The construction of a handicapped ramp in front of Elon’s townhall continues to elude the town’s elected leaders, despite a staff-level proposal that was supposed to have eased the way for this long-deferred accommodation.
The members of Elon’s town council ultimately shelved the staff’s latest idea for this ramp when it came for consideration on Tuesday. The council agreed to revisit the matter later this year as part of a broader discussion about the town’s municipal facilities. In the meantime, its members resolved to make do with an existing ramp at the police station that backs up to Elon’s municipal building along Williamson Avenue.
The council reached this decision in spite of some concern about the time that the town has already spent agonizing over the need for some proper handicapped accommodations at the municipal building’s main entrance.
David Murphy, the town’s public works director, alluded to this years-long ordeal when he approached the council on Tuesday with what he saw as a workable plan for the proposed ramp’s construction.
“I’ve worked on this for a really long time,” Murphy conceded during his presentation to the council, “and I’ve struggled to find a contractor even willing to work on it.”
Murphy reminded the council that most of the previous designs for this ramp had been utter nonstarters with the town’s leaders because they demanded substantial renovations to the municipal building and were too hard to shoehorn into the building’s limited street frontage. He added, however, that the town’s engineer recently managed to overcome these challenges by proposing a ramp that would gently slope parallel to the building until it’s able to spill out into the adjacent parking lot.
“At that point, it’s not even a ramp,” Murphy went on declare in reference to the walkway’s minimal incline. “It’s considered a sidewalk.”
The town’s public works director added that this particular design could be built at a cost of $25,000 to $30,000 – which fits into the town’s current budget for handicapped accommodations.
Murphy’s proposal nevertheless drew some pushback from Elon’s mayor Emily Sharpe, who reminded the council about its ongoing discussion about the construction of a new municipal building.
“We obviously want town hall to be accessible,” she added. “But, knowing that we’ve outgrown this building…do we really want to spend all this money for something that we’d only use for a couple of years?”
Sharpe went on to observe that the building’s disabled visitors can theoretically use the ramp at the police station to access town hall as long as someone remembers to unlock the doors that separate the two wings of the edifice.
In response, Elon’s town manager Richard Roedner conceded that the ramp in front of the police station does, indeed, meet the minimum requirements of Americans with Disabilities Act.
“We are compliant with the letter of the federal ADA law,” he added. “The question is are we compliant with the intent.”
Sharpe ultimately encouraged the council put off this matter until its fall retreat, when it can discuss the handicapped ramp in the broader context of its overall plans for the town’s municipal facilities.
“I don’t want to kick the can too long,” she stressed. “But maybe we need a wholistic discussion about facilities before we spend this money.”
