KILLEEN, Texas (KXXV) — Killeen City Council is set to vote on an ADA transition plan that would improve accessibility across the community, following a settlement agreement reached with the Department of Justice in 2021.
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The plan would upgrade sidewalks, bathroom facilities, parks and city buildings to meet current ADA code. It is estimated to cost more than $6 million and be implemented over 20 years.
For families like Jessica and Amaya Dominguez, accessibility is a daily concern. Amaya uses a wheelchair due to cerebral palsy, and her mother said even small obstacles can create significant challenges, like lack of shade on the playground and no slanted sidewalks.
"Struggle with the wheelchair and moving around with the door, some of those doors, especially glass doors, they get heavy, so it's little things like that… if the sidewalks are uneven, or cracks being in the way it affects us wheelchair-bound families, but also think about people with visual impairments," Jessica Dominguez said.
Michele Lammers, founder and president of the Texas All Abilities Network, said she is glad to see the plan move forward for the many families she supports.
"I want them to start putting funding and money into ADA, into the parks, into programs that's going to benefit all families, not just our youth, but it's our veterans, it's our senior citizens, it's all families that have disabilities. You're just one accident away, one diagnosis away from needing assistance," Lammers said.
Lammers said the push for change has been a long time coming.
"We're celebrating. We want the change to happen. We've been asking for years. This is not nothing new. This is just we want our community to be accepting of us, accepting of everybody," Lammers said.
City council will vote to adopt the accessibility transition plan at their next meeting on July 21.
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