##VIDEO ID:1Y5_QB5eQwU## e e e e e e everyone and welcome to the disability commission Advisory board meeting the open meeting law requires that I notify the public that this meeting is being recorded therefore Please be aware that an audio and visual recording of this meeting is being made by Boston City TV a part of the city of Boston office of cable communications and is being broadcast on Xfinity channel 26 RCN channel 13 and fos Channel 962 as well as live streamed on YouTube where the recording will stay and now I turn it over to the person chairing the board meeting uh Carl Richardson happy New Year everyone I hope everybody had a pleasant holiday season um I'd like to start off with introduction my name is Carl Richardson I am currently the secretary of the Boston disability commission I live in Brighton I identify as a death blind individual and tonight I am the acting chair because um Wesley is and our normal chair has other commitment um that he couldn't get out of so let's start with introduction we'll start with Paul hey everyone my name is name is Paul Karen I live in the West End of Boston um I serve as the vice chairman of the disability Advisory Board as a mental health Advocate I work right at the Boston planning department as a supervisor and also still recognized as a Forman and Labor's local 151 um I recognize as a white male with short hair I'm wearing a blue shirt and uh help out with the city a lot of mental advocacy through family and friends that have mental illness and always here to help thank you Charlie hi everyone happy New Year my name is Charlie Kim I'm a resident of the North End I serve on the Advisory Board as um a representing parents and caregivers of children and loved ones with disabilities I have black hair I'm Asian I have glasses and I'm wearing a blue jacket thank you okay Olivia Richard hi my name's Olivia Richard I am a member of the board and I'm from Brighton and a VI visual description is um wearing a backwards cap that says keep back 300 ft cuz it's from the fire department um I've got uh glasses short short blonde hair and I'm wearing a red t-shirt phia I always thought you have dark hair thank you for that description um tala hi everyone my name is Tara um I'm a member of the board I am a little Caucasian woman who uses a wheelchair um I advocate a lot for people with disabilities as well of children of fost care um I am wearing a um pink cheetah patterned sweatshirt do I I see I see an Elizabeth here is that Elizabeth being flower Carl this is Andrea no that's actually a fellow in our office for the semester are there any other commission members that I did not recognize Zary has come and Richard Richard go ahead Yeah Carl can you speak a little louder I'm having trouble Richard go ahead yeah um Richard glovsky I live in back day uh I guess I have to confess having gray hair um I'm Caucasian I am hearing paed and I'm a member of the commission and Andrea who did you say was the other member out here Zari and Jerry and I know those two names sound very similar all right Zary hi everyone this is Zary I'm h i I'm a board member I have short BR ER and my background is my kitchen I'm I'm a wheelchair user and uh you're all celebrating my birthday today with me and last but not least um I'm sorry my memor who Andrea who was the last person that you mentioned Jerry Boyd Jerry Jerry Boyd please Jerry last but not least I'm not last actually I think Paulette has joined us as well okay uh but but anyway um my name is Jerry Boyd I live in West Roxbury longtime member of the board longtime dis disability Advocate um I am a Caucasian male also a wheelchair user uh I have I have salt and pepper here I have glasses on and I am wearing probably wearing a um Ada day a um volunteer shirt uh you know closely guarded volunteer shirt that uh that Patricia was able to to get for me a few years back uh that that I that I hold the air so and Paulette PA motion good evening everybody I'm sorry I had overlapping responsibilities here my name is Paul durett I live in mapan M I'm an African-American um senior citizen um and I'm wear maroon and gray today thank you did I forget any other commission members okay and we do have Quorum is that correct Andrea yes we now have a quorum with everyone here next I'd like to approve the December minute if I could hear a motion to approve I make a motion to approve the minutes call that uh made the motion any second this is Jerry I'll I'll second the motion seconded by Jerry all those in favor say I I I any opposed the agenda I mean the minutes have been approved thank you next we have a presentation from uh uh the project speci the I'm sorry special project manager for the Boston Parks and Recreation Department and she'll be talking about work currently being done at the Franklin Park Lauren Bryant thank you Carl um as Carl said my name is Lauren Bryant and I'm a senior project manager with the Boston parks department I've been working for um Boston parks for about uh 14 years now um I'm going to jump back and do my description for you guys too because I just forgot to do that um so I am a Caucasian female have Sandy um sandy blonde hair uh curly and I wear glasses and I'm wearing a um burnt orange sweater today um so I just wanted to share Andrea asked if I would jump in and share with you guys um some of the work that's happening in Franklin Park and Andre and I have worked together a lot because um I have worked on a lot of accessibility and inclusion projects with the parks department and have become sort of our de facto inclusion specialist I do a lot of reviewing of product projects for other people and really try to help push initiatives um within the parks department for accessibility and inclusion um one of the things that U you guys may know I worked with Andrea on the website for inclusive um components in Boston Parks um and so I really have been trying to um push uh accessibility so we have a lot of things going on in Franklin Park and I know there are always a lot of questions about what's happening so Andrea asked if I would just give you guys a brief overview of the projects that we have and I think the easiest way to do that is that I'm going to share one of our city project websites can you guys see that and do I need to zoom in a little bit see if I can zoom in a little it's still loading okay now it's loading loading okay okay so this is a project website and I can put the link in a chat this is something that I put together because people keep asking what's Parks doing in Franklin Park so we have on the city website we have the six ongoing projects that we're doing in Franklin Park and I'm going to do just a quick chat with you guys about each of these so if you go to this website you can click on any one of these projects and get to a separate website that gives you all the information on it so I'll just go in alphabetical order on these so the be dens if you guys aren't familiar um the bear dens are the old bear cages of the zoo it was the first facility that was built for animals in the zoo um so it's over a hundred years old it obviously no longer has bears in it um it's part of the Boston parks's Department um but what happened is because it was part of the zoo we didn't have car in custody of it as a city so it fell into disrepair and just within the last month and a half um we got caring custody of the be back to the city so what our first project is is that we're making it safe and what that means for right now it's phase one of a longer term project to revitalize that space But what the project is is to fill in voids under stairs there are rusty metal cage pieces um left over from the baren area that we're removing cleaning up and really just making it safe um so one of the things that is going to happen is those safety things are going to start happening um late spring early summer and then we're going to go into construction and probably be finished by the end of 2025 we're doing the very basic um safety components right now and then what we're doing is for phase two when we actually figure out what the program of this space is going to be we'll be doing all of our accessibility upgrades then um because this is just a quick we now have it back and we're making it safe and um there will be a time variance for phase one that's going to come um to um the state so that we can make sure that we have that in the project for when we do the next phase circuit Drive um for anybody who spends time in Franklin Park you guys will know circuit drive is kind of crazy it's very fast there's not a lot of Crossings it disconnects the two sides of the park from each other so what we're going to be looking at is doing traffic studies and traffic counts we're going to be looking at how do we slow down the speed on Franklin Park how do we improve pedestrian Crossings CU right now they're not safe and there aren't very many of them so we want to make sure that we do traffic calming and we're going to also be studying locations for additional accessible parking spaces CU right now they're just long linear parking along the edges of circuit drive and there's really no designated accessible parking there mainly are at some of the larger destinations the clubhouse parking lot over by the tennis courts um but really a long circuit drive there aren't any so that's something else that we're going to be looking at we have a designer on board and we're starting the project now for design and we're looking at possible constructions starting in late summer or early fall we have a dog facility study that started Garden which is pretty exciting I know a lot of people want to be able to take their dogs to the park and have a safe space for them so we're not going to be doing any construction but what that project is going to be doing with accessibility is taking and looking at making sure whereever we propose dog parks that is accessible to all to be able to use and that project is probably going to go into design in the next six months so that's three of the six projects so I'm going to stop there and does anybody have any questions about those three that I didn't hit so this is Carl hi Carl going back to the bear the bear cave so my understanding is that's not open to the public and it won't be open to the public so right now you're just making safety Improvement and question of valant from the this date right so right now it's not that it's not open to the public it's open in terms of nothing is barricaded off and it hasn't been so right now that's part of why we are making the safety improvements anybody could Traverse through that space and because in because we haven't had care and custody the city of Boston couldn't do anything about it because it was in the state's care and custody so now that it's back with us we're going to make it safe so that as people do Traverse through it because they do I mean unfortunately it's also a place where we have homeless in drug use right now as well um and so the fear is is that people are going to get hurt and so right now we're making it safe so there's nothing that barricades people off from going in but right now it's just making it safe and then we're doing some design studies and we'll have the community involved to say what should this space be is it a playground is it a an outdoor dining space is it somewhere that food trucks can come um what does this become um and at that point once we know what that program is there'll be a full accessibility study to make sure that whatever it is that it turns into is accessible for everyone does that help yeah thank you absolutely any other questions on the others okay I'm going to jump over to the Franklin Park maintenance trust so this is uh for those of you who are familiar the city um had $28 million that came from the sale of the winr square garage that specifically is going to Franklin Park so one of the things that they did at the very beginning of that project is that $5 million was set aside into an endowment the interest that comes off of that endowment every year goes towards enhanced maintenance at Franklin Park so things that go above and beyond what our uh Boston Parks maintenance staff can do on a regular basis so one of the things that we've been doing is things like removing invasive vegetation that takes years and years to come back um and keep working on it year after year one of the other things that we did this past year was um The Glenn Road entrance off in Franklin Park that we've heard a lot about from the you know the friends groups from Franklin Park Coalition is that it was unsafe people not only you know not only could people twist ankles if they're walking no one in a wheelchair could go across it the cracks were too the too big lots of tree roots in the way and it was really just in terrible condition so one of the things that we did was we repaved that entire length of that pathway with that maintenance trust funding um the next big project that we're doing we're doing a lot of small projects but the next big project that we're doing is elott Arch which goes under circuit drive and right now um it's there's not great pavement underneath it and to the sides of it so we're going to be repaving that we're also going to be putting in security lighting that's going underneath there as well for safety um so that's our next big project but every year we're going to be taking it's going to be about approximately $250,000 a year that goes back into Franklin Park and so that's when of my projects as well is to just keep um seeing what we can improve and accessibility is definitely one of the things that we're going to be looking at every year um The Overlook study so the Overlook um a lot of people know it as the um aala Playhouse so the Overlook is a ruins it's a building that used to be there it's the only building actually that Frederick La Olstead designed um right now all that's left are you know some Stone stairs some um walls that are there but it was where elal had the playhouse originally so there was a stage there were seats that were brought in it was pretty incredible um but in because it has fallen into disrepair that Playhouse got moved out of the Overlook ruins um and closer to the parking area so what we're looking at is how can we Revitalize the ruins how can we turn it back into something joyful how can um we bring the playhouse back there and this one I do have a couple of images I wanted to show you guys because it's pretty it's pretty incredible that the accessibility there is so challenging and so it's really going to be one of the key things that we talk through um with that project so I'm going to stop sharing the website if it will let me okay get back to my screen that has the sharing maybe okay share okay can you guys see this now slide that has big circles on it yes perfect thank you so this I just wanted to show you guys how much accessibility is at the Forefront of this project so these were comments and ideas that came from the community and they're really grouped into three categories which are Elma Lewis's Legacy um restoration of the ruins and accessibility and how do all of these come together so I just thought you guys would appreciate seeing that that really was such a critical point of what the community and the design team is looking at here um let's see Andrea did when I change the slide do you still see it yes do you see new plan okay so part of why I was saying it's really challenging is that the is the only thing that is actually accessible and even that the lightest blue would need to be ramps and so right now all of that red is inaccessible to get in this big blue rectangle in the middle that's actually the Overlook ruins and so one of the things that we're looking at is there are places that in order to get into the main space in order to get into that main ruins on both sides the only access is between 16 and 25% slope right now which is crazy right and right now it's grassed in but part of it is once part of this conceptual design is to look at that and say how do we fix this right right now it's grass and it's really steep so you can't get there so this is going to be a really exciting project because accessibility is really going to be at the Forefront of this one which I'm really excited about um so I'm going to stop sharing that one and also just to let you guys know too is that Monday we have a meeting with the disability commission um and the landmarks commission to specifically talk about the Overlook and to talk about where we're at and how we're trying to get that project even more accessible and so I'm really exced excited about the huge change that we can make here um and then I think the last project and then I can go back and focus on any of them that you'd like is the shatak picnic area tennis and so one of the things we're doing there is we're expanding the tennis um the Franklin Park tennis Association does amazing work and they have a lot of free programs and they have a lot of elderly um members that come and they have a really hard time getting to to the tennis courts and so we're expanding the tennis courts um it's going to be expanded from 2 to either 4 or five and we are putting in accessible seating we're putting in more Pathways to get to the court that are accessible we're also going to be improving all of the access along the parking Edge to make sure it's easier to get into the picnic space adding more accessible tables in the shadic picnic Grove which is um if you you may be familiar is where um a huge juneth celebration is hosted um and so we're going to be doing a lot of that kind of um updates we're going to be looking at shaded seating as well so for people who are watching the tennis people who are waiting to play because we know there's a lot of temperature regulation issues as well so trying to make sure we provide shade we're going to be bringing in um drinking fountains water and lights and utilities that currently aren't there um and that project um is in design right now for anybody who's interested we have a community meeting um January 14th next week it's in person at the um Franklin Park Clubhouse and um we're should be starting construction late summer definitely after juneth because we want to make sure that the space is fully open for that um but that's that's it so we're doing a lot in Franklin Park and we're trying really hard to make a lot of updates that make a big difference to a lot of people thank you Lauren any questions from the uh commission members Carl this is Andrea Charlie has put his hand up Charlie go ahead hi this is Charlie Kim Lauren thank you for the the presentation I actually went on while you were doing it so I could kind of scroll around and take a look at some of the details um I'm not sure this just kind if this is a policy question or so let's say that with all of the funds that are allocated to the Franklin Park projects um something is just not feasible it's just not physically possible like the The Cliffs that you were showing you know you may not be able to make them as accessible as as you would like is there a a law or policy where you would then reallocate funds to a different project within the within the scope um to add or enhance a different uh portion of a project if you're unable to achieve specific um accessibility I don't know if it's a metric or a percentage of something in order to uh you know to whether it be on a budget purpose or whichever like if you couldn't do anything on the cliffs would you do more um at the tennis courts or something like that um and I I don't know if if that question makes sense and if that's like a policy or a fiscal you know budgeting type of thing yeah no it's a great question and it I think it makes sense so if I don't answer it correctly let me know if I didn't understand um there's no policy that I'm aware of that specifically has a requirement to reallocate something but I will say on that project that has that you know 16 to 28 whatever it was percent slope we fully intend to make that accessible so in terms of the projects that we shared none of those would be projects that we will not make accessible so that's something that is definitely a goal and a priority for all of those there might be a there might be a place that we need to do a variance because a portion might not be accessible but the reality is is that that's that's the entire goal of these projects is to make sure that they are accessible long Mr call So when you say valiance I'm assuming you're using 521 CMR standards exactly absolutely which are the map the trth stand okay exactly yep um I've been working quite a bit with the disability Commission whenever we do need to go for a variance which we try really hard not to um part of what we really try to do especially in our playgrounds because they's so much fun for everyone is that you know we try really hard not to just meet uh code requirements and we really try to go above and beyond everywhere that we can um so it really drives us crazy when we can't get to every single one of them you guys do acceptability regardless of the trigger of 20% to the value absolutely yes yeah I mean it may not be the entire facility right because let's say Franklin Park you know even though we don't hit that that threshold of the percentage um we still each individual project we look at with accessibility um and not only accessibility and meeting accessibility requirements but really look at it to try to make it more inclusive as well anybody else have a hand up this is Charlie again Carl can you and and I was trying to follow along because I don't know these these laws very well I heard a percentage 20% can you kind of give a little bit more clarity on that I think that was kind of the question when I was asking about is there a metric or a percentage that something has to 521 CMR which is a Massachusetts it's the architectural access board regulation and and and Patricia can jump in if I'm wrong but if it's not new construction if you're going back and redoing something the trigger point let's say for a private business or restaurant or or or the trigger point is 20% of if you do more than if the Reconstruction or the renovation is more than 20% of the overall value you have to follow code this is Andrea yeah I might jump in so any work that you do always has to be like that work itself has to meet code the 20% trigger is to bring the rest of the building up to code so if a restaurant yeah yeah yeah so if a restaurant or in this case a park um if the work that Lauren just described was more than 20% of the assessed value of Franklin Park then 521 CMR would require that we bring the whole facility up to code um but the other point I would add Charlie to your point is um you only get a variance from the maab if the board votes for it so in terms of there being a policy of what's an agreed upon amount of like we did the best we could we made it as accessible as possible to the extent that there's a measure of that it's whether the board votes and agrees with you um so we would submit like maybe one of those paths that's right now between 16 and 24% maybe we get one of them down to code but the other one we only get down to 1% above code so it's not technically compliant but it's a lot better and we would go to the board and say Here's why we couldn't get that last percent they're two um justifications that an applicant can offer one is technical infeasibility this is more for buildings where like the ramp would be longer than the building like I can't build a ramp longer than a building the second is excessive cost compared to the benefit for persons with disabilities so this would be we have two elevators these stairs technically don't meet code they're a little too tall but we'd have to you know spend 100% of our building's assessed value to redo the stairs when we already have two elevators is that really worth the cost the board says whether or not you meet those standards so to the extent that there's a policy the board decides and if they say no then we have to do it and if they say yes we do the best we can yeah and and what Andrea was saying in terms of that percentage so there was a project that I was working on Malcolm X Park where the the the cost of the renovation was more than that percentage of it was actually 100% of the assessed value of the park and so because of that we actually had to relook at the scope of the project and make sure that it wasn't just the playground and the fields were accessible but every entrance and make sure every single thing was was um was accessible because it triggered that so it expanded the scope of the project because we were over that threshold percentage so that's something that we look at as well um not only is every single project that we do required to meet Ada but sometimes it expands that scope um because of that percentage and just you know the architectual access board and has been in place since 1968 well before the Ada Americans with Disabilities Act and developers when they when they build or do construction and have to meet accessability they have to look at both 521 CMR and the architectural access guideline for the Ada and I also just wanted to let everybody know that I did drop the website for the um initiatives in Franklin Park into the chat and I also put my email address in there as well in case anybody has any questions I have a question this is poette um are you also are you are you in the department that if somebody saw something broken in a park that they would contact you or is it another city agency it yeah for I am in the parks department so if there's something wrong in the Park yeah you can do 311 you can let me know and I can pass it along to the right person right now as well I mean I'm happy to did you run into something I did there's a park across the street from the par Center in Dorchester at 650w Street okay and the um so they have this structure that you can lean against and stretch okay some some of the bolts are missing in it ah loose yes okay yeah I will let them know and hopefully somebody can get over there really soon but also if you are ever wanting to there if if you have a a smartphone there is an app for 31 311 or you can call 311 and then they're required to track it too so even with me I like putting it in the app because I get a and I get a little notice when it's been fixed um so I'm happy to pass that along but feel free to also put it in because the more people hear about it the the quicker things get done I find oh okay thank you I did call it in but okay I didn't see any repairs so I said perfect oh I will I will ask tomorrow your timing is perfect thank you absolutely absolutely any other questions for Lauren here and none Lauren I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule and thank you for updating us and your commitment to accessibility absolutely thank you guys for having me and I hope you have a great rest of the night okay great thanks do we need to part for an interpreter switch I'm seeing no from the interpreters we're good I think we're good okay great uh next is the chair's report and I'm going to have Andrea read it then W submitted it and write in and she can read his report so that we're um up to date thank you Carl let me mute or uh pin my video for folks happy new New Year I hope that everyone had a great holiday I send my apologies for not being able to attend this meeting as I had prior plans before I found out the confirmed dates of this year's meetings so I look forward to seeing everyone next month before the five items uh in my chair's report are shared I wanted to say that my thoughts are with everyone impacted by the wildfires in Los Angeles area and I hope everyone including those with disabilities are safe and sound first I item the state's Commission on the status of persons with disabilities the Massachusetts Commission on the status of persons with disabilities met last month to ensure that the disabled residents are set up for success in their communities the workplace and Beyond currently the primary function of this commission is to create Partnerships with businesses and school systems to help people with disabilities have productive employment they also have discussed what their work would look like moving forward as the chair of their commission Denise garlic of NM brings forward several issues to consider as their next priority they have talked about the important issues such as housing transportation and Health Equity the commission selected Health as their 2025 priority with the focus of ensuring Health Care Equity across levels of need in the disability community second item there was an NBC 10 Boston report on RMV disability parking placards so the nbc10 Boston investigators last month did a report on one local woman's wait for a temporary disability parking placard and it was learned that the RMV had a very slow process and mailing placards to drivers who applied for temporary parking placard as it states on the R&B website with this line please allow at least 30 business days for processing after this news broke the RMV is now speeding up the processing time for those who may need it if one is injured or recovering from surgery the RMV is beefing up their additional Staffing Resources to allocate this issue so that medical Affairs teams processing of temporary placards will now be handled within two to to three business days they're also looking to add online submissions to help streamline the process that currently accepts only paper applications third Boston Globe article on disability stories having only two endings there was an article in the Boston Globe last week written by a woman who has several autoimmune diseases and has had accompanying surgeries and she had a stack of books on her coffee table to keep keep her company many of these books were Memoirs written by other people who are ill and she has noticed a pattern in these Memoirs there are only two trajectories either the person is miraculously cured and not only cured but also vehement that they wouldn't trade their experience for anything else or they die she couldn't help wondering if these narratives reveal less about reality and more about American attitudes towards disability and chronic illness for example there tend to be only two possible endings for an ill or disabled character a framework that disabled Scholars have killed have called kill or cure like these famous stories in Little Mermaid Sleeping Beauty Of Mice and Men and Heidi still these books reveal how little room there is for people living with disabilities or chronic illness in real life on an unrelated note thanks to Carl's recommendation for a book that doesn't include any of the these two endings and that is sports related I just picked up a borrowed book from the Boston Public Library the boys of Riverside a deaf football team and a quest for Glory this is written by a journalist Thomas Fuller as he summarizes the success of the California School for the Deaf Riverside having an undefeated season this book was published sometime last year in 2024 also Amazon has picked this book as one of the best books of 2024 at the number one spot the fourth item hear view AI controversy there is a big controversy in our deaf and heart of hearing Community about hear viiew glasses which are AR augmented reality smart glasses sold by a Chinese company called seia that allows people to read real-time transcription of spoken words on their glasses the major issue here is whether Xiao uh here view is exploiting deaf customers by repackaging and rebranding what seems to be the exact same glasses made by another Chinese brand in MoGo and selling them with a 400% markup with prices ranging from $1,999 to $1,399 the inmo glasses are only about $300 the second the second part of this conspiracy has to do with her viws aggressive strategy to Market its products to the US DEA community Through partnership deals with the National Association of the deaf and Def Opia and by giving their products to popular deaf influencers in exchange for them posting videos about the glasses as a result here View received valuable publicity by showing their proximity with the NAD CEO and ability to penetrate deaf social media which probably resulted in even more sales of their $1,999 glasses nad's interim CEO has confirmed that they are concerned about the price differences but clarified the organization's mission is on civil rights Advocate advocacy and they're not there to evaluate product and services as technology keeps changing I'm aware of an incoming competitor which meta AI has a partnership with Rayband glasses they are working on adding transcription translation services on their AR smart glasses with many other features also there is hope that these smart glasses would be covered by health insurance through HSA or FSA finally the fifth item is Board election nominations later in this meeting we will go over Board election nominations and I would like to say that I have decided to step down as chair a position I've held since 2022 I've decided it is time to pass on the Baton as I want to have more time with my two wonderful daughters who are growing up so fast I plan to do closing remarks to reflect on my time as chair at next month's meeting and don't worry I'm not going anywhere I will still remain on The Advisory Board thank you Andrea um I just want to clarify uh Point number one about the permanent status on commission of persons with disability because I'm actually one of the Commissioners um on that board and the health care Equity that was discussed in that item is actually be one of the subcommittee within that commission to overlook and try to address the issues of healthcare inequity or equity which I along with Charlie Carr are the chair of that subcommittee along with the and then there are two other subcommittees within that one to do with employment which Still Remains and will be strong and vital and the other one to do with um addressing the dire critical need for the shortage of Health Care providers so those are the areas that um the commission for the time being are looking at and representative garlic term ended at the end of December and she did not run for reelection so we are currently uh looking for a new chair within the legislature to be the chair of that committee okay on the smart glasses I use the ray band smart glasses uh The Meta glasses every single day because I use it as a blind person to um read my mail tell me what it sees around me visually and I can also have have gued people access my video and give me wayf finding and que and instructions if I need it it it dramatically changed my life so and I'm hoping that it'll do so across people across the disability Spectrum not just the blind to death the hearty here and those uh with Mobility need uh those with hidden or intellectual disability I think we hear so much about the negative potential negative impact of AI I think the AI could also dramatically um level the playing field for for people with disabilities and and smds and other technology does anybody else have any other comment on the chair's report before we move on to the commissioner's report I do hi Carl oh sorry go ahead um oliv this is Olivia um I know that the meta smart glasses are covered by vssp part of them part of the cost is covered through that uh vision insurance plan which uh Commonwealth Care Alliance um participates with okay thank you and I just wanted to add another book which is a really good book I'd recommend it's called everybody here new knows s language and it's about the evolution of sign language in the US um it started on mat's Vineyard because it was um a conal death Gene in the settlers there and so throughout the um you know first few hundred years of settling this country um a majority of people on marth's Vineyard were deaf so everybody knew sign language so people who were deaf could go to school they could get jobs because it was like basically a second language on the island and it's a really good book so that if you know your history even though who weren de knew sign language so the store owners who weren't de because they wanted the business of the DEA community so they learned sign language so that you know so everybody it's it's a it's an amazing story um commissioner mot I apologize during the introductions I forgot to have you introduce yourself so I'm going to have you introduce yourself now and then once you introduce yourself uh you can go ahead and give your report hey thanks Carl um I do see a question in the chat I don't know if you want to address that now okay I'm sorry I didn't see that yeah I'm happy to this is Andrea I'll read it out from Zari question about these glasses are they currently being used in healthc care settings I'm wondering about hippo requirements I don't know the answer to that sorry s wait so thanks Carl so Andrew is going to share my slide deck and I don't have a very long report tonight U mainly because it's holiday season you want to introduce yourself and we have a lot to get to so um Kristen mcos on the disability commissioner and Ada title 2 coordinator for the city I am a Caucasian woman with blonde hair and glasses and my background is Boston City Hall all right so we'll start with some Department updates just a few um I may have mentioned to most of you that the state of the city uh the mayor's annual address to the city will be postponed this year uh because as we all know the mayor is expecting a baby this month so the state of the city will be pushed off until March and it will be held again at the MGM Music Hall in um kall Square um a few it's about ADA day 25 um this year is the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act I can't believe it's been that long but we've seen a ton of positive changes and we always look forward to our celebration every year but this year we'll be doing um a joint event with BC and other disability organizations from across the state similar to celebrations we did on the 20th and the 25th we had a joint celebration planned for the 30th Anniversary 5 years ago but that was in the middle of Co so we pivoted to a virtual joint event so this year it will look a little bit different we're in very early planning stages but it will be more of like a March and a rally maybe on the Boston Common or in Copley Square um but we won't do our resource Spar this year as it's been um done every year uh we'll do the resource Fair again next year but this year we're going to do a big joint um celebration and rally and really look at protecting people's rights especially with the current climate that we know um the political climate we really want to make sure that the Ada is protected and that we all speak out and exercise our rights as people with disabilities and family members of people with disabilities so stay tuned for more information on that and I just wanted to give a note that um our training specialist Kai Kennedy has a series of trainings that are recorded on our YouTube channel so feel free to take a look at them you can um share them with your colleagues and friends we will be making more of a catalog of trainings coming up um and Kai also has some limited availability for inperson training uh they have a form that if it's not on the website yet it will be going on the website for like organizations to request training um but I really just want to highlight that we're working on a lot of training this year that's one of our priorities in the department to do um training with multiple City Boston departments we um are working closely now starting to work with the um Boston Police Department on some trainings so we're excited about that and um just wanted to let everybody know to check out our YouTube channel on a regular basis because we will be uploading um not only trainings but all the information um our disability News and Views mon the program and of course our board meetings so check out our YouTube channel and um I think Zari wants the link if somebody could put in the chat one of my staff thank you all right so an important update on Nationwide I don't know if many of you are familiar with um the public rights of way accessibility guidelines also known as proag but this is a piece of um it's guidance from the US access board which talks about accessibility standards of public rights of way when the Ada was passed 35 years ago it didn't really talk about public rights of way because there was so much to figure out streets sidewalks intersections natural to topography um parking I mean there bike bike Lanes weren't even mentioned um because there were no bike Lanes back then just like in the Ada um technology wasn't really because it was 1990 so there was no internet yet anyway it's been a long battle to get proe passed and it finally passed uh on December 18th the US Department of Transportation adopted these standards so beginning uh effective on January 17th all new construction and alterations of Transit stops in the public RightWay will be required to comply with the technical accessibility specifications all this being said I can say that the city of Boston pretty much already designs the proag standards but these standards weren't really codified so now that they are codified it will be another step in ensuring that everything in the public right way is accessible uh and we'll have standards for compliance that we'll have to meet so it's really exciting um the guidelines themselves are a little bit technical but if you're interested um we can always get you more information um or i' be happy to answer questions that you haveen it next slide and then I just wanted to mention out with the New Year some opportunities for our board members um as you may know you are board members under the um mgl state law um chapter 40 Section 8 J which outlines the disability commissions for cities and towns so one thing that you are welcome to join and encouraged to join is a group called Koda this is the commissions on disability Alliance and it's a group of all um not all but many local disability Commissions in the Greater Boston area I know um Newton and uh Somerville Watertown uh Framingham I believe there's a lot of local um disability commissions that meet monthly uh it's organized by the Disability Policy Consortium and they hold a monthly call and it's really to share best practices to share advice um mentorship uh commiserate because we're all dealing with a lot of the same issues that are challenging things like snow removal and bike Lanes even though bike lanes are a good thing we know that they present challenges for people with disabilities so um Kota is a place where you can talk to other cities and towns and see what they are working on it's a little bit um Boston is a little bit different as you know because we have paid staff we have the largest paid staff in the state as disability commission but we also have our Advisory Board who are all um you members who are here tonight and we really want to help you exercise um your appointment and the things that you can do with your appointment so if you ever have time the U meetings are once a month on a Wednesday I believe at noon and they're just virtual or they might be phone in I'm not sure but they're probably virtual but it's a great opportunity if you even can listen in on your let hour or if you want to get more involved um click on the link toota and that will have information on how to join um and then one other resource I want to let you know about is the mass office on disability they oversee the municipal commissions on disability you may remember they came in did a training about the board responsibilities um a couple years ago when Richard had questions but um they also hold a lot of webinars and trainings and meetings along with a quarterly tea session um so anything that you have questions about or would like more training on um this is a great place to go for training uh they recently had one on hosting accessible meetings they have trainings on service dogs and again it's more just for your general information and knowledge but I would highly recommend and um checking out their website and you can get there through the link on the quarterly to and that's it for my report like I said it's brief tonight but I know we have a lot to get to and um I'd be happy to take any questions did I hear someone raise their hand this is Andrea that may have been a noise when a member of the public joined I don't see any hands but if folks do I have a question um going back to your YouTube channel all the videos you're posting captain for the de H Community this is Andrea they're currently captioned with the YouTube automatic captions we're still working on embedding our own caption tracks but we do as the host of a YouTube channel have the ability to go in and edit the YouTube AI generated ones um to make sure they're right with like proper names so I can check on if we've done that for everything any other questions for the commissioner before we move on okay seeing none next is the architectural access report Patricia Mendes good evening everyone my name is Patricia Mendes I'm the director of architectural access uh a brief description I have short hair and I'm wearing glasses and a black sweater um I'm going to talk about uh City Hall Plaza and if um Andre are you sharing the the slides or should I just one sec sorry and I'm going to be showing you some photos and videos of uh walk through that um commissioner did with staff and uh Paul was also part of the walk through that was last week um as you may remember uh when the plaza renovation was happening uh The Advisory Board uh wanted to know was interested to know how would the materials uh perform in the future so um we wanted to know after a year whether or not the break pavers uh were uh in good condition um or not so uh as as I said uh we went well commissioner went and took some photos and looked at the the materials and uh it looks it looks okay and we took also pictures of some of the small areas that um need some some little bit of repair next slide please okay so this is the front of uh City Hall Plaza on Cambridge Side uh you you see the the stepping the step way far that's the Speaker's Corner and you see that the the Breck there it looks looks okay looks in good good condition and it's holding up very well and in the following slides we're going to show you um other materials and other areas and we just want to um highlight that in the last year or two we didn't have a lot snow so we we got lucky okay so the next area that we took a look is the porest baing area this surface is continuous so it's not pavers it's continues poured in place a porest Paving area and that allows the trees and the tree roots to absorb the water from the rain uh so that area looks in good condition and the tree pits are small all right uh in the next slide we are looking at the main prominade and you can see on the left a little bit part of the playground and far ahead is the Boston Public Market and Congress Street so that is near the entrance um of the north side of the building on the second floor entrance and those flavors seem in good condition next slide all right um these two pictures are on the side of the federal building and this is a little bit of a raised area so let's say you're starting on Cambridge Street and you're approaching the plaza and you're walking towards Congress Street um and in that that area we can appreciate the brick bavers in good condition also the granite material Granite pavers also in good condition oh also I want to point out in these two pictures that we have the international symbol of accessibility um because we are showing the accessible route which is a little bit like around the the round area that has a few steps so we are highlighting with signs of the accessible route in order to avoid a few steps next slide this is Andrea I'm going to step in real quick Patricia because the next slide is the video and so I want to just shout out uh members of this board as well as others who pointed out this challenge to us um so as Patricia said there's like a circular area sometimes called the neighborhood Circle we're all still coming up with names for what to call these things over by the federal building and three of the entrances to that Circle are stair free um but if you're just heading through that Circle kind of from the JFK building toward City Hall you'll encounter stairs and they're so shallow it wasn't necess necessarily obvious for folks that they were even there until you were like right on top of them so that's where with your feedback we've added these Isa signs to indicate what the stair free route is to get down to that accessible walkway on the North side to the second floor entrance that Patricia mentioned so this is now a video that shows the uh it's just me holding my phone uh walking the accessible starfree route um following those signs the video shows me started showing the stairs and then you go to the left towards the first sign we're now walking down a sloped walkway not a full ramp portion towards the next sign through another Granite sloped walk way at which point the third sign is sort of to your right it's not very immediately obvious in this video that's from pretty far away but as you walk towards it you'll be heading down a brick walkway which if you went straight would end in stairs but if you follow towards the ISA sign that is to the right there is a starfree route to the right back to the accessible route back to you Patricia great thank you all right we can go to the next slide okay so this is another shot of the same area that Andrea was just describing and it has the porous material and it seems in good condition and this is where we had the ice sculptures over first night next slide um okay so this is an area where we're showing the brick papers and we just noticing the slight uh movement not a lot there's just a slight settling um but it's not too bad next okay so this is an area where the granite papers meet the porest materials and we we have observed that there is a a a level change so of a lip so that is something that we are going to you know point out to um Property Management next slide okay so this is a small area where we have observed a couple of access panels uh the a is probably worth something underground I don't know exactly what's underground but we know that there's a lot of stuff there some tea MBTA stuff and there's also some un underground water uh storm management things under there uh so it looks like the brake papers are starting to Chip and deteriorate um so that's what we have observed in that small small area next okay few short short videos to uh give you a little bit more more detail of the same area that we talked about the first video shows commissioner MOS Paul and Sarah Sarah leang from our office um traveling up the Hay Market accessible route uh and Sarah's foot bumps against the slightly lifted uh brick that Patricia had mentioned that not excessive but we'll keep an eye on it lit next is a slightly longer video but showing the same group walking that same route um again pointed on the brick on a few of the places where there's a little bit of lifting happening um across the Handover and finally a video showing the panels the excess panels that Patricia had described uh showing commissioner MOS traveling over those panels that have some deteriorated B now now they're all showing at the same time okay great thank you Andrea wellow that's fun um okay so last one just for fun I have the before and after of the plaza renovation and um I'm happy to um answer questions if anybody has questions um can I just jump in for a minute Patricia just to add a little context as well okay so I know I gave a brief report on this last month um at the end of my commissioner report but I wanted to have Patricia really um give some more detailed information um one thing to keep in mind as she mentioned briefly was that we haven't had a lot of snow and we haven't even had like really freezing weather because a lot of times brick will get dislodged when it's freezing and thoring freezing and thoring so over the last few years really since the renovation we haven't had brutal Winters so um this year we've had a little snow we've had some cold temperatures so we'll definitely keep an eye on it and um the places that we did see the chip wreck um really were on the access panels that Patricia mentioned so we think it's contained for the most part and if you look in these two pictures side by side the picture on the left if you can see all those almost like Stripes they look like bands those are all steps and if you look at the one on the right that image it looks much more flat now if you can see it there really are no steps left on The Plaza except for that one little area near the circle excuse me where we installed the um accessible root signs so it's it's extremely accessible is in really good shape um we definitely can mention some places to Property Management where they can um make some uh repairs but um other than that um we're happy with the way it's held up anything else Patricia um no any questions I'm all set any no qu does anybody from the committee uh commission have questions for Patricia Carl I do want to mention that Elizabeth Dean Clow has joined us um since we did introductions and I don't know she has questions as I know she did last fall okay Elizabeth I know you were one of the uh commission members that ask for a status update on the City Hall Plaza I hope um you questions were all answered and I want you to give a brief introduction of yourself since uh you weren't here earlier when we did introduction are you unmuted hi sorry about that um I just was having trouble unmuting myself um thank you for the update about the plaza uh one of my questions is and I was interested in in a a post uh renovation update after a year and it's been longer for a combination of reasons but was to know how are have you gotten any feedback um about things like lighting or any meaning in the real constructive criticism have you gotten anything about way binding or and and have you when you said some tweaks have been made I was just wondering in what realm can you tell us a little bit more but was that covered last month when I wasn't able to attend no um the biggest tweak was uh feedback from a wheelchair user who mentioned um the piece that Andrea went over um when you get into one area of the plaza there are three accessible exits from it but one exit has stairs and very shallow stairs but um so we this person did ask us if we could put sign image up so we did put the signs with the wheelchair symbol showing the accessible route but that was the I believe that was the only tweet we've made was that righta and Andrea that's the only thing that I remember correct we did give a lot of input on the plan as they were working on it um one thing that Patricia pointed out remember was um the Amphitheater seating didn't have handrails and Patricia said you have to have handrails on that so um that was something that could have been missed but Patricia caught it so um that's helpful for people who need to like lean on a railing or use a railing um but other than that I don't think we made tweaks okay um and you haven't other than in that room by the wheelchair user you haven't gotten any other um feedback that gotten to this is feedback about anything that um either was an added or needs an upgrade this is Andrea the only other constituent comment I've heard was from um someone with a Mobility disability who doesn't use a wheelchair on the new accessible route on Handover walk feeling like there weren't places to stop and rest um the the walls there are at a bench height though so once we pointed that out she just been sort of seeing them as walls and we're like have you tried sitting there she goes oh I hadn't even thought of that um so we didn't make any changes as a result there but we did sort of do a walk through with her um on the places to stop and rest on Handover walk and one other the change that was made um which a lot of people probably don't know about um we get a lot of questions and complaints about parking um for people with disabilities when they come into city hall because you know all the parking is a long distance away from city hall because there's actually no parking on most of the streets surrounding City Hall um but we were able to reinstate um about six accessible spaces on studbury Street which is right near the JFK Federal Building and as part of the plaza renovation um the design built in uh a little cutout for two or three cars to be able to pull in and park for a temporary like 15 to 20 minutes to go in if you have to get a birth certificate or pay a parking ticket um there's a little pull in area where people can park so those are positive changes and that new Poland space is about 250 ft from the new second floor newly reopened second second floor entrance door and that's where you pay tickets um pay taxes in that area and get a birth certificate so that's where a lot of the transactional um things that people need her so it's it's pretty convenient and I did also just want to ask Paul um I know your background is a brick layer and you came on the uh walkth through with us did you have any comments you'd like to make actually was a laborer with the brick layers Mason tenda but thank you um yeah I did I did talk to on Public Works um with the unless there's any sort of damage that's drastic I think that either public works or the contractor on the next phase can look at it about replacing anything and like you said we've had the mild Winters other than the some chip brick and some Expansion Joints that bound to happen anyway I think that um about 90% from our walkth through it looks it looks pretty good as far as damage wise and any kind of raise Expansion Joints are raised Granite um I know that I know that um Public Works and Property Management have have both looked at it I'm just not sure when the next phase of the other side of City Hall is going to start and with that being said then they can also look and replace any kind of chip pavers or crack right now with any even replacement in sidewalks it's tough in public works to fix anything with say you have to reset brick in a day like today with the motar actually setting um with the cold weather and everything I know they can reset the bricks but as far as placing motar to stabilize them I don't know how long it would actually last with the cold weather so it's depending on the weather and also pending on the next phase as far as any drastic repairs but otherwise I think it's h a th my walk through it's held up pretty pretty well um with the um City Hall Plaza I hope that touch base on some of your questions thank you um you're welcome I do have contact information of anyone with concerns um that could be reached to the commission or my email address and I can even anyone has any questions I can even inquire inquire even more any questions for Patricia or the uh commission staff Carl this is Andrea Jerry has his hand up go ahead there we thank you uh Carl and and thank you uh commissioner and Patricia for um uh expanding on it and U on the walk through and thank you for doing doing the walkthr and thank you Paul for U clarifying um you know when those repairs uh you know can happen is there any way that we can make sure that um even if if those repair those small repairs can't um can't happen in in bad weather or we're not really sure about um you know when they can happen is there a way that we can keep it on on you know public works or building M maintenances radar so that that definitely when the weather is good that that uh that those small repairs can happen and also from the walk through Jerry I noticed that like commissioner and I noticed that they're not in like there there there's need of repair but not in a way where like in a in a throughway where um it's like crumbling so it would be a real drastic hindrance um they're kind of off to the side a small percentage might be in a in a a main line throughway where people are using um the expansion joint stuff I think that just came with the weather and wear and tear don't forget other Winters even though we haven't had any snow the are spreading El ice melt sand there are trucks go you know there are trucks and vehicles utilize on the plaza at certain times so that has taken its wear and tear also sure um but I just I just want you know I just want us to be able to really you know make sure that uh we do make uh Public Works and building maintenance aware of it so when they definely when they can go ahead and you know uh you know do those minor repair so that that it can be done I don't want it to slip through the cracks I think Property Management outstanding job of maintaining any kind of cleanliness and anything in the way um after events set up any kind of damage they've been good about not damaging things with the um high volume of traffic and the weight of different things that have been put on the Plaza property's been above and beyond and upkeeping the maintenance whether it be just snow uh any kind of implemented weather or cleanliness who they do a great job sure and again thank you for your due diligence on our behalf as well of course my pleasure okay great I don't see any other hand R is that correct andrias I don't see any either good next moving on to the next item is Board election nominations we will be voting for our new members next month um but I just wanted to give you a brief report on um current people that have either stepped up and agreed to run for office uh either they came forth or people uh nominated them and uh so we have a proposed slate of officers which will be voted on at next month's meeting Jerry Bard and forgive me if I get the positions wrong and I need to be corrected I know the forame but I may have the positions on Jerry boor for chair Olivia Richard for vice chair Paul Kuran for treasurer is that right T for secretary is that correct I believe that's correct commissioner yes so um we'll just go through the process of um I will officially nominate each candidate for each position typically typically don't get nominated till we do the voting right we're going to do nominations now and then next month we'll do the voting okay so I will um nominate Jerry for the role of chair and I will just ask him if he's interested in accepting this nomination yeah yes I am I uh I am interested in in I will accept the nomination for for chair for the next uh 12mth term should we check if anybody else is interested yeah we will um I'll just go through U my nominations first so then I was going to nominate uh Olivia for vice chair and I want to see if one ofia is interested in this nomination yes I'm interested definitely nice to see you in person Olivia I thought this was an inperson meeting maybe we'll have to see once it warms up a little bit and then um for secretary I would like to nominate PA Karen again all you interested in accepting the nomination oh you're on mute you're on mute Paul oh I'm just apologize um yeah it's an honor and a privilege I appreciate the nomination commissioner thank you it's really I enjoy serving this past year and the past few years as secretary and vice chairman and hope to help to make a difference thank you and then um I'd like to nominate Tara for treasurer Tera are you interested in accepting this nomination yes I accept a nomination for treasure great so those are all my nominations um Carl I can turn it back to you if you'd like to ask if anyone else would like to nominate anyone else or themselves uh everybody is welcome to nominate themselves that's perfectly fine anyone allowed to nominate uh people they wish to nominate um so are there any nominations from the floor are there any nominations for the floor from the floor I will ask the third time are there any nominations from the floor here and none I'm closing the nomination process next month we will vote this L of officers um for both um and that is Jerry Boyd for chair Olivia Richard for vice chair Paul Kuran for um secretary and Tyra sou for treasure and Andrea can I just check is there anything else we need to do procedurally before the uh elections next mon NOP great well thank you all I want to extend a big thanks from me um and on behalf of my office and the mayor for all the hard work you do we really appreciate all the time you get to the city and um we really love working with you all so thank you all for serving on the board okay next on the agenda is announcement um does anybody have any announcement that they wish to share with the commission or the members of the public I did this is Olivia go ahead Olivia um you all know I'm a public housing tenant of the Boston Housing Authority uh the BHA has made no bones of about how poor they are and this has directly led to elevator issues in buildings there was a channel 10 piece done on the elevator issues um while it's an unacceptable situation it's unacceptable all around um they're just not getting enough in to be able to put enough out in fixing stuff um I wanted to make the Boston Community aware that um they do have a contract with a chair company a chair car company if you are in a building a Boston public housing building and you are a tenant and your elevator goes down and you're stuck uh they will contract with this chair car company to get you up and down the stairs it's not ideal but it's better than literally being stuck in one place and I think one of the things that I have on my agenda is trying to get more appropriate funding from Congress for public housing thank you so Olivia is this a federal issue or city aboston issue both is funding issue or a lack of of qualified elevator repairing people both the issue is they're just not getting enough funding to be able to afford repairing upgrading and maintaining their infrastructure you can just add a little note on that Carl um for context so we do work closely with the h& of the Boston Housing Authority um they they are very strapped for cash a lot of their buildings are old and crumbling and not maintained there there's been a lack of Maintenance uh similar to the MBTA if you don't you don't regularly maintain things then they don't last so um BHA is now in the position where they're trying to create enough access um but it's really difficult to justify spending like millions of dollars on an old building that's not going to be um you know renovated fully anyway they're going to be building new buildings so trying to make things as accessible as possible while looking towards the future um I will also say that um there was a hearing city council a hearing on this that we testified that we're working closely with BHA that they let the residents know about the accommodation process that if they do um if they're in a building with an elevator and the elevator doesn't work they will be relocated um either to another unit or to a hotel while um the elevator is being repaired so there's a lot happening with BHA right now um they've done a lot of renovation some new projects in South Boston and Charlestown um but again it's always an issue of money so Olivia we appreciate your efforts on that as far as like some of the issues that caused the breakdowns I will say um a lot of it um for the last few years has been supply chain as we all know um from Co it was really difficult to get parts um labor is much more expensive now we know that and then one thing we're seeing in my office we get complaints on a pretty steady basis from people who say the elevators and their buildings are down and mostly we're seeing like midcentury like mid-rise buildings like maybe uh an apartment building in Brighton that's like eight stories and has an old elevator that's probably small um it's really difficult to get parts for these elevators and then if you talk about a full elevator renovation that could be like over a million dollars and these may be smaller land load who don't have that kind of money so elevators have been identified as a real problem of late and um it's not something that we can directly address other than to point people to the accommodations process that they're entitled to and M mod has a really good page on that so um we can share that with you we can put in the chat or we can follow up if you if you're interested but um just so you know the tenants do have rights when it comes to open elevators if it if it's something that can't be fixed they have rights to be accommodated elsewhere the last thing I'll add and this is Andrea is BHA operates both Federal units and state units um technically speaking none of them are City units and the city has not historically given funds from the city budget to BHA um but they did recently approve a transfer to BHA to uh help fund some of the modernization efforts at the site that was in the news article Olivia was mentioning so the city has stepped up with some additional funds um but generally speaking they have a backlog Capital needs of $1.5 billion with a b and they typically get 30 million with an M between state and federal repair dollars okay thank Charlie has his hand up for announcements heylie I just had a I just wanted to clarifying question on this I did see that news report and then read some follow-up articles so thanks for bringing that up Olivia so commissioner are you saying that and I heard loud and clear that a lot of this doesn't fall under the city but then what does fall under the commission is it the not the advocacy but is it the educ on the relocation service or does the city take care of some of those relocation accommodations what is it that that can clearly be communicated I guess to the residents and those who are affected at where they should kind of and help Focus some of their advocacy like where those funds could come from so they could um you know figure out and understand you know how to navigate some of these challenges y so um it's housing is a little bit confusing because it's um covered by different laws um housing isn't explicitly covered under the Ada most of the housing regulations that are under the fair housing act the FHA where housing does come into play on Ada is as a title 2 entity which my office oversees um everything that the city of Boston owns and operates needs to be accessible so BHA as a city quote unquote department does need to provide access um it also applies to our Shelter Systems that are located in the city that we own and operate so so we've had several complaints about shelter access and people not being accommodated in homeless shelters as far as BHA um you know H housing right large really isn't us but I certainly no private housing um doesn't have anything to do with like my office because we're strictly title to and that's where we um work out to make sure that residents know their rights and that would be I see coling put the link in the um chat and it's a really pretty detailed page just um you're talking about the econ ation that people are entitled to it's always tough though because if they offer to move you out of your apartment who wants to leave their apartment you know so it's a really a bad choice of moving out or staying stuck on um you know an upper floor with no access to getting out of the building so it's it's definitely a challenge but our office doesn't really directly oversee um any of that because bhi is kind of a quasy like City agency U like Andrew said they have state funds they have federal funds um and I don't I'm not the a coordinator for they agency they have their own R coordinator and things like that so as far as housing our rule in the city my rule is pretty much limited to the um Hess shelters because that's considered housing or lodging this is Andrea where we've also stepped in on this particular issue with the Housing Authority um is yes talking about hey here's what a disable like from a disabled person's perspective here's what would be helpful communication from you here's what would be um you know good to know and good to provide if not already providing um so a lot more of that like constituent facing make sure you're giving them the accommodations they need make sure you know what they're entitled to um we've also loan uh sort of lended lend loaned a little bit of um additional not quite strategic planning they they've Consolidated all their elevator maintenance under a single department when it used to be site by site which is huge um but we helped them think through um we were part of the process of helping them think through how to tackle the whole backlog and how to approach prioritization um versus relocating folks um as part of that process so we're like we're there as pinch hitters and really um especially talking about the constituent perspective um but ultimately you know we don't have our budget is very small we don't have funds to um help them reconstruct the elevators but to Olivia point we can certainly advocate for more anybody else with announcements I have a brief one but if anybody else has them i' I'd like them to go okay as many of you may know the Massachusetts legislature was sworn in a week ago today on New Year's Day and that means we have um a brand new St so all the bills have to be reintroduced or submitted and if you have any um bills you would like submitted tied to the disability Community get in touch with your legislator and ask them to submit a bill because Now's the Time to do it for the next um time few weeks uh before committee start being formed in committee assignments are given out so if you want a uh Bill to be submitted and you have questions about how to do that uh feel free to reach out to me or or your Legislative Office excellent oh no you um yeah I'm frozen too oh no it's totally frozen meeting justed I'm wondering if it's my laptop I was afraid my laptop died the whole Zoom just kicked out just yep Zoom just crashed yeah oh we're back okay okay this is Andrea everyone is muted because of a zoom error please give me a moment okay computer but it's not back here and everybody has the same but I can't hear anybody because this computer is not and I can't have Carl either no because this computer is not connected uh we need help you don't the internet City Hall got kicked out of the meeting I can't hear anybody recording in progress they will um put them on future agenda any now the time where we take um input from members of the public are there if so please raise your hand and Andrea will acknowledge you um Andrew may be having some technical difficulty so I can help um is this public input Carl did you say yeah I did okay any members of the public have any comments or questions okay I'm back commissioner can you hear me there was a question and the um that that was from the public do you remember what that question what call that or would that Frozen elevators escalators in City Hall not working it's in the chat yeah um so it says during the December events at City Hall the escalators were not working have they've been repaired visiting seniors need to be aware of accessibility is limited um so thanks for the question Barbara um the escalators um have not been repaired um they will not be repaired um the is actually going to replace the escalators with a four stop elevator so it will be much more accessible than the escalators um they're part of the original building from the 1960s and they're out of code you can't get parts for them anymore they were never super convenient anyway so um we have a design um and funding for the new four stop elevator and uh that's in the process of being um they're working on it now so escalators won't be repaired but there will be an over this is Andre commissioner can you hear me any other questions from the public or comments okay since I'm the chair I can't make the final motion if anybody else if there are no comment from the members of the public no other comment oh I see Jerry has a hand raise okay Jerry I was going to uh take over for you Carl and make uh make your motion to ajour do I hear any second Charlie's raising his hand Charlie you're I'm assuming by raising hand you're second is that correct yes I'm seconding Cher's motion thank you Al those favor of uh joining the meeting signify I allthough the PO okay the I have it thank you everybody happy New Year and I look forward to having a productive uh year with the Commission in 2025 thank you everybody and have a good night thanks thank you everyone stay safe recording stopped e e