The City hired Gilda Puente-Peters, Architects (GPPA), an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Consulting Specialist, for the amount of $259,044, to update the City’s 1991/1992 ADA Transition Plan.  The City had developed this original Transition Plan in compliance with the 1990 ADA.  Even though the City had consistently worked to remove physical (architectural) barriers for people with disabilities, and promote alternate programs to create access where barriers could not be removed, the City believed it important to take the lead in preparing a report updating the Transition Plan Update Report. 

In parallel in completing the Update Report, staff worked to develop new resources, which included a new public Accessibility Web Site, refining our internal ADA Compliance structure, revising our ADA Notice and Grievance Structure, and a new Communications Assistance Policy with a list of resources to help staff comply. 

With input from the public and significant amount of information created as part of the GPPA work for access and programmatic accessibility, staff created an Accessibility Action Plan (AAP).  This includes a list of proposed Capital and other improvements to remove access barriers and improve service to the disabled community.  The proposed Capital Improvements fit within the available funding set aside for this category of work in the Fiscal Year 2008-2009 General Fun Capital Program.  The process to create the City’s Six Year Capital Improvement Program Reports will be used to determine future appropriate Improvements.

Management was lead by the Public Works Department – Engineering Division and a multi-departmental Steering Committee.  The Steering Committee was scheduled to meet the first Wednesday of each month to track project work and assignments.  Presentations of project progress are scheduled for the quarterly Access Advisory Committee to Staff (AACS) meeting.  In addition there have been two public general meetings to gain input from the community at large.