Language & Accessibility
Help understanding the City — free, and by right
If English isn't your first language, or if a barrier makes a City service hard to use, the City provides help at no cost to you. You never have to bring your own interpreter, and you never have to pay for an accessible copy of a document.
Interpretation & translation
Available for any City service, meeting, inspection, hearing or phone call.
Over the phone, immediately
Call the Citizen Resource Center and say the name of your language. An interpreter joins the call in about a minute.
In person, on request
Ask at least 48 hours before a meeting, hearing or appointment and the City arranges an in-person interpreter.
American Sign Language
ASL interpretation for meetings and appointments is arranged at no cost, with 48 hours' notice.
Documents in your language
Vital documents — notices affecting rights, benefits, safety or a legal deadline — are translated on request.
Frequently requested languages
- Spanish
- Marshallese
- Vietnamese
- Chinese (Mandarin)
- Swahili
- Arabic
- French
- Russian
- American Sign Language
This list is illustrative for the concept. Interpretation is available in any language on request — you do not have to find your language on a list to ask for it.
Documents in a format you can use
Any City document, on request, at no charge:
- Large print
- Braille
- Audio recording
- Screen-reader-ready electronic file
- Plain-language summary
- Read aloud to you over the phone
At public meetings
Accessible seating and routes
Every public meeting room has an accessible route, accessible seating and an accessible restroom on the same floor.
Assistive listening
Assistive listening devices are available at the entrance to the chamber. No deposit, no ID required.
Captions
Live meetings are captioned, and archived video keeps corrected captions rather than automatic ones.
Another way to be heard
If speaking at a microphone isn't workable for you, written comment carries the same weight and enters the same record.
The obligations behind this page
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act
Prohibits discrimination based on national origin, which includes denying meaningful access to people with limited English proficiency.
Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act
Requires public entities to provide effective communication and to make programs, services and activities accessible — including online.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
Prohibits disability discrimination in programs receiving federal financial assistance.
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act
Sets the accessibility standard for electronic and information technology used by covered entities.
If you're refused
If a City department declines to provide interpretation, an accessible format or an accommodation, that is a grievance and it has a formal path. A live City site would name the ADA Coordinator and the Title VI Coordinator here, give their direct contact details, and publish the written grievance procedure and its deadlines.
This concept does not name individuals, so no coordinator is listed. That gap is deliberate.
Note: The statutes cited on this page are real. Contact routing and the language list are illustrative for the concept.
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Whatever you came to do, start here
Pay a bill, pull a permit, report a pothole or reach a real person at City Hall — Springfield's services, built to work on the first try.