It’s the eleventh hour in Olympia, for real this time – June 30 is the final day of this second special session, and if the state legislature doesn’t pass a local transit funding option this week, King County Metro will cut service by 17% next year.
Today we sent a petition to all King County state legislators, comprising 1,000 signatures gathered by TRU members and allies, and a letter urging our representatives to do everything in their power to pass a local funding option for Metro.
What can you do? Right now, call Speaker Frank Chopp (360-786-7920) and Senator Mark Schoesler* (360-786-7620) and tell them to save King County Metro. If you already signed our petition, tell them that – if not, tell them you’re adding your voice.
And — please join us at our next monthly TRU Meeting, on Monday, July 1, 6:30 – 8:30 pm at the Labor Temple Hall #6, 2800 1st Avenue. Regardless what happens this week in Olympia, we have a big campaign coming up to stop service cuts, and it’s going to take all of us.
* Schoesler doesn’t represent King County and he’s not on the transportation committee, but he is the Republican leader in the Senate and may determine whether a transportation revenue package gets voted on at all this week. It’s also worthwhile to call your legislators.
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I am a registered voter and a person of disability. From 1987 to 1997, I founded and published Different Times, the only independent disability rights newspaper, and I have interviewed former candidate for president, Bill Clinton (later president). I need transit for proposed employment (writer and playwright), work I do for the good of the community (St. Mark’s Episcopal Church (Women’s Choir, St. Mark’s Players, soon the Arts Ministry), Bitter Lake P-Patch (BLPP), the ADA committee for the BLPP (co-chair), writing for BLPP; and to go to church, shopping for groceries, clothes, drugs, essentials and things I like. I also need it for occasional entertainment. The trip to church already takes me an hour and a half each way, even when it is bitter cold outside. I do not need any money cut from transit. I was denied a renewal of my driver’s license the last time I applied, even though my doctor’s letter said I could drive. The DMV person wanted me to take a test because she saw me walking with a walker. She thought she had more expertise than my doctor, attending neurologist at the University of Washington. Because I did not own a car at the time, and thus was too poor to rent or own a car at the time of license renewal, I might have been denied a license on the basis of disability discrimination. Because other events in my life at that time were unstable, I had no time to file a complaint. However, the upshot of this is that I cannot drive without going through the entire process of getting another license and driving a car to prove I won’t have an epileptic seizure during the half hour or so of the test (when I haven’t had one since 2001 and don’t expect to, and don’t have sudden convulsive seizures anyway. Most doctors do not recognize my episodes as epilepsy; I have been misdiagnosed many times.) I can reach and activate the pedals just fine. I use a walker for chronic fatigue and a balance impairment, both of which are not problems while I am seated. But after the state takes away my driving, why are they also taking away my other, most reliable form of transportation – Metro? Metro runs all day and most of the night and early morning and I am often out this late coming back from church choir rehearsal or Christmas midnight mass. ACCESS made me only conditionally eligible, which means they won’t pick me up unless it snows or I can’t get to a stop. So are you going to make me fully eligible for ACCESS if you take away Metro? If not, why not?
Vonne Worth
Founder and former publisher
Different Times
BA English literature, 3 years graduate studies in English focusing on James Joyce’s Ulysses
BA journalism