Columbia’s Disabilities Commission is updating the city’s Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Grievance Form. The form allows people to report alleged discrimination within the city’s services or programs.
The commission met on Thursday to have its first in-depth discussion about the updates. Columbia’s ADA coordinator, Adam Kruse, said that the form hasn’t been changed for at least 13 years.
“It's a perfectly fine form, but there's just an opportunity to update it,” Kruse said.
The commission has been talking about the grievance form for a few months, according to Vera Elwood, the chair of the Disabilities Commission.
“The way that it currently stands, it is so complicated and difficult to fill out that we're worried that there are people who are experiencing accessibility issues that aren't actually able to report to the city,” Elwood said. “So, making it easy to access, easy to fill out, not unnecessarily difficult, is going to make it easier for people to tell us where the barriers are so that we can fix them.”
Jonathan Asher is a member of the Disabilities Commission and helped the group brainstorm ways to include the form near other feedback portals in the city’s app.
“It seems like everything else is reported there,” Asher said. “From sewer issues to potholes in the street. I mean, I don’t see why the ADA-related issues wouldn't be— in the same place."
Elwood suggested that the form should be sent not only to the ADA coordinator, but also directly to a department relevant to the issue.
“Sometimes the department is like, ‘Oh, that could have been a five-minute fix. We just didn’t know this would happen,’” Elwood said.
Kruse agreed.
“One of my biggest challenges is that I’m the middleman a lot of the time between department personnel,” Kruse said.
The group also suggested improvements such as providing an email submission option and highlighting the necessary questions to answer.
Commission chair Vera Elwood said she feels hopeful that the updated form could be finalized at the commission’s next meeting on August 14.
The new form is expected to be accessible soon after the next meeting because it does not require approval from the city council.
Columbia residents who can’t attend the meetings can send their feedback by reaching out to Disabilityservices@como.gov.
