Mr Knighton, who has a disability, said while attitudes had largely improved since he was young, he saw his fellow disabled people being ridiculed in the street "several times a year".
But after witnessing the bullying of his closest friends, he decided enough was enough.
"They say some horrible things," said Mr Knighton.
"I was with my friend at the bus stop, and a couple of teens came up and starting calling her a 'spaz' and other names, and she was in floods of tears.
"Martin Luther King said he had a dream that everyone would be equal. That seems to be true these days, unless you've got a disability."
Mr Knighton said the main perpetrators of bullying tended to be young people. He believes parents are not raising children to appreciate the adversity the "handi-capable" face.
"I don't want the next generation to think it's okay to bully people who are created differently," he said.
"I've got friends whose daughter has Down syndrome and they're afraid to send her to school. It's not right."
Mr Knighton knows what it's like to experience discrimination.
At 9 months old, he was diagnosed with langerhans cell histiocytosis, a rare form of cancer, and was given chemotherapy.
The chemotherapy left him with frontal lobe damage, and he developed cerebral palsy and a speech impediment.
At 9, he was diagnosed with epilepsy and later developed asthma and osteoporosis.
"It's a bit of a handful," he said. "At primary school, I was always picked on.
"But eventually, people accepted me as I am."
At his meeting with the mayor, he discussed the possibility of doing presentations in secondary schools and running anti-bullying programmes focusing on disabilities.
Mrs Patterson said there were currently anti-bullying resources in Wairarapa schools - such as Bully Free Me, a subsidiary of Stopping Violence Services Wairarapa - but she planned to engage with community organisations about further programmes.
"We need to reinforce within the community that bullying behaviour is unacceptable, no matter which groups are being targeted," said Mrs Patterson.
"It never hurts to remind our young people that these kind of throwaway comments can be extremely hurtful."
Since his meeting with Mrs Patterson, Mr Knighton has been invited to give a presentation at Rathkeale College and is petitioning Masterton District Council to hold a public disability awareness forum. He has collected close to 600 signatures in support.
"Basically, the community needs to know that we disabled people breathe, we bleed and we feel, just like everyone else," he said.
