Why was city picked for audit?
Why was city picked for disability access audit?

By Bryan Dean

Published: April 7, 2008

U.S. Justice Department investigators will meet with Oklahoma City officials today to launch a one- to two-week audit of the city's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

City officials said they've been preparing for the visit for more than a year, but they still don't know why Oklahoma City was chosen for the U.S. agency's Project Civic Access.

"I don't know if they drew us out of a hat or somebody complained or if they looked at the aging population,” said Paula Falkenstein, director of the city's general services department and coordinator for the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Erik Ablin, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said Oklahoma City was chosen in part because only one other city in the state has gotten a visit — Muskogee signed a settlement agreement in 2003.

Ablin wouldn't say whether the Justice Department has received any complaints about the city's disability access.

Falkenstein said she asked in March of 2006 to hire a consultant to study disability access at every city-owned property and make recommendations for fixing problems.

Seven months later, she got a call from the Justice Department informing her that Project Civic Access would visit Oklahoma City.

The consultant did a review last summer and finished a report in December that is more than 1,000 pages long.

Falkenstein said city officials are working on a plan to implement the consultant's recommendations.

Ablin said he didn't know whether Project Civic Access investigators had looked at the consultant's report.

Falkenstein said she sent several draft copies of the report to the Justice Department to give them an idea of what the city was doing.

"They called back and said, ‘Don't send any more paperwork,'” Falkenstein said.

Falkenstein said she expects the city's settlement will be a part of the final plan the city adopts from the consultant's report.

"I think our plan is going to be more in-depth than their visit because they are only going to be here a couple of weeks,” Falkenstein said. "We will certainly marry the two.”

Ablin said the Justice Department typically sends 10 to 12 investigators to cities in Oklahoma City's population range, and investigators visit city buildings in pairs.

"The timeframe also depends on how many problems we encounter, but we try to look at most of the city buildings,” Ablin said. "We review more than a random sample but not necessarily all buildings.”

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