Ask the Department of Justice

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ADA audio conference session titled Ask the DOJ. At this time all the participants will be in a listen only mode and later we will conduct a question and answer session. At that time if you would like to ask a question you can do so by pressing the 1 on your touch tone phone. As a reminder this conference is being recorded today, November 14. I would now like to turn the conference over to Robin Jones, director of Great Lakes ADA and Accessible IT Center. Please go ahead

Robin Jones

Good afternoon everybody or good morning depending on where you are connecting from. Welcome to our November session. Again, the title being Ask DOJ. We are being joined today by John Wodatch who is chief of the disability rights section of the civil rights division of the Department of Justice. I will introduce John in a moment. Just to be clear, on the session we have people joining us in a variety of different modes. This program is brought to you as a service of the regional network of DBTAC’s ADA centers. We used to be known as the ADA and accessible IT centers also known as the Disability and Business Technical Assistance Centers, so hopefully we have not confused you too much with our name changes. This is the national network across the country of federally funded ADA Technical Assistance Centers. If you are joining us today hopefully you are familiar with your center, if you are not and you found us a different way, I would ask that you try to have contact with your center who can provide you with technical assistance and information on the Americans with Disabilities Act. We have a national 800 number which is 800-949-4232 that is both voice and TTY. So if you are not familiar, again, go ahead and contact them. Also, we have a website that will help link you to them which is www.adata.org which is another way to try to find which center serves you. The session today is going to be primarily an opportunity for you to ask questions of John and the Department of Justice and their enforcement efforts and their activities for technical assistance under Titles II and Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, so hopefully you are prepared to do so. We will have an opportunity from the operator to give you instructions on how to ask questions. But as I said earlier, people are joining us on a variety of different modes. We have individuals on the telephone, we have people also joining us who are listening, streaming audio via the internet and individuals using realtime captioning. There will be a transcript and an audio recording of this program produced and that will be made available on the website, www.ada-audio.org. The recording will be available within five business days and the edited transcript within ten business days on the website for future reference if you want to access it that way as well. Without wasting any additional time here, and giving opportunity for our speaker as well as you to ask questions, I am going to introduce John. As I said, John Wodatch is the chief of the disability rights section for the civil rights division within the Department of Justice. He is a civil rights attorney with over 30 years of experiences in the federal government, specializing primarily in the rights of persons with disabilities. He has been the chief of the disability rights section through many presidents at this point. He is responsible for the enforcement of Titles I, II, and III of the ADA. I’m sorry, they do have enforcement responsibilities for employment as it would relate to Title II entities or governmental entities. He plays a key role is developing administrative policy on the ADA and he is the chief author of the Department of Justices’ ADA regulations, Implementing the ADA, as well as involved in the implementation and the drafting of section 504 regulations as well. He received his Bachelors Degree from Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut and went to Harvard for his MBA and his JD or law degree comes from Georgetown University. So he has traveled around to different universities as well and has a lot of training in that area. John has joined us for many sessions on different issues most notably, or more recently you will remember that John joined us as part of our annual July program where we receive an update from the federal agency, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as well as the Department of Justice. We have asked John to come back to us today to have his own session focused only on the Department of Justice’s activities because there were so many questions that came from the July session and we know that it is always an opportunity for people to get those sticky questions asked and there are always more questions than answers some times. So without further adu I will turn it over to John.

John Wodatch

Well, thank you very much Robin. I appreciate the nice introduction. And hello everyone. Good afternoon, good morning depending on where you are. I am coming to you differently today, I am in New York City. I was here doing one of our ADA business connection meetings. What I would like to do before we get to the question and answer period is to update you on a couple of issues that are going on in our office and give you food for thought to maybe ask some questions on those issues or others. I will try to be fairly brief about them to leave as much time as possible for questions and answers. I hope you are familiar with our new five year report. The attorney general announced it on October 5. It is called Access for All: Five Years of Progress. It is a report on our activities for the last five years. We also have a ten year report from the first ten years of existence. It is a good opportunity to take a look at the kind issues we have been dealing with and how we have dealt with them. It is available for viewing and downloading on our ADA web site, ADA.gov. You can also get copies by calling our information line. It is just sort of good background on some of the major issues that have happened over the last five years. I don''t often talk to you about employment. We do have some employment responsibilities and I thought I would begin by talking about a suit we recently settled involving Burn Township in Pennsylvania. Keep in mind our responsibilities in the employment area are limited to state and local governments. We do not do the initial investigations, EEOC does that. When they cannot resolve the matter they will send it to us for possible settlement or litigation. This matter involved a refusal to allow a complainant to return to work following a stroke, in our view failing to discuss or consider reasonable accommodation. The person involved is a 27 year veteran of the Townships road crew. He had a stroke and the stroke substantially limited his ability to perform manual tasks, care for himself, talk, and work. He went through extensive therapy and eventually regained most of his strength and ability to talk. However, citing a provision in their collective bargaining agreement, the Township allegedly refused to allow him to return to work without a full release from his physician. Eventually they terminated him rather than provide a reasonable accommodation that would have enabled him to return to work. We got involved in the case, filed suit, and eventually came to a settlement under which the Township agreed to pay him back pay and compensatory damages of $75,000 but they also more importantly agreed to abandon their practice of requiring employees who are returning from sick leave to provide a full release from a doctor and at the same time created a reasonable accommodation policy. Okay, a couple of things on health care. We have done a lot of health care work in the past year. To keep you very up to date we settled a lawsuit yesterday by filing a Consent Decree in a case against the city of Philadelphia. I may have talked to you about this in the past. This is a matter where we intervened in an existing lawsuit that was brought by an individual with HIV who claimed that Philadelphia violated the ADA by discriminating in the provision of emergency medical services. The complaint we filed alleged that the complainant had began experienced severe chest pain, his partner called 911, the emergency technicians arrived on the scene and they informed the technicians about the plaintiffs HIV status. And in our allegation, they refused to provide the pre-hospital care that would have been reasonable and appropriate in the circumstances, refused to touch him, to assess his condition, and refused to give him any assistance in getting him out of his home and into the ambulance. The law suit has been going on for awhile but we finally came to a resolution to the issues, the most important part of it for us is recognition by the city of the appropriate policies to follow, the provision of emergency medical services. And most importantly, training and also relief for the individual, in this case, compensatory damages of $50,000. We had in the last couple of months, a settlement that I want to draw your attention to, and like a lot of the things I am talking about, they are on our web site if you want to see the actual settlements that I am talking about, this one involved the Washington hospital center. We have a lot of hospital agreements but this one is a fairly comprehensive one and deals with physical accessibility of the hospital. Here we had people who alleged the hospital failed to provide accessible inpatient rooms and bathrooms, failed to provide adequate assistance with eating, drinking, and toileting, and provided unequal care because of lack of accessible medical equipment. After much negotiation we reached a fairly detailed agreement. It requires the hospital to renovate patient bedrooms to create a minimum of 35 ADA accessible patient rooms. They are also going to survey all of their existing hospital and patient care facilities and equipment and develop a barrier removal plan. They also are going to be required to purchase accessible medical equipment including patient beds and examination tables, they will review their hospital policies and train their staff to address the needs of people with disabilities and finally, they are going to appoint an ADA officer to oversee implementation of the full agreement. One other health care issue, we just concluded a lawsuit against Laurel Regional Hospital which is a community hospital serving the Maryland suburbs of Washington. This one deals with the provision of effective communication for patients or companions of patients who are deaf or hard of hearing. Again, this is a Consent Decree and under the Consent Decree, the hospital has agreed that they will assess the communication needs of individuals with speech or hearing impairments upon their arrival at the hospital or if it is an appointment, at the time the appointment is scheduled. They will provide qualified interpreters either on site or by video within time limits specified in the agreement. The hospital will also provide auxiliary aids when needed to companions of patients when the companions are deaf or hard of hearing. The agreement is note worthy because it provides certain standards for video interpreting services. It is a first for the department because we have not really dealt with this issue before. These include the requirement that they provide high quality, clear, delay free, full motion video and audio over a dedicated high speed internet connection. I think video interpreting services are the new kid on the block, I think they will be used more and more and we wanted to ensure they would provide effective communication. We particularly feel they have to be carefully monitored in hospital settings where patients with certain medical conditions or injuries may not be able to use their arms or be positioned appropriately to view the screen or to perform sign language themselves. So, take a look if you are interested in those issues. On the education front, we have had a couple of comprehensive agreements with private universities. One with the University of Chicago and one with Colorado College and there will be a few others coming in the future. We did these under Title III of ADA because they are private institutions. They address a wide array of issues and require the schools to ensure increased access to their campuses for students, faculty and visitors, particularly those with mobility, hearing and vision disabilities. The highlights of the plans, which are fairly lengthy, they are going to have to submit accessibility plans outlining their proposals to fully comply with the agreement. They are going to implement campus wide emergency evacuation sheltering and shelter in place plans that take into consideration the needs of individuals with disabilities. They are going to ensure that 3% of the units, their housing units, and student living facilities are accessible and are dispersed among the facilities and that the issue of visibility is taken into consideration, by having an additional number of housing facilities that have an accessible entrance and first floor common area and an accessible toilet room that is useable for a visitor with a disability. There are also requirements for assistive listening systems and devices in lecture halls, meeting rooms, auditoriums, and other assembly areas, the obligation to move classes and other activities to fully accessible locations when those are necessary. And also to correct specific violations that we found during our investigation. In addition, the University of Chicago agreement also deals with transportation services because the university operates its own system of transportation. I am going to shift gears again and talk about summer camps and a complaint we had of a child who had diabetes which required her to use insulin. She wanted to go to a summer camp but was dismissed on the first day of summer camp because the camp refused to provide, to supervise her, basically in her own diabetes care. She was able to do her own diabetes care but it did take some adult supervision. The camp didn''t feel it was their responsibility. Under our view, the ADA’s requirement that you should provide reasonable modification of policies and practices, where it is not a fundamental alteration of the camp program, is required. It was a lawsuit and it was resolved by a Consent Decree. Under the Consent Decree they agreed to provide all campers with diabetes an equal opportunity to attend their camps. The case by the way is Town Sports International (TSI) in Wellesley, Massachusetts. It said that kids with diabetes can participate in all camp programs and activities. Specifically, TSI will evaluate the application of each child with diabetes applying to attend camp and do so on a case by case basis. And they will make reasonable accommodations for children with diabetes to attend. Accommodations may include but are not limited to, supervising campers while they monitor blood glucose levels, use insulin pumps, syringes or other diabetes related medical equipment, and also monitoring the consumption of food. Like a lot of our agreements in the last three years, there were compensatory damages to the family of the child of $25,000 and in this case a civil penalty to the federal government of $5000. Okay we go from summer camp to baseball. I hope a number of you have seen already an agreement we had from Pony Baseball. The complaint we got came from Hawaii. Pony Baseball for those of you who do not know, is a youth baseball and softball organization. It is a fairly large organization across the United States. We had allegations that Pony had violated the ADA by refusing to allow the father of a player who was deaf to provide sign language interpreting for this son during tournament games. And we found Pony’s rules limited the number of coaches who could participate in a game and the league ruled that the father, who was only providing sign language interpretation, had to be included in the number of coaches for the son''s team. In the agreement that we have worked out, Pony agreed to modify its rule to specifically allow players to use sign language interpreters during games. They agreed that they, themselves had an obligation to provide sign language interpreters for players who are deaf or hard of hearing. And they are going to appoint an ADA coordinator who is responsible for ensuring that Pony responds appropriately to requests for auxiliary aids including sign language interpreters and other reasonable modifications. There was training that was involved for Pony’s ADA coordinator and the Board of Directors and the also agreed, in that case, to pay $30,000 to the family of the child who was denied participation of the games. Quick mention of at least a retail store to give full flavor to all the ADA kind of issues. We have an agreement with Jo Ann stores. There are 840 of them in the United States. We had complaints that there where are a variety of barriers to access in the stores. Under the agreement, Jo Ann stores will hire an ADA consultant to assist in implementing the agreement, designate an ADA coordinator, and then pursuant to checklists that we will work out with them, we will conduct a survey of every Jo Ann store in the United States over a four year period and remove barriers at all of them. And in addition, we gave them a list of the kind of barriers we saw which included everything from parking spaces, not having an accessible route to the entrances, entrances not being wide enough, the aisles not being wide enough, having merchandise display areas in the isles, having check out counters and fabric cutting areas that were not low enough for wheelchairs. So it is an interesting agreement. That is also on our website. Just a couple of other questions things before we get to the questions and answers. We have a recent case that was resolved in California against --- Educational Services, it is called Test Masters, it is a California provider of test preparation courses including review courses for the law school admissions test. Here again, we are dealing with the failure to provide auxiliary aids and services to a deaf student who registered for an LSAT course. Under the agreement Test Masters agreed to admit the complainant into an LSAT prep-course of his own choosing, free of charge, to provide sign language interpreters and note takers at their own expense. They agreed to establish a procedure for students to request these accommodations, to annually train their employees, and to pay monetary damages to the complainant of $20,000 and a civil penalty to the United States of $10,000. Just two more things. Just so you know, we did a mailing this year to 25,000 police departments, sheriff’s offices, highway patrol departments reminding them of their obligations under the ADA in providing effective communication in their interaction with the general public. And basically, we sent to them a variety of technical assistance documents. One was a brochure for police officers that was of a size that they could keep in their glove compartment. Another was a model policy for the police department on how to communicate effectively with people who are deaf or hard of hearing. We also made available to them an eight part video, Police Response to Person''s with Disabilities. It is set up so it is suitable for role call. There are a number of pieces that are five and a half to ten and a half minutes in length. It shows police how to deal with a variety of situations including people with mobility disabilities, with mental illness, with mental retardation, with epilepsy or other seizure disorders, with speech disabilities, with hearing disabilities, and vision disabilities. This video is also available on our website as streaming video and it is available if you want to call our ADA information line for your own copies of it. And finally, we do not often talk about our mediation program. We do have a contract with a mediation service - Ridge Foundation and we have roughly 400 professional, ADA trained mediators throughout the United States. A number of the complaints we get that we are unable to, because of resource issues, unable to do ourselves, if the parties are willing we will refer to these. We have had a pretty good success rate over the years. Basically, in nine out of every ten cases, in matters that we send, compliance with the ADA is brought about and the parties are satisfied with it. In the past five years we have sent roughly 2000 if these matters to mediation and 1800 have been mediated. This past year we have sent 506 complaints for mediation, 223 have completed mediation and 183 were successfully resolved. And when I say successfully resolved, that means to the satisfaction of both parties in the mediation. If you are interested in this program, our three month report usually has a number of instances, gives examples of some of the mediated settlements that occur. Keep in mind this is a mediation program that we are not involved in, the parties in the mediation are the complainant and the entity complained against with the trained mediator. I think part of the success is that it really empowers the person with the disability and it enables action to occur without the federal government being involved. So that is a quick look of things that are on our plate at the moment. With that Robin, why don’t I turn it back to you and we can open it up for whatever questions are out there.

Robin Jones

Great. Just as a side note John, in regards to this project civic access, where are you guys at as far as the number, I know that you guys had passed a milestone in the summer with the number... How are you...?

John Wodatch

We are at, right now, 151 completed agreements. There are going to be, in the next couple weeks, a few more. And we are in the process right now of an additional 14 investigations that will go during the course of the next year. It is a very active program. One of the interesting things that is happening in the Project Civic Access area is a speech on October 5, the attorney general tasked my office with the duty of coming up with a PCA tool kit. The idea being that we create documents that will enable towns or people with disabilities together with their towns to do a PCA review on their own. What we are going to do is put these out in installments. There will be variations of the checklist that we use to identify barriers and some discussion of policy issues and I hope that at some point in December we will issue our first installment of the PCA tool kit. And then every couple of months after that we will put out other installments of the PCA tool kit and our goal is when it is done to have several training sessions around the United States, bring in people with disabilities, bring in towns and townships and counties and work with them, so they will be able to take what we have been doing and do it on their own.

Robin Jones

So somewhat of a process, a kit to do your own, if you have not already done your own self evaluation, that were originally mandated under the ADA. This is some what of a tool to help you do that?

John Wodatch

It is very similar to that. It is probably a little more detailed because we will have checklists for toilet facilities, checklists for parks, deal with some employment issues, deal with emergency preparedness issues, deal with voting issues, deal with website issues, and so there will be a lot more detail than we have put out before. Hopefully, in a way that will be user friendly. You have to always remember that we are a bunch of lawyers and we are trying to make sure it gets out of our own little realm and into an area that is usable by all is what we are working towards.

Robin Jones

And that is a challenge I’m sure. Okay, thanks. Lance, go ahead and give us some instructions.

Operator

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you do have a question we ask that you please press the one on your touch tone phone now. If your question has been answered and you wish to withdrawal your request, you may do so by pressing the # key. The questions will be taken in the order they are received. One moment please for the first question.

Robin Jones

Just as a follow up John, with the Project Civic Access, now that''s been several years, and I cannot remember when the first one was actually put out, what is happening with compliance related to all of these settlement agreements and the monitoring and ongoing issues related to that.

John Wodatch

Each of the agreements has reporting requirements so we review the reports as they come in to see if the things that the cities and counties said they were going to do, they do. We also go back on site and we will actually do spot checking to ensure that changes are being done. It is a very long process, very detailed. But we are following up with each one of those. As you can tell it is a resource intensive exercise.

Robin Jones

We get questions about some of these issues.

John Wodatch

We do to. There are people sometimes who will send us a complaint or send us a letter, and say they were supposed to have done this but have not, could you check into it and we do follow up on all of those.

Robin Jones

Lance do we have any questions?

Operator

Yes. The first question comes from Rich Edwards, state of Indiana .

Caller

Hi John, hi Robin. My question was that we had an individual who was representing a particular party, I will not mention which one but they were pretty successful this last election, she was on a TV program and mentioned that she did not think accessible voting was necessary and wished that the feds would keep government out of the states business. What I am wondering is, she was confronted about this and said that basically it was just her opinion, but I was wondering is there any action that we could take or do we chalk this up to ignorance.

John Wodatch

Okay, voting is an interesting issue. Clearly this was a federal election that was going on. So, if you look at the constitution of the United States, it does set up federal elections, but allows states to have the basis on how they are done. But it is clear from a variety of federal laws that the federal law does apply to these elections in making the polling places accessible and not discriminating in the whole range of the voting process is clearly a federal function and clearly we have a role in it to make sure polling places are accessible and people with disabilities have an equal opportunity to get information and to participate fully in the process. I think this is probably just someone who needs to be enlightened a little bit more about that. Clearly in the areas of race discrimination there has been much that has preceded what we have done under the ADA. Similarly, there are laws dealing with the provision of voting services for people whose first language is other than English in terms of having bilingual ballots for example and information available at polling places. So I think it is pretty clear that there is a role for the federal government. Accessibility is probably the newest kid on the block in that area. I would certainly be willing to help educate anyone that you think is necessary on that basis.

Caller

What would be the best way to contact you guys?

John Wodatch

An email to me.

Caller

Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question will come from James from Ohio Rehabilitation Services.

Caller

This is Ken Campbell and I am working in an environment where a mental health facility denied services to an individual based on the fact that that individual had an assistance animal with them. The difficulty was made worse by the fact that this particular animal was a monkey, not the typical standard dog that people would see. They realize now that they were in error in denying services but is there a package of training available or what would they look for in making sure that snap decisions made by a receptionist at the front door are adequate in dealing with assistance animals?

John Wodatch

Thank you for raising this issue. Surprisingly to me, over the past five years, we have seen a dramatic increase in complaints and issues dealing with service animals. Most of the ones we see don''t involve mental health care facilities, they involve restaurants and hotels to a great deal. The issue we have seen that has been difficult is dealing with, usually if someone is blind the issue doesn''t come up as much, but it is usually people who use hearing dogs, someone who is deaf or someone in a wheelchair, someone with a seizure disorder with an animal have encountered more difficulty. We have information on our website but it is not really training information which is what I think you are talking about. We have tried to have some one to two page kinds of things so that people can have information available to them. Interestingly enough, when we did the regulation in 1991 and 92 we were clear to talk about service animals because at that time monkeys were used a little bit more than they are now as service animals. That is not as surprising, or should not be as surprising because at one time capuchin monkeys were monkeys that were trained to assist people. But I think monkeys are not used to the same extents as they have been in the past. Keep in mind that we are going to be doing, I think we have talked about it in the past, a rule making on the ADA. We will be addressing service animal issues because there are a large number of complaints, a lot of action, on this particular subject going on now. But, I would go to our website and look at some of the service animal things there and distribute that information to people and see if that can avoid what is happening here. What you are describing happens in the restaurant situations as well, is someone at the front desk who makes a snap decision who is unaware of their responsibilities in term of service animals and I think the best way to do that is continually provide information and training to people.

Operator

Our next question will come from Gary.

Caller

Hi. This is actually Joe speaking from the Disability Network Offices. Hi John and Robin.

John Wodatch

How are you?

Caller

Good, kind of. I was the one who called and asked you, in July, about corresponding with blind people in accessible format and making compliance. But I am very glad that the issue of compliance with the Project Civic Access was brought up because we have had a tremendous problem in, one local one being complied with locally and that goes to the issue of alternate formats as well. I personally made several requests for information, this agreement is more than two years old by the way, in accessible format, I usually just ask for it in email. Simple things like the grievance procedure which they claim to have but yet they do not remit or even respond to that. Part of the problem goes to in some of the things that we have gotten from the Freedom of Information Act when they do make a report to the Department of Justice they are making a false statement. For example, they say that all of their interpreter services and Braille transcription and other accessible information services are done from the center for independent living. The center for independent living does not do those services and they have not been contacted on that. I have informed the Department of Justice of some of those errors and deficiencies. Finally, we have a little bit of a problem when this is the only city in the county that has an ADA coordinator but that person has been indicted for felony, fraud, and bribery by the US Attorneys Office. We are not getting a whole lot of cooperation.

John Wodatch

I am familiar with some of the things you are talking about because you have talked to people in my office. We have been made aware of some of those and will be following up on site with them. To the extent that there are concerns about dealing with us in terms of getting information from us in alternative formats, I do not know if that is a problem but it certainly should not be because we have an obligation to do it. One of the things the federal government has been slow at is, at least at the Department of Justice, is having an electronic response system to people and that is partially because of the security walls at justice systems. But I want you to know that we are working on that to try and ensure that people can file complaints with us electronically or communicate with us electronically.

Caller

John, that goes to issues we are hitting in the Title II context is I have stated in most of my cases. I ask for things like minutes or you name it, or things like a city transition plan which they don''t have, it kind of becomes self evident, but I ask for these things by a simple e-mail or having them on an accessible web site and frankly sir...

Robin Jones

Hello?

Operator

It appears that he must have dropped off so I guess he will be back and we will let him finish when he reconnects.

Operator

John Broadway please proceed.

Caller

Can you hear me okay?

Robin Jones

Yes.

Caller

Okay, John Broadway from Montgomery, Alabama. I have a question regarding public transportation system here in Montgomery. It is somewhat ironic that we are in our fifty first year of having problems with the bus system. But what my question is, is the bus system under the requirement to provide accessible bus stops and bus shelters in the city? We have been in discussion with the city about this and they are basically claiming that only six facilities have to be accessible and that all other bus stops, shelters, and so forth, are labeled, they are using the word flag stops, and there for not required to be accessible, regarding accessible paths, regarding bench sizes, regarding shelters, rain shelters and so forth. Can you give me an answer to that?

John Wodatch

Yes, but I should begin by saying that the Department of Transportation has first responsibility here. But I know the regulations require, not only that all new buses that are purchased since 1992 be accessible, but that the bus stops and all the facilities around them have to be accessible. I do not know about Montgomery, Alabama but I have known of other jurisdictions that have trouble, sometimes because there is a fight among the jurisdictions. The bus service runs the busses, someone else is responsible for the place where the bus stops, and so where the lift gets put down and whether that is accessible and has an accessible route to the sidewalk is an issue but it is really an issue of coordination among different government agencies. It certainly is a responsibility that all of those facilities be accessible.

Caller

What would be the first step in addressing that problem? Who should the problem be addressed to? You said DOT?

John Wodatch

Well, if you want to send it to our office, we will make sure it gets to the right place at DOT. Or you can send it to the Federal Transit Administration but it is probably just as easy to send it to the Department of Justice. We will make sure it gets to the right place. So it is Montgomery Alabama we are going to be hearing about?

Caller

Yes. Thank you very much.

John Wodatch

Thank you.

Robin Jones

John, I have a couple of questions that came from the folks who are listening online. This question is ‘Where can we get information regarding how to make our websites ADA compliant?” And I think that leads us into probably a little bit of a discussion on the target decision on ADA accessibility. I don’t know if this particular individual is a Title II entity or a Title III entity, but maybe this is an opportunity for you to address that issue.

John Wodatch

Okay. There are several sources of information but from the federal governments perspective, the source I would go to would come under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. The Access Board, the architectural and transportation barriers compliance board, has developed standards for accessible websites and they are the ones that would apply, through Section 508, to the federal government. In addition there are private groups out there that have information but from the federal prospective, I would certainly go to the access board and I think their website address is www.ACCESS-BOARD.gov. And if you check on 508 you will get to their standards. In addition, we have a document on our website that talks about making websites accessible for state and local governments. This is an area that I mentioned before we are working on a proposal, this is an area we are going to be talking about. It has been an active area in the courts. There is disagreement among the courts. We have filed a couple of briefs over the years on this issue in litigation. It has certainly been our continuing position that websites that are engaged in commerce are places of accommodation. Not every court has agreed with that. Some courts have said that you need to have a place, a place where people go, to be covered. We think that is too narrow a view of what a place of public accommodation is but not every court does that. Recently there has been a lawsuit that is ongoing brought by the National Foundation of the Blind against Target about there websites. There is a recent decision coming out of California that has been much misinterpreted. It is at a very early stage of the litigation. Target filed a motion to dismiss which is something the court will look at before the record is developed so there is not a lot of information in the record, but the plaintiffs in that case, the National Federation of the Blind, survived the motion to dismiss which meant that the court said there is enough basis for them to go ahead with the litigation and Target was saying that because it is not a brick or mortar store, it is a website, that it is not covered by the ADA. The ninth circuit from earlier litigation has a ruling that you have to have a place in order to be covered under the ADA but they also said that the issue that will proceed in this case, because Target stores clearly are places, how closely connected are the websites to the places of public accommodation. If they are closely connected enough, then they will be covered by the ADA. The first circuit which is the New England area part of our country, had a much broader view, a much more liberal view than the ninth circuit does on that particular issue. It is one that is going to be developing over time. I think it is a very important one because more and more we rely on the web for commerce and for the kinds of activities that are regulated by the ADA. We will be addressing this in our rule making.

Robin Jones

For those of you that are interested, I think John you mentioned the private organizations that also have guidelines and things, probably one of the ones that is most frequently referred to is the world wide web consortium, web accessibility content guidelines and that is www.W3C.org. And on their web site you would be looking for their web accessibility initiative and they have a set of guidelines. I think that the important thing for people to understand and is often the confusion is there is currently no enforceable standard for accessibility for a website under the ADA. So when you talk about the 508 standards that is the forcible standard for federal websites. So obviously it is a good guide for someone to go to. So for the caller in this situation looking at how do I get information regarding making my website accessible, or ADA compliant, I think that there are organizations out there, your regional center is a place that you can go to to get some information. We have all be actively involved in this arena so I would encourage you to contact your regional site center at the 800 number that I gave previously to ask them because they also may be aware of some local resources if your are looking for some consultants or something of that nature to assist you in that process. I also wanted to follow up on the previous caller regarding the service animals and one of our colleagues from Region Nine had made us aware of a resource that the California Hotel and Lodging Association has created for their members through some funding they received from the National Hotel and Lodging Foundation. While it is directed towards the lodging community, it has got an excellent video and some frequently asked questions and fact sheets of information that I think is very general about service animals and can really be used as an educational tool so I will refer people to that information because it is really good and accurate information. That is on their website at www.CALODGING.com. They have a searchable database so just do a search for service animals and you come up with this program. They have actually launched, in California, a program called We Welcome Service Animals and they have a little sticker and things and they have created these additional training tools and educational tools geared toward staff of their lodging facilities about service animal issues. One is called We Welcome Service Animals and the other one is called Responding to Service Animal Calls. Just as another resource that might be usable for training purposes. Okay, we will go ahead and take another question.

Operator

We will continue with the Disability Network.

Caller

Hi I don''t know what happened. It kind of dove tails into the accessible websites, the discussion of effective communications, including those with visual impairments but not exclusive and primary consideration. If an entity cannot respond by simple e-mail to a blind person requesting public information, I think it flows pretty reasonably that they are also not equipped to remit Braille, audio tape or large print or so inclined. And it does goes to holding our public agencies accountable for their actions and being engaged. I will give you one simple example of something that just happened to me. I got summoned for jury duty and of course they did not necessarily know I was blind. But I did ask for them to have the information in accessible format. I called them up. “Oh we do not know how to do this.” And I explained that you can simply e-mail the summons, the telephone numbers, and that type of thing so that yours truly can actually engage in a civic process. They are not even equipped to do that.

John Wodatch

That''s interesting I was just summoned for jury duty as well and was anxious to see how the District of Columbia government did this. I think it is much more of a success story, they had a lot of information. But I am anxious to follow up on what we do in my own hometown. Clearly, I think you are on the right track in terms of the obligation of the local government to provide the information in an accessible format especially in that issue. This is not that difficult an issue especially with the advanced technology, but even using Braille, if someone wanted to have something in Braille, it is not so difficult for a local government to do it. Part of what we so at Project Civic Access is try to ensure that they have in place the necessary contracts or whatever it is, or it is a big enough town to just buy a Brailler and have someone skilled in creation of Braille documents from the templates that they have. It is certainly among the ADA kinds of issues that is not one where compliance is a difficult one. It is something that clearly is never, in my view is not going to rise to the level of undue burden for a local government to be doing those kinds of things. So they should be able to do that.

Caller

I have not found a single state or local agency that has conducted an effective communication policy just as you have addressed. Where do we go to get some -- for Braille? Where do we go for an interpreter?

John Wodatch

Is that what you are being asked by the local government?

Caller

No. No. I’m putting that out as a rhetorical thing on what people should have done in a self evaluation years ago under the communication section. You are talking about having these contracts and that is going into specifics about how some entities, well they play games with the DO J saying that they are doing things that they are not. With like this project Civic Access Agreement in Burton, I mean, they said that they contract for interpreter or Braille services through the Disability Network, well sir, that was just a fabrication.

John Wodatch

So what you are suggesting to me is we need to make sure when they say that, that we ask for a copy of the contract.

Caller

Exactly. And when I ask for information via e-mail and they do not respond that is evidence of an act of discrimination in itself.

Robin Jones

We are going to have to cut this call off because of the sound. And we do need to move on to other questions and things of that nature. Sorry about that.

John Wodatch

I do appreciate your comments though, Joe. They were very helpful.

Operator

Susan from Easter Seals.

Caller

Hi John and Robin thanks for taking the call. Here at Project Action we are getting many more complaints about private providers under Medicaid contract not providing transportation in a non-discriminatory way. And these two people that I have in mind may have already called the disability right section I don''t know, but since we are a bunch of non-lawyers here we do not know whether the modifications that they are requesting would amount to a fundamental alteration in transportation service. So we are getting questions about should folks file complaints with the DOJ against the transportation provider or should they file a complaint against the state because it is a program of state and local government?

John Wodatch

Well I guess I should give you my answer as an advocate if I was on the outside which is that I would file both of those and make sure each agency knew you have filed with the other one. When you are trying to bring about change that is the right way to do it. Now, let me put on my hat as the government official. You know, especially when you have complicated legal issues like this. I don''t think we expect the person who is experiencing the discrimination has to be a legal scholar and there may be a Medicaid issue going on here, might be something that the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services should be dealing with or the Justice Department should be dealing with under Title III of the ADA that applies to private providers of transportation. There is nothing wrong with pursuing all of those avenues.

Caller

Okay.

John Wodatch

And I think what is important is to let all of you know, that the others have it so we can perhaps work together on that issue. The way the federal laws are done, there is over lapping jurisdiction. It could be a violation of each one of those statutes. You thought maybe the modifications they were requesting were outside the scope of the laws?

Caller

No, as a non-lawyer I think that they are clearly within the bounds of reasonable accommodations.

John Wodatch

Then they should be filing complaints if they cannot work it out with the local provider.

Caller

John, if I could just ask a follow up. We get a lot of questions about service animals in the transportation context. While we have done a lot of technical assistance material on service animals and transportation, I am curious as to whether you can give us some kind of a time frame for the rule makings on service animals and accessible websites.

John Wodatch

My guess... and I am a terrible prognosticator and I have been wrong every single time. I am hoping that next summer we will have this out.

Caller

Wonderful.

John Wodatch

Whether that is true or not remains to be seen. If you wonder what could possibly take that long, which is what I would think if I were listening to me saying that, we have a lot of our own obligations that we have to go through including, one of the things we have to do is a very detailed cost benefit analysis of each part of the regulation. We have contracted with a group of economists to assist us and that is just taking a great deal of time.

Caller

Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question will come from the line of Kim from the North Carolina ADA.

Caller

Hi this is Kim. My question is regarding the public school system in Eastern North Carolina. I am working with an individual who uses a wheelchair for mobility and cannot access the school’s principal''s office which is where she has to go to sign her child out. She has been dealing with this now, I guess for six years, the child is now in the fifth grade. I just wanted to know if there had been any settlements or any similarities in similar cases. What you would suggest as our path to take to address this issue.

John Wodatch

This is an area that is outside of the Justice’s jurisdiction it is really with the education department but what you are describing to me sounds like such a simple fix. The fact that it is still ongoing is shocking, but maybe it should not be shocking. I think the best way to proceed is to involve the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education. They have regional offices but I do not honestly know which region covers North Carolina, if it is the Atlanta region, they also have a region in Washington that has several states. If you just send it to the education department or if you want to send it to us we will get it to the education department but it certainly sounds like the kind of thing that is resolvable.

Caller

Well, they basically told her she could move her child to a more accessible school and her thing is that her child has been going to this school for six years and why should she have to move her when it is really their problem.

John Wodatch

I would agree with that. When you are looking at the education of children and, I think where they are coming from is clearly if it''s an older school, not every school has to be accessible in every way but something as simple as being able to meet with the principal or sign in or do certain things is something that can be resolved. I take it as the parent is the wheelchair user?

Caller

That is exactly right. And she was ambulatory, she has spina bifida and as a result of some hip surgery, is no longer able to ambulate and certainly cannot manipulate or maneuver steps. And she says there is like thirteen. I have not eyeballed the place yet and I plan to do that.

John Wodatch

The school also has an obligation to ensure that she can go to parent teacher conferences, to PTA meetings.

Caller

She can get to other places in the school, it is just the principal’s office. But you see that is the point of contact because she cannot even sign her child out of school because she cannot get in there to do that.

John Wodatch

Well, an easy modification for them would be to move the place where she would have to go to it if there are accessible parts of the building.

Caller

And that is what she has offered for them to do. But they said ‘no’ they cannot do that.

John Wodatch

That would be a reasonable fix in this situation.

Caller

You said the Office of Civil Rights of Education?

John Wodatch

The Education Department.

Robin Jones

You said that you were in the Carolina’s, correct?

Caller

That is correct.

Robin Jones

The office that serves North Carolina is the Civil Rights Office in Washington DC. Also on the US Department of Education’s web site you can actually file a complaint online. There is a online form. But the office that serves your area, their phone number is 202 786 0500.

Caller

That is 786 0500?

Robin Jones

Correct.

Caller

Thank you.

John Wodatch

Of all the things discussed so far that certainly seems to be like the easiest one to fix.

Robin Jones

Next question please.

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Chris from the Illinois Department of Human Services.

Caller

What is your website. You keep mentioning the information we can get off your website.

John Wodatch

It''s ADA.gov. www.ada.gov

Caller

Okay, thank you.

Robin Jones

I have another question that has come from our online participants. Is it the DOJ''s position that doctor’s offices must provide Deaf individuals with interpreters for most procedures?

John Wodatch

For most procedures? Yes is the answer to that question. What we say is that the doctor’s office has an obligation to have effective communication. Now, what we say is, when the information being exchanged is complicated, you are sitting down to have a discussion with the doctor, clearly, you are going to need to have a sign language interpreter. If you are just going in to get your flu shot, maybe you can do that visit with paper and pencil. We still get a lot of questions and calls about doctor’s offices. I think it is important if you are having difficulty with that to remember that there is a tax credit that is available for small providers and the definition of small provider is pretty big. If they have fewer than thirty employees, which a lot of doctor’s offices do, they are entitled to up to $10, 000 a year in tax credit. Doctors will always say well, I charge $100 for this visit and I have to pay 150 for an interpreter, that cannot be right. That is not how it is viewed. We would look at the total resources of the doctor’s office, not just the per visit look. But in addition, if they are paying $150 for an interpreter they can get a tax credit for up to half of that. There is information on our website and information available on how to get these tax credits. But that is the easiest fix for doctor’s offices. And the tax credit was enacted at the time the ADA was for this very reason, to give small providers some fiscal relief from some of the financial costs of complying with the ADA.

Robin Jones

Just for clarification, there is also information on the IRS website and they would be referring to the disabled tax credit which is IRS code 44.

John Wodatch

The forms are also on our website.

Robin Jones

That is true. And that is www.ADA.gov. Next question please.

Operator

Our next question comes from the captioner. Please proceed.

Caller

Shirley of Greater Tomorrows Inc. I have enjoyed the sessions. My question is a building was built without compliance, with steps to second level. Does owner have to make adjustments?

John Wodatch

You are now going to get my favorite ADA answer which is no help to you, which is, it depends. The way the ADA is written if we have an existing building, a building that was built before it, so it is not covered by the new construction requirements of the ADA, a public accommodation would have to remove barriers if doing so is readily achievable, and the law defines that as easily accomplishable or able to be done without much difficulty or expense. In some cases, it is likely that making the second floor of a two story building would get you there, but it might not get you there. In which case if they do not have an obligation to remove that barrier because it is too expensive, especially if it is a small business, they would have an obligation to provide alternate services. If it was a restaurant on the second floor, they might have to do home delivery. Or if a doctor''s office, the doctor might have to meet you at a different location. Alternate services do not always work but there is an obligation to do that. There is no easy answer to your question, it is really going to depend on a lot of facts. In a lot of circumstances, we have seen you end up with a landlord and maybe a series of buildings, the bigger the entities you get to, the more financial resources that are available, the easier it gets to ensure some form of accessibility.

Operator

Our next question comes from Debby.

Caller

This is Gary. Debby is our spokesperson but she is not here today. I have a clarification question on medical facilities. You had mentioned earlier that medical equipment had to be accessible. Now, are you speaking of fixed equipment or are you speaking of movable equipment when it has to do with people who need accessibility.

John Wodatch

That is a good question. I really should point out that we have three or four agreements now and it is the first time that we have really started to deal with medical equipment. From our perspective, it does not matter if it is fixed or moveable. The first complaints we started getting were from women who are wheelchair users who could not really, very effectively get mammograms. A lot of the early cases we looked at have been radiological equipment but we have also looked at exam tables that were fixed but should have been movable. It is really a fairly new area for us to get involved in and we are hoping to do more technical assistance on it. We should take a step back and say that the ADA obligation is that people with disabilities need to have access to medical care and equipment, it may be fixed or moveable in a doctor’s office. The obligation is to provide equal opportunity. The problem is that there may not be equipment that is accessible for all of these. So, part of what we have to do when confronted with complaints about these issues is to see what is out there. Certainly, one of the issues we have dealt with a lot is exam tables in doctor''s offices and ensuring that doctor’s offices really should be trying to purchase at least one table out of their exam tables that goes up and down so that there is ease of transfer for a wheelchair user as well as the obligation to provide assistance in doing that. The difference between fixed equipment and not fixed is important in terms of whether the ADA standards for accessible design apply to it. But equipment that is not fixed would also be covered by the ADA, but it might not be covered by the ADA standards. I don''t know if that confuses you or not, but at any rate both types of equipment would be covered from our perspective.

Caller

I do have one more question to add to that. Let us say you are putting up a medical clinic, it is new construction, and you are going in to provide for medical exam rooms or offices if you will that have equipment that is taken care of or used only by the employee and not for the patient, used to service the patient. Would that have some kind of impact on your decision making process?

John Wodatch

In that case, if it is equipment that is only used by the employees, unless we are talking about something that is built into the building itself in which case the standards would apply to it. If it is a common employee area, clearly an employee restroom would have to be accessible. But, if we are talking about equipment that is put in and used only by the employees, it becomes an issue under Title I and becomes a reasonable accommodation issue when you hire a person with a disability or if you have an employee with a disability. You are talking about an area where two parts of the ADA have application. To the extent the ADA standards effect the facility that is being designed and built, they would have to be accessible, but to the extent that they are things that are added that are not covered by the ADA standards, it becomes a Title I reasonable accommodation issue.

Operator

Our next question is Candace of Apollo Theater.

Caller

Hi it''s Candace from the Apollo Theatre in New York.

Robin Jones

Go ahead.

Caller

I would like to know, we have a location at the theater in the front row. But we find that location, that wheelchair location causes a visual hindrance for persons behind it. Can we use a different location when need be to accommodate the rest of the customers?

John Wodatch

I happen to know the Apollo Theater. I think you have a lot of options. Your obligation is to provide a variety of viewing locations for people with disabilities. But I do not think a person with a disability is going to be comfortable if they are blocking someone else’s view as well. You are dealing there with an existing theatre and I know you have a lot of constraints in terms of how the built environment works there. You should look at a variety of options. But I would hope that the solution would not be that all seats would then be in the back, that a wheelchair user would be able to have different viewing locations around the theater.

Caller

We do have several different viewing locations for the wheelchair but what we are finding is that we have had an influx of wheelchair bound clients requesting the front row. And being that the chair is higher than the rows behind it, people seven rows back cannot see.

John Wodatch

I think that is an issue you can deal with that is inappropriate for both the wheelchair user as well as for the people behind them. Is the problem that people stand so their view is blocked?

Caller

Yes, they tend to stand. The problem with us doing constructural issues to the theatre seating area is because it is a landmark and city building now.

John Wodatch

I think this is probably an issue where if you have got the right people together you can come up with a solution that would provide a wheelchair user with a different kind of viewing experience without having an impact on the other patrons. Clearly, you have to balance all those interests in doing that.

Robin Jones

John, just for clarification, what I heard her say was that the wheelchair users seating would be higher than people behind them?

John Wodatch

Yes, and it might be because of the size of the wheelchair. So the patron sitting behind the wheelchair user would have a blocked view of the stage. I think that is an appropriate thing to take into consideration in placing your wheelchair seating locations. I have talked to any number of wheelchair users who do not want to be in the uncomfortable position of being hooted down from behind by people whose view they are blocking. I think there are probably ways of working that out so that it may not be the front row but that there is a good seating location that does not have the negative impact on the other seats.

Caller

Well, we have eight locations of which two are located in the first row but we are finding that there are clients requesting the first row.

Robin Jones

But if you only have two seats available, once those two seats are purchased, you do not have additional...

Caller

No, we have eight wheelchair locations of which two are located in the first row.

Robin Jones

Right, but once you have sold out those two in the first row you do not have any additional ones in the first row, right?

Caller

No.

Robin Jones

So even though someone requests the first row, just as if I was to call and request a seat in the first row and they were sold out...

Caller

No we have to hold the wheelchair seats up until a certain time before we can release them to the general public. So if a show goes on sale today and a client in a wheelchair comes up they can request that seat and we would have to sell it to them. And that is my question, because if you are requesting a first row seat to an event and we have all of them open at that time that the patron requests it, even though we know it can cause a visual obstruction to persons behind it are we obliged to sell it?

John Wodatch

Well, as long as you have it there and it is one of the seats that you have, you are obliged to sell it. If you want to change that seating location so that you move it to a different location that does not have the visual impact, I think that is an appropriate thing to do. But, until you do that, I think you have an obligation to sell those.

Caller

Okay. Thank you.

Robin Jones

Next question.

John Wodatch

Let me just say to the people running the Apollo. I know that we have worked with you over the years and if you would like to talk to us separately from this and work that issue out, we would be happy to do that separately.

Operator

Our next question comes from the captioner.

Caller

This is Rich of the League of Human Dignity. Hi John and Robin. John, I have been running into many issues with private transportation providers charging people with disabilities higher rates to use accessible vans. Could you comment on the legalities of that? Thank you.

John Wodatch

Every once in awhile there''s an easy question. That would be illegal. That would be a violation of the ADA and they should not be doing that. That is one of the easier kinds of violations. You should let either DOT or the Department of Justice know about that.

Robin Jones

Just for clarification because I do not know if the caller is speaking about the fact that there may be providers of wheelchair accessible transportation that cost more. For example, a medivan or something of that nature may cost more than a cab ride. You know, a specialized service.

John Wodatch

Is that the issue or is there a surcharge for wheelchair users?

Robin Jones

I just wanted to make sure we are responding to that question appropriately. Maybe we can get a clarification on that. Why don''t we go on and then have her come back on with the clarification.

Operator

Our next question is from Dan.

Caller

Actually we have two questions and the first one is from Peggy. Hi. This is a situation regarding service animals again. I have a situation in which a lady I am working with uses a seizure alert dog which either sits on her lap or on the back of her chair. She had gone into a restaurant that was a buffet style restaurant and they were refusing her to go down the buffet line with her dog either on her lap or on the back of her chair. Somewhere along the line I ran onto a comment that I have not been able to find since talking about that even if health codes prohibit an animal from being in an area, the ADA still requires the animal must still have access. So I was just wondering.

John Wodatch

That is correct. A lot of health codes regulate animals in areas where there is food, whether it is a grocery store, food buffet, or even a restaurant. Service animals are exempt from those rules. As long as the dog is not leaping out of her lap and going to the food. Just the proximity of the dog to the food, as long as the dog is an appropriate service animal, I am sure it is trained, the fact that it is closer than being on the floor, really does not present any different health care issues that I am aware of as long as the animal is under the control of the owner of the animal. What we have seen and complaints we get, especially with people with seizure alert animals, we still have a long way to go to have people understand that a variety of people with disabilities use service animals for a variety of needs. It is always hard to deal with something in the abstract but that definitely sounds like that person should be able to go through.

Caller

In this case we think we got it all corrected. One of my coworkers uses a guide dog and she went in and did not have any trouble what so ever. They let her go down the line and a staff person did serve her and came back later to see if she needed seconds. So I think we may have gotten it all resolved but I was just curious about that.

John Wodatch

A lot of it is training and it is often times it is the person who happens to be the direct. It is often good when there is a confrontation of that nature to ask for the manager of the food service area or the store to move the situation to a supervisor.

Caller

We did, we think we have it corrected. The biggest barrier at first was I don''t speak Mandarin and they don''t speak English.

John Wodatch

We do have, by the way, some of our documents available in a variety of languages. And we do have available a number of documents in those languages in a variety of languages if that is at all useful for you in the future.

Caller

That would be helpful. Okay. Our second question comes from -- We have had an inquiry at our organization from a woman who alternately uses a wheelchair and a Segway. Her question to us was, when she goes to a place that considers itself making available public accommodations such as one of our state museums here in Indianapolis, or the Simon mall properties, can she be denied access when she goes in with her Segway which she has been? And if she can go into these places with her Segway, is there anything in writing that she can refer to when she goes so that she will not be hassled?

John Wodatch

You are raising sort of a cutting edge issue. We have not issued an opinion about Segways yet. We have been asked by a variety of disability groups who use Segways because of their disability to include Segways along with wheelchairs and other mobility devices, we have not done so yet so we do not have anything written. On the other hand, the Department of Transportation, on their website, has some information about Segways in parks or in transportation areas which of course is not directly relevant but is comparable. We have it under consideration in terms of what the requirement should be for Segway users who have disabilities. So we do not have anything that would be helpful.

Caller

So if she is denied access tomorrow afternoon, there is nothing really...

John Wodatch

We have nothing out saying it is a violation or anything dealing with that specifically.

Caller

Will that be considered with the new rule making?

John Wodatch

I am hoping we will do that before then but it will certainly be included in the rule making. Public accommodations have come forward and said to us and said that they use Segways as a different kind of device than wheelchairs or other devices and they have problems with it. And so we are examining really, the pros and cons of that.

Caller

Thank you. We will look forward to more information.

Robin Jones

It is amazing how constantly evolving technology is. Things that would before have not been anticipated.

John Wodatch

One of the issues we are looking at with Segways is that they go at much higher speeds than wheelchairs and so, that creates some safety and other issues and we are just examining the variety of issues coming up with that. There is certainly a drastic increase in their use and a number of people with disabilities are now using them for mobility.

Robin Jones

I know we have had contact even in our own office from entities sayings, when they do the auto shows, expo types of things where you have a very high concentration of people about the use of Segway in those types of scenarios. That has been an ongoing thing.

John Wodatch

Some of the large providers in the country have asked about that where they have large crowds and their fear of a Segway going ten or 12-miles per hour which is pretty fast. And is it appropriate to even consider that as an issue.

Robin Jones

Next question please.

Operator

Our next question is from the captioner.

Robin Jones

Go ahead. Hopefully it is some clarification on our last question.

Caller

This is Rich with the League of Human Dignity. These are providers that use minivans for the provision of services but they charge more to people with disabilities because it costs more to run and equip the vans

John Wodatch

That sounds to me Robin...

Robin Jones

Like a specialized service. Or it could be both.

John Wodatch

It could be either situation:

Robin Jones

So maybe cover both situations.

John Wodatch

If this is a situation where a public entity is providing public transportation, they have some vehicles in their fleet that are accessible and some that are not and they charge more for the accessible ones and it is the same service than other people get, then that is a violation. If it is a specialized service then it might not be. But it is very difficult to tell in the abstract without more information. My suggestion to you would be to send us an e-mail or letter with the information in it and we will take a look at it.

Robin Jones

They could also contact their regional center to have further discussion with more clarification of the specific types of entities because I think that is what you need here to sort out exactly what type of entity it is and what type of transportation they are actually providing because there are differences. Sometimes what appears to be the same is not always the same. It does need to be analyzed further. We are at the bottom of the hour. We have had a long dialogue here and I know we have people who unfortunately have probably not had their questions asked or an opportunity to ask their questions and we do apologize. It is always a problem with this type of a session. We do thank John for his time today and his willingness to be candid with us in his responses and providing information to us on these various topics, not all of which are very clear cut in any sense of the word. Just as a reminder John gave us some information. He gave you the web site of www.ADA.gov. And John do you want to give your TA number as well?

John Wodatch

800-514-0301.

Robin Jones

And also you can contact your regional ADA center and that is at 800-949-4232 both voice and TTY. So hopefully you can get your further questions answered at that point. This concludes this session for today. Our next session, we hope people will join us, we will be having an update from the U.S. Access Board with their rulemaking activities in the area of guidelines for accessibility under the ADA. Some of the things happening on their front things in regards to some of the new guidelines pending like public rights and such. John alluded to the fact that they have rule making ongoing because they are in the process of looking at the adoption of the new ADAG. And the Access Board is continuing to work in a number of other areas as well, and so they will be providing us updates about that and those activities and their technical assistance. So I invite you to join us in December and that session is being held on December 14th so basically a month from now. Again, same time, 1:00 central time for a 90 minute session. For more information you can go to the web site, www.ada-audio.org for information on the future sessions as well as registration. So again, thank you very much for joining us and thank you John for your time.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen that concludes the conference call for today. Thank you for participating and ask that you disconnect your lines.