A concerned resident addressed the Warrenton, Missouri, board of aldermen about the location of the disabled and handicapped parking at the Athletic Complex.
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Changes could be coming to the disabled parking areas at the Warrenton Athletic Complex after a resident raised concerns during the Oct. 17 board of aldermen meeting.
Miriam Schaefer spoke during the public commenting section at the beginning of the meeting.
“I really, really, really, really want you to please do this,” she told aldermen at the beginning of her comments. “I want to invite each of you aldermen to please drive out to the athletic sports complex, pull into the disabled parking, and visualize yourself going to your grandchild’s or your child’s soccer game. And then in the same disabled parking spot, because there is not another one, visualize yourself going to your grandson’s or your children’s baseball games.”
Her concern was how difficult it is for those who are differently-abled to get to the fields.
“It’s terrible,” she said. “You have to walk about 300 feet through a field to get to the little kids … soccer games. You have to walk another 300 yards to get to the other fields where our older grandson plays and that’s to the end of the pavement. And then you still have to get across the fields to get to the field to watch them play. Even with a set of binoculars I don’t believe you could watch him play safely.”
She said the lack of parking close to the fields and the difficulty of getting from the parking lot to the games keeps many older people away.
“There are so many elderly people that I’m friends with or friends that have grandparents or parents who do not attend sports events who want to go and they’re unable to get to the games,” Schaefer said. “Something needs to be done.”
Aldermen were on board with looking into changes.
“I totally agree with you,” Alderman Larry Corder said. “It’s a mess, it really is. The design of that was not thought through as far as handicapped, or disabled, or even someone walking with a broken leg.”
Aldermen took no action on the issue during the meeting, but Corder said the city would look into changes in the near future.
“It’s been brought up in conversations at the fields when I was there before I became an alderman,” Corder said. “Thank you for bringing it back front and center.”
About the author: Jason Koch is the editor of The Warren County Record, and covers local news and government for the newspaper. He has won multiple awards from both the Indiana and Illinois APME and from the Illinois Press Association. He can be reached at 636-456-6397 or at jason@warrencountyrecord.com
