Ridge & Valley Civic Access
A Division of Ridge & Valley Digital
Making local government accessible to everyone.
We help small public teams prepare their websites, online services, forms, portals, mobile apps, and public documents for the federal Title II web accessibility requirements — so residents can find information, complete tasks, and reach the right person regardless of how they access the web.
Ridge & Valley Civic Access is a specialized division of Ridge & Valley Digital, based in Lyerly, Georgia and working with public entities across Chattooga County and Northwest Georgia.
Planning Target
April 26, 2028
A Date Worth Planning Around
Under the federal Title II web and mobile accessibility rule, public entities with fewer than 50,000 people — and special district governments — generally have until April 26, 2028 to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA for covered web content and mobile apps.
That date is not a starting line. Existing Title II responsibilities continue before it, and remediation work consistently takes longer than entity leadership expects: content has to be inventoried, vendors have to be engaged, documents have to be rebuilt, and staff have to be trained to keep new content accessible after launch. Entities that begin in the final year usually accept a narrower scope than they wanted.
This is planning information, not legal advice. Ridge & Valley Digital is not a law firm and does not interpret how the rule applies to a specific entity, program, or funding source. Confirm obligations and timelines with the entity’s own legal counsel.
We serve public entities across Northwest Georgia — beginning with Lyerly, Summerville, Menlo, and Chattooga County — alongside towns, cities, counties, special districts, libraries, authorities, courts, public-safety offices, and utilities.
What Civic Access Does
Accessibility Work, Scoped to Public Entities
Most accessibility vendors serve either large agencies or private businesses. Civic Access is built for the middle ground: small public teams with real obligations, limited staff time, and systems they did not choose.
Readiness Assessments
A structured review of what the entity publishes online, how it performs against WCAG 2.1 Level AA success criteria, and where the largest gaps sit. Findings are prioritized by resident impact and effort — not by raw issue count.
Website Remediation
Hands-on correction of the issues that block real tasks: page structure and headings, keyboard operability, focus order, labels and error messaging, contrast, alt text, and responsive behavior on small screens.
Document Remediation
Public PDFs, agendas, minutes, notices, and forms rebuilt so they carry real structure — tagged headings, reading order, table headers, alt text, and language — rather than being scanned images of paper.
Accessible Form and Template Workflows
Reusable accessible templates for the documents and web pages the entity creates most often, so new content starts out structurally sound instead of needing cleanup later.
Vendor Coordination
Plain-language issue documentation an entity can send to the vendors behind portals, agenda systems, billing platforms, and licensed software — with specific findings, affected resident tasks, and remediation requests.
Staff Training and Governance
Practical training for the people who publish content, plus a simple governance routine — who reviews what, how often, and what gets checked before something goes live.
Ongoing Accessibility Care
Recurring reviews of newly published pages and documents, regression checks after site or platform changes, refreshed findings for leadership, and continued vendor follow-up.
How It Works
Discover, Assess, Remediate, Sustain
Four stages, each with a defined output. You always know what was reviewed, what was changed, and what remains open.
Discover
Inventory what the entity actually publishes — pages, documents, forms, portals, and mobile apps — and identify the public tasks that matter most to residents.
Assess
Evaluate those pages and tasks against WCAG 2.1 Level AA criteria, combining automated checks with manual testing of real resident journeys using keyboard and assistive technology.
Remediate
Fix issues against an agreed, prioritized backlog — correcting the problems that block tasks first, and documenting each verified change with reproducible evidence.
Sustain
Train staff, establish a light governance routine, and run recurring reviews so newly published content stays accessible as the entity's website and documents keep changing.
Why We Do Not Rely on a Scanner Score
Automated tools are useful for finding some technical failures quickly, and we use them. But automated scans alone do not prove accessibility, and a passing scan score is not evidence that a resident can complete a task.
A scan cannot tell whether alternative text actually describes the image, whether a heading sequence communicates the structure of a page, whether a form label makes sense to a person, or whether a PDF reads in the right order with a screen reader. Those judgments require a person. Representative resident tasks on every engagement receive manual testing with keyboard navigation and assistive technology, and we report what was tested, how it was tested, and what could not be verified.
Starting Prices
Defined Engagements, Defined Limits
Every engagement states its limits up front — how many pages, documents, and tasks are covered. Written scope confirming deliverables, assumptions, review dates, and fees is provided before any work begins.
Accessibility Snapshot
Best for entities that need an honest picture before committing to a program.
- Up to 5 representative pages
- Up to 10 public documents
- One portal or form flow
- Findings memo and readout with leadership
Readiness Assessment
Best for entities preparing a defensible, documented starting position.
- Up to 25 pages and templates
- Up to 30 public documents
- Manual testing of selected public tasks
- Inventory, issue register, and leadership summary
- Phased remediation roadmap
Remediation Sprint
Best for entities ready to fix a prioritized backlog of known issues.
- Work performed against an agreed backlog
- Issues sequenced by resident impact
- Verified changes documented with evidence
- Final summary of resolved and open items
Document Remediation
Best for clearing a backlog of public PDFs and forms.
- Tagged structure, reading order, and language
- Table headers and list structure corrected
- Alt text for meaningful images
- Complex or scanned documents quoted separately
Managed Accessibility Care
Ongoing reviews of newly published pages and documents, regression checks after site or platform changes, refreshed findings for leadership, continued vendor follow-up, and refresher training for staff — so accessibility holds after the project ends.
How scope is stated. Written scope confirms the page, document, and task counts included, the assumptions the estimate depends on, the review date the findings reflect, and the fee before work begins. Work that falls outside the agreed scope — additional documents, a website rebuild, a platform migration, or repeated remediation after a vendor change — is quoted separately and approved in writing first. Pricing shown is a starting point, not a substitute for a scoped proposal.
Why Civic Access
Built Around How Small Public Teams Actually Work
Accessibility work fails in small entities for predictable reasons: findings arrive as an unreadable audit, nobody owns the follow-up, and vendors deflect. Civic Access is structured around those failure points.
Local-government scale
Scoped for entities with a handful of staff, not a dedicated compliance department. Engagements are sized to what a small team can absorb alongside its regular work.
Plain-language findings
You receive a description of what a resident experiences and what to do about it — not a report written for developers. Leadership, clerks, and department heads can read it and act.
Owner, dependency, and target-date roadmap
Each item is assigned to whoever actually controls it — your staff, your vendor, or us — with a suggested sequence and the target date it relates to, so nothing quietly stalls.
Vendor accountability
For systems you license rather than build, we write the issue documentation you can send. Clear, specific, resident-impact findings give a vendor far less room to deflect.
Staff guidance, not just fixes
Fixes decay if the people publishing content do not know why they matter. Training and lightweight governance are part of the engagement, not an upsell afterward.
Reproducible evidence and verified changes
Every changed item is documented with what was tested, how it was tested, and what remains open — so your entity can show its work rather than assert it.
What We Will Not Claim
We publish no accessibility logo, seal, certification, or accreditation, because no credential makes a website or document permanently accessible. We do not list accessibility clients or public entities we have worked with, and we do not quote results we cannot verify.
When we reference an entity like Lyerly, Summerville, Menlo, or Chattooga County, we are describing the communities this service is designed to serve — not claiming an existing client relationship. Work examples would only ever be published with the entity’s written permission and a documented evidence review.
Questions Public Teams Ask
Clear answers about scope, limits, and what accessibility work can and cannot establish.
Small public entities in Northwest Georgia — towns, cities, counties, special districts, libraries, authorities, courts, public-safety offices, utilities, and similar bodies — starting with Lyerly, Summerville, Menlo, and Chattooga County. It is intended for teams without a dedicated accessibility specialist on staff.
Automated tools can detect a portion of common technical failures, but they cannot judge meaning. They cannot tell whether alternative text actually describes an image, whether a heading sequence makes sense, whether a form label is understandable, or whether a document reads correctly with a screen reader. An automated scan alone does not establish accessibility; results must be confirmed by manual testing of representative resident tasks.
Under the federal Title II web and mobile accessibility rule, public entities with fewer than 50,000 people and special district governments generally have until April 26, 2028 to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA for covered web content and mobile apps. Existing Title II obligations — including effective communication with people with disabilities — continue before that date. We present this as planning information only; it is not legal advice.
No. Ridge & Valley Civic Access does not certify compliance, issue legal opinions, or guarantee that an entity will not receive a complaint or claim. There is no recognized certificate that makes a website or document permanently accessible. We deliver technical and operational work — findings, remediation, and evidence of verified changes against an agreed scope and review date.
Some systems — a vendor-hosted utility billing portal, a records-management platform, an agenda-management tool — are supplied and controlled by a third party. We document the accessibility issues we can observe in those systems, describe their effect on public tasks, and provide clear vendor-facing language an entity can send when requesting remediation, timelines, and accessible alternatives.
Start with a readiness conversation by phone, email, or through the contact form. We confirm what the entity publishes online, which public tasks matter most, who controls each system, and whether an Accessibility Snapshot or a Readiness Assessment fits the situation. Written scope confirming deliverables, limits, assumptions, and fees is provided before any work begins.
Scope and Limitations
Ridge & Valley Civic Access provides technical and operational accessibility services. We do not provide legal advice, legal opinions, or a certification of ADA or WCAG compliance, and we do not guarantee that an entity will not receive a complaint or legal claim. Findings and remediation are limited to the pages, documents, systems, and tasks included in the agreed written scope, and reflect the review date stated with them. Accessibility is an ongoing commitment, not a one-time state.
Start With a Readiness Conversation
Tell us what your entity publishes online and which public tasks matter most. We will tell you honestly what an engagement would cover, what it would cost, and what it would not establish.