Welcome to Kenmare

Feature Stories (Vol. 110 No. 16--4/16/2008)

Kenmare woman raises awareness of local accessibility challenges

By Caroline Downs

Best accessibility . . . The easiest way to access downtown Kenmare
in a wheelchair is at the cut-out at the east end of the sidewalk in front
of Hansen's Hardware on the south side of the square. Above,
Wheels & Meals bus driver Karen Medlang unloads Alice Pausig
at the ramp as Pausig wheels herself down to her job at MTI.

And worst . . . Richard Pausig, right, stands by as his wife Alice demonstrates the difficulty of wheeling herself up the ramp on the south side of the former Kenmare Clothing store. Pausig said she could not push herself safely up the steep ramp without the fear of tipping backward. She also noted that because the ramp is uneven, her chair became unstable with only one of the two front wheels in contact with the asphalt surface at any given time.

Most Kenmare residents or visitors to the community don’t give it a second thought.

But getting around town for individuals who use walkers, wheelchairs, scooters, canes or other aids presents a broad range of challenges. Many sidewalks are damaged. Handicapped accessible parking may be limited or nonexistent. Doors can be hard to pull open, and entrances may be narrow, inclined rather than level, and include a concrete lip or step into the building.

Alice Pausig, a Kenmare resident who uses a wheelchair and advocates for other people with disabilities, and Butch Norrie, chairman of the Street Committee for the City of Kenmare, agree something needs to be done to improve accessibility in town. The question is how best to approach the issue.

For Pausig, the issue has been an emphasis in her life for nearly 30 years. In 1979, she was severely injured after a driver using the wrong lane slammed into her car on a highway outside Valley City, as Pausig was headed home to Breckenridge, Minnesota, after a Thanksgiving visit to Minot. Her neck was broken, and she lost her nearly full-term baby. Extensive treatment and months of rehabilitation in Fargo and Grand Forks allowed her to recover from paralysis and other serious injuries.

"I had to learn everything all over again," she said, then grinned. "I’m a very independent person."

That independence relies in part on Pausig’s use of her wheelchair. She prefers to maneuver herself around her home and through the community in a manual chair, although she does own an electric chair that provides greater stability when she does yard work on the sloped lawn of the home she and husband Richard purchased in October 2000.

Before relocating to Kenmare, Pausig lived in Minot for 20 years, where she worked for Schmidt Publishing and raised a daughter born after her recovery. Pausig also became active on behalf of other disabled persons living in the city and was appointed to the Mayor’s Committee for Employment of People with Disabilities. She received various recognitions for her advocacy, but she’d rather talk about raising awareness for the needs of handicapped and elderly persons than about her certificates and accolades.

"You’ve got to think handicapped," she said. To promote understanding, she coordinated efforts with Minot Housing Authority officials and retailers in the Dakota Square Mall, suggesting they spend a day in a wheelchair to see ways they could provide better accommodations for persons with disabilities. Her work resulted in a video produced by General Growth Malls and used nationwide to educate business owners about handicapped shoppers.

When she and her husband moved to Kenmare, however, Pausig spent four years caring for Richard’s elderly father. "I didn’t really get out in the community," she said. "After he passed away, it was time for me to get out in the real world again."

She started a job at MTI in downtown Kenmare on August 1, 2007, using the Wheels & Meals public bus to get back and forth from work. Once off the bus, however, Pausig faced several problems with accessibility.

She offered an everyday example of the circumstances. "If the bus drops me off for MTI and I want to go to Town & Country Credit Union to do my banking, how am I going to get there safely?" she said. "The only good cutout is by Hansen’s Hardware, and the east side sidewalk is horrible."

Pausig can list several locations around Kenmare’s square that frustrate handicapped or elderly persons, including crumbled, broken and uneven sidewalks, building entrances with doors that have to be pulled open on inclines that send a wheelchair rolling backward, narrow doorways that barely fit a wheelchair or walker, and the lack of accessible parking spaces. "This isn’t just about ‘Alice-in-a-wheelchair,’" she said. "You’re limiting the people who come to that establishment."

While she is very knowledgeable about the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and the requirements for business owners, Pausig also understands the financial constraints of small business owners in Kenmare. "We are in a small community and our businesses are trying to survive," she said. "To take a big chunk of money to fix this could be a hardship on them."

So she raised the issue of improving accessibility at a City Council meeting in August 2007. "If you don’t work or be around [handicapped persons], you aren’t aware," she said. "I would like to see the city spearhead the effort. I realize some things won’t meet ADA specifications, but they can work to make it better."

Public Transportation
Linda Freeman and Karen Medlang, both with Kenmare Wheels & Meals, have shared Pausig’s concerns about accessibility for some time, especially regarding transportation. "Our bus has a lift for wheelchairs or for those who cannot get up steps," Freeman said. "And we have applied for funding to purchase a van with a ramp. If we get that funding, we will be able to provide rides home from work after regular transportation hours."

Medlang operates the bus and maintains a full schedule during the week. "In the winter months we are extremely busy," she said. "A lot of days I’m in the bus all day." Some of her riders walk or drive in the summer, but prefer to let Medlang transport them during the winter.

She described the majority of her regular passengers as over 60 years old, and some require assistance walking. Medlang pays close attention to the safety of her passengers as they board and leave the bus at various locations downtown. "At the Post Office, I pull up in the alley and it seems to work for all the ladies," she said. "But the drugstore is where a lot of people go, and the handicapped parking is across the street where it does no good. So when it’s snowy and icy, if there’s room in front of the store, I pull up on the sidewalk. I don’t want them walking on the ice."

Freeman and Medlang agreed the city does well removing snow from the streets in the winter, but having clear sidewalks can be difficult. "If the sidewalks aren’t cleaned, it makes it difficult for the driver and the passenger," Freeman said. "But that takes the work of a lot of people. And sometimes the snow gets shoveled down the ramp area and we’re left with a big pile of snow at the end of the ramp!" She would like to see the city take responsibility for keeping the cutouts, or ramps, free of snow.

She would also like to see more handicapped parking developed around the square. "It would be nice to have an additional spot in the middle of each block," she said. "I believe they would be more convenient than the ones on the end. Even for people using canes or who can’t see well, it would be nice to have that ramp they know is going to be there, free of ice and snow."

Medlang would especially appreciate a bus-accessible cutout on the west side of the square, next to Kenmare Drug, despite the fact ramps already exist at both ends of that block. She realizes the area her bus would need in front of the drugstore, equivalent to four of the current parking spaces, could present another difficulty. However, snow rarely gets removed in front of the empty storefronts near the south ramp, and ice tends to form at the north end of the block. Medlang refuses to risk her passengers’ safety.

Harriette Jorgenson, a local resident whose eyesight has become limited in recent years, appreciates Medlang’s careful and reliable service. "I would much rather ride the bus," she said, adding that friends are always willing to drive her, but she prefers not to impose. Instead, she makes plans with the Wheels & Meals bus, which picks her up at home and drives her to the stops she needs.

"It’s too bad more people don’t use [the bus]," Jorgenson said. "If you don’t use it, you don’t have it."

Several businesses praised
Several businesses and merchants in the community were praised for the way they accommodate the needs of persons with disabilities. Pausig appreciates the automatic doors at Town & Country Credit Union and Gartner’s Jack & Jill, the wide aisles for shopping in R $ & Variety, and especially the ease with which she can move and work in the MTI facility.

Chet Nelson, who spends summers in Kenmare and uses an electric scooter, listed several businesses that have made modifications over the years. "I’ll note a few where it is very important to me," he said. "The Kenmare News, the Post Office, South of the Border, Cindy’s Cafe, Freeman Oil, the Farmers Union Oil and Lumber companies, the Kenmare Hospital, Kenmare Assisted Living, the dentist’s office, Quilt Inn, the Baptist Home, the two grocery stores, and the Senior Citizens Center. There are some other businesses where some very minor modifications could make a lot of difference, where no one has gotten around to doing it." He also noted changes with ramps and doors at the Memorial Hall that allow for better accessibility.

Medlang noted both grocery stores allow her to park next to the entrances, allowing her to safely deliver passengers and to exit the lot without backing the bus.

Freeman has been impressed with the attitude of business owners and store employees toward their handicapped and elderly customers. "A lot of our businesses are really not handicapped accessible," she said, "but most of the store owners go out of their way to provide assistance. And it’s terribly expensive to meet [ADA] code."

Funding for improvements
is a challenge, too
Kenmare’s City Council discussed accessibility at meetings in August, September and October of last year. The Street Committee, chaired by alderman Butch Norrie with members Cameron Bartuska and Todd Ankenbauer, discussed following Pausig’s suggestion of riding around town in a wheelchair for a day. According to Norrie, however, the hospital did not have three wheelchairs available to loan when he contacted that facility.

Instead, the committee followed another of Pausig’s suggestions and contacted Independence, Inc., a resource center for independent living based in Minot. Therese Besemann, a systems change specialist with the agency, visited Kenmare September 5th and toured the city with the Street Committee. Her observations and survey resulted in a guide for the city to address changes that could be made for accessibility.

"We don’t have any actual deficiencies," Norrie said of Besemann’s report, "but she did suggest how we could make improvements for ADA."

Norrie agreed with Pausig’s perspective. "We’ve got to look at it as if we were the ones in the wheelchairs," he said. "We want to provide for the ADA."

The city will address the downtown area first. Besemann praised the accessibility to the city’s park with handicapped parking on the west side. However, the city wants to add handicapped parking spaces in other places and clearly mark them with signs.

Norrie said the handicapped parking accessibility on the east side of the square, near State Bank & Trust of Kenmare, will receive attention because of the sharp incline there, and he would like to see better accessibility in front of the post office.

The city also intends to improve the poor condition of the sidewalks downtown. "We’re looking at adding a top coat and leveling that, at places all around the square," he said. "That’s actually the responsibility of the ownership of the businesses, but we already have empty stores. Who is going to absorb those expenses when the buildings are vacant?"

Spring weather means the work should begin soon, and the new signs have already arrived. "But we’re short one city employee, and that puts us in a bind," Norrie said. Funding is another issue for the city, which is facing expenses to update the water system and to purchase a new landfill.

He said Kari Bies, executive director for Kenmare Community Development Corporation, is looking into possible grants the city could obtain to assist with the costs of improving accessibility. "We don’t want to put the burden on the business owners," he said.

Mayor Roger Ness reminded retailers interested in making modifications to their stores about a local source of funding. "The city has funds that go up to $1500 matches," he said. "That’s why we want to let the store owners know about Fund-ITT."

Norrie said the city will examine other accessibility needs around town in the coming months. "We can only do things as funds progress," he said. "Please, be patient."

Pausig likes the idea of making Fund-ITT money available to store owners for ADA improvements and the idea of seeking grants to assist the city with costs. She pointed out the ADA provides tax relief to businesses who make changes to accommodate their handicapped customers. She believes plans for a walking trail around and through Kenmare could incorporate some of the other problem areas in town.

She also looks forward to the day when she can safely negotiate the streets, sidewalks and stores around Kenmare on her own, in her wheelchair. "When I was living in Minot, I never said to someone, ‘Go do this for me,’" she said, "but I am not out in the community now without Rich, unless I’m working. I would like to do the banking or go to the grocery store and get things for myself!"