To the Editor:

Guilderland Town Board members, along with Assemblymember Pat Fahy appear online all smiles about a New York State grant award for a playground remodel that lacked any equipment for handicapped children to be with their parents and community, not even a swing.

Are the disabled children supposed to play in the bathroom if that is the only disabled area? Here is a public link to the celebration at Fred Abele Park in Guilderland.

There are so many churches in our town but where are the people? Where is the sense of decency and inclusion in this town? Why do church-going people in our town say nothing when Supervisor Peter Barber, who long boasted of this park grant project, omitted something so obvious as a swing?

Why didn't our town board speak up and refuse the photo op? I would have said this park is not finished and until it is made inclusive there can be no photo op to congratulate ourselves.

Where was our $100,000-plus DEI hire at the school? He could at least give input on how our town lacks inclusion. Or church leaders? We hear so much about the school-community connection but on matters of how our community lacks inclusion, where are they speaking up?

Disabled people make your life better. That door that opened, the curb you could get over, the stroller you could use in public, the sink and soap you could reach are examples of ways your life is better. 

Please, good people of Guilderland, when you see a lack of disabled accessibility, say something; think of it as holding the door open and letting disabled people in.

Christine Duffy  

Guilderland