4 - Friday, August 20, 1993 ~- North Shore News

Trevor
LeUutens

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<i

5

GARDEN OF BIASES

AS A journalist, I have
snapped my fingers con-
temptuously at death

threats.

I have received threatening and
abusive phone calls, including one
from someone who compared me
to Hitler and went on to croon:
“Sing out ‘it’s good to be gay,
good to be gay’...””

When I wrote with less than ad-
ulation about the Non-Demacratic
Party’s deputy attorney-general
Maureen (Wealth Is Just a Matter
of Luck) Maloney, some self-
styled friends of hers sent mea
letter containing some very
unladylike language and a fish
head, quite dead.

1 fear nothing.

Except one thing.

Cancellation of my library card.

So I cringe at the thought of
writing yet another piece critical
of our West Vancouver Memorial
Library — the third in just the last

. few weeks.

ienting th

Tcan only pray that nobody
puts out a contract to have me
met ina dark alley by a couple of
large men in dark suits, given a
couple of knuckle sandwiches, and
my dibrary card torn up in my
face.

“Well, Muggsy, he'll never have
an overdue book again,’ one of
them snarls.

OF course this would never hap-
pen in a genie place like West
Vancouver, And 1m sure the
library board administrators ac-
cept anything | write as construc-
tive criticisn,

Well, fairly sure.

] can only say that the following
scems to me the most astonishing
oversight of all in the, um, con-
troversial renovations to the
library.

And that is: the provisions for
wheelchair-bound and otherwise
unsteady-on-their-feet library
patrons.

Now, hold on. | want to be
scrupulously fair: the authorities,
Mayor Mark Sager at the
forefront, declare that all will be
well and improvements have been
launched.

Mayor Sager met a forthright
critic, Mrs. Faith Dennis, who is
wheelchair-bound, last Friday in
front of the library and heard her
complaints.

Mrs. Dennis said she went away
delighted by the mayci’s words.
But she remains deeply skeptical
until she sees actuai improve-
ments.

She wants a loading zone by the
new book drop-off — which
many patrons may nct have
noticed — and, behind or in front
of it, a disabled parking spot with
access to the curb from what's
called a pie-shaped wedge.

That would allow the handi-

capped who, like her, can drive,
to get an to the sidewalk and into
the library via the disabled camp
— which leads to a locked door,

Mayor Sager suggests a bell
button at the foot of the ramp so
that wheelchair patrons can sum:
mon staff to epen it.

Sound complex? It is. What's
very clear, though, is another
problem: the slope in the walk
into the main entrance is now tere
rifyingly steep — to the
wheelchair-bound or anyon¢ not
perfectly steady on his or her Feet.
That's because Marine Drive was
widened and the sidewalk brought
closer to the building.

The other day | pulled up just
as a fragile-looking older woman
reached the bottom of the slope.
She paused as if in dread.

She slowly and tremulously
began mounting the incline, She
paused anxiously half way up.

l approached and asked her
about the slope.

“I'm terrified of it,’’ she said,
her face strained. And: ‘I'm upset
about the changes, it’s just not the
same place’? —~ inside as well as
out.

To top it off, the actual en-
trance to the library is still in
disarray while construction re-
mains incomplete, and a scrawl on
the (very uneven) floor area ad-
vises those entering to ‘watch
your step.””

Ida, and 1 am as sure-footed
as an overweight mountain goat.

it's ironic that Faith Dennis is
dissatisfied — because a picture of
Mrs. Dennis, sitting in her
wheelchair, was used several years
ago in the promotional literature
appealing for the library expan-
sion and renovation.

“I was asked to be the cripple «
at the bottom of the stairs,’’ Mrs.

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Dennis said with selCdeprecating
humor.

She's 70, she's been a library
patron for 25 years, and she's
wonderfully jolly, She is also a
great newspaper reader — b envy
her for bee subseriptian ta the
daily Times of London.

It is humiliating that Mrs, Den-
nis unstintingly praises North
Vancouver Library for its
wheelchair access.

Surely, with a fresh start, West
Vancouver should have been far
ahead of its poor cousins in the
shabbier part of the North Shore.

One thing seems certain: curb
access for the wheelchair-bound
driver is out. Municipal

authorities feel that Marine Drive
traffic is too dangerous for the
disabled to get out of their cars
ind into wheelchairs there,

There are a couple of spots for
the disabled in the library parking
lor, but they're very far from the
entrance,

Mayor Sager pointed out: “We
can't do anything about that,
because that's the natural grade of
the world.”"

fagree with him about that.
And the library has a splendid and
friendly staff. And it will be much
better when it's finished. Now can
I have my card back?

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