| Disabled LANTA riders decry agency's fare plan
EASTON | Allentown resident Karen Lee Smith-Quirk said she and other low-income, disabled riders can't afford to pay $1 a day for Metro service. She and six other people Tuesday urged the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority to rethink raising bus fares this spring. Disabled people who qualify can now ride for free, but officials propose charging them a dollar starting April 1 to help offset a projected $750,000 deficit in the authority's 2006-07 budget. "We're going to wind up in our (wheelchairs) or with our walkers out in the street because we can't afford the price raise," Smith-Quirk said. She said some city sidewalks are in poor condition and impossible to navigate safely. "It's really going to be hard on a lot of handicapped people, extremely hard," she said.
Medical panels use degrading test to determine scope of disability
Medical committees charged with determining the extent to which a person is handicapped employ the "fall test" from time to time, in which the patient is told to stand or walk in order to see if he falls.
Eti Ozna, for instance, has suffered from a number of illnesses for the past 14 years, including severe osteoporosis. In June 2004, a medical committee ruled that she is 100 percent handicapped. The National Insurance Institute appealed the decision, however, and Ozna was called to appear before an additional committee six months later.
She arrived at the committee in a wheelchair. "The doctor told me he wants to try and stand me up. I told him I can't stand, that my legs fail me," she said. "He said 'don't worry, I'm holding you.' He really did hold me, but then let go.
Invacare Declares Quarterly Dividend
ELYRIA, Ohio-(Business Wire)-February 9, 2007 - The Board of Directors of Invacare Corporation (NYSE:IVC) announced that it declared a cash dividend of $.0125 per share on its common shares and $.011364 per share on its Class B common shares payable April 11, 2007 to shareholders of record on April 3, 2007. .
A fine time: The ins and outs of parking violations in downtown ...
For the record, Mary Graf doesn't get a sadistic thrill out of writing people parking tickets. “I'm just doing my job," she said. She doesn't get paid by how many tickets she writes. Nor does she hide behind a bush, waiting for someone's parking meter to expire, then jump out with a yellow envelope in hand. People sometimes ask her if she'll pass up a meter that has just one minute left. The answer is “yes" — and she'll even pass by a meter that runs out while she's looking at it, as long as it was still valid when she first fixed her eyes on it. “You don't backtrack," she said. Graf is one of five full-time Lawrence parking control officers who patrol the downtown meters and lots. Forgive Graf if she doesn't stop to debate once she's written a ticket.
|
