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Dear Commissioners:
I am writing in favor of approving CDGB funding for a handicapped and wheelchair-accessible restroom in the lower level Education Department at Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art. For the past several years I have been an art instructor at PGSMOA, teaching VSA Adult Multi-Media Art, Senior Citizen Paper Arts, and a number of preschool and grade school art classes. I have also conducted tours and workshops for visually and hearing-impaired students from the Montana School for the Deaf and Blind; clients of the Center for Mental Health; and visiting school groups from both within and outside the Great Falls School District. A significant number of my VSA students have cognitive as well as physical disabilities, and in every class I have taught I have had had students in wheelchairs and/or walkers. Since Montana Schools have inclusive classrooms, visiting groups often have students in wheelchairs as part of their groups.
The current lower-level toilets are quite old, and lower to the ground than modern standard, creating difficulty for senior citizens as well as those with physical handicaps; the stalls are too narrow to permit wheelchair access, as well as too narrow for a safe turning radius for those who use walkers. My VSA students are not always able to give adequate advance notice of their sanitary needs to allow their aides to get them down the hall, into the elevator to the first floor, down the hall again, and into the accessible first-floor restrooms in time. I am a former CNA, and have on several occasions assisted aides in getting students out of their chairs and into the downstairs toilet in situations where immediate toilet needs cannot be ignored. The accidents that have inevitably occurred necessitate the students return to their facility where they can be helped with cleaning themselves, and get clean clothes, missing the remainder of a class that that validates their many talents and abilities. Whether children or adults, any accidents leave these most vulnerable people feeling upset and humiliated, despite reassurance from aides, myself, and their fellow students that "It's okay, accidents happen."
CDBG funding for an accessible restroom on the Education Level -- the most high-traffic area of the museum -- means such accidents and humiliations never have to happen again; and if despite everything they do, it would provide space and facilities for cleaning up with privacy and dignity, on site, and in a relatively short period of time, so that the student could return to the class and continue their activity. Needless to say, preschool, grade school, and senior citizen students also occasionally have immediate personal sanitary needs; a close accessible restroom would allow them to avoid accidents and have the same privacy and dignity. I sincerely hope that in considering this application, you will agree with me that politics has absolutely no place here; this request for funding is entirely about the wonderful and vibrant people who take my classes having the same safe restroom access as you or I do at the museum, everywhere we go. I ask for your "Yes" vote approving funding.
Thank you for taking the time to read and consider my comments. Sincerely, B.J. Buckley, Instructor, VSA / Seniors/ Children at PGSMOA