By Noah Zucker

MILFORD — City Council met briefly Monday, touching on a new plan to make the city more handicapped-accessible and discussing the future of one council member’s physical-training business.

“The city staff, through council, has been working on an (Americans with Disabilities Act) transition plan,” said City Manager Mark Whitfield. “This is something required by the federal government in terms of compliance with the ADA requirements as set forth by the Justice Department.”

Mike Svaby, the city’s public works director, gave a summary of what the plan will entail.

“The transition plan has to have four elements,” he said. “It has to identify barriers that prevent accessibility. It has to describe how those barriers will be moved. It has to establish a schedule for barrier removal and identify interim steps for transition periods longer than a year. Finally, it has to identify an office or official responsible for the plan’s implementation.”

The city has hired a firm called Disability Access Consultants to help with the process. So far, it has surveyed 312 city-owned locales and over 30 miles of sidewalk. They’ve also created a number of questionnaires.

“The company provided us with three survey documents — one for public individuals to complete, one for public organizations to complete and one for city employees to complete,” Mr. Svaby said.

“Tonight’s report is an official announcement for this public solicitation for input,” he said. “We will close the surveys (for the general public) on April 30.”

Council also reviewed plans for JT James Performance, a physical-training center owned in part by Vice Mayor Jason James, to move from its current location on Del. 14 to the city’s Independence Commons office complex.

According to the meeting’s packet, the vice mayor and his wife, Pamela, are equitable owners of the business, but it’s run by their son, Joshua. Given the conflict of interest, Councilman James recused himself from the discussion.

“We’re here to request conditional-use approval,” said architect Tim Metzner with Davis, Bowen & Friedel, the firm designing the building. “Right now, the owner has a building in the city of Milford and has actually outgrown the space, so he’s looking to find a new piece of property within the city.”

He said the proposed 4,000-square-foot buildout would be in the same style as the nearby Boys & Girls Club.

“The clientele that attend this are (often) … referred by physicians and chiropractors,” Mr. Metzner said. “With the area, there are several doctor’s offices and medical offices, so it does fit within the character of the neighborhood.”

Ultimately, the council unanimously approved the plan. It will return to the Planning Commission for one final review.

The council also got brief updates from the Carlisle Fire Co. and the Milford Museum. Neither asked for more money than they were awarded by the city last year, which was $140,000 for the fire department and $30,000 for the museum.

Tor Hazzard, Carlisle’s president, said some of the funds will go to new equipment like firesuits, some stretchers and tires for one of the trucks.

Claudia Leister, the museum’s director, reported that she has been busy through the pandemic putting together the new “Then and Now” exhibit, renovating the basement and moving some of the museum’s items to a new storage shed behind the building.

She said attendance at the museum in 2020, given the pandemic, was only about a third of the roughly 3,000 who came in 2019. However, she added that many people have stopped by when the museum has been able to open.