The Loveland Public Library is facing a discrimination complaint under the Americans with Disabilities Act after staff members allegedly told two adults with special needs last month that they were not allowed to be in the library’s teen section.

According to an incident report form filed by the Fort Collins-based Ability in Motion, the adults were browsing the teen section the afternoon of May 20 when a woman at the front desk told the group’s facilitator, Jason Rodriguez of the Ability in Motion Day Program, that adults with special needs cannot be in the teen section of the library and that they needed to leave. When Rodriguez declined to leave with his clients, the front desk manager called the library director, Diane Lapierre.

According to the report, Lapierre arrived and told Rodriguez that the library had had “too many problems in the past with special needs people in the library,” and repeatedly told the group to leave. Rodriguez again declined to leave and said that any previous problems referenced “had nothing to do with me or my clients.”

The complaint states that Lapierre eventually said that Rodriguez’s clients could stay for the time being, but they would not be allowed to come back. According to the narrative, Rodriguez explained to Lapierre that his clients wanted to explore the teen section because “mentally, they are not adults.”

Lapierre declined to comment due to the ongoing status of the investigation. Rodriguez is no longer employed by Ability in Motion, a spokesman for the company said, and he was not reachable.

Vincent Bogdanski, the father of one of the adults with special needs involved, sent an email to Mayor Jacki Marsh last week to make sure that Loveland as a political entity was aware of the situation. He criticized the statement allegedly made by Lapierre about people with special needs causing problems.

“I don’t believe my son or his group have ever been part of any of these ‘problems,’” Bogdanski wrote. “Further the statement smacks of a generalization that is not appropriate coming from a public official. To group all special needs into a category of creating ‘a problem’ seems to be arbitrary.”

The incident is being investigated by the city’s ADA coordinator, Jason Smitherman, of the city’s Risk Management department. Smitherman said that while he is still interviewing witnesses and reading up on federal guidelines that may pertain to the situation, the resolution will likely hinge on finding a way to have a library that is inclusive, yet also has carve-outs for age-restricted programs.

“As I told the complainants and others, we’re going to find a solution to it,” Smitherman said. “…I think there will be a solution that is very reasonable for everybody. We want to be open, we want to be accessible, we want to have our programs available for all of our citizens and that’s the bottom line.”

This is the first ADA complaint the city has investigated since Smitherman started his job two and a half years ago, he said.

“I think the challenge on this is we’re talking about a program and service that are age-specific,” he said. “And we have to be concerned about child safety.”

There are portions of the teen area at the library that all adults can browse, but the programs and activities like video games and board games at the Teen Scene are age-restricted, Smitherman said. It is a much different conversation about accessibility than conversations about whether all people can, for example, access the building, access Braille or access translation services, he said.

As part of the investigation, Smitherman will be looking at how city staff can communicate library policies better. The city is currently in the process of doing a staff survey to check their knowledge of the ADA.

“We’ve identified areas that we need to address, and we’ll get that out there for everyone to see and start making our efforts to be in compliance in the areas that we may not be in total compliance with,” he said.

The city has about 30 remaining of the 45 days in which it must respond to the complaint in writing to explain the city’s position and to offer potential options for resolution. If the response by the ADA coordinator does not satisfactorily resolve the issue, the complainant may appeal the decision to the city manager. After that, the complainant can appeal to the Department of Justice.

“Our hope is that all (parties) recognize some special considerations need to be made for special needs individuals and those considerations need to be tempered for all the patrons of a public institution,” Bogdanski wrote in an email Tuesday to the Reporter-Herald.