Hear the audio of a portion of the February 22, 2023 meeting and a portion of the discussion about accessibility barriers during the closed streets of Open Air; text is set out below. 

Unofficial transcript:

Deputy Mayor Gibb 
Okay. And as my second thing I wanted to address because I’ve heard that a lot over the last couple days about accessibility of Open Air. I don’t identify as someone with a disability but my mother-in-law and father-in-law both live at Richmond Terrace. And I’ve personally pushed a wheelchair from Richmond, well, one of their each wheelchairs from Richmond Terrace downtown, and I’ll tell you, you cannot believe the relief to be able to get off of our uneven sidewalks with trees growing out of them and all kinds of obstacles. They’re not wide enough. To me, Open Air makes the downtown more accessible for people with in at least in wheelchairs because I’ll tell you right now, try and push a wheelchair down one of those downtown sidewalks and you’ll see exactly what I mean. So we enjoy bringing them for Open Air because we don’t have to worry about trying to maneuver the wheelchair on a narrow uneven sidewalk so that’s I just want to put my two cents in there.

Councillor McArthur
Thank you Your Worship. I mean, I’ll happily champion Open Air when the time comes when the time is right I’m not sure if that time is now though. I mean, the motion on the floor is correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s to boost the you know this tourism budget by $80,000 to fund the True Festival, the car show, the Santa Claus parade, Truth and Reconciliation, River Lights, plus a contingency; we’re not looking for a boost to Open Air funding, correct?

Anne Rota 
That’s correct.

Councillor McArthur 
Okay, so I mean, I think I might keep my powder dry because as things stand right now, Open Air’s a go until someone tries to rip it apart. And I hope they don’t do that and we can discuss that when they do.

Tell Anne Rota there are barriers; email arota@amherstburg.ca

Copy me at theburgwatch at gmail.com