“We need to step back and do this the right way, evaluate the two single sites we have,” said Montgomery County Administrator Michael Colbert during a meeting with the board of elections.
The Montgomery County Board of Elections during a recent board meeting asked Director Jeff Rezabek to meet with the commission to discuss options for alternative office locations. The elections board is currently located on the lower levels of the Montgomery County Administration Building in Dayton.
The county will be removing escalators from its mezzanine and lower levels in 2027, replacing them with stairs as a cost-saving measure.
Rezabek said the elections board has concerns with these plans and what impact that could have on the flow of voters coming into the building during election seasons, as well as how it could impact voters with mobility issues.
“We utilize the escalators to move the voters down to the parking garage,” he said during the commission’s morning session on Tuesday. “Even with one or two of the elevators in operation, in a presidential year, the board and administration have determined that would not be the best.”
Rezabek said early voting is expanding in Montgomery County annually. The general election in the fall, which was a presidential race with high voter turnout, saw roughly 65,000 early voters. The early voting center is underground on the lowest level of the building.
He said the board would like to see a location change by March 2027, ahead of the spring election that year.
Rezabek said his administration has identified a few options, one of which is staying in the administration building, but shifting some of its offices to the building’s first floor. The main floor currently houses a few other county offices and an Ohio BMV office space.
The election board also considered the Southview building off Wilmington Avenue in southeast Dayton, which the Montgomery County Board of Developmental Disabilities moved out of in recent years, and a property owned by Kettering’s government as potential spaces.
Colbert said given ongoing state and federal budget pressures, building a new facility or leasing a facility not currently owned by the county are not feasible options. But looking at ways to shift operations around the administration building, or shifting operations to the Southview building, are paths the county can explore.
Rezabek told commissioners that he’s been frustrated with communication about the building issue.
“Not knowing what the county’s position is creates concerns,” he said. “What the problem will be is the voters’ experience, and that’s what we’re concerned with.”
Colbert told this news outlet that the county has spent $6 million to update elevators — which were 20 years past their useful life — in the county administrative building, with work expected to wrap up on that project next year.
For years, one elevator could travel down to the lower levels of the administration building. With modifications to the building’s elevators, two will be able to travel down.
The conversion to using stairs does not disrupt any compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, Colbert said. Per a letter the county administration received from the architect designing the escalator removal project, the escalators don’t meet current “required accessibility standards.”
“The second elevator is a key element in adding more capacity for movement of people between floors and for accommodating people in wheelchairs,” the App Architecture letter states. “The proposed new stairs, which replace the existing escalators will meet ambulatory accessibility standards. The new stairs will be wider than the current escalators. They will have visual and tactile indicators to help people with visual impairment. Additionally, they will have handrails on both sides that are continuous which increases safety for people with mobility issues.”
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