North Little Rock council accepts communication on WCAG 2.1 web-accessibility ahead of 2026 rule

Council members accepted a communication and heard public comment on upcoming federal web-accessibility requirements tied to WCAG 2.1.

The communication, introduced by Council Member Hamilton, explained that a Department of Justice rule with an April 2026 compliance timeline is forthcoming and said the city should begin planning now. "It's about a federal rule that's coming in 2026," Hamilton said as he asked the council to treat the matter as an "idea paper" to start a conversation.

In public comment, Wesley Hillman, president of the National Federation of the Blind of Central Arkansas, urged proactive city action. "Web accessibility is something that is very important not only to those of us in the blind community, but it is important for everyone," Hillman told the council. Melanie Thornton, a digital accessibility consultant with Partners for Inclusive Communities at the University of Arkansas, said the web has become "the new built environment" and urged a proactive, not reactive, approach.

Council members and staff discussed specific accessibility obstacles on the city website. Council Member Hamilton and others noted that many PDFs on the city's site are scanned images rather than machine-readable text, which prevents screen readers from parsing their contents. Hamilton said the issue is largely procedural and that the communications and IT teams have been addressing it: "There are some things like, getting some departments to make sure to label, PDFs that are scanned in rather than read in so that, you know, the minutia of the website is available to, people that that have those, difficulties."

Council members said they expect the city's IT and communications departments to continue work to ensure compliance ahead of the April 2026 timeline. The council voted to "accept and file" the communication by voice vote.

The communication was informational only; no ordinance was introduced or required at this meeting.

Proponents of the communication encouraged the council to treat the effort as leadership for other Arkansas cities. The presenters and several council members emphasized that many accessibility fixes — such as making scanned PDFs searchable or adding descriptive labels — are low-cost and procedural.

The council's acceptance of the communication does not itself create a mandate or a compliance deadline in city code; it records the council's intent to continue studying the incoming federal rule and to work with the IT and communications departments on remediation planning.