Our Commitment to Accessibility
The City of Salisbury, NC is committed to creating, promoting and maintaining an accessible community. Accessibility enables everyone to attend, participate and benefit. An event is accessible if people can get to it and, once there, are able to participate actively in the program. (The word accessibility is most often associated with wheelchair use, but accessibility actually involves the needs of people who have visual, cognitive, or hearing disabilities, as well as those with activity, manual or mobility impairments.)
The first step is to recognize that access is a civil rights issue. It is also a social issue, and it promotes diversity and inclusion by ensuring that all programs, services and activities are open to all people, regardless of ability.
The City of Salisbury ensures that people with hearing, visual, mobility, and other disabilities have equal access to city-provided information and services on City of Salisbury web sites that use Internet technologies.
We are committed to making all of our Internet documents accessible to everyone. The city seeks to bring these sites into basic compliance with Section 508 code and therefore is committed to becoming and remaining compliant with the requirements of Section 508 of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. We continually review our site and modify pages to remove accessibility problems for people with disabilities.
The use of implementation guidelines will ensure that web content created by the City of Salisbury is developed to serve the largest possible audience. Compliance with these guidelines provides an added benefit to those users with text-based browsers, low-end processors, slow modem connections and/or no multimedia capabilities on their computer.
It is the direct responsibility of the content provider and their web page developers to become familiar with the guidelines for achieving universal accessibility and to apply these principles in designing and creating all web content. The city's content management system has procedures for content accessibility review and aids content contributor efforts in achieving compliance.
The city's communications department is responsible for site-wide accessibility. This responsibility includes dissemination of the W3C Guidelines and subsequent updates to appropriate persons. Appropriate persons include, but are not limited to, all staff who are responsible for web content development and any consultant or vendors who develop content for a city web site. Guidelines for insuring this commitment are maintained as part of the salisburync.gov operating manual.
What is the City Doing?
Some examples include: application of Universal Design concepts supported by the W3C Guidelines and ADA Accessibility Requirements, installing curb ramps, repairing sidewalks, snow and ice removal from sidewalks, enforcing accessibility during construction, advising on accessible events, and eliminating sidewalk obstructions.
What Can You Do?
- Identify needs and problems
- Be alert and concerned
- Report sidewalk obstructions/problems using Salisbury311
- Know your neighbors who have disabilities
- Assist where needed
- Work with your community council
- Spread the word about needs and assistance
- Request sidewalk curb ramps using Salisbury311
Help Us Make Our Websites More Accessible
If you use assistive technology (such as a Braille reader, a screen reader, or TTY) and the format of any material on this Web site interferes with your ability to access information, please contact the City of Salisbury’s Communications Department by emailing coscommunications@salisburync.gov or calling (704) 638-2116.
To help us serve you better, please include the following information when contacting us: the nature of your accessibility problem, the web address of the requested material, the format in which you prefer to receive the material, and your contact information.
What is the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)?
The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into effect by Congress on July 26, 1990. The ADA is intended to “provide a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination against persons with disabilities.”
The ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability and provides the first comprehensive civil rights to people with disabilities in the areas of employment; public accommodations; state and local government programs, services and activities; and communications. This includes not just architectural accessibility, but also program accessibility.
The goal of the ADA is to assure equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, equivalent service, and economic self-sufficiency. The ADA prohibits all state and local governments from discriminating on the basis of disability.
What is a Disability?
A person described as having a disability is a person with a physical, emotional or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities OR a person with a record of such impairment OR a person who is perceived as having such an impairment. “Major life activities” include: thinking, processing information, listening, seeing, hearing, breathing, walking, taking care of personal needs, working, interaction with others, concentrating, sitting, standing, and reading.
The City of Salisbury's Responsibility to the ADA
The ADA is divided into five sections, or titles. Title II applies to city government, and the programs and services provided: No qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by such entity. To achieve this, the City of Salisbury is required to assess its accessibility as a city government, have a plan for removing barriers to people with disabilities, have a policy regarding the ADA, designate an ADA Coordinator, and communicate effectively with people with disabilities and about the accessibility of services.
ADA.gov
The ADA is administered by the U.S. Department of Justice. For more information about the ADA, visit the official ADA website at: www.ada.gov.
The City of Salisbury recognizes it's obligation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other disability civil rights laws to provide equal access to all City programs and activities. The purpose of this Web site is to provide information, guidance, and techniques for the development of accessible Web site content provided by City agencies for the benefit of citizens, employees and visitors, including those with disabilities.
The benefits of compliance with Web Accessibility Guidelines benefit everyone, including those who would otherwise find it difficult or impossible to access content that was intended for all.
Documents
Our website also contains many Adobe Acrobat PDF (Portable Document Format) files. We use this method when documents are not available in digital form, are too large or difficult to produce in HTML, or are publications where the format is critical to the usability of the document. Adobe Systems, Inc. is developing products designed to make PDF documents more accessible. Adobe's accessibility web pages describe their efforts.
Adobe Acrobat Reader software is available for free from Adobe Systems, Inc. This software allows you to view, navigate and print Portable Document Format (PDF) files. To download, install and use Adobe Acrobat Reader:
You can download Adobe’s free PDF reader software, and also get information about accessibility tools and resources, by visiting
http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/reader.html.
- Read the Adobe site instructions on downloading Adobe Acrobat Reader.
- Be sure to select the version of Adobe Acrobat Reader that is compatible with your system.
- Follow the installation instructions completely. (After the download, you will need to install the file by running the executable (.exe file) from your operating system.)
- Upgrade your version of Adobe Acrobat Reader periodically to use the latest features. Contact Adobe Systems, Inc. if you are having trouble installing or using their products.
Web Browser Accessibility Tools
Many popular web browsers contain built-in accessibility tools. Please follow the links below for instructions on optimizing web browsers for persons with accessibility issues.