.Letters for the week of May 12-18, 2004

Old Oakland is not the only economically depressed neighborhood to get a Starbucks. Plus, a rebuttal from the author of some research on parental move-aways.

“Celebrity Hocus-Pocus on Broadway,” Cityside, 4/21

Decaffeinated in Point Richmond
We’ve had a Magic Johnson Starbucks here in economically depressed Point Richmond for about three years. Yeah, that’s right, Point Richmond — the only all-white, middle-class part of Richmond. But we share a ZIP code with poor folks, so … clearly, despite the three privately owned coffee shops we had here when Starbucks came in, we were obviously “underserved.” You had to walk a whole half-block to get a latte, and that was just too far.
Sara Gillies, Richmond

“Should She Stay or Should She Go?” Feature, 3/31


The move-away debate pits feminists vs. kids
Your article on the LaMusga divorce move-away case, today decided by the California Supreme Court, was generally thorough and balanced. But inexplicably, your reporter failed to contact me or my coauthors (Professor Ira Ellman and Dr. William Fabricius) despite the fact that our research was described as a key ingredient to the case. I was a co-signer of one of the key briefs, and a partisan on the other side, psychologist Dr. Judith Wallerstein, characterized our study as “deeply flawed.”

I wish to make three points. First, no study, standing by itself, can ever claim to be completely conclusive and definitive. Since ours is the sole study ever conducted that directly explores the relationship between young adults’ adjustment and whether their divorced parents moved apart, we scarcely would claim or have claimed our study is the final word on the subject. Still, our investigation was considered sufficiently rigorous and meritorious by the anonymous expert peer reviewers and by the journal editor to warrant publication in the most prestigious professional journal in the field, the Journal of Family Psychology. Moreover, the American Psychological Association chose to commit its resources to publicizing its findings. This reaction would hardly be the case if these more objective experts shared Wallerstein’s view that the study was “deeply flawed.”

Second, while more research is needed with respect to some aspects of the move-away issue, our findings are clearest on the critical legal issue of Burgess and LaMusga: Should courts assume that any time the custodial parent wishes to move that the move is in the child’s best interests? The findings of our study are difficult to reconcile with the presumption that moves are good for children whenever desired by the custodial parent. As argued in the brief written by psychologist Dr. Richard Warshak, the policy implication of our study is that courts should examine the children’s interests case by case in relocation disputes, rather than assume that the move is in the child’s interests simply because the custodial parent would like to move.

Third, you cast the larger dispute as one between advocates on “dad’s side” vs. those on “mom’s side.” We believe the debate splits less along gender lines than it does on the basis of professional social scientists vs. ideologues. The brief that Dr. Warshak wrote was cosigned by 28 leading researchers and mental health professionals, all eminent in their fields, roughly evenly split between male and female, several of whom are Dr. Wallerstein’s former collaborators or coauthors. The much smaller group who signed the brief on the other side virtually all self-identify as feminist advocates. Put another way, the divide appears to be between those who want what’s best for mothers vs. who have researched what’s best for children. Today, the California Supreme Court made a ruling that put into practice the move-away rule that we recommended: one that requires judges to give children’s best interests a case by case examination.
Sanford L. Braver, Ph.D, professor of psychology and co-principal investigator, Prevention Research Center, Arizona State University Department of Psychology, Tempe, AZ

“Waiting for the Bus,” Feature, 4/7


Just fire bad drivers
I ride the bus every day, and I am sometimes astounded at the drivers’ disrespect for disabled patrons. The episode that comes to mind occurred several months ago, when a driver stopped for a wheelchair. She wouldn’t let him on the bus until she had seen his money (and I have seen drivers do this several times since then). Then, when the man couldn’t tie his chair in himself, she called him lazy and stupid and a troublemaker.

She kept saying, “Look what you did. Look what a mess you made,” exactly as if she were talking to a dog that had stained the carpet. He wasn’t provoking her in any way. She kept cursing and complaining at him as she drove. When the man got off the bus, he kept his head down, but I could see that he was shaking with sobs.

No one should have to endure that kind of abuse just to ride the bus; and that driver should be out of work and in some sort of rehabilitation. All of the competent drivers are completely overshadowed by the inexcusably abusive ones.

Furthermore, the drivers who are abusive to disabled passengers are THE SAME ONES who curse at able-bodied passengers or try to pick fights with them. The drivers who bypass wheelchair passengers are almost certainly THE SAME ONES who drive past a lone able-bodied person at a bus stop when the driver is behind schedule, wants to make a green light, or is simply in a bad mood. These are also the same drivers who drive aggressively and cut off other vehicles in traffic. The removal of these drivers would therefore make buses more pleasant and safe for everyone.

I have never encountered any business with such low standards for its employees as AC Transit. Minimum-wage employees at McDonald’s would be fired immediately if they were verbally abusive to customers, or if they refused to serve customers because they were behind schedule. If AC Transit wants to maintain its ridership (and avoid a lawsuit by the ACLU), it should screen its drivers better and be more responsive to complaints.
Karen Sullivan, Berkeley


Just take personal responsibility
I am a wheelchair user who has been challenged by riding AC Transit since 1994. In the last ten years, I have had to complain at least two hundred times about problems with accessing their buses. Nevertheless, my experience overall has been more good than bad and I found your article to be a bit one-sided.

On a spring day in 1998, when I was repeatedly denied access with my service dog on both AC Transit and Golden Gate Transit, it was Golden Gate that refused to correct the problem, saying “We have two hundred drivers and can’t control them all.” Yet the person then in charge of access issues at AC Transit, Doug Cross, told me: “I have two thousand drivers. It will take me a few days to notify them all.” Three days later I received a letter from Mr. Cross containing the wording he was putting into a memo to drivers and asking my input. The result was that Golden Gate was sued and AC Transit was not.

Although there continue to be some drivers at AC Transit who are rude or antidisabled on occasion, my experience of late has been more good than bad. I always call and complain when a driver is abusive or fails to pick me up — but I also call and give praise when drivers go out of their way to help. For example, the week before your article I complained about a driver on the 72R line who refused to board me, alleging “The Rapid line doesn’t have to pick up wheelchairs.” The next day the same driver did pick me up and apologized for his prior animosity. We ended that trip joking about the new buses and the relegation of wheelchairs to “the back of the bus.”

I was also disturbed by the insinuation that bad service by AC Transit was the sole reason that all too many disabled people lie on applications for Paratransit. Such a suggestion borders on the absurd; many of the people who lie on Paratransit applications are the same ones who abuse the system or “cheat” the system in other ways. Reporting of this aspect as widespread when your reporter interviewed only a tiny number of transit riders calls into question the validity of the article and makes me wonder about your facility to check facts at your organization.

The real solution is for each and every rider to call in and complain about the bad drivers and praise and thank the good ones. If we all took responsibility instead of just a few activists doing so, the problems would be corrected that much more quickly. I agree that AC Transit still has some problems, but it is certainly not the worst transit system in the Bay Area — in fact, along with West CAT, it may be among the best. So let’s stop insulting the intelligence of your East Bay readership and report the facts, well verified, and with a little less bias.
Elizabeth Campos, El Cerrito


Just get serious about service
Thank you so much for your insightful investigation of the everyday challenges the disabled face when taking public transportation. It so happens that the same week this article was published, I happened to witness a bus driver tell a disabled man in a wheelchair that he would have to wait for the next bus because she was late. I thought this must be a freak occurrence but, after reading your article, I now realize that it happens far too often and I am ashamed that I didn’t confront the bus driver at the time.

Beyond reporting about the dismal attitude that the AC Transit bus drivers display toward the disabled, I am glad you touched on the topic of the difficulties the disabled have when taking Paratransit as well. Paratransit is a vital service provided to the elderly and people with disabilities in the Bay Area. As a teacher of the visually impaired in Oakland, I work with students who rely on Paratransit from time to time. Without it, many of my students would be without an easy and affordable mode of travel and would be denied access to basic services and activities that the rest of us take for granted.

However, on many occasions in the past, our visually impaired students were unable to use Paratransit effectively without immense difficulty. On some occasions our students and instructors encountered rude operators, and on others they were provided with contradictory or incorrect information. In other instances, rides did not show up at all or were extremely late.

Last year, I sent Paratransit a detailed letter documenting the problems our students had encountered but I never received a reply. I can only hope that AC Transit and Paratransit will finally sit up and take notice of the serious problem they have on their hands after reading your article. Sadly, I doubt they will.
Garrett Mumma, orientation and mobility specialist, Oakland Unified School District


CORRECTIONS
In last week’s “Best Of the East Bay” issue, we used the wrong name for the winner of “Best Gelato This Side of Italy.” Our winner’s correct name is Gelateria Naia, at 2106 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley. All that other nice stuff we said was true, however.

Because of the transposition of two pages in production, three items were rendered incomprehensible in last week’s Best Of the East Bay issue. The complete text of Best Neighborhood Park (Cragmont Rock Park), Best Adult Field Trips (Close to Home), and Best Hipster Hangout (Mama Buzz Cafe and Gallery) can be read on our Web site.

Finally, in the April 28 column City of Warts (“New Meaning for the Term ‘Art Cars'”), we improperly attributed ownership of the property now occupied by West Berkeley’s Nexus Art Institute. In fact, the Berkeley Animal Shelter was considering buying the property from the Berkeley Humane Society.

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