2010-12-01 Committee on People with Disabilities Minutes

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Committee on People with Disabilities December 1, 2010 Page 5 website so that when a blind person runs a mouse over an image, the image is described to the person. If there is video on it, there must be acode in that video and need to have audio description. The front end user is responsible for buying software that will convert text to speech. R. Wagner-Wright said if I am not able to use this website then I cannot take part in it. J. Souza felt the same as Dr. Wagner-Wright. This website is not accessible for deaf people. He felt left out. A. Mitchener asked about a new act that passed this summer by President Obama involving video and communication accessibility. T. Spinola-Campbell said she just got back from a National Conference with the Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. John Wodatch (head of the Disability Rights Division, Department of Justice) said they are going to be aggressively pursuing public entities whose websites are not ADA compliant. There are concerns that it may be difficult to separate P. De Lima’s website from a County program. Previous links from a County Webpage to another non-profit agency website were severed because their website was not accessible. There are ways to test websites for accessibility, put “alt tags”on pictures, and easy ways to caption videos. T. Spinola-Campbell also reminded the Committee that there is an agreement that materials presented during the meeting need to be accessible to everyone attending the meeting. T. Callos said this online technology has evolved so rapidly, whether it is perfectly suitable now or not, it is a tool that the Committee should be familiar with. It will not be as it is six months from now. List the things needed to make it better. B. De Lima suggested finding the cost of ADA compliant software so all County Departments could become ADA compliant. “You Tube” has the captioning for videos. The Committee could look into the acquisition of software. T. Spinola-Campbell said she purchased some for Data Systems; there are different web designers in different departments that develop a plan for bringing old web pages into compliance on a scheduled basis. Our County IT department may be able to be of some assistance.