The Citizen-Times published a report on another decision by Asheville City Council Tuesday: Handicapped persons will no longer get to park for free at city meters. This is fair. Councilman Jan Davis said disabled persons are not necessarily indigent. He further asserted it might hurt people’s pride to treat them as such.
The issue is one of scarcity. A former city council promised a developer a new parking garage, but green activists shouted that down. Merchants for years have been complaining that would-be customers complain they can’t find a spot to park. Meanwhile, somebody noticed a lot of cars with handicap stickers belonging to residents of the nearby low-income highrise for the elderly are hogging spaces. The city has, until Tuesday, allowed the disabled to park at meters for free.
The bizarre part of council’s decision was they wanted to follow up with concessions. These would allow handicapped persons to park in garages. The staff report suggested opening space at the top of garages for them. Another option was availing space in lots on the periphery of the city.
That almost sounds like a ploy of King Solomon to get all the people abusing handicap stickers to betray their identities by taking reduced-rate parking spaces elsewhere. They’d be the “handicapped” people without tears in their eyes at the excruciating prospect of grinding bones five miles to get to the car. It stung as one on crutches was told she had to step up to the microphone to talk.
Citizens responding to the article online observed the city, rather than confronting the problem, was picking on the easy meat. But it’s hard to fault council. They didn’t start hearing this matter until around 10:30, and they’d been meeting since 3:00. Though council was berated by anti-annexation activist Betty Jackson around the 9:00 hour for being so disrespectful of the handicapped, we can only conclude most of the elderly disabled don’t mind driving between 10:00 and midnight so their voices will be represented. The important thing is the proclamations were tended to thoroughly at the beginning of the formal session.
