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Minutes of a Meeting of the North Olmsted Parks and Recreation Commission November 6, 2006 Page Seven didn’t look like it would. Ms. Wenger said it would depend upon the placement of the equipment. Mr. Meyer said it is possible to replace what is the climbing ramp (on the far right). Again, it has climbing elements so it goes up. Now, it would be possible to elongate this and make it into a ramp that could be more like you want, but it still will be fairly steep because the children would be going up, in this case, 54 inches. Mr. Meyer said that if you took the stroller to the upper level, and this is a concern, that the stroller could always roll back. There should be no problem with leaving the baby in the stroller on the ground level and picking the child up and putting him up on the upper level. Ms. Adams said that she has been in a lot of ADA playgrounds, and she has never seen steps in what is considered very big playgrounds. That’s why she was surprised about the steps. Mr. Meyer said that he’s yet to see an ADA playground that doesn’t have either 112 ramps or steps. Again, this is the letter of the law as opposed to the intent of the law. As long as the steps are of a particular depth with the transfer position, you have steps where kids can pull themselves up to access an upper portion. He continued saying that he has done many playgrounds with a lot of ramps in them, but that is a lot of cost invested in ramps to access that upper area. What Mr. Meyer was referring to is that the letter of the law indicates that the platform area is subject to the grab bar to it where the person can lift themselves off the wheelchair onto the transfer platform and move around with their arms. That is ADA acceptable. Our Company tries to blend ambulatory kids with non-ambulatory kids to create a whole platform that is accessible to everyone. There is still a higher element where kids want to slide down. It would be perfectly reasonable for a three year old with a broken leg to be taken by an adult and placed at the top of the slide and let him slide down and grab him so that they don’t have to physically go to the top alone. What the Company is doing is to try to make the best of both worlds within the City’s budget. For a four-year-old in a wheelchair, it’s hard for him to wheel himself up without assistance from his parents, so it becomes a give and take. Ms. Adams asked again about the incline, since she really was looking for that, but if it’s not going to happen, it’s not going to happen. Mr. Meyer said that to do appropriate ramping to make it so that someone in a chair could access the highest point of the equipment would virtually double the cost of the playground. One thing that could be done is to do the transfer with another staircase. Ms. Adams said that in her experience she has not been to a playground where many five year olds in wheelchairs could be alone anyway, so again, a parent could push without having the low degree than having more height to that ramp; you could have an adult or an able-bodied friend push the child up. The child would not be able to do it himself; that’s the idea. Mr. Meyer said that that would be a Catch-22 because the City might run into a parent who would say you have to extend the ramp to meet ADA requirements. Ms. Adams said, “But you’re telling me you don’t have to.” Mr. Meyer replied that you can call it what you want, as long as you’re complying with the letter of the law. Imagine what length of ramp you would have to have to get up to (54 inches). It would be a long length to meet ADA. From 54 inches to the floor is pretty steep – the length would be from about here to the corner Page 7