2011-02-15 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

Home

r 10% With employees, Dr. Spinola- Campbell gets involved under Title I with reasonable accommodations. She has been noticing lately that they are having employees who are developing significant disabilities either through aging or accidents when they're not at work where they may not be able to perform the essential duties of their job anymore so they get involved with reassignment, a job search, looking at what the employee can do and/or if the employee can perform the essential functions of their own jobs, and what are reasonable accommodations for the employee. Mr. Rowe asked whether reasonable accommodations are provided at the County beaches for people using wheelchairs who may request access to beach park such as Richardson's. Dr. Spinola - Campbell reported that they have purchased what's called mobi mats over which people in wheelchairs can travel over. She has also purchased four beach wheelchairs for Parks and Recreation. However, the problem they have encountered is the staffing of people to place and remove the mobi mats each day. So they had an initiative this summer at Richardson's where the Parks and Recreation's ADA specialist, Alyssa, partnered with a nonprofit organization who puts down mobi mat every Thursday at Richardson's with the beach wheelchairs. It will be easier once the ADA improvements to Richardson's are done. They are still in the design phase and working on issues regarding graves that are there at that site. They also surf days one day a month for beach access at Kahalu`u Beach Park in Kona. Chair Robinson noted that when the Act was first passed, there hadn't been any clear guidelines established for an architect to follow. Chair Robinson asked whether any design guidelines have been written since that time with clear standards. Dr. Spinola - Campbell explained that in 1991, they had the ADAAG, which is the ADA accessibility guidelines under Title III, that they construct according to; but now in July ADA just came out with 2010 ADA standards for accessible design, and DCAB, the state agency that reviews construction drawings, started reviewing to the 2010 standards in January. Dr. Spinola- Campbell believes they are better and easier to follow and are also more comprehensive. They looked at what didn't work with the ADA for the past 20 years and maybe different things they were silent on before and put them in the new standards. They also developed standards for swimming pools, golf courses, tennis courts, shooting 3