By David Montero, Rocky Mountain News

The short stretch of sidewalk opposite the Hyatt Regency Denver is an uneven, crumbling mess – as if an active fault line were running beneath it.

David Kennedy steps near it and motions all the way up to an alley, where the curb is a pulverized mess of rubble.

“This,” he said, “is a definite hazard.”

Farther down 15th Street, Kennedy is at it again. Two empty, mauve flower pots sit right in the middle of the sidewalk. He shakes his head.

And then there’s the sign at the corner of 15th and Arapahoe streets. It juts out of the corner, with a metal frame below that a blind person could miss while swiping a cane.

Few people notice them as they walk by – joggers easily diverting their path to avoid the obstacles. But Kennedy is paid to notice what others might miss.

The 51-year-old is the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee’s disability rights advocate for the Democratic National Convention. He has spent the past few weeks making sure the city is ready for the contingent of disabled people coming to the city for the party’s convention in August.

Teenage polio victim

The problems that Kennedy finds must be fixed at the expense of the city or responsible agency.

Walking with a cane, Kennedy – he contracted polio while in his late teens – has spent the past seven years in Denver working with the mayor’s office to make sure places like the Denver Art Museum and large public art displays align with provisions of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

His mantra is simple: the more accessible things are for the disabled now, the better it is for everyone later.

“Access will be a big deal for the growing elderly population,” he said. “Cities won’t have to invest in it later by making those changes now.”

One of those making the change now is Steve Meyer.

The co-owner of Main Street Pedicabs in Broomfield, he contacted officials putting on the convention with the idea of providing pedicabs to disabled delegates .

To make sure they could get inside the pedicabs, he began installing a step that was 11 inches from the ground rather than the original 18 inches.

In addition, he began adding grab bars in front.

Meyer said his goal was to have about four pedicabs ready to greet the disabled coming off the buses and then to ferry them around to the various entrances to the Pepsi Center.

“It serves two purposes,” he said. “First, they’re environmentally friendly and secondly, they’re easy to get in and out of.”

Because security plans haven’t been finalized, it’s not known whether pedicabs or golf carts will be used within the “hard security” barrier set up by Secret Service at the Pepsi Center.

When the Democratic National Convention was held in Boston in 2004, August Longo was amazed at how accessible things were for the disabled.

And having been to the past two conventions in Boston and Los Angeles, he said the bar is pretty high.

“I’d say Boston is the gold standard and it would be hard for any city to come up to that,” he said. Longo, chairman of the disabled caucus of the California Democratic Party and who himself is in a wheelchair, noted how party officials had booklets printed up and made available in advance of the trip so disabled delegates knew how to get what they needed.

Kennedy, whose jurisdiction covers places where host committee parties will be held, said he has to check out all of those facilities as well.

And he is in the process of talking with taxi cab companies to make sure the drivers engage in sensitivity training – noting that in the past some drivers have refused to allow seeing-eye dogs into the vehicles.

Disabled delegates

The number of disabled delegates coming to Denver is not known since most states haven’t had their state conventions yet.

100 or more disabled delegates were at the convention in Boston in 2004.

* The number of disabled people arriving that are non-delegates is also unknown, though convention officials said it could be in the hundreds.

Tags: americans with disabilities, americans with disabilities act, democratic national convention, denver art museum, disability rights, Main Street Pedicabs, Pedicab News, responsible agency, steve meyer