no carla johnson from the office of disability. -- we have carla johnson from the office of disability. i want to especially it acknowledge my colleague to help us get the resources and brought legal expertise to the table. i do not want to take too much of your time. thank you for coming. >> thank you, supervisor chu. i want to express my admiration for a supervisor chu's commitment to you. so, from our office, what we heard, many small businesses were receiving lawsuits regarding it the ada. tonight we will hear about the legal requirements, what has been in place. any small businesses that nderst informed as far as their obligations for the ada, there are the mechanisms to provide that information to you. so, we are tasked with providing the information. there have been about 300 small businesses that have received the lawsuits. knee individuals who use this mechanism and come up -- the individual to use this mechanism. while it is important to have ada access, but we want you to understand there are individuals out there taking a look at your vulnerability. we have a packet of info

also, as carla johnson mentioned, we need to improve the coordination to help businesses resolve the complicated remedies they encounter with tomography and size of space. with the concept of what the program is and what it is intended to do, which will be a request that would go to the state and to the california commission on disability. how i see it is there needs to be someone who has the final authority, the final overview. i see it residing in dbi with a head casp inspector. if there are conflicting regulations with modification which i have seen a couple of times where businesses or -- are doing the equivalent accommodation solution, they have that in their plans but it does not quite match up with what the historical preservation requirements are. those two things are -- can sometimes be in conflict and there needs to be banned from my perspective for individuals with disabilities and businesses, it is the inspector and the head inspector in its to be the final arbitrator and decisionmaker as to what will be the ultimate outcome for that. we do have businesses where there ent

we take what carla johnson said. the city makes accessibility a top priority because it is a civil right. before that, i heard eric mar mentioned that the selling of mom-and-pop locations, if that is not the intent of the civil- rights act. we cannot have it both ways. it is a civil rights act, the law treats it as a civil rights law. we cannot change the law. we're not changing anything at the state level. 1186 will be the continuance of 1608. so what are we going to do? my recommendations are simple. there are two things we can do. to invest in outreach to neighborhood businesses, add three additional out which -- outreach w workers -- workers, have a business background and provide information so they can get the assistance they need. and we can also staff one or two members who can assist in the process of promoting casp. casp is a secret program. nobody knows about the inspectors. this is something we are becoming aware of. we implemented it in 2008 and county has not taken its role to push for the success. beca

we have the director of the mayor's office of disabilities, carla johnson. the director of public finances. i would like to give her an extra thank you for all her work. the acting sheriff. the deputy chief -- thank you for being here today. thank you so much. we could not build the hospital without the builders. i would like to introduce the senior vice president of our builders. >> you know, it is quite something to stand here and get a chance to reflect and look up at what this is really going to be. i would say three or four years ago when we were thinking about that, we did not have any specific ideas except we knew what we really wanted to accomplish. we knew we had to accomplish something great. if you think about those existing buildings that are here, they were built over 100 years ago. what really cured people back then was some light and fresh air. we had very few things to worry about on the design side. 100 years later, we have so many more things that can cure and help and benefit the community, and our hats go off to all those who have been a

the next is carla johnson, the acting director. >> thank you for addressing -- giving me the opportunity to address the committee. we're here to see that all of our city programs and services are as accessible as required. toward that effort, we work with other city departments, it could be rec and park, public health, mta, public works, on their ada construction plans and we make sure that other construction projects are successful. if that in context to say that the city has to do many of the same things that small businesses do under the ada. we happen to be covered by a different section. that means that we look at the barriers to our existing city buildings and we put together a plan and said priorities. oftentimes the plan has to be stretched out in time. in some cases by over 10 years. it is not always easy for the city to find the funding. we're looking at access where we're competing with a lot of other important programs. the city makes accessibility a priority. it is about civil rights and is about opportunities for the community to interact with each other and participate in