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Deaf residents press council for an Office of Disability and city hiring outreach as vacancies persist

Riverside City Council · February 24, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Deaf and disability advocates urged Riverside leaders to create a permanent Office of Disability, hire staff with disabilities and develop targeted recruitment, highlighting a claimed 73% unemployment rate among deaf and disabled residents and calling for immediate hiring partnerships.

Two public commenters during the Feb. 24 meeting urged the Riverside City Council to establish a permanent Office of Disability and to increase city hiring outreach to people with disabilities.

Kevin Bernhardt, who identified himself as deaf and said he moved to Riverside from New York, asked the council to create an Office of Disability (or Office for the Deaf) and budget staff to coordinate…

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