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Residents urge council to reverse move of disability services into HR after longtime ADA coordinator's retirement
Summary
After the city announced ADA coordination will move to Human Resources when Stephanie Brewer Cook retires, multiple public-forum speakers said the change lacked stakeholder input, risks losing subject-matter expertise and advocacy, and urged council to restore a dedicated disability office.
Three speakers during public forum told the Knoxville City Council on June 23 they believe moving disability services and ADA coordination into Human Resources after Stephanie Brewer Cook's retirement will weaken advocacy and services for people with disabilities.
Vivian Ship, a public forum speaker representing the Tennessee Valley chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Tennessee, said the decision "was the wrong decision to make" and called it discriminatory. "It is discriminatory and should be reversed," Ship said, adding concerns that longstanding, ADA-certified staff and meeting minutes had disappeared from the public record and that the mayor's directive had curtailed the mayor's council on disability issues.
Ivonne Nubert and George Childress also urged the council to maintain a dedicated disability office and to preserve community-facing programs established by the retiring coordinator, such as disability-day training for police recruits and in-community outreach. "Programs like this open communication, give education," Nubert said, warning that those programs could be lost if responsibilities are absorbed by overburdened HR staff.
Mayor (chairing the meeting) acknowledged the speakers and said HR director Betsy Cunningham will assume ADA coordination responsibilities on July 1; he also said he plans to reconvene the mayor's council on disability issues later this summer. The mayor noted the city intends to keep ADA practices across departments and asked for stakeholder input on details such as web visibility and service access.
Speakers asked the council to open a transparent search for a new disability coordinator role or to ensure the mayor's council's membership and minutes are made public and reactivated. Councilmembers acknowledged the concerns and several urged staff and council to engage the disability community in transition plans and to ensure continuity of services and training that community members credited to Stephanie Brewer Cook's decades of work.
