County is 18 months behind on federal plan It’s been more than five years since a federal judge ordered the state of Hawai’i and all its counties, including Kaua’i, to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in regard
County is 18 months behind on federal plan
It’s been more than five years since a federal judge ordered the state of Hawai’i and all its counties, including Kaua’i, to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in regard to public access for the disabled.
According to a former state Department of Health program specialist, and a member of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee for Equal Access, Kaua’i has done nothing.
After studies were completed, a federally ordered transition plan was slated to begin on Kaua’i in January 2000 and be completed by January 2006. The plan identified 1,626 barriers to disabled access, including 119 priority-one curb ramps that were required. The number completed is, by the county’s own admission, zero.
The county floated a bond issue of $2 million in late 1999 to bring Kaua’i into compliance with ADA.
The county cites lack of manpower as one of the reasons no work has been done. According to Christina Pilkington, the county’s ADA coordinator, the engineering division was unable to hire a person who would have overseen the curb ramp transition plan.
Pilkington said engineering officials reported it would be “unrealistic” to create new positions to do such a job.
The only estimate from a private firm that the county has received for site-specific drawings to ensure that curb cuts meet federal standards came in at $900,000.
Anne Bowden, Equal Access Committee member and senior advocate, said at its meeting Tuesday that she is fed up with the county’s excuses.
“It is morally wrong to deny these people equal access. This is wrong. The money is available. It goes into a general fund which is like a slush fund. Whoever needs it first gets it. Why should people with disabilities be tortured this way? People who are denied the freedom the rest of us have,” Bowden said.
“The county is saying they will resolve the complaints,” yet has done “zero” since the six-year plan began in January 2000, said Stan Yates, who manned the state’s Disability and Communication Access Board office on Kaua’i for 11 years, until his position was moved back to Oahu because of budget cuts two months ago.
“As a disabled person, I don’t care whether they (engineering) have an empty position. Here we are 19 months after they should have started, still getting” an argument about site-specific plans versus prototype that “should not be an excuse for not doing the work,” Yates said. “If they need more money, they have to go get some.”
“Money is not the object, it is the” federal mandate. If a federal judge “wanted to, he could hold the whole county in contempt,” he said. “People who are disabled shouldn’t have to bear the brunt of this.
“It’s a specious argument. I expect (the county) to follow the law. I expect them to get the job done. And they are not.”
When it was pointed out that the Equal Access Committee was merely an advisory board for Mayor Maryanne Kusaka, Yates said she should be urged “to obey the law.”
Wally Rezentes Sr., administrative assistant to the mayor, told the committee that all the delay is about to change.
“I apologize for the slowness in which we’re moving. It is true about the situation that engineering faces, but I agree we can’t make excuses. We take this very seriously. We don’t get money from the feds for this,” he said, adding the estimated $900,000 design cost is “an enormous amount of money. These are county funds.”
Rezentes said Kusaka had wanted enough funds budgeted (estimated 18 months ago as $2 million) to take care of all the ADA-generated problems. But he also admitted the county miscalculated by budgeting $2 million for everything.
The process “is new for all of us. I think we’re sort of getting on track for the first time” with curb cuts, he said.
He noted that the Rice Street project, slated to begin next week, would take care of 39 of the 119 priority-one curb cuts. Eighty percent of that project is federally funded and 20 percent is by the county.
Rezentes said the county has gone to the Army Corps of Engineers to broker a deal to address the other remaining 80 priority cuts. He said the Corps could do them all, as beginning next July it will have contractors statewide to do the work.
Rezentes said the deal with the Corps, just in the discussion phase so far, would eventually lead to the county paying one lump sum (unspecified at this time) next summer, before the work would begin.
“Our administration is very concerned because of the legal implications, as well,” Rezentes told the Equal Access Committee.
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net
