For most of his adult life Larry Gorski was the consummate outsider. Outside because there were plenty of public buildings he couldn’t enter and lots of public services (buses, for example) he couldn’t use. Outside because he could do little to alter a system that, in his view, regarded him and those like him as pitiful victims. But Gorski, a shrewd, aggressive man, has never been one to brood over tragedy and injustice. He’s a firm believer, he says, in the idea that “the squeaky wheelchair gets the oil.” So now, at the age of 45, he has become the consummate insider, a private citizen who’s risen to high places.
Be that as it may, MOPD under Gorski’s leadership has become a relatively high profile entity, strongly interacting with other city agencies, including the departments of personnel, aging, purchasing, buildings, and human services. The major goal of MOPD is getting the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) implemented in Chicago within the time limits established. Passed by Congress in 1990, the act is being phased in over a six-year period. As of January 1992, public places–including restaurants, hotels, retail stores, and libraries–were supposed to be accessible to the disabled; entrance ramps had to be provided, barriers to wheelchairs removed, bathroom facilities upgraded, and elevators installed in new buildings with three or more floors.
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If all this sounds rife with potential for disagreement and misinterpretation, it is. But Gorski refuses to apologize for the rumpus. “What the civil rights bills aimed to do for racial minorities, the new legislation, especially the ADA, does for the disabled,” he says. He has the relevant statistics on the tip of his tongue: there are 43 million disabled Americans, who make up the nation’s largest minority; 1.7 million of them are in Illinois, about 1 million in the Chicago area. By the year 2011 half the U.S. population will have one or more disabilities. When he talks about disabilities, he explains, he includes speech, hearing, and mental and developmental problems as well as the most obvious one: restricted mobility.
Some, however, are openly critical of Gorski, claiming that he doesn’t adequately respond to their projects and makes too many important decisions unilaterally. “I’m really disheartened with his lack of concern for the disabled community,” says Gloria Nichols, cochairman of the Chicago chapter of ADAPT (Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today), the most militant of the disabled groups.
Gorski was transferred to a closed psychiatric unit, where he remained for 13 days before someone recommended a spinal tap. It revealed that he had suffered a hemorrhage in his back: a weak blood vessel had apparently ruptured and the spurt of blood had permanently severed critical nerves in his spinal cord. Gorski at this point was so relieved to learn he was not a mental case that he called his parents and said, “I’ve got good news–I’ll never walk again. But I’m sane!”
It was just the sort of opening Gorski loves. He ticked off 20 areas of concern–including parking, housing, and hiring–that in his judgment required immediate attention. Daley asked Gorski to hang around, and they ended up talking for 90 minutes. At the end of the discussion Daley offered Gorski the top job with the newly formed MOPD.
His double-barreled pitch to idealism and self-interest appears to pay off. The bankers applaud him warmly; some stay around for another 20 minutes to ask him questions privately. Later, as he wheels out of the Lido, Gorski is in high spirits. Education is the part of his job he likes best, and he talks to professional groups two or three times a week. “It’s basically convincing people this is in everybody’s best interests,” he says. “This is not all that complicated an issue.”
