All agreed: Time to act is now
After much discussion last week, the Oro Valley Town Council unanimously agreed to do something now to improve mobility access to the Community Center. Improving mobility access had been deferred by council for four years because it had become intertwined with a possible redesign of the Community Center.Resurface.. .improve parking... add a conveyance
Vice Mayor Melanie Barrett crafted a motion with the help of Councilmember Solomon to get something done now.
The motion compels staff to make immediate improvements to the mobility accommodations. This includes resurfacing and cleaning up the ramp, repairing electric doors, adding handicap parking. The motion also directs staff to develop a proposal on how to get a "conveyance" into the existing building and to do without any other modifications to the facility. Solomon added, and it was agreed, that this become a funding priority from existing Community Center Funds.
Councilmember Solomon presented a timetable [panel right] starting in 2018 showing that there was intention, but not action, to make the Community Center more mobility accessible. He asserted that the current council "...decided to not make community center renovations and the ADA compliance a priority.”
Making the Community Center more mobility friendly was never a priority for any council
Councilmember Solomon's chart is misleading. It notes a date of July 2020. That is the first time that any specific improvement in mobility access was defined by any council. And that happened under the current council. That improvement was an "elevator." However, the motion that the council passed at that time was to add the elevator only as part of a grand redesign of the Community Center. That redesign yet to happen.
Indeed, as Council Member Bohen noted, a fix for the mobility problem was never a priority of any council. "Something should have been done in 2015" when the town acquired the facility.
Winfield "takes the bullet"
Mayor Winfield observed that the current situation reflects badly on us as a community and on him as the Mayor. “I support universal access. Access for all of us.” Recently, Winfield traveled around the community with a resident who has disability challenges. They toured many of our facilities. Winfield wanted to see our facilities through the eyes of someone else. “I will freely admit that I’ve let the community down in this regard. I could have done a better job.”
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