Disability Rights and Accessibility

Disability is a natural part of the human experience, and Woodstock's commitment to being a welcoming, inclusive community must extend fully to those residents with disabilities. We believe disability rights are civil rights — not a matter of charity or accommodation, but of equal participation in the life of our town.

That means working to ensure that town buildings, meetings, communications, and services are genuinely accessible — not just technically compliant. It means recruiting and welcoming residents with disabilities to serve on boards, commissions, and in elected office. It means recognizing that accessibility improvements benefit the whole community: a virtual option for board and commission meetings, for example, allows a resident with hearing loss to use captioning, a neighbor recovering from surgery to participate from home, and a parent putting a young child to bed at seven o'clock to still have a voice in their town government. Inclusion, in this sense, is not a special accommodation — it is simply good design.

We support accessible formats for town communications and meeting materials, and a standing commitment to ask — in every planning and policy decision — whether all of our neighbors can fully participate.