Arlington to Fix 700 Infractions on Access for Disabled
County Audited as Part Of a Federal Program

By Leef Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 13, 2006

Arlington officials say it will take three years and about $3 million to correct more than 700 violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act identified last year when federal officials inspected county facilities.

Arlington was one of 134 communities nationwide picked for inspections by the Justice Department as part of a federal initiative, Project Civic Access, aimed at improving civic life for people with disabilities.

County officials have outlined their plan to make the fixes, some as small as correcting the height of toilets by an inch, others as large as adjusting wheelchair ramps.

"If we hadn't been audited, we wouldn't have known about those things," said Paul Torres, assistant county manager for human rights. "We relied on information provided by architects and contractors and thought everything was right, when it wasn't. This is for the benefit of the community."

Federal officials said Arlington was selected for review because more than 15 percent of its 189,453 residents have disabilities, according to census data.

"In signing this agreement, Arlington is underscoring our unwavering commitment to ensuring Arlington County's facilities, programs and services are fully accessible to persons with disabilities," County Manager Ron Carlee said in a prepared statement.

"Since the enactment of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990, we have made tremendous strides, and we are committed to continuing our progress."

Wan J. Kim, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division of the Justice Department, said noncompliance with the ADA remained a problem across the country. Project Civic Access has helped to address shortcomings by working with communities, he said.

"We've made lives better for well over a million people with these agreements," Kim said.

"When we go into these localities, there are a lot of problems. . . . [The communities] deserve credit for coming to the table quickly and agreeing to go forward."

The Justice Department initiated its review of Arlington in October 2004 and later conducted surveys of county buildings and services, as well as other places where county programs are run.

Surveys were conducted at the county courthouse, Court Square West, Courthouse Plaza 1, the Central Library, the Department of Human Services, the Arlington Arts Center and the Arlington Homeless Services Unit Residential Program Center, among others.

The Justice Department also surveyed other libraries, along with parks and community and recreation centers.

Arlington received a report on the findings in February 2005 and spent a year in negotiations with the Justice Department to reach an agreement on correcting the deficiencies.

"They found very good things we were doing and a number of things that were not technically compliant with the ADA as they interpret the ADA to be," Torres said.

"Nothing they found is really egregious," he said. "Arlington is and remains a very accessible community for people with disabilities. . . . [But] we've come to a place where we feel that what is required [from us] to participate in this project is reasonable and we should be doing it."

Doris Ray, advocacy and outreach coordinator for the Arlington-based ENDependece Center of Northern Virginia, said the consent agreement did not come as a surprise.

"Some members of the Arlington disability community have expressed concerns to us about accessibility," Ray said. "Like most counties, Arlington has and had programs in existing facilities that needed to be updated to ensure they complied with the ADA. Our perspective is that this is a very important step forward because problems that do exist we hope will be rectified."

Among the changes the county has agreed to make, according to federal officials:

· Modifying parking, routes into buildings, entrances, public telephones, restrooms, service counters and drinking fountains.

· Training staff members in the use of the Virginia Relay Service for the hearing impaired.

· Developing a method for providing emergency management policies and procedures for people with disabilities.

· Ensuring that the county's Web site is accessible to people with disabilities.

"I think every single jurisdiction should be looked at for the sake of the disabled," Torres said. "The program is a good one. There's always an opportunity for improvement."

Diana Wahl, a commercial real estate agent, said that given how strict Arlington is about ADA compliance when her clients build out their properties, she was surprised by the results of the survey.

"I found it ironic the county was deficient in its ADA compliances when it's requiring private companies and office building developers to follow ADA rigorously," Wahl said.

"It was an interesting irony that it took the Justice Department to get them to fess up and presumably straighten out how they're operating."