SAUGUS – Leonard Melanson told Town Meeting members Monday he never anticipated his life would include being wheelchair bound nor did he realize how difficult it was to get around in one until he was forced to try.
Meeting members agreed to try to ease his pain, along with dozens like him, when it voted to approve two articles.
The first was to accept a series of state disability laws and the second offered to bond of at least $150,000 next spring to address handicap access issues within town.
Police Lt. and Town Meeting member Stephen Sweezey said the town had already accepted the state laws dealing with parking regulations and violations with one exception.
The Commission on Disabilities asked meeting members to approve a state law that would allow funds received from fines for handicap parking violations to be deposited into an account solely for the commission.
Town Manager Andrew Bisignani said he had negotiated a deal where 60-percent of the fines would go to the Police Department and 40 percent would go to the commission and all of it would be funneled through the budget.
Pat Martin from the Commission on Disabilities said she reluctantly agreed to the plan though she had hoped for at least a 50/50 split. She said she believed that had the commission won its bid to get all the fines the parking clerks would simply stop writing tickets.
Bisignani, along with a few Town Meeting members took offense.
Dennis Gould, a former commission member, reminded meeting members the town has been remiss for 18 years by failing to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“It took us to 2005 to get a survey and nothing has been done since, including this podium,” he said indicating the microphone from which he spoke, which was roughly four feet high.
Melanson, however, spoke into a microphone set up on the Town Moderator’s table.
“It breaks my heart to see what’s going on in this town,” he said. “Disabled people can’t even plan a day to go out in their wheelchair because they can’t get out.”
A familiar face in Town Hall, Melanson worked in the building as a custodian until four years ago. Shortly after that he found himself living life from a wheelchair.
“I never thought I’d be here,” he said. “Four years ago I was working here doing your floors and fixing up the place. I never noticed the holes in the sidewalks or the cracks or the whole effect it has on the disabled.”
Former Town Meeting member Fae Saulenas said as a mother of a quadriplegic she could attest to Melanson’s plight. She said she believed society had a responsibility to the least of its members, “because if you deny the least of your members you deny yourselves.”
Town Meeting members supported both articles unanimously.
“That’s good,” Melanson said. “You have to start somewhere and this is a start.”