It’s not as though Cyndi Jones and Bill Stothers were caught off guard. Jones—who, like Stothers, is confined to a wheelchair—caught wind that San Diego would soon be asked to support an appeal that could overturn a landmark court case for disabled people. So she regularly checked the city’s website to find out when the subject would hit the public agenda.

When it was finally posted, the two realized that they would have literally no chance to act. “The matter was put on the agenda, we think, very late on Friday prior to Veteran’s Day, and then voted on the next Tuesday morning after Veteran’s Day, so that no one had any opportunity to contact anyone on City Council to try to have any input into this decision before it was taken,” says Stothers. “It’s another example of just trying to ‘slide one by.’”

Unable to get through to their representative officials but unwilling to let the matter slide, members of San Diego’s disabled community and their supporters gathered in protest on Nov. 26. The meeting was a last-ditch effort to get the city to reconsider its decision.

The details of the issue are fairly clear. San Diego chose to back the city of Sacramento in its appeal of the 9th Circuit Court’s decision in Barden v. Sacramento. The class-action suit alleges that Sacramento, in numerous instances, has failed to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Title 24 in California. Stothers says, “It all came about because people in Sacramento with disabilities got tired of waiting for the city to act in the face of disability legislation.”

Most prominent among Sacramento’s abuses is their failure to install ramps in sidewalks. Stothers explains, “You know, both state and federal law… say that sidewalks and curbs must be accessible to people with disabilities. I mean that’s basically that clear.” San Diego’s support lends credence to Sacramento’s contention that the requested curb cuts are unreasonable.

Jones says that, in the past, San Diego has been at least somewhat accommodating to its citizens with mobility and vision impairments. “San Diego was not doing a great job, but they were doing an OK job.”

The city did its best, however, to leave them out of the equation altogether in supporting the Sacramento appeal.

It began with the decision’s hasty completion. “They should stick with making fast deals like the brilliant ones they’ve done with the Chargers and the Padres, and pay more attention and give more consideration to these more serious issues that affect the safety of its own citizens,” Stothers jabs.

The city also diverted the issue from the attention of the disabled community’s local representative body—the group most qualified to offer advice. According to its website, the city has set up the “Citizens’ Review Committee on ADA and Disability Issues” with the specific goal to “educate, advise and assist the city of San Diego in ensuring that all public and private services, programs, facilities and employment be fully usable and accessible by all persons, with or without disabilities, as defined by the ADA.” The group only meets once per month, however, and was not consulted.

The city seems to maintain that support was granted to Sacramento’s appeal based on advice from the League of California Cities and the National League of Cities. But, as Stothers notes, there are a number of other cities in these organizations that, at the behest of their respective citizens, ignored the advice. “San Francisco has chosen not to go along. Another smaller city—Paradise, Calif.—has chosen not to go along. I think that Los Angeles is in the process now of deciding and I think there’s question as to whether it’ll agree or not.”

Even after the decision had been made, San Diego’s disabled struggled to get the city’s attention. Stothers says, “We have sent a letter to [San Diego City Attorney] Casey Gwinn pointing out the reasons why this is a position that should be withdrawn, reversed. And we have sent a letter to the city manager, the mayor and all the members of [the City] Council. We have endeavored to seek meetings with members of council to try to change this, and the response has been less than definite.” Stothers says that the protest really represented a last straw for the disabled after traditional avenues had failed.

Last week’s rally—replete with beating drums, picket signs (one slogan read “Y is S.D. Anti Sr. & Disabled?”) and speeches from numerous citizens—finally aroused city officials. They granted a meeting to members of the San Diego disabled community to discuss the decision, raising the possibility of a reversal.

Nevertheless, recent events have left their impact on Bill Stothers’ impression of City Hall. “We have had a lot of expressions of support from the city. Like, ‘We support the ADA, we support people with disabilities.’” Soberly, he continues, “The city may have the right intentions but in executing them… seems to come up short.”