Gallup's compliance with disability act limps along

Paul Laughlin exits the Gallup Municipal Building on Tuesday afternoon after applying for a job with the city. The City of Gallup is working on bringing all city facilities up to ADA standards to avoid being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice. Local disability advocates disapprove of the city's use of "handicapped" signs, which they find derogatory. [Photo by Matt Hinshaw/Independent]

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — A year-and-a-half after settling with the U.S. Department of Justice to bring all its facilities into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the City of Gallup has fallen behind on 11, nearly twice as many as it's finished.

City officials blame the delays on a combination of their limited resources and other priorities. Some local disability advocates wonder if the city is trying hard enough.

Supply and demand
City Attorney George Kozeliski, the man the City Council put in charge of fulfilling the settlement agreement it signed with the Justice Department in September of 2004 to avoid a lawsuit, said work on all 11 facilities has at the very least begun.

"I'm pretty sure none of them have been done completely, but at least some work on all of them has been done," he said.

The city has also made fewer of its intersections wheelchair accessible than Kozeliski hoped it would have by now. The settlement the city signed with the Justice Department gave it 10 years to fix all Gallup intersections with pedestrian sidewalks. Kozeliski hoped to have 40 to 50 done by now; it's finished about 10.

Kozeliski said the city simply hasn't had the manpower to keep up with the settlement along with all its other projects at once.

"We're spread too thin," he said.

For Stan Henderson, the city's public works director, it's a simple matter of supply and demand.

"When you have a five-man carpentry crew," he said, "you have infinite demand and limited resources."

A new labor crew hired in September has helped, he said, though it's slowed down since its supervisor fell ill.

Henderson and Kozeliski agree that the greatest drain on city crews has been Red Rock Park. The city spent hundreds of man hours and tens of thousands of dollars preparing the park for last summer's Wrangler Junior High Finals Rodeo, a first-time national event city officials agreed to host for the benefit of the local business community.

"Had (city crews) not done that," Kozeliski said, "I think we'd be ahead of schedule."

The city has meanwhile given itself high marks for cutting its employment roll through attrition by some 10 percent over the past three years. According to Assistant City Manager Larry Binkley, it's also sitting on a $300,000 pot the council approved last year specifically for Disabilities Act improvements that it's barely touched.

Shelter from the stormThe terms of the settlement agreement the council signed, besides laying out detailed deadlines for coming into full compliance with the Disabilities Act, gives the Justice Department the authority to sue the city in federal district court if the two can't reach a deal on delays. Thanks to the department's generosity in granting extensions Kozeliski said it hasn't turned down a single request it hasn't come to that. All 11 facilities, originally due for full compliance six months ago, are now due in 2007 or 2008.

With all those extensions, said Don Smith, "it sounds like they're dragging their feet."

The program director for the Gallup branch of the San Juan Center, Smith helps disabled locals regain control of their lives.

If city officials were focusing enough attention on the settlement, he said, "they wouldn't be asking for extensions."

But if extensions are what it will take, Smith sounded reconciled.

Ken Collins was less forgiving. A program manager for Disability Services, Inc., he believes the city has no excuses for requesting any deadline extension.

He's not happy about the extra seven years the Justice Department gave the city to fix its sidewalks, either; the department wanted to give the city three years, but officials managed to talk it into 10.

Said Collins, providing curb cuts at intersections is one of the most important things a city can do for its disabled. Making buildings and parks more accessible is fine, but what if you can't even make it that far?

"For someone in a wheelchair, it's access," he said. "If a curb cut's not there, they have to go on to the street, and then it's a safety issue."

"If you can't get into a store because of curb cuts ... that means they can't shop," he added. "Curb cuts allow you to be part of the community."

But Collins is most indignant about the city's persistent use of the word "handicapped." Derived from "cap in hand," it suggests the disabled are looking for handouts.

"It's degrading," said Collins, who spent years recovering from a brain injury he suffered in 1976. "The word handicapped means beggar."

"It kind of puts us down," Smith agreed. "It limits us."

Collins said he's explained this to city officials repeatedly, but feels like they're not listening: When the city installed automated doors at City Hall, it accompanied them with "handicapped" signs. He said he spoke with Kozeliski about the signs six months ago. Kozeliski said the signs the city bought were approved by the federal government and still took months to find. He said the city would get around to changing them eventually.

And your total comes to ...Back in 2004, City Manager Eric Honeyfield told the council to prepare to spend between $5 million and $10 million on the settlement over the coming 10 years.

A year-and-a-half into the deal, Binkley has no idea how much the city has spent because it's folded most of the costs into its other capital expenses.

"A lot of things we had done we incorporated into other projects," he said.

With the changes made to the Children's Library, he offered as an example, "we didn't separate that and say 'This expenditure was in compliance with (the Americans with Disabilities Act).' "

He could say that of the $300,000 the council set aside for the settlement last year, the city has spent $9,000. He expected the city to begin leaning more heavily on that money soon.

Whatever the costs, the city has likely managed to save plenty by closing or handing off ownership of a number of its facilities or primarily abandoning past polling places, 15 of them so far. Kozeliski said the council's decision to hand Red Rock Park back to the state saved the city roughly $1 million worth of Disabilities Act improvements alone.

Still, Collins wonders how much good the Disability Awareness Day he helped organize in 2004 did. Four of the city's five councilors spent part of the morning navigating downtown Gallup's streets in wheelchairs and visited a neighborhood coffee shop. He hoped the experience would encourage them to pursue the settlement with some urgency.

"What does it say about image?" he asked about the modest pace of work. "Is the welcome mat out to everyone or just the able-bodied population?"

The Justice Department's extensions still require the city to fix all its facilities other than its intersections in the four years it originally provided for the work. The intersections are still due in 2013.