents quit to stay home without some reimbursement. In these cases the state is already spending huge amounts of money for the institutions and paying the parents would be a very cost-effective solution.

If you also have an interest in these issues and would like more information or better yet, if you would like to join us in pushing for progress in these areas, please contact us.

DRAC Continues to Support Parents of Children Who Need Formula

If you check back over our archives you will see that we thought this was a dead issue--over and done with. Jo Overton approached DRAC when the state suddenly denied her son the formula he relied on for basic sustenance. Jo had basically spent her family into bankruptcy and simply couldn't afford any more formula. Her son had a host of medical problems that left him unable to digest any food but the special formula. As usual, the state had a brilliant response--she could surgically insert a feeding tube to "prove" that the formula really is a medical issue, or she could place her son in an institutional setting. However, her son has a suppressed immunization system and the insertion of a feeding tube would not only deny him of taking his food orally--one of the few pleasures this young man enjoys, but it could also lead to life threatening infections. With some coaching from DRAC, Jo joined forces with Greg Buxton, her state representative, an attorney that DRAC provided and even Gayle Ruzicka of Utah's Eagle Forum joined in the fight as we framed it as both a civil rights issue and a parents' rights issue. Parents' rights, as you all my recall, was the catch phrase of a few years ago when the state was vilified for attempting to coerce Parker Jensen's parents into providing invasive cancer treatments for him. Conservatives throughout the state decried this overstepping of state authority and vowed to pass laws that would curtail these perceived abuses of state power. Having the state dictate, through its power of funding, how you will feed your child and in doing so insisting that you risk his life with a surgically inserted tube, is to us the height of such abuse of state authority. When Jo and DRAC's attorney participated in a pre-hearing where the state's physician sided with them and said that this was absolutely a medically necessary, life-sustaining treatment, the state said they would fund the formula and later even volunteered that they would be re-writing their rules so that other children, similarly situated wouldn't face a similar dilemma. Case shut? No, just deferred until the state figured the heat was over.

Our first inkling was when the state denied funding for formula to Ron's daughter. Ron is one of DRAC's long-time members and so turned to us for assistance. We attempted to remind the state that they had settled this issue once and for all with Jo, until Jo informed us that the state had just denied her son his formula again. And they wonder why there is a lack of trust. Ron has had an appeal pending before Medicaid for several months as he has been through repeated pre-hearings.

Ron put together a meeting with parents of children who are being denied life saving formula and some of our elected officials. Unfortunately, none of the elected officials showed. To his credit, Pete Ashdown sent a campaign manager. Some members of the press were present, so we had the parents stand and tell their story, after which we strategized. When one paper mentioned Mr. Ashdown's presence, Ron got a call inviting him to meet with Senator Hatch's staff. When some of the other parents complained that they also wanted to be there the meeting grew and Senator Hatch's staff invited representatives of the State Health Department.

At the meeting, we got the state people to agree to attempt to withdraw only the language from Utah's regulations that requires the use of an intrusive feeding tube in order to qualify for formula funding. Senator Bennett's staff ended up joining us and both Senator Hatch's and Bennett's staff agreed to provide support, as needed, to get the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) to buy off on and approve this language change. As of this writing we are waiting to see how successful the Utah Medicaid representatives were in getting Utah's leadership to support the language change. We are committed to winning this critical issues and not have children with disabilities starve to death, have feeding tubes unnecessarily inserted into them, or have them removed from their families and placed in institutions solely so they can get nutrition. Please call us if you believe this is a battle you would like to join.

DRAC ADAPT/Utah Kicks off ADAPT of Tomorrow

A common crisis in many non-profits, no matter how committed their membership or leadership is the aging of the founding members and a failure to bring along a new generation to whom the torch can be passed. DRAC has been working on two answers to this. First, Barbara Toomer has been teaching classes to pass on her enormous wealth of accumulated knowledge and strategy savvy. After the Governor of Tennessee labeled us "professional agitators" Barbara has dubbed this the "Professional Agitator's Training."

Of equal significance, we have sponsored ADAPT of Tomorrow--a group of younger agitators who are encouraged to take on the disability civil rights issues that are of greatest concern to them. It may be reasonable accommodations or accessibility on College campuses, it may be equal opportunities for education and extracurricular activities in high school or it may just be finding support among those of a similar age. What is most important is that in forming their own group, under the mentoring of our more experienced members, these younger members are preparing to carry our organization on into the next generation.

August 26 was the kick off barbeque of ADAPT of Tomorrow. For more information contact Jason Glozier through our DRAC offices.

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