HELPING OUT
Local leaders look to make city more accommodating for those with special needs
TROY, N. Y. » Local political and community leaders came together Friday for the Think Differently community forum at the Arts Center of the Capital Region in downtown Troy.
Think Differently is about accommodating people with special needs, and they’re ready to take their effort public. More than a year after the City Council became one of the first bodies outside Dutchess County to adopt the Think Differently campaign created by Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, the local program hosted its first event Friday.
The program and the first forum was introduced locally in June 2016 by council President Carmella Mantello, who is also the parent of a specialneeds child. She said
that has given her a unique perspective of the challenges faced by her son in daily life and moved her to help find ways to help other families face those challenges.
“As a leader in our community I have an opportunity to try tomake our city more accessible and more inclusive to special needs folks and disabled folks,” said Mantello on Friday morning.
Other elected officials like Troy Mayor Patrick Madden and Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin were in attendance for the forum Friday, and they agree that more needs to be done in the city to accommodate people with special needs.
“I think these forums will help promote a broader dialogue around inclusivity, accessibility and things of that nature,” said Madden. “I think we need to talk more about it and we need to make people more aware of how we limit other’s participation in our community, both by our thinking and by our physical infrastructure.”
“We’ ll expand this county- wide [ if I’melected as the next county executive],” added McLaughlin. “This is very important because if you think about it, whywould this just be a city issue? We have folks in the community that could use this help as well, so we’ll commit to that fully.”
Other communitymembers who were in attendance throughout the day Friday said they believe forums like these will help make a difference in the whole community.
“I think there are a lot of people from different agencies and passions, so I think all of that connected together can help to really think about what we can offer to people in our community who do have different disabilities,” said Donna Fitzgerald, director of People’s Services for the Troy City School District.
Fitzgerald said one of the groups’s that she participated in on Friday morning talked about a few possible ideas for ways to improve things for people with disabilities in the community.
“Sometimes people don’t know that an event in the city is even accessible to them,” said Fitzgerald, “so maybe if wemake sure that when the city is planning events that they put things like available seating or an interrupter available, so that people with disabilities feel more welcomed.”