SAN FRANCISCO (AP)
When Michela Alioto-Pier was an aide to Vice President Al Gore in 1992, she couldn’t navigate her wheelchair in some areas of the West Wing. So she threatened to sue, and the White House improved wheelchair access.
Now a San Francisco supervisor, Miss Alioto-Pier is encountering similar trouble at City Hall, where her colleagues recently voted against a plan to lower the board president’s elevated speaking dais so a ramp could be installed.
“When they voted against it, I looked at other supervisors and said, ’Is this San Francisco, the most liberal city in the world?’ ” Miss Alioto-Pier said. “They voted against accessibility upgrades?”
The perch is reachable only by walking up five stairs. Aaron Peskin, president of the Board of Supervisors, said he hasn’t used it in three years, opting for a seat at a lower table that is wheelchair-accessible. Yet he voted against making the changes sought by Miss Alioto-Pier, saying the project’s $1.1 million price is too high as the city faces a $338 million deficit.
The cavernous, oak-lined chamber is lighted by gold chandeliers that hang from an ornately carved plaster ceiling with images from the city’s history. The supervisors sit at one end of the rectangular room and the president’s podium is on a raised platform behind the other supervisors’ seats.
Miss Alioto-Pier, who was paralyzed in a 1981 ski-lift accident, promises to fight for accessibility in court. She said the cost of the ramp and handrail are $140,000, and blamed the project’s high price tag on complications of construction in a building that is designated a state landmark. The city already has spent $230,000 on historical consultants and architects.
Miss Alioto-Pier said the project’s cost ballooned to $1.1 million because of upgrades to the chamber’s audiovisual equipment.
To sink the dais, workers would have to remove the flooring and foundation beneath it, an expensive and time-consuming task. In addition, three panels of the dais’s rare, pricey Manchurian oak would have to be replaced under the plan.
Gloria Chan, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Public Works, estimated that the lowest the ramp project price could go was $780,000.
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