Maria and Michael Stasinski of Bulls Head, Staten Island have settled a disagreement with their building’s condo board over the installation of a wheelchair lift for their four-year-old daughter Giuliana. The lift has now been installed.
Giuliana has cerebral palsy. The Stasinskis received a donation of a $5,000 wheelchair lift from the Dr. Theodore A. Atlas Foundation. However, the Richmond Mews condominium complex where they live did not initially approve its installation at the location they requested.
The Stasinskis wanted to install the lift at the front of their 48-unit development but the condo board said it preferred placing the lift at the rear entrance for liability reasons, according to news reports.
The family then retained a lawyer, Leonard J. Mazzarisi Jr., who was prepared to file a discrimination lawsuit in Federal court charging the condo board with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), though he never expected the case to go to court.
Mazzarisi, who took the case pro bono, said the dispute resulted from a small number of condo board members who lacked an understanding of the ADA but that the issue was amicably resolved through a meeting with the borough president and other advocates.
“When they realized how much the law would penalize them for discriminating against Giuliana it was really no contest, particularly because by giving our services pro bono Giuliana was entitled to representation by the public advocate, the New York City Council on Human Rights and ultimately the Department of Justice through the Department of Housing and Urban Development. They would have been destroyed if they tried to maintain that position,” he said.
Mazzarisi praised the condo board president who participated in resolving the dispute, saying, “He was really a classy guy.”
The condo board has no publicly available phone number. Gabor & Marotta LLC, the firm that represented the board according to Mazzarisi, did not return a request for comment.
Supporters held a rally May 5 at the complex, where Maria Stasinski told the Staten Island Advance that, “This is for every child that has the opportunity to better themselves, to be able to go to therapy, to go to school, to walk, to do things for themselves, to be independent. That’s what I want Giuliana to have."
According to CBS 2, Maria Stasinski had to lift Giuliana in her wheelchair up and down the stairs six times a day prior to the installation of the lift.
“In America we don’t allow anyone to go through the back door,” Mazzarisi added. “We have a history of fighting that. That’s the most vicious form of discrimination when you have to send somebody in the back door.”
He concluded by saying, “Let’s hope that we never have to do this again.”
This article was published in the July 2011 issue of Able News.
It's sad that residents find themselves in conflict with everything from important things such as disabilities to minor annoyances. It's very, very common, and we find ourselves covering more and more stories on this.
I find it beyond sad that lawyers have to become involved when residents are in dispute with condo boards, even though the boards are made up of fellow residents. It's like the old days of fence wars between homes in a subdivision. We get actionable complaints on everything from parties and sound to Christmas wreaths on the door. We just ran an interesting story on http://condo.ca, a personal story of a resident who fought back and lost against her condo board. She blames the new fore person of the condo board for making her life miserable.
Posted by: Florence Ng | 01/02/2012 at 12:17 PM