Wichita City Hall invests in Iran?
You could be easily forgiven for thinking that if you are deaf and follow Wichita City Council meetings using the closed captions.
During a discussion last week of a $4 million contract for startup and initial operation of the new water treatment plant, council member Maggie Ballard said this of a plan to retain current employees:
“I appreciate that we are willing to make an investment in our own staff to keep as many of them that wanted to stay.”
On closed caption, it said this:
“ I appreciate that we are >> willing to make the investment in Iran and staff to keep. many of them that want to stay.”
By no means is this an isolated incident. You could drop randomly into the recording of the meeting just about anywhere and within a couple of minutes see at least one incomprehensible caption bust.
Like this example, where council member J.V. Johnston asked Public Works Director Gary Janzen whether paying a contractor $4 million was really necessary, or if it could be handled in-house:
“Gary, I still got some heartburn. If our staff can figure it out, what value do they bring? Four million dollars worth of value to our treatment plant? Maybe we can hear from them what value they would bring.”
The closed captioning read more like something Yoda might say:
“Area still got some heartburn. If our staff can figure it out. value they bring. or may get the value. treatment plant. Maybe can hear from that one they would bring.”
That kind of performance by our city government in serving hearing-impaired residents is unacceptable — all the more so because they’ve been warned.
In 2021, Chris Haulmark of Olathe, who is deaf and advocates for deaf individuals across the state, filed a federal lawsuit against the city and former Mayor Brandon Whipple challenging their compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act.
“Over a thousand of videos published on Wichita’s FB (Facebook) page lack captioning or transcripts to ensure individuals with a hearing disability are not excluded from their programs, services, and activities,” the lawsuit alleged.
In a n affidavit in the case, city communications manager Tyler Schiffelbein said the city used Facebook’s auto-caption feature starting in 2020 and shifted to using its own captioning equipment a year later.
“Before receiving notice of the Complaint filed by Plaintiff, the city had already begun the process of providing additional captioning services for all pre-recorded and live videos posted by Defendant City on its Facebook and YouTube page,” he testified.
Haulmark’s suit was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren.
“Prior to Plaintiff filing his Complaint, the City had provided captioning for both pre-recorded and live videos through a third-party service provider,” Melgren wrote in his decision, “Furthermore, both YouTube and Facebook provide automatic captioning for some videos. After Plaintiff filed his Complaint, the City has purchased in-house captioning equipment, bringing these systems up to full functionality by November 2021.”
Haulmark appealed, and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the case three weeks ago.
“Mr. Haulmark submitted examples of City videos with transcripts of captioning that appear to provide only ambiguously worded, bare-bones captions that he says he cannot adequately understand,” the three-judge panel’s unanimous ruling said. “These captions did not indicate who was speaking or whether a question was being asked. According to Mr. Haulmark, the automatic, machine-generated captions “ma[de] it difficult or impossible for [him] to understand the information being provided on issues of public concern.”
“Although the City asserted that its captioning reasonably accommodated Mr. Haulmark, the record reveals genuine disputes of material fact,” the decision said.
The city might still win the legal battle. Haulmark doesn’t even have a lawyer, so he’s at a huge disadvantage in court.
But would beating him be winning? I don’t think so.
It would solve City Hall’s problem, but nobody else’s.
The real question is, why waste money on defending an inadequate system in court, when that money could be better spent fixing the system?
When I put that question to the city, spokesperson Megan Lovely said they hadn’t heard any complaints other than Haulmark’s, but they are taking a look at it.
In the meantime, City Hall should hire sign-language interpreters to translate meetings until it can get the closed captions right. The city already does that for the mayor’s weekly press conference, which is held off-site.
That would be the decent thing to do for our hearing-impaired citizens.
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