ADA Transition Plan Could Cost Less than Expected

One of the main areas that will be impacted by the ADA Transition Plan will be the schools around town.

There are a number of ramps, restrooms, hand-railings and other structures that must meet specific guidelines in order to be considered compliant. The School Sub-Committee has been in charge of prioritizing a list that includes over 600 examples that need to be corrected.

The committee's top priority is to deal with issues that they consider life-safety issues, where injuries may occur.

"With all the other problems and demands on the table, we can't do everything at once," Subcommittee member Chris Nixon said. "We need to be very rigorous as to what we set as a priority."

But Sarah Swiger, of the subcommittee, pointed out that, it's important to remember, when working on this, who primarily uses these school buildings.

"Our function is to be sure that we serve the students and our residents in a way that is ADA compliant," Swiger said. "But also realize that schools are specific environments. We have some issues and areas where we have to deal with children as young as three. We need to prioritize things in a way that makes sense."

Doug Anderson, who works for C3 and helped put the report together, did inform the subcommittee that there could be some changes in the following year as to what's compliant and what isn't. That's why he stresses the importance of insuring that Vinson-Owen is fully compliant by the time opens.

"Something that you fix now, three years down the road may no longer be compliant," Anderson said. "The ideal is that when a building opens up everything's perfect. Even new buildings are not perfect."

As the two sides went through the report, Nixon pointed out some instances where a ramp that he believed was compliant, was in the report, needing to be fixed. And it would cost the town upwards of $20,000 to do that.

Anderson explained that C3 had put every instance of non-compliance into the report, including the maximum cost.

"The numbers from the construction manager are based on what his sense of the price is," Anderson said. "There's room to fine-tune some stuff. We were just trying to get this report complete, and with over 600 items, this was just a first draft. We just tossed everything in, stir up the pot and start picking out the pieces."

Ed Grant of the Department of Public Works said that some of the ramps in the report that needed to be fixed had costs of around $16 – 20,000. According to Grant, if those ramps don't need to be replaced and just need to be smoothed out, that's a job the DPW can do for a few hundred dollars.

Anderson informed the subcommittee that C3 will go through the report and specify what the problems are, potentially lowering the cost of the plan for the town.