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The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), a federal law passed in 1990, provides civil rights protection to individuals with disabilities in the areas of employment, government services, public accommodations in commercial facilities, and telecommunications. After analyzing this comprehensive federal legislation and corresponding interpretive guides, the County's ADA Coordinator has determined that the County must conduct the following five activities to comply with the Act: 1) Name an ADA Coordinator to oversee all compliance activities. 2) Provide public notices and information to all interested persons on how the County is complying with this law. The thrust of this requirement is that all county communications with applicants, participants, and members of the public with disabilities must be as effective as communications with others. 3) Conduct a self-evaluation plan to evaluate the County's current services, policies, and programs to identify and correct those which do not comply with this law. 4) Prepare a transition plan to identify all structural changes needed to existing county -owned facilities to achieve accessibility for the disabled. 5) Prepare a grievance procedure for handling complaints associated with this law. Items #1, #4, and #5 have been completed while the remaining items are currently being pursued. As previously indicated in the fourth activity, the County is required by 28 CFR, Part 35, Section 35.150 to prepare a transition plan to identify all structural changes needed to existing county -owned facilities to achieve accessibility for the disabled. The transition plan must also include a schedule for providing and retrofitting curb cuts. Since curb cuts are included in the Florida Department of Transportation engineering standards and the County uses those curb cut standards, previous and current county projects have included proper curb cuts. However, curb related accessibility to county -owned facilities will continue to be monitored and addressed on a case by case basis. All of the structural changes identified in this plan must be completed no later than January 26, 1995. However, if the County believes that a proposed structural change would fundamentally alter the service, program, or activity or would result in an undue financial or administrative burden, the County would have the burden of proving that the structural change would result in such a burden. Nevertheless, the County must ensure that disabled individuals receive all county benefits and services afforded to all others. It should be noted that all new construction and alterations to county -owned facilities begun after January 26, 1992 must conform to ADA requirements.