New sidewalk eludes man with guide dog
No one wants to pay for a sidewalk - not the city and not his neighbors. So when he steps out, he steps into the street.
By NICK BIRDSONG
Published June 15, 2005
ST. PETERSBURG - She drives him to the store and anywhere else, when she can. He answers the door sometimes. She has the eyes; he has the legs.
An entertainment center in the living room serves as a keepsake of their 61-year marriage. It overflows with photographs chronicling the journey of a union that began in Akron, Ohio, at the General Tire and Rubber Co.
Eddie and Vernetta Mlotkowsky are a team. They have to be. He suffers from glaucoma and macular degeneration. For almost a year his condition has prohibited him from driving or even walking alone. She uses a wheelchair because of arthritis.
"We have to work together," Mrs. Mlotkowsky said.
The St. Petersburg couple, both 79, have been feuding with city officials from St. Petersburg and South Pasadena to get a sidewalk installed along a strip of Oleander Way S, the street next to their home at 6633 Mango Ave. S. Michelle P. Reed, former orientation and mobility specialist at the Watson Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, noted narrow roads, lack of controlled street crossings and an inconsistent presence of sidewalks in the Mlotkowskys' neighborhood.
"I recommend that you work with local government and city officials to investigate ways to make this area more accessible in order to increase your safety and decrease your risk of injury," Reed wrote in a January letter to Mlotkowsky. All he wants is to be able to make the trip from his house to the drugstore with his guide dog, Liberty, in one piece. If he makes it to Gulfport Boulevard, everything is okay.
Where Gulfport Boulevard intersects with Oleander, a special handicapped walking signal lets out a blaring screech, stopping traffic on both sides of the road. It stays on long enough for those with special needs to get across the street safely. Mlotkowsky said it's the only crossing signal of its kind in the area.
"The only way I can get anywhere, if she don't take me, I gotta walk," Mlotkowsky said. "If something happens where she can't drive, if I want to go down to the drugstore to pick up a prescription, I gotta go out there and compete with the cars. And I'm just too damn old to be out there. And I can't see very good, competing with cars. If there is a dark car on a dark street, I can't see it till it gets 20 feet from me."
More than freedom to come and go as he pleases, Mlotkowsky said that without the sidewalk, he misses out on the opportunity to gel with the outside world.
"I used to love to go down there," he said, reminiscing about walks when he was healthier. "I would always see people walking down the street, and you stop and have a little conversation with them."
The couple have met with City Council members, engineers and two mayors, to no avail.
"Everybody says they're going to do something, but nobody's done anything," Mrs. Mlotkowsky said.
The couple originally indicated to St. Petersburg City Council member Richard Kriseman that they wanted the sidewalk. Kriseman began walking the pair through the process.
They requested a sidewalk petition from the city's Special Assessment District in mid October. After receiving two signatures from the four residents on Oleander - one home was vacant at the time and the other resident wasn't home when the petition was sent out - the couple thought they were on their way.
But that was only the beginning of a long tale of disappointment. Mrs. Mlotkowsky said Kriseman told them they would get the sidewalk. Kriseman disagrees.
"I never told them that," Kriseman said.
Either way, the petition only serves as a request for service. The city is required to maintain existing sidewalks, not construct new ones. The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 necessitates that buildings be made easily accessible to all people regardless of physical ailment. The city wouldn't be liable if someone were to be injured or killed by a motorist whizzing down the increasingly busy Oleander Way.
"They (the city) are not responsible for individual neighborhoods," said Kelly Feeley, professor at Stetson University College of Law and former personal-injury lawyer. The Mlotkowskys "may have had a better claim had a sidewalk already been there. Then they could have said, "Hey, we are used to a sidewalk being here.' "
Jim Ward, founder of the National Coalition for Disability Rights, said the law is being used to the detriment of those whom it was established to benefit.
"They (the city) are sticking to the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the ADA, which is to provide an open and accessible society," Ward said.
For Mlotkowsky's sidewalk to become a reality, he'll have to depend on the kindness of neighbors. The same folks he enjoyed engaging in casual conversation as he lumbered to CVS would have to sign off on a tax increase to help out a neighbor down the block.
Some came out of their homes to sign the petition for the sidewalk to be built. But once the city sent letters informing them of the tax hike, their compassion ebbed.
Mlotkowsky said they weren't trying to "pull one over" on the residents. In the paragraph preceding the space for signatures on the petition, the new tax is clearly stated.
"If they broke it down to what it was going to cost them monthly to have a sidewalk, some would be paying $8 and others would be paying $10 monthly," he said.
Former South Pasadena Mayor Frank Held, who served until March 2004, said that although part of the requested sidewalk is in South Pasadena, the city can't do anything because the Mlotkowskys are residents of St. Petersburg.
"We told them to check with the county or the city of St. Petersburg," said Held, who said he hadn't heard of anyone requesting a sidewalk in the past five to 10 years.
Mike Connors, St. Petersburg director of engineering, stormwater and traffic operations, said the city would like to build the $6,000 sidewalk for the Mlotkowskys but that "there is no way that we can entertain this request and not others." He said that would be setting a precedent.
Kriseman added: "The city just doesn't have the money to put them in everywhere someone wants them."
Through all the red tape, Eddie Mlotkowsky has grown weary and angry. He said the real reason no one has done anything is because there aren't many votes on the outskirts of town. If he ever gets another chance in front of the City Council, he's going to "burn their ears up."
"If I had known in my older age I would be out fighting the traffic, I wouldn't have been out there fighting for World War II," he said.