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January 9, 2002 The new Lakewood Washington City Hall at 6000 Main Street is a nice modern building providing space for city government needs. I was at the dedication of the building back on November 30, 2001, and after a brief tour of the building discussed some handicapped access problems with the City Attorney (who has since moved on to a new position in Auburn, Washington).

In December I discussed the same problems with the head of Lakewood's Public Works department (they are responsible for the building), and found that the City Attorney had e-mailed him about some of the problems I brought up at the dedication.

While it is good that those responsible for the building and it's problems are aware of them, what is not good is that those problems have not yet been addressed.

The problems I mentioned are in three types:

• "It would be nice if . . ." types,
• "The law requires . . ." types, and
• "This is a life safety problem."

The first type mentioned are things that would be nice, but are not really necessary. They come at the bottom of the list of importance.

The second type are things required by federal law, and by state law. Many of them relate to the ADA requirements that allow the handicapped to have full and complete access to government services. In this group are things like the requirement for handicapped accessible seating in the City Council chambers, adequate parking spaces for handicapped persons, doors on restrooms and other areas that can be opened by the handicapped, safe and accessible entries and exits for the building, etc. In these areas the building fails even the most casual inspection by someone in a wheelchair.

Because these things are required by federal regulations for new construction that have been in effect since the early 1990's, there is no excuse for any architect or contractor competent to build a government building to miss them. The responsibility for these errors belongs to the architect, the contractors, and the owner, the City of Lakewood.

These things need to be corrected without undue delay according to law.

An additional requirement that the building fails to meet is found in Washington state's RCW 9.41.300 which details specific requirements associated with the handling of firearms brought into certain areas of the building. There is no "grace period" allowed for this requirement, and it needs to be met immediately.

Finally, the third type of problems deal with items that directly affect the safety of persons using the building. Things like marked exits that allow all users, including the handicapped, to exit the building in an emergency.

For example, there is a raised area along the exterior of most of the south side of the building. The only access to ground level from this area is via concrete steps without handrails. Just having this as a public area at a new government building would be bad enough, but four of the building's marked emergency exits open onto this area, including one emergency exit plainly marked with handicapped markings.

A person in a wheelchair using one of these marked emergency exits, including the one plainly marked for handicapped use with the usual wheelchair symbol, would end up trapped on this raised area adjacent to the building.

Even in a non-emergency situation, if a person who cannot use the concrete steps for any reason were to exit from the main lobby doors they would be faced with no choice but to re-enter the building to attempt to find an exit they could use (at the far ends of the building, only).

Since I reported these major defects to the City of Lakewood, no changes have been made, and the serious life safety problems still exist.

If a proper fire and safety inspection were made of this building, it would fail.

There is no time allowance made for fixing hazards such as this. Something needs to be done immediately to prevent possible injuries, and something needs to be done soon after to assure the required public access for all citizens, including the handicapped.

There are other things about the new Lakewood City Hall that need to be corrected, things like the power operated handicapped access door that exits to the raised area (with another emergency exit right next to it) locking once it closes, further isolating and trapping the handicapped user.