Jim Trageser's column about access lawsuits destroying the integrity of historical buildings of Julian ("Balance is what's lacking in Julian," Dec. 15) is in error.

I served on the California State Historical Building Safety Board and chaired the committee charged with bringing the California State Historical Building Code into compliance with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The result of our work is in Chapter 8-6 of Part 8 of the California Code of Regulations Building Code Title 24. Section 8-601.2 states, "It is the intent of this chapter to preserve the integrity of qualified historical buildings and properties while providing access to and use by persons with disabilities."

In law, there is no conflict between preserving our history and stopping architectural discrimination against persons with disabilities. Buildings on a local, state or national historical register may apply the code to any remodeling project for their building, whether it is electrical, plumbing, structural or accessibility upgrades that are needed. The purpose of the State Historical Building Code is to allow historical buildings to change and grow as needed. It provides the means for historical buildings to serve as community resources for everyone.

The steps and narrow doors of Julian's old buildings represent a time when the average life expectancy was around 50 and child mortality rates were greater than 50 percent.

It isn't hard to imagine that the original owners of those historical buildings would have been delighted to add ramps and widen their doorways if their children and other loved ones could have survived accidents and diseases that we no longer even remember. One needs only to visit the older cemeteries, like the Julian Pioneer Cemetery, and count the number of children's graves, and read the anguished epitaphs for wives and husbands who died in what we today call middle age.

When ramps are added to Julian's buildings, they in themselves will be monuments to an important time in history. They will speak for this time, when people with disabilities not only survive and flourish, but have at last been granted the same civil rights enjoyed by others in this country.

In contrast, the historical fabric that was altered in Julian's old buildings to install electricity, air conditioning or new plumbing was to make way for testaments to only our better technology, not our greater humanity.

What better showcase for a disability civil rights monument than Julian, founded before women had the right to vote, and before there were even buses where black people had to ride in the back?

Hopefully, with time we will forget that the historic ramps were added only under threat of a lawsuit more than three and a half decades after California's disability civil rights laws were passed. As the next very populous and powerful generation of elders will say, as they wheel or push their walkers up Julian's ramps, "Oh yes. We did that. That's our legacy."

Graton resident HolLynn D'Lil is a wheelchair user and served on the California State Historical Building Safety Board from 1980 to 1982 and 1996 to 2000. She helped to write the original State Historic Building Code, first published in July 1981.