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Bluff begins ADA accessibility overhaul; council weighs creating compliance officer role
Summary
The town discussed creating an ADA compliance officer position and a large document‑conversion effort to meet an April 2027 accessibility deadline. Staff flagged 5,500 documents on the town site and recommended a mix of third‑party conversion for legacy files and in‑house heading/HTML practices going forward.
Anne Laffonen opened the item by noting Bluff has until April 2027 to make public materials accessible and proposed a designated position to manage the work. "Given that we have a deadline of April 2027, we have a little bit more time in order to make everything compliant," she said, and added that if a compliance role is not created immediately there must at least be a designated person with duties and time allocation.
Malia explained how using heading styles in Word and building native HTML pages for ordinances and large documents can dramatically improve screen‑reader navigation. She said many documents (over 5,500) date back to 2018 and that tables and images require descriptive alt text — a time‑consuming task that may be appropriate for a vendor. "Anything that is a table or an image needs to be described," she warned.
Council discussed options: hire a third party to convert legacy content quickly or hire a staff member for ongoing work. Anne volunteered to gather vendor quotes and for staff to draft a job description that would estimate hours and duties, including the possibility of combining compliance responsibilities with the recorder role. Council asked staff to return with cost estimates and a recommended job description.
No formal action was taken. Staff will prepare a job description and vendor-cost estimates, and report back so the council can consider whether to create a part‑time compliance officer or contract conversion services.
