Notice Under The Americans with Disabilities Act

In accordance with the requirements of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ("ADA"), the City of Galesburg will not discriminate against qualified individuals with disabilities on the basis of disability in its services, programs, or activities.

Employment: The City of Galesburg does not discriminate on the basis of disability in its hiring or employment practices and complies with all regulations promulgated by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under Title I of the ADA.

Effective Communication: The City of Galesburg will generally, upon request, provide appropriate aids and services leading to effective communication for qualified persons with disabilities so they can participate equally in City of Galesburg’s programs, services, and activities, including qualified sign language interpreters, documents in Braille, and other ways of making information and communications accessible to people who have speech, hearing, or vision impairments.

Modifications to Policies and Procedures: The City of Galesburg will make all reasonable modifications to policies and programs to ensure that people with disabilities have an equal opportunity to enjoy all of its programs, services, and activities. For example, individuals with service animals are welcomed in the City of Galesburg offices, even where pets are generally prohibited.

Anyone who requires an auxiliary aid or service for effective communication, or a modification of policies or procedures to participate in a program, service, or activity of the City of Galesburg, should contact the office of the City Clerk as soon as possible but no later than 10 working days before the scheduled event. 

The ADA does not require the City of Galesburg to take any action that would fundamentally alter the nature of its programs or services, or impose an undue financial or administrative burden. The City will not place a surcharge on individuals with disabilities that do request an auxiliary aid/service or reasonable accommodation.

Complaints that a program, service, or activity of the City of Galesburg is not accessible to persons with disabilities should be directed to the Human Service Coordinator at 309-345-3629.

Our goal is to ensure that everyone has equal access to information and can fully participate in government.  City websites are assessed for ADA compliance by simulating methods employed by people with various disabilities and by using validators to indicate potential accessibility issues.  The City of Galesburg has created ADA Web Accessibility Standards based on our assessment process and compliance with WCAG 2.0 Level A.  We are committed to upholding our legal obligations to Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) web accessibility directives.

To meet this goal, we have implemented the following initiatives:

• Adopt and follow Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 AA (“WCAG”), published by the World Wide Web Consortium (“W3C”);
• Modifying our websites to permit content providers to post content in a format that conforms to WCAG for web content;
• Ensuring that our websites do not interfere with the posting of content in formats that conform to W3C’s guidance on accessibility;
• Linking to the ADA Notice from the City of Galesburg’s homepage, soliciting and providing a method to submit feedback.
• Developing and distributing accessibility practices for our content providers;
• Modifying policies to prioritize accessibility bug fixes to ensure they are remedied with the same level of priority as any other equivalent loss of function for individuals without disabilities;
• Retaining website accessibility consultants responsible for conducting annual website accessibility evaluations of our websites; and
• Providing annual training to our website content and technical support personnel on ensuring our websites conform to WCAG.

Captions

All live streams of city council meetings have the option for live closed captions. A translator listens to the meetings in real time and types out a translation to help anyone who may have hearing complications also enjoy the meeting. All recordings of previous meetings also have the option for closed captions as well. Keep in mind that closed captions for the recordings may not be available depending on how recent the meeting is.

Grievance Procedure under the Americans with Disabilities Act

This Grievance Procedure is established to meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It may be used by anyone who wishes to file a complaint alleging discrimination because of disability in employment practices and policies or the provision of services, activities, programs, or benefits by the City of Galesburg.

The complaint should be in writing and contain information about the alleged discrimination, such as name, address, telephone number of the complainant, and location, date, and description of the problem. Alternative means of filing complaints, such as personal interviews or a tape recording of the complaint, will be made available for persons with disabilities upon request.

The complaint should be submitted by the grievant and/or their designee as soon as possible but no later than 60 calendar days after the alleged violation to:

City of Galesburg
Attention: ADA Coordinator
PO Box 1387
Galesburg, IL 61401-1387

Within 15 calendar days after receipt of the complaint, the ADA coordinator will meet with the complainant to discuss the complaint and possible resolutions. Within 15 calendar days after the meeting, the coordinator will respond in writing, and where appropriate, in a format accessible to the complainant such as Braille, or audiotape. The response will explain the position of the City of Galesburg and offer options for substantive resolution of the complaint.

If the response by the ADA coordinator, does not satisfactorily resolve the issue, the complainant and /or his/her designee may appeal the decision of the ADA coordinator with 15 calendar days after receipt of the response to the City Manager or his designee.

Within 15 calendar days after receipt of the appeal, the City Manager or his designee will meet with the complainant to discuss the complaint and possible resolutions. Within 15 calendar days after the meeting the City Manager or his designee will respond in writing, and, where appropriate, in a format accessible to the complainant, with a final resolution of the complaint.

All written complaints received by the ADA coordinator, appeals to the City Manager or his designee, and responses from the ADA coordinator and the City Manager or his designee will be kept by the City of Galesburg for at least three years.