West Hollywood’s Disability Advisory Board held its 25th annual meeting on a high note. The award ceremony was held at the West Hollywood City Council Chambers.
All five City Council members were on hand for the award ceremony. Mayor Shyne led off with opening remarks but was unable to stay for the presentations. Each City Council member handed out one of the four DAB service awards.
Also at the Council Chambers were representatives from Assemblymember Rick Zbur’s office who presented Chair Yola Dore a proclamation recognizing her service and the signing of AB1620 by Governor Newsom. AB1620 allows a disabled resident living on a 2nd or 3rd floor unit the opportunity to move to a first floor unit.
Mayor Pro Tem Erickson lauded the passage of AB1620 as the first update to the Costa Hawkins law ever and thanked me for advocating for this idea. AB1620 was inspired by the 19 steps that Yola Dore must climb each day while chaining her walker to the rail at the bottom of the steps.
This year’s winners were: The Lovedy Bryan Differently Abled Award, which went to ‘Terry Shaijrat’, a social worker for Jewish Family Services for 40 years. Shaijrat received the award after a tie vote with scooter activist Manny Rodriguez. Rodriguez declined the award.
The Non-Profit Award went to ‘Being Alive’ for their years of service to members of the HIV/AIDS community. The award was presented by Mayor Pro Tem John Erickson.
This year’s Business Award went to ‘The Abbey’, for their many contributions over the years to numerous local service organizations. Accepting the award were founder David Cooley and General Manager Todd Barnes. Cooley spoke fondly of the memories he shared with the disabled community and appreciation for being honored with a DAB Award.
The Media Award was given to Spectrum Laboratory for their movie ‘Boys Don’t Wear Dresses’. On hand were members of the Spectrum team and the lead actress who thanked the DAB for the recognition.
Also in the audience were many members of the community who came to support the winners. Among the speakers was former Disability Advisory Board member Mikie Friedman. Friedman acknowledged the City Council decision this past week to move forward with a permanent rental scooter program and said, “Tonight you are honoring wonderful people who want to help and make the lives for people living with disabilities easier, people like that make us blossom, God Bless Them. However, there are people who throw roadblocks up in front of us and make us wither.” Sadly, on Monday night the majority of the city council voted to make rental scooters permanent in the City of West Hollywood, and they did it right in the middle of Disabilities Awareness Month. “I’m going to be exploring our options to start an equal access lawsuit against the City of West Hollywood and the city council for violating ADA equal access regulations. Every single time a scooter is ridden or left on the sidewalk, that is an ADA violation. And the city in the past few years has condoned or turned a blind eye to these violations. Justice must be served, and I hope you will be part of the fight for all of our safety.”
Mikie Friedman should have received an award and all those that did, should have turned down their awards like Manny.
Mikie was not eligible as a former commissioner within one year.
Right, but still…if it weren’t for Sepis questionable behavior, Mikie would still be a commissioner and deserving of an award.
Commissioners, board members, city employees are ineligible for awards.
The decent people in the city will always know of Mikie’s great and generous work, looking out for the safety of others. I suspect she doesn’t need some fake award given by a Council majority of people who have disdain for the disabled.
Awards for caring about disabilities…. An idea: All disability commission members and associates immediately resign because of the run-them-down-with-scooters-and-trip-em-too decision. The city basically said it doesn’t care about the disabled and elderly being able to safely enjoy walking around the city.
The mayor and some City Council Mmbers do not listen to their advisory boards and commissions unless it is politically beneficial for them to do so. It is all window dressing so that the CC can say “look we’ve reached out to the public!“ But, do they listen? nah! When the staff first came to the Disabilities Advisory Board, with presentations, both about scooters, and about the mobile delivery robots, the DAB gave negative feedback on both. You can see how far that got them! I have nothing but respect for the people serving on the DAB, but it is… Read more »
Your suggestion seems rather juvenile and counterproductive. As an advisory board it seem your responsibility to establish a dialogue.