News from around the Region
NH Celebrates 15 years of the ADA
The Governor's Commission on Disability (GCD) is planning a July event at Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, NH to kick off a year long celebration highlighting accessible sites and programs in New Hampshire. Examples include:
Accessible Courthouses
Chief Justice Broderick, NH Supreme Court, after visiting every courthouse in the state, is committed to accessibility improvements including jury boxes, witness stands and judge's benches. Cheryl Killam, Accessibility Specialist, has evaluated 40 courthouses to date, and was recently appointed to the Citizens Commission on the Courts.
Accessible Playgrounds
Scheduled to open July 2 in Griffen Park, Windham; new playground being built as of June in Peterborough; Tardif Accessible Playground in Laconia recently funded; playgrounds in Barrington and Hampton in the fundraising/planning stages; and accessible playground opened in Epsom last year.
New Baseball Stadium
The Fisher Cats Stadium in Manchester opened on April 7. Cheryl Killam toured the stadium prior to its opening and reviewed the accessible seating areas located directly behind home plate, all along the concourse, and at all party decks and luxury suites.
Above: Aerial Baseball fans enjoy another sellout at Fisher Cats Stadium in Manchester. The baseball team is an affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays organization.
Access to State Parks
Now listed on the NH State Parks website is Accessibility at a Glance 
(www.nhparks.state.nh.us/ParksPages/AccessGlncHom.html) which gives an idea of the level of access within each state park.
Access to the Arts
The NH State Council on the Arts has received a grant through the National Endowment for the Arts to offer a forum on careers in the arts for people with disabilities. The GCD is part of the planning committee for Creative Work Opportunities for All: Careers in the Arts Forum which will be offered on November 1, 2005.
For information about any GCD events and programs contact their offices at 800-852-3405 (V/TTY).
Alpha One ADA Projects Underway in Maine
Alpha One has many projects underway including adaptive renovations of five Rural Development projects, an upcoming training workshop for Code Enforcement Officers across the state, and two large survey assessments involving title II and title III facilities. Architect/Accessibility Specialist Denis Pratt is working on a large bank facility in Saco that involves a multi-story home office and bank facility. The contract work involves physical survey, documentation of existing conditions, recommendations with budget estimates, and graphic sketches of recommended solutions.
Both Denis Pratt and Bill Bisson are performing a town-wide Title II survey and assessment of all municipally controlled properties in the Town of Oxford. The assessment includes Title II compliance issues and also Life Safety issues such as emergency egress and fire protection. A total of 10 facilities have been surveyed and are now in the report/documentation stage of the project.
Hanson to Build Accessible Community Playground
Over a year ago, The Hanson Playground Committee began meeting to plan the replacement of a sixteen year old playground located at the Maquan Elementary School in Hanson, MA. Shortly after they began, the committee began working closely with the North River Collaborative, an educational organization that provides educational and other programming to disabled students in the region. The collaborative, housed at the Maquan School, has twenty students who use mobility aids. The group immediately began researching the possibilities and strategizing about how to make the playground as accessible as possible. The volunteer committee has applied for sixty grants and has raised $90,000. Most of the funding has been donated privately from community members and local businesses.
The playground, which is scheduled for construction in late August, will include ramps that lead to the main part of the structure and elevated areas, play panels under which wheelchair users can roll, and a hammock swing. The committee is hoping to raise additional money to fund a rubberized surface, which would allow children with mobility disabilities greater access to the site.
The playground will be the only one of its kind in the area and can be utilized by the more than 200 disabled children in Plymouth County. The Hanson Playground Committee is committed to creating an inclusive space that allows all children to play together. They have gone above and beyond what the regulations require. Fifteen years after its passage, the spirit of ADA is alive and well in Massachusetts.
Above: Maquan Elementary School students get together to support the building of an accessible community playground in Hanson. This will be the first one of its kind in Plymouth County.
Hartford Hotel Project Required to Meet State and Federal Access Codes
A Connecticut state agency has ordered the developer of a new hotel in Hartford to redo bathrooms in 17 rooms that are supposed to be handicapped accessible. The bathrooms in those 17 rooms at the new Marriott hotel at Adriaen's Landing don't meet the state code to make sure that people in wheelchairs are able to use the toilets. A consultant for the hotel of argued that the hotel's bathrooms meet federal ADA requirements. However, the chairman of the codes and standards committee of the Department of Public Safety says the bottom line is that the bathrooms have to meet state standards as well as federal standards and currently they don't. The project manager for Waterford Development says it's now back to the design board. The hotel is supposed to open this summer.
(Source: "State Orders Hotel Corrected for Disabled," Associated Press, May 25, 2005.)
