FW: Grass Roots WAI

> From: 	Waddell, Cynthia
> Sent: 	Tuesday, February 24, 1998 9:15 AM
> To: 	'Christopher Marston'
> Subject: 	RE: Grass Roots WAI
> 
> I welcome Mr. Marston's efforts to integrate WAI efforts into City
> government and business practices and would like you to know about our
> similar efforts here in Silicon Valley at both the City and County
> level.  
> 
> As some of you are aware from my presentation at W6, my office
> identified certain minimal web accessibility standards for adoption by
> the City of San Jose in order to provide guidance to our many
> departmental webmasters as well as to manage Americans with
> Disabilities Act discrimination complaints.  After our City adopted
> these standards which are posted at our web site
> (www.ci.san-jose.ca.us), the County Advisory Commission for Persons
> with Disabilities recommended to the Board of Supervisors that the
> County adopt the City of San Jose web accessibility standards.  In
> March 1997, prior to W6 and the WAI launch in Santa Clara, the County
> of Santa Clara Board adopted the City of San Jose web accessibility
> standards.  
> 
> As Chair of the County Advisory Commission for Persons with
> Disabilities, I was proud that the WAI launch occurred in the only
> local governmental jurisdiction that had adopted a web accessibility
> standard.  Our role is to advise the Board of Supervisors on all
> matters relating to disability and we believe that this is an
> important issue especially since the County is beginning to develop a
> web site presence in our community.
> 
> My office at the City of San Jose is fortunate in that our web
> accessibility efforts have received both state and national attention
> as a "best practices" model.   Last month I was in Sacramento to
> receive our state award from Governor Wilson and the Grand Prize from
> the League of California Cities.  Other cities are now following our
> example as we work to retrofit our web site for accessibility.  
> 
> There is not enough space or time to detail our efforts but I will be
> presenting an update on the City of San Jose story of web
> accessibility implementation at W7 in April.  Meanwhile, I would be
> glad to continue this discussion off this list with those interested
> in furthering the WAI effort.
> 
> Cynthia D. Waddell
> ADA Coordinator
> City of San Jose 
> 801 N. First Street, Room 460
> San Jose, CA 95110-1704  USA
> (408) 277-4034
> (408) 971-0134 TTY
> (408) 277-3885
> 
> ----------
> From: 	Christopher Marston
> Sent: 	Monday, February 23, 1998 5:41 PM
> To: 	Waddell, Cynthia; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: 	Grass Roots WAI
> 
> 
> I've just starting working as a member of the Commission on Persons
> with
> Disabilities in Alexandria, VA. I'm brainstorming about ways that the
> Commission (and the City) can use WAI to increase accessibility for
> its
> citizens. I thought a discussion of the topic of grass roots efforts
> promoting WAI might benefit the whole list.
> 
> To get us started, here's a short list of what I have so far:
> 1. Official city page advertising its use of WAI guidelines
> 2. Work with chamber of commerce to promote use of WAI guidelines by
> businesses with internet (e.g. Create COC Award, make use of WAI
> guidelines
> an accreditation standard, etc.)
> 3. Work with ISPs, Web Designers located in city to promote WAI
> guidleines.
> 
> Any ideas that would flesh out what I've suggested or, even better,
> that are
> entirely new would be great.
> 
> Thanks,
> Chris
> 
> 
>

Received on Tuesday, 24 February 1998 12:55:23 UTC