[0:01] being into quadrants. Then I'm going to talk about the program and policy

[0:06] portion of the requirements. uh address public

[0:11] feedback, talk about uh how to treat existing sites, and then talk about the

[0:18] the key deliverable, the transition plan, and then make some comments about

[0:22] reporting that will occur between now and when the project ends in September

[0:28] of 2026.

[0:46] All right. Can you advance it? Yeah. All right. You might be able to work now,

[0:50] too. Right. But quickly, what is the ADA? It became effective actually quite

[0:56] a ways back. January 26th of 1992 for the 89,000 units of local

[1:02] government across the United States. Obviously, it prohibits

[1:07] discrimination on the basis of disability, but it defines

[1:10] discrimination in a way that might surprise you. It says that an existing

[1:15] site that's not accessible is discrimination on the basis of

[1:18] disability. uh it says that programs and policies that are not inclusive of

[1:23] people who have a disability uh rise to the level of discrimination on the basis

[1:28] of disability. So those are all parts of the scope here and because the scope of

[1:33] the ADA is so broad I think appropriately so the Westcog project

[1:37] scope is broad as well. The ADA doesn't just tell you you

[1:43] can't do certain things though it also imposes some very affirmative mandates.

[1:47] Those two have been worked into the scope and I'll touch on those too. Just

[1:52] a comment about things in Washington DC. This is not a political comment. Uh we

[1:57] see this thick political approach no matter who is elected from which party.

[2:03] There's generally when there's a Republican elected as president, there

[2:07] are fewer civil rights staff. It's happened every year for the last 33

[2:11] years. So we expect as much as a 50% cut in civil rights staff, but that's not

[2:18] going to change the content. When this has happened in the past, the content of

[2:23] settlement agreements and court decisions has remained exactly the same.

[2:27] But we do think there will be an impact because there will simply be fewer

[2:32] Department of Justice staff to receive complaints and investigate complaints.

[2:38] Um, we are still seeing a continued trend from towns and cities and special

[2:44] purpose districts of issuing RFPs for ADA compliance. So, 33 years into the

[2:50] life of this law and agencies are still realizing that they want to do this and

[2:56] need to do it in part because of the changing demographic groups.

[3:00] Uh our firm is an architectural and engineering firm but we added access

[3:05] consulting in 2008. Uh we work all over the country and are licensed in all 50

[3:11] states and we serve just about everybody. We are an MBE uh in

[3:18] collaboration with our partner Draft Pros and we have about 340 nationwide.

[3:23] our accessibility practice of just the nine of us and unique to other ADA

[3:29] consultants. Seven of the nine of us worked in local government and I had the

[3:34] pleasure of being an

[3:37] administrator. Um so what is the quad approach?

[3:42] So there is no way to do all 16 of the participating uh Westco communities at

[3:48] once. We did briefly consider that, but that was just not going to be effective.

[3:54] So, we tried to balance that by putting you into groups of four. The scope of

[4:00] work for all 16 is the same though. Project management, inventory

[4:04] verification, access audit, site reports, program policy review, public

[4:09] feedback, uh transition plan, a capital report that gives you a cost reference

[4:15] for planning purposes about direct. And then of course interactive final

[4:20] reporting and we're going to do that on the quad

[4:25] basis. Um we tried to balance the quads by

[4:29] population, proximity, number of parks, trails, and facilities. I'd say we hit a

[4:34] home run on a couple of them and maybe missed on a couple of others. Uh but it

[4:40] is still working. Quad one started with Darien, Reading, New Milford, and

[4:45] Norwok. Uh that's going to last roughly September of last year through July of

[4:51] this year. Quad two is Stanford. In fact, we have a team in Stamford this

[4:56] week, Westport, Weston, and Wilton. That's going to run through roughly

[5:01] August of 2025. Um we do expect some overlap

[5:09] here. It went back

[5:17] Try one more forward for me. Quad three is Bethl, Bridgewater,

[5:23] Greenwich, and New Town. And then quad four is Danbury, Brookfield, New

[5:27] Fairfield, and Sherman. And we expect that to take us roughly through August

[5:31] of 2026. We're also including reporting to

[5:36] Westcod on a periodic basis. And then of course that the project

[5:42] includes I think when a lot of people hear the Americans with Disabilities Act

[5:46] they think brick and mortar and that certainly is a piece of it but this is

[5:50] really an important part uh programs and policies or opportunities that each of

[5:55] the municipalities makes available to your

[5:58] residents are also subject to the API. So programs are defined of course as a

[6:04] thing that meets at a certain time that I say it before and it been a certain

[6:08] location and it lasts for eight weeks. But it's also a sidewalk that's been

[6:12] decided by a court as a program. Uh it's also playgrounds, trails, beaches,

[6:17] campsites, public comment at one of your board meetings. So that's why the scope

[6:23] includes evaluating your programs and policies and talking to your staff about

[6:28] how they invite uh analyze and fulfill requests for

[6:34] reasonable modification. From a policy perspective,

[6:37] we'll look at things like service animals, other powerdriven mobility

[6:41] devices, uh rental and reservation forms, and so forth. But this is a

[6:46] really important piece. It ends up in a separate report that

[6:51] talks about how you matched up against the title two regulation. Uh so again, I

[6:57] think a lot of people think of brick and mortar first when they hear ADA. You

[7:01] know, I would urge you to greenlight this for your staff. We've had a couple

[7:05] of staff ask us, is this really a part of the scope? And of course, it is. It's

[7:09] part of what title two requires and it's part of uh the Westcog project.

[7:15] Community engagement is another piece. So I'll call these two the sets of soft

[7:20] tasks involved here. You can't have a transition plan without community

[7:24] engagement or public feedback. So this is a really critical uh piece of this

[7:30] and as we go through and I'll use town of reading as an example. We just did

[7:36] their community engagement March 3rd 4th I think it was. And the point of it is

[7:43] to ask your residents who have a disability, do you have a preference or

[7:48] priority as to the order of retrofit? Um, and is it something that is

[7:54] meaningful to you? Because that can influence our final recommendations to

[7:58] the town or to the city. We recognize that each city, each municipality is

[8:03] different. So you'll get in Sherman a different report than uh petal will and

[8:09] bridge water will want to kind of tie your own

[8:15] citizens preferences into that. So again I ask you to greenlight that too. We've

[8:22] had a couple of times where staff have said is this really a part of the

[8:25] project and indeed it is. We do public feedback in two different methods. One

[8:31] is an in-person freestanding meeting. Since the pandemic, candidly, we I'm

[8:37] surprised if we get 10 people to show up at an in-person meeting. These tend to

[8:41] be fairly positive in nature. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah, I would agree. I mean,

[8:47] it's it's been a positive process for lessian so far. There's no great same

[8:52] with us in writing. Absolutely. Really consistent with the process with the

[8:57] public outreach. I learned a lot even that you know I think you've warned us

[9:01] you may not get a lot of people at these in public sessions but the feedback that

[9:05] you did get was really insightful and invaluable I felt so plus the second

[9:10] piece is the the online survey that we did and kind of reading has almost as

[9:15] many responses as we got from the entire state of Texas on a related project but

[9:20] we're calling reading Texas don't mess with us

[9:27] um so what's an exist existing site. Pretty silly distinction here, but

[9:33] it's anything that was designed and constructed after January 26 of 1992,

[9:38] that's subject to the 1991 standards. And then if it was uh designed and

[9:43] constructed after March 15 of 2012, then it's subject to the 2010 standards. U

[9:50] the 1991 standards just included typical built environment assets like parking as

[9:55] doors and restrooms. The 2010 standards added park assets, uh, playgrounds,

[10:02] sports fields, things, basketball courts, pickle ball courts, skate parks,

[10:06] and so forth. Um, you've got pickle ballers out there

[10:10] playing today in the drizzle. Uh, it's important to to know the rag and the

[10:17] standards though, so that you can stay in the driver's seat. If you wind up in

[10:22] a settlement agreement or being compelled to compliance, you have to do

[10:28] everything in three years. If you stay in the driver's seat, you can stretch

[10:32] that out over a period of time that matches your resources and still meets

[10:37] semantic. Um, what's a transition plan? Pretty

[10:44] simply put, it's a it's a phased schedule of retrofit. It has to identify

[10:49] every deficit. So your site reports and the transition plan may be long if

[10:55] especially if you're a larger municipality. Uh has to recommend a

[10:59] solution or a treatment for each deficit and that can include leave it as is till

[11:04] it's later replaced or altered. U you have to identify the position

[11:09] responsible for the transition plan. So, director of public works or ADA

[11:14] coordinator or whomever you wish for that person to be. And then you have to

[11:19] note by when the work will occur. We typically recommend that this occur in

[11:24] phases with each phase varying from three to as many as five years depending

[11:29] on the number of deficits that you have and the number of resources that you

[11:33] have. Uh we always add costs. That's not a requirement from the ADA, but we know

[11:38] that no municipality can make a plan like this uh without

[11:42] cost. So reporting and communication uh we want to do this

[11:50] uh we want to do this individually. So for each municipality as we near the end

[11:55] of the cycle for your project uh we will arrange for reports to your

[12:01] stakeholders. So whether that's staff leadership or governing board or both,

[12:07] um we're happy to do that. Uh at the end of the project, as I mentioned earlier,

[12:13] Westco will also receive a cumulative report that will kind of summarize what

[12:18] we saw for each of the 16. Um staff leadership piece is

[12:24] particularly important. All of you have designated somebody as the contact

[12:28] person for us and so we'll work with them to identify any others on staff

[12:33] that uh we need to participate. Couple of resources before you bombard me with

[12:40] questions. Um DOJ has a really good hotline. Um they do a good job of

[12:49] separating enforcement from technical assistance. So don't worry if you wind

[12:54] up calling the 202514301 number when you show up at

[12:59] work the next day. There's not going to be a bunch of people in suits from

[13:02] Washington DC. Uh they're great for program and policy question. If it's

[13:08] brick and mortar or dirt and grass or beaches, call the access board. They're

[13:13] the small federal agency that created the standards for design and

[13:18] construction of outdoor assets and park assets and buildings. They know this by

[13:23] far better than anybody else. And they've got a great technical assistance

[13:27] service, too. There is a national ADA network. They're happy to talk to you

[13:32] about anything, including employment, including uh universities, including uh

[13:37] things that we haven't even thought of. So, uh you can reach them at 800

[13:42] 9494232. There are seven of those across the country. They all use the same phone

[13:47] number, and they're more clever than I am. they can figure out where you're

[13:50] calling from and they connect you to your local uh ADA uh assistance center.

[13:56] Um we love to talk about this. So sorry, I did two there. That's me.

[14:05] If if your team raises a question and you call Westcog or you want to reach

[14:12] out to us, feel free to do that. Um as I said, I lead the accessibility practice.

[14:17] Tatum is our master of logistics and information. Uh I will say we've had

[14:25] great working experience with the Westcock staff. Mike Wilson who I know

[14:30] is not here but I believe is he's on virtually.

[14:34] Hey Mike. Uh he has been great to work with. Uh if he doesn't know the question

[14:39] or the answer to the question uh he gets to us as soon as he can. So, and Chris

[14:44] has been a pleasure to work with and the occasional times that we see Francis, he

[14:47] too has been easy to work with. So, I'll back up not literally here on the

[14:53] screen, but can I answer questions from any of you about the project or uh

[14:59] anything related to compliance?

[15:06] Yes, I'm sorry. Okay. Um, how often do these plans need to be updated? That's a

[15:13] great question. U, the Title 2 regulation doesn't have a a date

[15:18] requirement for updates, but many accredititation programs. So in

[15:23] particular for parks and recreation, it's

[15:27] recommended actually it's not recommended for a municipal parks

[15:32] department to get the commission on accreditation of park and recreation

[15:36] agencies. They have to have a fresh transition plan every 10 years. From a

[15:40] smart practice perspective, that's probably about right. uh especially a

[15:46] community your size you're replacing things you're changing out playgrounds

[15:51] you're act you're acquiring something new you're raising something old so I

[15:57] think about once every 10 years makes sense so John with with this if you're

[16:02] going to do an update every decade or so would it make sense for municipality to

[16:07] have a log of improvements and changes they made in interim just to facilitate

[16:11] the update to the plan yes and so one of the things that we can do in the final

[16:18] deliverable is give you what we call task track factor. So it's Excel. I'm

[16:24] sure that somebody can convert it to a smart sheet or some other tool. Um so we

[16:30] we developed task tracker when we were working with a handful of communities

[16:34] that were under department of justice settlement agreement. So it has all the

[16:38] information that transition plan has. Then column K says

[16:44] uh playground replacement included in town budget January 1,

[16:50] 2029. Uh bids let for playground replacement April

[16:55] 2029. Uh playground installed June of 2029 and then playground inspected by

[17:03] name of town employee on August of 2029 and signed off as client. So, that's a

[17:10] great way for you to kind of keep track of here's the here's the literally

[17:14] thousands of projects that we would have done over the course of 10 years. And

[17:18] some of the projects aren't going to be brick and mortar.

[17:22] It's going to be making sure that garbage and recycling bins aren't stored

[17:25] by the door so that they block maneuvering clearance if I use a

[17:29] mobility. So, a lot of these are low hanging fruit things that you can do

[17:33] with current human and physical resources.

[17:40] others.

[17:45] I surrender the clicker. Okay, very good. Which I used. One other question.

[17:51] Um I'm kind of curious what happens when compliance is a a matter of

[17:59] judgment say along the continent that says full compliance in an extreme case,

[18:06] right? which would require either substantial remediation or design or

[18:09] actually just tearing everything down and starting over again. Say to describe

[18:13] hypothetical extreme versus something that gets close enough, right? In other

[18:17] words, there's an elevator on the far end of the building, but not one right

[18:21] here on this side of the at what point, how does that those types of cases where

[18:26] it's a maybe a judgment call as to just pouch far someone's got to go to comply

[18:31] with these regulations and how is that adjudicated and how can municipalities

[18:36] do a a better job in their own work to uh make sure they don't cross over say a

[18:42] line? That's that's a good question. There are

[18:46] a handful of places in the title 2 regulation where municipalities are

[18:52] given some discretion or where you can say that a circumstance exists that

[19:00] makes compliance technically feasible. Some of you have very hilly communities.

[19:07] So where you have naturally occurring steep terrain for example, if you have

[19:10] trails, it's going to be hard to make the trails meet the compliance slope. So

[19:16] that is a technical infeasibility issue. Uh there might be in the event and

[19:22] honestly candidly we don't see this very often but there might be an undue

[19:26] economic burden where the cost of a project that would retrofit an asset uh

[19:32] is so great that uh you can claim that it's an undue economic burden but you

[19:37] have to consider the entire fiscal resources of the jurisdiction before you

[19:42] do that. Uh there are some others too. So, I mentioned the soft task, the

[19:46] program and policy analysis. If you have a building that's

[19:50] not accessible, but you've got another building that is

[19:55] accessible, you might find yourself in a situation where you leave the building

[19:59] that's inaccessible as it is, but you take those same programs and duplicate

[20:03] them and offer them in the building that is accessible. There's nothing wrong

[20:07] with doing that either. Uh the Department of Justice has also in

[20:11] settlement agreements given jurisdiction one, two,

[20:16] three years to make an inaccessible site accessible. So we often find somebody

[20:23] has plans to build a new community center. The old community center is not

[20:27] accessible. It gets to continue to operate until the new one is constructed

[20:32] and open as long as it's within a three-year period. So there are some

[20:37] interpretive things like that. And I I should mention staff training. It wasn't

[20:41] one of the slides, but um we in our response to WCOG offered

[20:48] um to each quad two free staff frames. So one will be on infrastructure and it

[20:55] will review real life disputes and what the requirements are and the other will

[21:01] be on program and policy issues. So, we had originally thought that we would

[21:05] offer all those toward the end of the project. We're not going to do that.

[21:08] We're going to offer them as a part of each quad. So, sometime around the end

[21:12] of this first quad, we'll work with Westcog to schedule both a program and

[21:18] policy training and an infrastructure training and it'll address questions

[21:21] exactly like that. And you can feel free to go to the

[21:26] training that's for quad four or for quad one or go go go to all eight of

[21:31] them if your staff want to. Yes. Just in answer to John's question, we did uh

[21:38] have a complaint filed on parking. And what we ended up doing is measuring the

[21:44] slope of all of our parking places. The library had to repave an area in order

[21:49] to be in compliance and it wasn't off that much.

[21:53] Um, we had to restripe several areas and there's a conflict with uh DOJ in the

[22:01] state of Connecticut relative to the signs. Yes. Uh there's a federal sign

[22:06] and a state sign. And we had just ordered all the state signs thinking we

[22:11] were doing the right thing and they said no, they're not allowable. But

[22:15] apparently at the end they've allowed us to go with those until we replace them

[22:19] with the new federal. Yeah, there is that. The Connecticut sign is for those

[22:24] who haven't seen it, it's the more mobile looking racing figure

[22:30] icon. The the argument from the DOJ side is that that standard sitting icon has

[22:37] been around for 45 50 years and it's recognized by everybody. So why why mess

[22:43] with something that everybody knows what it looks like? It's kind of like

[22:47] changing the logo for Coca-Cola, I guess, for exit signs in Connecticut.

[22:50] Exactly. Well, I'll take your word for that. Um, we would lean

[22:56] towards the Connecticut sign as being more stringent because it's different

[23:01] than the federal sign, but I'm not the Department of Justice, but we would lean

[23:07] towards that. We've seen signs like that. We've seen different size striping

[23:12] for accessible parking. So that's a a key part of this too. You have to meet

[23:16] whichever is more stringent the federal requirement for the the and it's been

[23:21] two years and just now our attorney sent hopefully is the final agreement back

[23:27] that we owe J. Yeah. Can you have both I mean it seems silly but can you have

[23:31] both federal and state signage? You can but I don't I don't think you'd want in

[23:36] the same spot. I'm not saying I want any issue right now. I also don't want

[23:40] people getting sued. Right. I am also don't want people with suits and guns

[23:44] showing up. So, well, just it's not that bad. You know, relief under the ADA is

[23:49] injunctive in nature. So, if you put up the the racing icon sign for parking and

[23:55] somebody does file a complaint, the worst that's going to happen is that

[23:57] you're going to be told to replace it with the I'm standing still in my

[24:02] wheelchair sign until the state of Connecticut shows up and says, "Where is

[24:06] the racing sign?" Yes. John, I'm wondering how you

[24:12] selected the grouping towns because for instance our two towns are the tiny

[24:17] towns where stride New Milford why wouldn't we all be in the same spot I I

[24:23] know and I' I've driven through both on the way to New Milford

[24:27] um some of it was readiness um if we had a complete site list from New Milford

[24:34] then that elevated them to quad one u I think we are still lacking I'm looking

[24:40] for uh I think we're still lacking a couple

[24:44] of site list but that's fine there's another 18 months of project so that

[24:49] would factor as well

[24:54] others just there's no state of Connecticut DOJ right I don't believe

[25:02] are that enforcing yeah I don't I don't believe so there is a Connecticut human

[25:05] rights act um and some states like Illinois where we are headquarters

[25:11] uh the attorney general's office does have a disability rights bureau and they

[25:16] do go out and enforce Illinois requirements as well as the ADA

[25:22] requirements too. The final question I have is when we do a capital project are

[25:28] we in fact required to allocate 20% of that cap capital project to ADA

[25:34] compliance? So that's a good question. One of the crystal clear

[25:39] pieces of the ADA is that if it is new construction, it must be fully

[25:46] compliant. But if it is an alteration or let's say it's an addition to this

[25:51] building, if there's an addition to this building, then the addition must be

[25:55] fully compliant, then

[25:59] 20% is allocated to the path of travel. So, think like you're a wheelchair user.

[26:08] Path of travel starts as you're pulling into the parking lot. So, I've got to

[26:12] have accessible parking. There's got to be accessible signage. I've got to be

[26:15] able to get to the door on a slope that doesn't exceed 5%. There's got to be a

[26:19] level landing there. The door's got to open with less than 8.5 pounds of force.

[26:23] I've got to be able to get in there, maneuver through the hallway, find this

[26:28] door, open it with less than five pounds of force. So all of that could add up to

[26:34] the 20% depending on the type of addition that you're using. So I would

[26:40] say the answer to your question is no, unless it's an addition or an

[26:44] alteration. But if it's new construction, it's going to be fully

[26:48] compliant. And I will guarantee you that for some of you who have new

[26:51] construction, we will find things that are not compliant. Access is a function

[26:55] of did the designer get it right? Did the contractor get it right? then you

[27:00] know darn well that the interface between design and construction is never

[27:04] perfect. And then are your own team maintaining the asset correctly? So all

[27:11] three of those factors can make a site not be

[27:14] accessible. The standard of accessibility change over time. So, if I

[27:20] built a new building that was ADA compliant at the time it was uh received

[27:25] its CO and I maintained it, can I expect it to stay in compliance or uh are there

[27:32] changes to the regulations that we have to understand and um that could

[27:39] potentially take a certified building or an ADA compliant building and uh make it

[27:46] out of compliance? No. So the standard the design standards have changed just

[27:51] twice 1991 and then in 2010 in a normal world I'd say look for a change around

[27:58] 2030. Um so that's typically then the cycle. So you're just held to the

[28:04] standard that was in existence when the building was constructed. Correct. So

[28:08] it's called the concept of safe harbor. If you diligently made sure that the

[28:14] 1999 building complied with the 1991 standards and then the size of the

[28:20] restroom changed in 2010 or the height of reach range for operating mechanisms

[28:26] like light switches changed in 2010, as long as yours were compliant with the

[28:32] 1991 standard, you don't have to go back in and change it. So reach range was

[28:37] allowed to be 54 in. So when we audit, if we know the building was built in

[28:44] 1999, but your light switches are at 56 in, not 54 in, you fail. And now it's

[28:52] got to go down to 48 in, not 54 in. Does that make sense? So safe harbor applied,

[28:58] but I mentioned that park assets were not included until 2010. There's no safe

[29:04] harbor for park assets, but there is for the

[29:13] Thank you, John. Thank you all very much. And when do you expect to wrap up

[29:17] the uh project? What is the timeline on that? Summer 2026.

[29:22] Yeah, late summer. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

ADA Presentation - WestCOG March 2025 Meeting

Transcript