From The Evening Sun in Hanover, Pa. Pictured is an historic building that houses a restaurant in Gettysburg.After a two-year hiatus, Gettysburg business owners are once again making a concerted effort to discuss the Americans with Disabilities Act in the context of numerous complaints that have been filed in the historic town in the past several years.
The complaints filed by Hampstead, Md., woman Marilynn Phillips will be the subject of a meeting on Nov. 19 at the Adams County Library in Gettysburg.
The meeting is being organized by Eligius Wachter, a Gettysburg newcomer who calls himself a "concerned citizen" and "community organizer."
"I'm just trying to find the facts and make some summary of them for the local people," Wachter said.
Wachter said he decided to take action after hearing the accounts of numerous business owners about their struggles to comply with the ADA, especially after being named in civil-rights complaints or federal lawsuits filed by Phillips.
"I was just talking to people," he said. "Every time I talk to somebody I feel like I get a completely different chapter of the book."
For example, Wachter said he noticed that sidewalk space on Chambersburg Street had been reduced to a width of only four feet after a business there installed a concrete ramp to meet ADA accessibility regulations - "making it impossible for groups of people to pass by comfortably."
Wachter said he is also concerned about the potential implications of ADA compliance on historic buildings and other landmarks.
"I feel that the historic integrity and that the business interests of landlords and owners have not been properly defended or understood as it may be defended," he said. "That shows that there's not a unified understanding of what the heck is going on."Wachter said he is in Gettysburg "expanding on some business endeavors" and has been in town since early October. Though he is not a lawyer, Wachter said he did attend law school. He said he has received guidance and encouragement from Gettysburg Signs owner Gene Golden.
"He welcomed me to make an effort to organize," Wachter said. "Previous major efforts at organization had not been successful. The community had tried."
Those efforts date back to the summer of 2007, when community members first began searching for solutions to their accessibility problems. At the time, Phillips - who uses a wheelchair because of post-polio syndrome and severe osteoporosis - had just filed numerous complaints with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission alleging some Gettysburg businesses had discriminated against her by not making their buildings wheelchair-accessible. She has filed dozens more PHRC complaints - and federal lawsuits, more recently - since.
The Americans with Disabilities Act establishes standards for places of employment, state and local government and places of "public accommodation" - of which restaurants, hotels, theaters, doctors' offices, pharmacies, retail stores, museums, libraries, parks, private schools and day care centers are typical examples.
It was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990. Provisions for public accommodations went into effect on Jan. 26, 1992.
But, because compliance can mean the destruction of historical landmarks, the ADA is an especially difficult law for an historic town, like Gettysburg, to comply with, Golden said.
"I understand that in a perfect world Gettysburg would have been built to 1991 ADA standards," he said. "But to force someone to remove a granite step - or take away a wrought-iron rail and modify the front door, widen it, or whatever it takes - to the point that you destroy the architectural integrity of the building, then I don't understand how that can be acceptable."
The ADA is the most recent federal law regulating accessibility, but it is not the only law on the books. In fact, there are many laws, both state and federal, that do the job of establishing accessibility standards.
In Pennsylvania, a myriad of government agencies are charged with some responsibility for enforcing those standards, and the jurisdictions of those bodies determine which laws or parts of the laws they enforce. As a result, property owners often hear that they are in compliance with the law from one agency, while another would disagree.
Golden said he believes Gettysburg needs to establish a committee or individual as the resource for answers related to the ADA, and he hopes that discussion will take place Thursday.
"What I really hope will happen is that everybody will be able to talk to each other and quit hiding their heads in the sand," he said.
The ADA does not, however, exempt historic buildings or properties from complying with federal law.
Phillips said it is time for Gettysburg to accept that fact and to begin looking for solutions rather than ways to dodge compliance.
Phillips also said she supports "any meeting that talks about making things accessible," but she also said she is skeptical about the intent of Thursday's meeting.
She said she believes discussion will focus on ways to avoid litigation rather than finding ways of achieving compliance.
"I think it's also very, very important for people to understand that accessibility is a civil right," she said. "There are very creative, aesthetically lovely ways of doing this if they would just think ahead."
