Handicapped Los Angeles

Say hello to the talking crosswalk. The first one in Los Angeles introduced itself Friday to 2,500 blind and visually impaired people gathered at Century Boulevard and Concourse Way for a convention. The automated voice system is connected to the pedestrian signals in front of the Airport Westin hotel. It tells when it is safe to cross the busy, 120-foot-wide boulevard, and when it is safer to stay on the curb.

From across the city they arrived, using walkers, wheelchairs or canes. In sometimes painfully slow speech, the message was repeated passionately Thursday to the city's Commission on Disability: We often feel like second-class citizens on buses, cabs and other public transportation. Cabs refuse to stop for the blind with seeing-eye dogs; some bus lifts can't accommodate all wheelchairs; and many transit services run hours late, stranding clients in the rain and late at night.

Boyle Heights resident Juan Villafuerte beamed as he watched wet concrete splatter onto a neighborhood street Wednesday. "That's beautiful," said Villafuerte, sitting in his wheelchair, as city workers smoothed the concrete to create a ramp at the edge of the sidewalk. The new curb cut at Fickett Street and Wabash Avenue is one of 40,000 the city of Los Angeles plans to install as part of a newly aggressive effort to finally comply with the federal Americans With Disabilities Act.

Actress Mabel King gained her freedom Friday. King received a customized wheelchair that will allow her to get around on her own. Her other wheelchair made her constantly dependent on another person. "I have my own Rolls-Royce," said King, 62, best known for playing the Wicked Witch of the West in the Broadway and film versions of "The Wiz." She also starred in ABC-TV's "What's Happening!!" which ran on the network from 1976 to 1979. "This means freedom to me. I won't get stuck anymore."

There was a time when doctors said Ray Mills would never speak his own name, when Tammy Brackens' counselors saw no job future for the child who liked to draw. And a time when Milton Davis could not imagine that his constant doodles would wind up framed, on other people's walls. That time has passed. Ask any of these developmentally disabled adults what they do, or who they are, and they will answer: "Artist."

No wonder UCLA lost this year's Rose Bowl game. Six athletes had undergone back surgery. Another was disabled by a herniated disk. Three others had bad knees, another a broken ankle. Still another had contracted Bell's palsy, a nerve disorder that causes facial paralysis. Those were some of the bogus reasons cited by 14 current or former UCLA football players in a scam to illegally obtain handicapped parking passes, a spokesman for the Los Angeles city attorney's office said Friday.

Los Angeles city officials have again postponed the citywide expansion of a program to provide senior citizens and the disabled with coupons to pay for transportation, delaying the launch from Jan. 1 to at least April 1 or perhaps later. The start-up had earlier been postponed from July.

When the Chatsworth Park Adaptive Center was built three years ago at a cost of $224,000, it was the first recreation center specifically for the disabled in Los Angeles. The center has since spawned four replicas. The newest opened last week in South-Central Los Angeles, and it may soon become the model for a central hub for disabled recreation services in the San Fernando Valley.

Citing a failure to provide promised services, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation recommended Friday that the city cancel the operating permit for one of the two taxi firms serving the San Fernando Valley. If approved by the city Transportation Commission, the recommendation to cancel the permit of Burbank-based Checker Cab Co. would leave the city portion of the Valley served only by Valley Cab Co.

No wonder UCLA lost this year's Rose Bowl game. Six athletes had undergone back surgery. Another was disabled by a herniated disk. Three others had bad knees, another a broken ankle. Still another had contracted Bell's palsy, a nerve disorder that causes facial paralysis. Those were some of the bogus reasons cited by 14 current or former UCLA football players in a scam to illegally obtain handicapped parking passes, a spokesman for the Los Angeles city attorney's office said Friday.

Say hello to the talking crosswalk. The first one in Los Angeles introduced itself Friday to 2,500 blind and visually impaired people gathered at Century Boulevard and Concourse Way for a convention. The automated voice system is connected to the pedestrian signals in front of the Airport Westin hotel. It tells when it is safe to cross the busy, 120-foot-wide boulevard, and when it is safer to stay on the curb.

Agustin and Rita Gonzalez were told that their daughter Veronica would not even begin to walk until she was a teenager. When their older daughter Angelica was 2, Larry and Dotti Lopez noticed that her speech had stopped developing. Their younger daughter, Isela, stopped making sounds at 13 months. Veronica Gonzalez was mentally retarded; the Lopez girls were autistic.

When Jeremy NC Newman, a personal trainer, puts clients through their paces, he often uses the "countdown" technique to help them endure. "Only four more!" he'll say as an exerciser struggles to finish a set of abdominal crunches or another set of repetitions with free weights. He gets much more effort out of exercisers this way, Newman says, than by counting up, which can make people want to give up sooner.

An oak tree sculpture that raised about $1.5 million for construction of four apartment complexes for the disabled will be dedicated today at 2 p.m. at a branch of United Cerebral Palsy, the agency that led the fund-raising effort. The UCP office is at 11051 Old Santa Susana Pass Road, Chatsworth. About 500 donors purchased leaves and acorns on the bronze, wood and brass sculpture, with contributions ranging from $100 to $25,000, said Ron Cohen, executive director of United Cerebral Palsy.

Diners at Cha Cha Cha on Ventura Boulevard in Encino are in for the usual double entrancement tonight. While Caribbean-style food hypnotizes their palates with spice, the soft reggae of Fire & Brimstone, pulsing like a heartbeat through the restaurant's clang and chatter, will set their non-digestive inner places throbbing with well-being.

A newly renovated house with bright colors and helpful features, including a long hallway that will be turned into an art gallery, will become home to eight disabled homeless people later this month. When it opens Oct. 27, the house at 3551 E. 4th St. will be the only shelter for the homeless disabled on the Eastside, according to members of Community Rehabilitation Services Inc., a 16-year-old nonprofit organization at Centro Maravilla that helps the disabled become more independent.

It's easy for many of us to take for granted the simplest elements of a typical family life: the chance to sit down together at the table for dinner, to share the chores that keep a household going, to laugh and play at the end of a busy day. But many developmentally disabled adults are shut out of those simple pleasures. They often are shunned by peers because they can't keep up and ostracized by a society in which they do not fit.

Calling it a way to put the city's collective feet to the fire to address the needs of the disabled, the City Council on Wednesday established a separate Department on Disability. After hearing impassioned support from people with disabilities and from representatives of agencies that serve them, council members agreed that there is a need to recognize the office of disabilities as a full department with its own budget.