##VIDEO ID:I6GlEhaUaMI## my Oney wife and I are running a little bit behind schedule so thanks for your patience all right Wes this is Andrea am I good to read the open meeting law statement yes yes absolutely go ahead great hi everyone the open meeting Law requires that I notify the public that this meeting is recorded therefore Please be aware that an audio and visual recording of this meeting is being made by Boston City TV part of the city of Boston office of cable communications it will be broadcast on Xfinity channel 26 RCN channel 13 and F's Channel 962 as well as the city of Boston's YouTube channel while we are not live at the moment due to technical difficulties we are being recorded live to tape for a later broadcast online and on C with that I will turn it over to our chair Wes hi there everybody good evening everyone um I hope everyone is ready for the fall because we're here in September now and let me just pull up the agenda give me just a moment to do that okay I'm looking at the agenda we will start as we do with [Music] introductions be with me just one second okay so we'll start with introductions please introduce yourself when uh I call on you with your name and you'll roll and which region you live in in the city of Boston also a visual description of yourself would be helpful as well um if you don't have a uh if your camera is off I would appreciate a picture a head shot um that would be helpful in your off screen um if it's possible I can begin my name is West Ireland and I am the board chair and I live in the North End of Boston um and visual description of myself I would say I am I'm a [Music] millennial and um wearing a black shirt that has a logo on it I have a beard uh and that would I think wrap it up uh please identify yourselves um as I call on you to introduce yourselves Olivia can we have you start please super sorry um my name is Olivia Richard I am a board member and I am from uh Brighton and I am a white female with uh close crotch hair uh glasses and a white T-shirt this is Wes thank you Olivia um I didn't realize that I was also supposed to mention um that I am deaf I meant to mention this I am a deaf male um but you'll be hearing the voice of two sign language interpreters uh who will be voicing when I use American Sign Language so they may not sound like me but it's me that they're representing Paul would you like to introduce yourself next please sure my name is Paul Karen and I serve as the vice chairman of the board I work at the Boston planning department and I serve as a mental health Advocate and live in the West End of Boston thank you thank you Paul uh can we have a visual description of you Paul do you mind I have a face for radio no I'm just kidding um just um um just the 6 foot male with um dark hair and that's wearing a white polo shirt this is West thanks for that Paul I appreciate it thank you thank you all uh Carl go ahead yeah my name is Carl Richardson I live in Brighton tenner I identify as a de blind individual I am the secretary of the commission port a by3 port and I am a middleaged uh White Caucasian male with salt and pepper hair and I am told that I visually look a lot like Nathan Lane for those who are in the theater television world and that's it this is West thank you Carl we appreciate that uh Richard would you introduce yourself next please Richard glovsky live in Back Bay I am hearing and paed male white male um I think I would compare myself to Paul in terms of uh our appearance and and it's uh capacity for radio um I have a dark jacket on and a white shirt and uh good to be with everybody this is West thank you for that Richard Elizabeth can we have you introduce yourself please Elizabeth my turn to speak yes yes yep go ahead this is Andrea Elizabeth you should be unmuted are you able to introduce yourself excuse me I lost my signal for a little bit I'm Elizabeth D I just don't know if you have called on this is Wes Elizabeth go ahead okay I'm Elizabeth Dean Clower I live in Dorchester and I'm an Advisory Board member um Elizabeth are you able to provide a visual description of yourself this is Wes um I guess we can go back to Elizabeth unless Elizabeth are you able to provide a visual description of yourself um okay um Jerry why don't we move on Jerry can you introduce yourself please sure uh my name is Jerry Boyd I'm an Advisory Board member I'm from West Roxbury I um I am a middle-aged male with salt and pepper hair much more uh much more salt at this point than Pepper um and I have a a graphic t t-shirt a gray graphic t-shirt on uh um and happy to be here this is Wes thank you for that Jerry uh pette can we have you introduce yourself please good evening everybody my name is paet D I live in mapan I'm an Advisory Board member I'm black female with gray hair I have on a pink shirt with a black sweater great thank you for doing that pette uh and Zary go ahead hi everyone my name is Zary I am I uh I live in South Boston sh sh with black stripes um [Music] that's terrific thank you so much um we wanted to go ahead uh and introduce our new board member we have Tera Souther and The Interpreter apologizes if I'm mispronouncing that Tara um actually yeah Tara if you're here would you mind introducing yourself hi everyone um I'm going to work on my background actually as well or excuse me I give us a little bit of your background because you're new to the to the board can you hear me this is Andre you're a little quiet but yes we can hear you you're unmuted okay um hi everyone I know most of you know me already um I'm Tern sou I I am on the JP rockberry line I am the newest board member I'm a female chair user um wearing glasses with um blonde hair and a ponytail and a red shirt um I do have a 8B service dog named blessa who um will probably often make um let's see um I moved to Boston two years ago um from quindy and I was on their disability board as well which is very different uh we born and raised on the Southshore I've done a lot of disability advic and volunteer work um a lot of it is working with families and Foster Care um including being a surrogate educational parent um kind of disability wise I've done I've done a lot um most around independent living and and access issues yesterday I had the put privilege of going to the independent living conference so I presented on um transportation um it's definitely different being on the side and thank you for having me this is Wes thank you Tara we appreciate that we're very happy for your involvement and you're having joined the board um I also noticed one more board member has Jo joined us I think um Juan Carlos Juan Carlos yes Juan Carlos would you go ahead and introduce yourself please thank you hello everyone this is Juan Carlo Ramirez uh truly truly sorry for being so late um so full name Juan Carlo Ramirez Tapia I'm made from Peru living in Boston for a long time now um for commission member that lives in Boston south end and The Interpreter missed a visual description please oh yes so uh I'm Hispanic uh and I have his spinal core injury thank you very much Von Carlos we've got one extra board member who just joined can I get Colleen to go ahead and introduce yourself uh I think you mean Charlie oh pardon me Charlie hi everyone my name is Charlie Kim I'm a resident of the North End and I'm on The Advisory Board representing parents and caregivers with uh loved ones with disabilities excellent thank you Charlie lastly I'll ask the commissioner Kos to introduce yourself please hi everybody this is Kristen MOS I am the disability commissioner and Ada title 2 coordinator for the city of Boston I am not on camera at the moment but will'll be on shortly and I am a middle-aged uh female with blonde hair and a background of Boston City Hall on my screen wonderful thank you just a moment I jumped ahead on the agenda here we did want to introduce the new board member and we've already done that but now we're going to go ahead and approve the meeting minutes from the last meeting does anyone have any questions or comments in regards to the July meeting minutes I see Jerry your hand is raised you can go ahead thank you than you uh Carl I um make a motion to approve the minutes do we have a second I second that that's Paul anyone in favor please raise your hand the board meeting minutes has been moved and has passed as red thank you I'll go ahead with the board chair report again I trust that everyone has had a great summer it's great to see many of you tonight I have four items that I would like to share first off this is probably the wildest summer we've ever had in terms of the presidential election I ask everyone to prepare with plans of whether you are going to do a mailin vote drop off your votes at The Ballot Box or in person it's important to be prepared for election day it's coming quick the second thing I'd like to follow up on a previous discussion that we had on estate recovery especially for adults with disabilities on Friday September 6th Governor MOA he signed legislation that significantly limits the practice of State recovery in Massachusetts which is great however the Boston Globe has said that Mass health has no comment on the policy change but was open to reducing estate recovery to align with Federal requirements so this is kind of a win at the state level but we still do have a long way to go to have this policy changed at the federal level now it's time for the sports news Red Sox pitcher Luis Guerero was promoted to the Red Sox active roster a couple weeks ago in media's reports he revealed that he hasn't hidden disability his right knee lacks much mobility and mov with a significant limp this was due to an infection during childhood in the Dominican Republic that had not properly been treated also Red Sox hosted de awareness day at one of their home games another pitcher by the name of Garrett Whitlock knows American sign language because his mother happens to be a sign language in interpreter and she interpreted the opening ceremony the fourth thing is that there are several updates with the Boston Public School System first of all there's a new bus tracking app called zum zum and this is a tool for many families to be able to do realtime tracking of when the buses are coming to pick up the kids and drop off at school and the same thing for after school a lot of people will rely on this to reduce mist or late buses hopefully commissioner MOS should be getting data from this app in the coming months that is going to show the metric of buses on time for students with disabilities also BPS is in its third and final year of the state's Improvement plan and one of the objectives was integrating students with disabilities into traditional classrooms the district has increased the number of available seats for 3-year-olds with disabilities and put them in inclusive classrooms with four-year-olds that are preas students and also added more inclusive classrooms and space at almost 20 elementary schools I would also like to add a side note that my oldest child is now in prek in Boston Public Schools before we move on to the commissioner report are there any questions or comments about the chair report this is Andrea I see we have a member of the public with their hand raised uh the time for public input is at the end of the meeting that said I do see your question about Blended classrooms in the chat um inclusive classrooms are Blended classrooms yes correct Blended classrooms uh St some are Blended classrooms correct but not all of them Elizabeth you could go [Music] ahead thank you for un muting me um yes uh thank you for that report Wes I had a followup question about the estate recovery um are there any next steps or role that it would be appropriate for us to have as an Advisory board with research or there other groups um working at the federal level this is Wesley speaking yes I believe that we can all do some research to find key Point people in the US Congress and send a letter to them that's the only idea I have for the federal level at this time okay thanks are there any other questions or comments Wes this is Andrea I'll just add on the BPS um transportation piece uh as the board knows we get three reports a year from the BPS Transportation team about their hiring goals and ontime percentage uh we do not have that report yet for the summer school year ontime percentage report uh but the mayor and superintendent did have a press availability today to discuss you know the last week or so of schools so if folks are interested in that data we can send it out um otherwise I'll have a report at the next board meeting um on the three data pieces we always ask for thank you Andrea that sounds good and Charlie your hand was raised um yes it's actually a followup question for um Andrea did any guidance on um how close they'll be to giving us the disaggregated data specifically rather than it the total on time percentages and all that but specifically drilled down for the students um that ride the the buses with disabilities so now that they are using the new app they might be able to do that as we've asked for viously they did not have any way of giving us that data um but with the new app I expect there will be the possibility to give us that data so we we'll keep asking now that they actually have the ability to potentially track that okay thank you just wanted to make sure that I continue just to grast that yeah so the reports to us are are backward looking and so they'll be looking back at the summer when they didn't have the app so I wouldn't expect we'd get anything disaggregated looking at the on time percentage over the summer but with the new app that's a new possibility for future reports it just in in general for context normally those who have um it's like know as fifth quarter or summer school or extended school year um the majority are students that it is approved within um their uh education plan so majority I believe um would have um would have some sort of a disability so those numbers on the extended school year will be very interesting to see how how it worked out because that is a it's an important period uh for a lot of the the students uh especially my daughter uh summer time is something to to make sure that they continue to to thrive as they go and then take a short break and then start school again so this is Wes uh any other comments or questions about the chair's report before we move on in the agenda okay great then I will turn the floor over to commissioner MOS for the commissioner's report please good evening everybody again this is Kristen MOS I'm on camera now so I'm happy to see you all tonight and we can jump right into my report I think Andrew's going to share the slides okay so um I'm going to give uh some updates on our department just some of the work that we've been doing in the office so as you may know our office is part of the equity and inclusion cabinet and since we've moved into this cabinet um mayor woo and our cabinet Chief Mar and Jil Sol sea have really elevated disability into the city's Dei work so we really think of it now as diversity the equity inclusion and accessibility in this vein um we are also part of the equity and inclusion Academy which was a pilot last year we have discussed with you if you remember but now it's become a permanent program and what the academy does is it provides a series of equity learning experiences uh from City staff in the eni cabinet to staff who work in every Department across the city and it's really intended to build trust um across lines of difference and to um teach people about different um types of things they can do to improve equity and inclusion in their work as well as um serving constituents from diverse backgrounds and abilities and making sure that um everything they do is accessible and inclusive of our community so we're excited about that the equity inclusion cabinet has also hired its first of several Equity managers and what this position will do is it will be a staff person who will be embedded in a different department the one who is just um hired is in the human services cabinet so this person will work fully in the Human Services cabinet but they will work to bring all of the equity inclusion goals and um messaging and everything else to Human Services cabinet so for example we'll work closely with this manager um for example at the BCF centers we'll make sure that all the BCF centers know that they have to put language on their Flyers when they having events that states it's accessible so because we can't interact directly with every single Department this person will be sort of like a leas on but a little bit more uh in depth than that to ensure that all Equity inclusion work transfers to the Human Services cabinet and then we'll also be hiring manages in other City cabinets uh in the near future but we're really excited about this position um and again our goal is always systemic access so this will be U this will go a big way towards that next update is on the Ada transition plan so when the Ada was first passed in 1990 it required all municipalities to create a transition plan first they had to do a self- evaluation to look at all their they were supposed to look at all their buildings as well as programs and policies but because it was so new and municipalities lacked capacity most transition plans really just cover architectural access and the City of Boston is the same so our original transition plan in 1993 gave a broad overview of the accessibility status of the major buildings that are owned and operated by the city of Boston it's a really old plan it's on our website it's typed in all different typewriters and um it has all different parameters that were measured so what we want to do now is sort of we're calling it an update but it's not really an update we've hired a consultant and what we want to do is um be able to show residents like what has changed since 1993 um we know all the work the city does today is accessibility work so we want to highlight like Boston Public Schools for example they have done a building assessment on every single School building so we want to be able to create an interface where like Charlie you could look look up oh this school when was it last renovated what accessibility features does it have when is the next update coming upgrade coming so we're working on um this consultant's going to pull together all the data that we have they're not going to do any new measurements or assessments but we have assessments from the schools we have assessments from public works on sidewalks and curbs we have assessments from the parks department and BCF so this person is going to pull together all of that data and put it in an interface where people from the public can look it up and get to see like where we are in terms of accessibility and what's coming down the road so we're very excited about that and we'll go to the next slide so one of our annual events is coming up uh next week week and I think you've all been made aware of it it's Civic engagement day for people with disabilities it's going to be held next Tuesday September 24th uh in person in Boston City Hall it's going to be on the fifth floor in the city council chamber city council offices the pomon room and in the hallway and this year we'll be having two sessions the first one will be in the morning from 10: to noon and that will focus on youth students and young adults anybody's welcome to come to either session but we know that we got get a lot of students in the morning session so some of those questions may be um focusing on schools and and opportunities for Youth and students so um that's just more the focus the evening uh session will be more for working aged adults to come hopefully after work and ask questions the board and get to meet you and then go and and learn a lot about how to get involved in um the city so there'll be uh information tables on the fifth floor hallway uh staffed by various departments who work on Civic activities such as um neighborhood service Liaisons the city council U participatory budgeting um the elections department and they will also have a mock polling station set up in the poman room so people can experience the voting kiosk if they've never voted before they can certainly register to vote they can try the Automark machine which is a device that helps people who are blind or who have dexterity limitations to vote independently they can learn about electronic voting and they can try a mock ballot um in preparation for the November 5th election the ballot itself won't have any names on it because we don't want to confuse people but it will have fun questions like what their favorite ice cream flavor is just to try a re balot and then um we I know we've reached out to you all individually we'd love to have you participate in either or both events but we'd like you to prioritize the evening session if you're available and I know several of you have come to this event in years past and it's always valuable to have you come interact with the community so again next Tuesday we hope to see there and then in October we have a very busy October this year um every year we do events for National disability employment awareness month or ndam but this year we've really ripped up our uh schedule and we're doing this because one of the goals of Mayor woo and also of the equity inclusion cabinet is financial stability and economic Mobility we know that people with disabilities um primarily live in um poverty they um are often unable to get jobs because of benefits and being on medicated they fear losing benefits which is a real you know fear so uh Financial stability and economic Mobility is often a big challenge so what we want to do is um give people some tools and let them know what the city of Boston does that may help them to achieve um their goals as far as um Financial stability so the first webinar is one we've done for the past 3 years it's called Pathways to employment with the city of Boston and this webinar is going to show people if they're interested in getting a job with the city it's going to um talk to them about ways to do that we hope to demystify the whole process because a lot of people still think oh you have to know somebody to get a job with the city or oh they wouldn't hire me because I have a disability so this webinar is going to really get rid of all those myths we hope and also clarify the process because if you want to job with the public health commission that human resources department isn't at Boston City Hall and it's not online at boston.gov it's a separate website a separate building so we have three or four of those agencies in the city um Public Health commission the Boston public school department the Boston um Housing Authority they all have different portals different employment requirements as far as residency and different um hours like some are 9 to5 some are parttime some are remote some are in person so this webinar will give people a sense of u a chance to answer all their questions about working for the city and an opportunity to apply for a job the second webinar is um it's new to this um series but it's something that we've done in the past it's called Financial Empowerment and economic Mobility um that's kind of the working title it's really about um some tools that the city provides like bank on Boston it helps people like figure out how to um establish savings accounts um the city gives seed money for college to kids who are starting kindergarten um they do credit checks and uh Financial Wellness checkups and they provide a lot of tools for free that can really help people get a sense of what their status is and help to map out goals so we've done this before um it was a whole curriculum that we developed for the Boston Public Schools transition age uh special ed students and they have um embedded that into the curriculum and so now we want to bring it over to this side and um help share this information with adults a lot of people know about our tax credits um that um they can get tax credits back when they do their taxes but um a lot of people don't know about the other tools that the city has so we we hope to make people aware of that and then the third webinar will be on finding affordable available accessible housing and this is going to be from the mayor's office of housing it's going to talk about the lottery process um how to get um on the waiting list um what you need to call qualify um if you're interested in renting or owning there are a lot of options that the city has um to help you in this process so that's a really exciting one because we know housing is the biggest barrier that so many people with disabilities face um and then the third one is going to be on employees know your rights and this is basically from the workers empowerment cabinet in the city along with the mous office on disability um not only people with disabilities but all employees have rights to um time off and to benefits and things like that that they may know not know of so this is going to be um a webinar just to apprise people of those things and then the culmination of all these webinars is going to be a really exciting event that we're piloting this year it's an in-person hiring well it's really interview hiring event so on November 4th which is a Monday we are going to bring people into City Hall so anyone who has applied for a job after the pathways to employment webinar um we're going to give them a list of pre-approved jobs or pre selected I should say jobs maybe 10 jobs or so that are hiring and anyone who has applied for any of those jobs and meets the minimum qualifications will be guaranteed a first round interview and this is a big step because a lot of times people with disabilities don't know if they should disclose the disability or they may feel intimidated like I'm never going to get an interview so just getting that first round interview is a big barrier that we hope to hope to help people overcome so again it's a pilot we're shooting to have 20 people get interviews obviously it's no guarantee of a job but it is a guarantee to interview so people will get to sell themselves so um other um communities have done this I know the mayor's office of imigrant advancement has done it um so we're really following on that model and again it's a pilot we don't know if we'll have five people show up or we'll have 20 or maybe we'll have 30 people who want to do it so again we're just kind of um trying it out to see to see how it works and again our our efforts are geared towards um increasing economic Mobility Financial stability of people topend so excited about a busy October and then in November we have a national and municipal election this year so just remember the important dates um voter registration deadlines coming up in October November 5th is the election and then early voting kicks off from October 19th to November 1st um this slide has been in here before but if you when you're home you can click on the links you can find your polling location you can find dates about early voting um um learn more about the Automark machine if you have a a visual or a dexterity disability and you want to vote independently you can learn more about that also accessible electronic vot voting options and absentee voting which has always been an option for people who can't vote first um other important information to remember is um you can find uh your District City councelor if they're up for election you can um apply to be a poll worker and you should always be sure to fill out your annual resident listing because that maintains your voter registration status so if you show up at the poll to vote and you haven't fulfilled out your residency listing in a year or so you won't be you won't be listed on there and you'll have to U reup that before you can actually vote all right that was a lot but we'll go to the next slide okay actually I'm going to pause here because this is going to be um the next piece of the agenda is going to be my report on what we do as as an office because I know we had um the next part of the agenda is going to be on goal setting for the uh board members for the next year so I'm going to pause here and take any questions about my report if anyone hasn't Charlie hi commissioner thanks for the report um the specifically on all the things that are going on in the next month it it's it's actually really exciting to see all the those webinars and all the things that are going on feels like there's going be a lot going on um I guess as part of our goal setting because it it I think it's because um each meeting and then you know going back um it would be great to to to know which ones like you said some of them are repeat but I I'm presuming that there's plenty of up Ates and then if um if we are doing those webinars uh you know as we we align some of our goals is there anything that we can do um to I guess um amplify some of these things or even uh figure out if there's any um I wouldn't say metrics but you know figure out each year how are you know is it growing is it you know is the are we getting more information are we really getting great results I think that would be um great uh to figure out but that is a comprehensive list of of things that are going on and I I really appreciate that I love this question because um we've just been talking um internally about things like data and um how we can measure ourselves and actually the equity and inclusion cabinet is also instituting some measurement tools so we can see who we're impacting like how much an impact we're having and um what we've recently done is um our brilliant colleague Chris morowski he has recently um pulled together data from a bunch of our events that we've done over the last few years and he's pulled together um the different attendees like to look at like age ranges for example because one thing we really do want to work with is transition age students in Special A because we know like 18 to 24 they're going to be out a lot of them will be out working soon so are we getting the messages to them to support them for the next phase of their life so we are looking at um different communities we're reaching different neighborhoods like if nobody from map is attending our events why is that can we reach out more to people in that neighborhood we look at different um B backgrounds on race and ethnicity if we're only reading the ma reaching the majority of people who are white like what's what's the problem with that how can we you know get more into the neighborhoods and reach other underserved constituents so yes we are looking at data and we do hope to grow the program and again I should have mentioned that um all these programs will also be open to the transition Aid students I know people who are parents of Boston Public School kids especially those in special ed um really concerned about you know kids Futures as all parents are and so anything we can do to help support um Mara Fitzpatrick who's our esteemed colleague in BPS um with all her work to get kids ready for the next phase of their lives we really want to promote that so that's exactly what you can do Charlie is amplify these messages please spend send them out to spack um and everyone else send them to your networks um your colleagues friends because the more people turn out the more the messaging will get out I mean the C city of auson really has a lot of great financial programs that people don't even know about I mean I'm still learning and I've worked at the city for over 10 years and I'm like wow I didn't know they did that so I mean there's a lot that we can share and we hope that you all will implify this message any other questions go ahead Elizabeth yes this is Elizabeth Dean blow uh thank you for the report commissioner um I actually wanted to ask you a question that goes back to the summer Leadership Institute or whatever the right word is that you attended that I know that that was leadership as I understood it that um that uh mayor woo chose you to go to it and working with leaders in many fields but could you tell us a little bit about that it didn't seem fair to ask you about it while you were on vacation time that our meeting thank you Elizabeth I love this question too um yes so mayor mayor woo selected me to attend the har Kennedy School of government um state and local government executive leadership program it was a 3-we program that I went to um during the month of June and I was actually surprised I was the only local person in the group and there were um about 60 of us 62 people in the group and they were from all over the country and people from different uh countries as well we had people from um the Philippines we had someone from um Canada we had um people from Ireland and England so it was a really divers group of people um a lot of blue people a lot of red people um we had people from Tennessee who were like fully read and we had a lot of great discourse um really it's to train uh local leaders in um things like conflict resolution and leadership styles and engaging um with the community and you know the City of Austin is so Progressive I was impressed maybe because we have a lot of people in City Hall who've gone to Harvard but a lot lot of the techniques that we were um working through with ones that I had already been familiar with like um the wheel of power like who's in the you know who's in your circle of power how do you expand that um looking at different techniques and things like that but it was such a valuable experience and we're all on our our group chat and I we still keep in touch and we've already done a zoom and the interesting thing is so many of them were our delegates for Democratic Convention that um you know we may have to see each other again but things like that we will see each other because you know we we had um judges who were part of it we had elected officials we had um you know state senators and state representatives we had um people like appointed officials like myself we just had the whole Dam and it was U it was an incredibly value experience and I feel so lucky that the mayor nominated me so thank you for asking about that all right very good you can go ahead commissioner okay so I know um there's no external presenter tonight it's just going to be me um and the reason for that is because um I know Charlie has been mentioning that he really would like to see the board move forward with setting some goals and we did do a survey uh to get your input on goals and we'll talk about that um after my presentation but before we did that we really thought you know Andrew and I were talking we thought gee we wonder if the board really has an in-depth understanding of what our office does so then you'll be able to see like the interplay between what we do and what you can do to advance your work as a board so I'm going to give a really in-depth uh overview of what we do uh what all my staff does and what we work on uh in preparation for the goal setting discussion and um also because we have a new board member and other board members who may be newer um and some of you may just not know what we do so um Andrea is going to open up the first part about logistics and the office and then I'm going to jump into for the second part so I'll turn you sorry thanks commissioner Colleen is pulling up the slides again um so hi everyone I'm Andrea I'm the chief of staff for the commission I use she herar pronouns I'm a white woman with black glasses wearing a green necklace and shirt so we're the mayor's commission for persons with disabilities or disabilities commission for short our mission statement is that we aim to increase opportunities for people with disabilities in the city of Boston by ensuring full and equal participation in all aspects of life and I'm going to tell you a little bit about how we actually do that so a little bit of History um I know some of you have seen versions of this before um but the disability commission Advisory Board which is you all was first established in 1971 as an eight- member board also known as the commission on handicapped Affairs we did not adopt until 2009 the state law which uh allows for the creation of these commissions known as mgl chapter 40 section 8j or just 8j for short that established a nine member disability commission Advisory Board in the city of Boston which acts in its advisory role to the city's disability commissioner who is commissioner MOS uh and who leads the disability commission department and that is uh where we get paid so that was founded in 1979 again it was the commission on handicapped Affairs that was provided with staff and funding that is where our office comes in with city jobs but then in 1987 um a specific an ordinance was created to name us the commission for persons with disabilities two as I just said in our mission statement it's right in the city code facilitate full and equal participation in all aspects of Life uh it also specifically charges our office with assisting the city with complying with accessibility laws so in 1987 that wouldn't have necessarily included the Ada at the time but it's phrased in such a way to say you know any accessibility laws that apply to the city so next slide that means we are both a city of Boston department and the federal Ada title to coordinator office uh our purpose as I said in city ordinance is to serve as a department to help other departments and when the Ada was passed requiring Municipal municipalities to designate a coordinator to comply with Ada title 2 with were already made right there in 1987 to serve that role yep next slide so we'll start with the Department uh we are a nine member department at this point led by our fearless leader commissioner MOS um I am the chief of staff on the top part of the slide there are the four four pictures or icons representing myself representing Patricia Mendes our director of architectural access and her amazing team of Sierra Tilton architectural access specialist and Sarah Le Young Senior architectural access specialist commissioner will talk in more depth about what they do and then I directly oversee the four pictures ions that you that are on the bottom of the screen Colleen Flanigan our Outreach and engagement specialist and currently slideshow screen share extraordinaire Kylie Potter our on Street accessible Park work program manager Chris morosi our o that's an old title constituent support specialist uh and Kai Kennedy our accessibility and inclusion training specialist Commish has a bunch of slides about what we do but this slide will show you the four main things it's got animations so on Street accessible parking that I mentioned this is our primary service that we provide directly to Residents by overseeing the installation of accessible parking spots in business areas and in front of neighborhood residents second is architectural access uh we lead the city's efforts to create ideal accessibility in our built environment that means buildings but also sidewalks and Roads to go beyond the minimum ADA compliance we have a lot of community engagement uh we have our email newsletter we have a bunch of events that commissioner will talk about uh we have our uh disability information and referrals and then of course a huge part of what we do is be the staff that support you the disability commission Advisory Board uh in your work as appointees so one of the um sets of work that we do we call it our admin team I mentioned those events uh we have three Signature Events each year that I think you all know about um our disability Community Forum this is our Q&A session our listening session our attempt to hear from the community about what our priority should be Ada uh day of course is our community celebration in July and our bringing together of the community and free community services um to connect everyone that's our big event Civic engagement day is our Focus on bringing people with disabilities actively into be invited into the working and functioning of city government whether that is offering testimony at a council hearing joining a border commission voting for participatory budgeting proposal there's so much that we can do and we want to show you how accessible it is and then finally all the disability employment Awareness Month activities that commissioner mentioned and then just a little more context on everything Kylie does with the OSAP program uh that's both residential applications and renewals community and commercial space installations when MBTA diversions or other construction needs to relocate spaces we coordinate that to ensure there's nothing lost and uh they are actively involved in conversations across the city about how we use our curbs what are the regulations that we should have on our curbs our admin team also includes Outreach um so Colleen attends events from the open streets events ready Boston field day aong resource fairs uh the youth jobs and resource Fair these are just the ones we could remember in like the last month I think that Colleen has been at um she is out in community all the time she also runs our Boston breaks Outreach campaign uh that I know you all uh have heard about she was actively involved in the search program which is a community emergency response team training which trained I believe calling what 50 people with disabilities to be certified leaders in their community in the case of an emergency response she runs our disability News and Views program that's our monthly Cable News Channel let me switch interpreters and okay um that's our monthly cable news show um which is on Boston City TV interviewing both City departments and local community members about their contributions to the city of Boston we have a Weekly Newsletter that Colleen and Chris put together we do interdepartmental collaborations for outreach so that includes meeting with the uh public information officers from every Department to amplify their message make sure their message is is being put out accessibly uh meeting with the mayor's press office to ensure their work is accessible and colen spends a lot of time at buildings that have high proportions of disability residents whether that's just a newer building that's more accessible uh or um you know BHA elderly disabled senior buildings um you know she spends time going out and meeting with community members and then I'll Ki it back to Commish to talk specifically about the federal Ada titled to work thanks Andrea so yeah I just wanted the board to see um you know how our office coveres a really broad scope so as a city Department um I am the disability commissioner I oversee the office and I have a lot of flexibility in like um you know working with departments like to like make them knowledgeable about disability access and inclusion we do trainings and things like that so there's a lot of flexibility in programming we get to hold our events we get to um do fund things like that and then we also run uh the program of the parking program we do a lot of information and referral for residents so all the things the typical city office would do but in my role as the Ada title 2 coordinator as Andrew mentioned at the beginning this is a federal designation and it's a serious designation which um really has to uphold the um the Hardline that the city of Boston cannot discriminate against people with disabilities so there's really no flexibility in this piece of my role and let's go it to the next slide so uh to give you an overview of the Americans with Disabilities Act I'm sure most of you are very familiar with it but in case you don't know the uh different titles I'd like to go over them to tell you what exactly we work on so the Ada is a civil rights law that was passed in 1990 and it protects people with disabilities regardless of their citizenship status from being discriminated against on the basis of disability the Ada has five titles which are Title One is employment and that is anyone who uh is an employee and feels like they've been discriminated against they can file a complaint and there's a whole process for that laid out by the Ada um you know you can always Google these um online after the meeting if you want more information but um each title lays out very specific parameters that have to be followed and if they're not then they have basis for a complaint of discrimination so um title two is state and local government that's where we fall in that's squarely where we lie um title three is places of public accommodation like restaurants and businesses title four is telecommunications and Title Five is miscellaneous Provisions so just to drill down a little bit on each of these um Title One Employment um so for the City of Austin anyone who's an employee and feels like they've been discriminated against can file a complaint with human resources that is not something that my office handles don't get into any employment issues because I don't have oversight over that what I can do is if a city employee has questions about what their rights are as an employee I can couns with them on that I can go over the process of what the city has to do and speaking with them about say a reasonable accommodation or um a situation that they're trying to work on I can give them information about the parameters and the process but I can't do any adjudication on the situation um title three places of public accommodations these are anything that happens in the public um movie theaters restaurants businesses clothing stores so um you know these are things that I also don't have direct oversight on however we have been working more in this field to um coordinate with the city departments that do have oversight like the licensing board has oversight of restaurants so we work with them in implementing the captions ordinance as you all well know so if a restaurant is not in compliance we can reach out to them from our staff but then we can also you know bring Licensing in and license can say licensing can say hey if you don't comply with this mandate then you may lose privileges to hold a TV in your place of business so although we don't directly oversee it we can have an impact another thing I do is what we have what we call a do the right thing letter so we get a lot of complaints from the public about um discrimination and places of public accommodation because people uh in the public they don't know exactly what we do and that makes sense so if someone calls us and says oh I was turned away from a restaurant because I have a service dog we can't do anything to enforce that but I can send a letter that from the disability commissioner of the city of Boston saying hey did you know that this is a legal requirement and um the letter will have links and things like that and a lot of times if the business just hears from the disability commissioner they will do the right thing a lot of times it's just a matter of who we are is so we are branching out into title 3 a little bit even though we don't have direct we site of those things um telecommunications the biggest piece of this um really is related to um digital access and when the Ada was written there was um no online there were no websites there were no emails so that was totally left out of the Ada but now we have the um wcag which is the web computer accessibility guidelines and they are requ ired under 508 section 508 of the rehab act so uh anyone who gets Federal money has to follow that act which is the city of Boston so we work closely with our um digital team to make sure all the city websites are accessible coling works really hard to make sure other departments are using alt tags when they post pictures um again this is part of our systemic work even though we don't oversee this we push it out to all departments to make sure that they know that these are requirements and then um Title Five was just kind of miscellaneous we could skip that and then just the last bullet on this slide um just so people know as a local government entity not only can we not discriminate or deny people participation in our services or programs we also can't require them to go to a separate program we may have separate programs like Camp Joy is a camp in the summer for kids with disabilities but if a kid with a disability wants to go to um a typical camp with their siblings we can't we can't deny them that opportunity if there are certain reasons why they couldn't participate that may be an issue like if it's um a hiking camp and uh someone's in a wheelchair and they can't do the hikes it may not be something that we would have to change the hikes to let them participate in but we may find a program that's a better fit so the thing that the city doesn't have to do is to change the um essential nature of the program like if it's a hiking program but we we also can't require this person to say you can only go to Camp join so it's really all about inclusion and and um you know making sure that people not only aren't discriminated against but that they have um access to all the services that we provide next slide okay so um a few other technical things that the Ada requires of me I have to quot to post a public notice of non-discrimination and when I first started with the city in 2010 these were posters that we hunt up in all City buildings now they're pretty much on the digital boards in different city buildings and online um and again as part of my system work I reach out to other departments all the time to make sure they post this notice make sure that people know that they um have a right not to be discriminated against and if they are discriminated against they can do something about it so as me we mentioned earlier the Ada requires any public entity with 50 or more employees to designate an ADA title to coordinator so as Andrea said when we were already established in an office it made perfect sense to uh give us that responsibility so mayor monino appointed me as the Ada titled to coordinator in 2010 so my role as the coordinator um I have to prepare the self- evaluation transition plan so that's what we're working on now I have to ensure that all Municipal programs policies and services are accessible and this is such a big job that um we work on it systemically and I'll get more into that later because we only have nine staff and we don't build roads for example but we work closely with Public Works to ensure that when they build roads and camps that they're all accessible another task that we're required to do is to create an ad agreement procedure and um this is a very um easy thing to find it's on our web page it's a form if someone feels like they've been discriminated against they can click on the link fill out the form I'll get back to them within a certain period of time it might be 10 days or 20 days and I'll discuss the issue with them we really try to resolve these informally if at all possible like if somebody says oh I requested large print type and they didn't have any I'll call that department I'll say you know make sure you have this can you commit to that can you get this person uh you know the information in large print and that can be resolved but if it's something more difficult um you know we get into a lot of um difficult situations and it might take some investigation to find out like what an employee said to this person if they say they were treated unfairly you know we we sometimes have to really you know dig into the Leeds of it and if it's something we can't resolve then we refer people to the mass commission against discrimination because they can file a civil rights complaint uh mcad is a state agency that investigates civil rights inls so that would be the next step and then if that isn't helpful they can always go to the federal level um the Department of Justice for discrimination on the basis of disability um okay so that is title two um and then the third piece of title two which is critically important is that government entities are required to provide effective communication so this means um people who use screen read a Depot of hearing any other communication related disabilities must have access to the same information as those without disabilities so um you may remember during the pandemic um when it was mayor Walsh at the time when he was on TV every day giving updates important updates critical Public Health updates um we ensure that there was an ASL interpreter at every single meeting and we've carried that practice over to Mayor Mo's uh press events we work really hard to get ASL at every um press event that she has um unfortunately there are um not as many ASL iners available to cover every meeting so Andrew and I meet um weekly with the Press team to prioritize the upcoming press conferences of Mayor woo and say okay this one definitely has have ASL and this one may not be so important if it's like um you know a smaller announcement that doesn't impact a lot of people we still ask them to reserve or request an ASL interpreter but they can't get it we'd say Okay Tuesdays isn't as important as Wednesdays so please put your efforts into get one for Wednesday so um people can request any reasonable accommodations they want um reasonable modifications to policy and procedure um so an examples are like PDF documents as opposed to um you know they have to be screen reader accessible um something like if there's no food policy in a public building some with diabetes need to bring snacks that's an easy combination that we can make um and then the other two like obviously a wheelchair is not part of a no motorized vehicles policy in Parks or buildings okay so I think that wraps up um title two just in a nutshell again we do the Grievances we do um investigation res investigational resolution and then we do proactive compliance with the Ada and this is what I'll dig into a little bit more now so our architectural access team team um you met them earlier Patricia Sarah and Sierra they are internal consultants for City departments so what that means is they have monthly meetings um with many different departments and they also sit on different review committees so um they work closely with the Boston transportation department whenever the city's designing bike Lanes or redes redesigning streets um our staff is right in those meetings currently the public works department um is working on the curram consent decree to build 6600 ramps every year and they're in the process of hiring an ADA coordinator to sit in the public works department and Andrea and Patricia are on the hiring team so they're currently doing interviews for an ADA coordinator so our staff is really embedded in all these uh departments and they know to call us before any of these things go forward we work closely with the parks department when they're redesigning Park um they do a lot of accessible features and playgrounds we work with them to make sure that the pathways are accessible and smooth and if they have questions about slopes or anything like that they know right who to reach out to we also had an intern um the last few years working on um mapping accessible features in different prodcts things that wouldn't be on a normal inventory like um is this water cooler uh accessible water refill station accessible um where there um picnic tables with bench with the cutle for wheelchair things like that so we just recently uploaded that to our web page um so that's exciting so one one um facil one Department that we work with closely is the public facilities department and this is a big one because they handle all the renovations and new construction for all city-owned buildings so that's Public Schools it's BCF centers it's libraries so our staff is involved in all these meetings so if a school is being redesigned and they can't do a ramp they have to do one of those platform lifts which we hate um our staff Will Go On Site visit they work with them very closely to say hey you know let's see if we can redesign this area to get a ramp in so we don't need a lift um sometimes a lift is the only thing they can do but um luckily for us Patricia Mendes our director of architectural access also sits on the state architectural access board so she can guide them through the process of applying for a variance so Patricia has a welcome knowledge um she's a problem solver so we always try to solve the problem first and foremost and if not we'll go for a variance we also work closely with BHA although we don't have oversight over BHA because that's a quasi City entity we do work closely with them um You probably all seen in the news recently the elevators have been down in many buildings so um you know we we work closely with them on that okay so just in just of time I will move through a little more quickly um we also act as external consultants for private developments so um the Boston Planning and Development agency which is now the Boston planning department has a review system called article 80 so when anybody a private development wants to build a building a large building they have to go through this article 80 so a few years ago we were able to implement an accessibility checklist into the process so um the developer has to lay out all the accessibility features and they have to let us know UPF front if they're planning to request um a variance from the ad a variance means that they're not able to um make the building fully accessible so we want to know up front why they're playing that and how can we make it accessible instead of applying for variant we also have a checklist for groups hosting events on City H Plaza um we do individual referrals for housing mod modifications and complaints we resolve issues such as block pedestrian detours around uh City construction sites and uh we produce public interos like a city hall access for sure next slide um this admin team um Andre covered the constituent services but I wanted to leave it on this section because we do a lot of trainings um we now have a training inclusion specialist Kai Kenedy um they are on maternity re lead but they'll be back next week we're really excited they have only been on board just over a year and they've already implemented like dozens of trainings so they've done disability 101 accessibility 101 service dogs reasonable combinations um they're also recording a series of these trainings so they're online to people to use we're going to be working with the police department when Kai gets back to talk about interacting with people have disabilities and different U things about like enforcing accessible parking violations and things like that so um also policies um and this is like a big picture or issue um we want to work with you on like the close um the close caption ordinance to make that an external policy um and then we are just internal consultant policies that everybody's working on like whether it's an election uh policy or Emergency Management policy we are the goto office for that so I guess all this is just to say that we are deeply embedded in all the city's work of every department and so I want the board to know that um sometimes they'll say oh why don't you work on this and usually the answer is we do work very closely on that we just might not do good job promoting ourselves uh in the work we do and then I think there might just be one slide left yep so this is the city o chat um the whole city of Austin o chat so we look at this we have it up on the wall and conference room and we look at each um each blue square is a cabinet and the bullets underneath those are departments so we look at each cabinet and say how can we have an impact here what what do these departments work on that we can um help improve for accessibility and we do a a strategic plan every year to look at this whole picture and then we take away our work plan to see how we can um ensure that all all the work of these departments and cabinets is accessible and I know that was a lot U but I did just want to wrap it up because I know you want to have a discussion about goal setting and happy to take questions or pass it back to Wes um for the next part of the agenda and please I'll just make a note take this slide home uh the slide deck we'll mail it out to you tomorrow and please you know dig into it check some of the links just because you are our Advisory Board I think it'd be great to really know um what we do as an office thank you commissioner Sandra or MOS thank you for that and talking about the commission and what it does are there any other questions or comments for both of them for Andrea and commissioner MOS I just wanted to say hi this is z I just wanted to thank you commissioner Mage I have been a board member for as you know a very long time but this was a great overview of everything that you do and really I appreciate all the work that your staff does I mean it seems like you know we have at least I had a very limited vision of what you did you know been about the streets and how housing but really goes so much beyond that and I really do appreciate your work um one of the questions that I guess I I have is how can we um be more active in you know when you look at that chart and all the um different municipalities uh what do you suggest as far as I don't have enough want to be another board but how can I be more active I think that this is a great segue into the goal setting because I know Charlie and other people have expressed like you like what can we do how can we move the work forward so I think if we look at the goals um that will be some concrete steps that you can all take and I also think I can commit on my end to um communicating more with the board about certain things like um email got an email from me last month I think it was in August about um blue bike stations that they were going to be looking to um put them into different communities you should weigh in on that so I'm going to be more intentional about sending you uh opportunities to weigh in directly on programs that the city is working on so you can give feedback but I think we can um good time to transition so I'll send it back to W yes thank you Zary moving forward with the agenda here the next item is the announcements I don't have any announcements to share does anybody else have any announcements Olivia would you go ahead yes this is Olivia Richard um I wanted to point out that if you have a physical disability or a print disability that prevents you from using regular books or regular text you can get accessible voting materials from Perkins library for free they can send you audio they can send you uh large print um they can send it in braille uh any format you may need they can send it so I figured this close to the election I should point that out great thank you Olivia this is Carl I get all my reading material a lot of my reading material from the Park Library yeah it's not well known that uh they serve more than just the Blind and low vision Community they also serve the physically disabled yeah I agree with you thank you for pointing that out about the resources from Perkins that's especially important important for us to be ready to vote in the election and I see Richard your hand is up do you have any announcements you'd like to make and we can't hear you Richard yeah the the screen said um everybody was muted so I I was muted somebody just let me interject um thanks I I maybe I I have the agenda wrong I don't have it in front of me but I thought we were going to discuss the survey tonight yes that's going to be uh two items next I mean I just hope we have enough time because I think people put a lot of thought into right we should be able to let me look here do we have any other announcements we'll move on to the next item on the agenda which is old business are there any old business items to share I don't have any personally all right now on to new business we're going to work on the board goal setting I'm going to ask Andrea to pull up the slides yep thanks Wes um so I'll just quickly summarize the the survey um findings uh from what the executive committee said out um so multiple you know board members have expressed an interest in exactly what we've heard tonight proactive um you know activity on the part of the board so first the executive committee sent out a you know idea generation exercise where everyone could add any kind of goal they wanted and then second uh put together all of the suggestions for the board for actions that the board could take and sent those out for folks to to vote um so there were 20 suggestions for board activity goals um for things that you all could work towards of them uh 10 folks voted the goal with the most votes seven votes so the majority of those voting and of the board uh agreed on liking to set a goal of broader engagement with communities of different cultural and language background of people with disabilities the next four goals uh had five votes each so about half of those who voted and less than half the board and those were first continue discussing Community Living housing and emergency preparedness as a regular meeting item mental health physical health was second third attempt to impact all or as many as possible of the 75 to 880,000 disabled residents of Boston and fourth become more proactive rather than Simply Be The receptors of information I won't read all 60 the rest uh received at least one vote um but uh two quick uh context notes on this survey one it was not the sort of official vote it is not the end all Beall this was the start of the conversation so these goals can be added to adapted you know they're here to start your conversation tonight second the goals that received the most votes were the most uh sort of highlevel um big picture goals that the board had uh they're not the ones that are phrased in the most action oriented language that that set a sort of specific next step for youall to do uh so again if you do decide to adopt goals in one of the coming meetings um my understanding from the executive committee is that you'd like to spend some time with these goals potentially to set an agenda for next year's activities um if you do want to set a metric for Success you know what does it look like to have broader engagement with communities of cultural backgrounds um you know how would you measure success at being more proactive you can set those uh at some point as well and we as your administrative staff would be happy to track and measure and add those measures of success to your annual report that we produce so those are my two pieces of context uh we stop sharing screen and send it back to Wes to open discussion this is Wes okay uh terrific so I'm going to be leading or facilitating this conversation as we begin our talk about these things and I remember oh so I will I will probably hesitate also to participate uh remember please as we start this discussion that this is a work in progress uh we don't have solutions for many of these things they're not going to be able to be built overnight um but we can figure out what our priorities are in terms of the goals as they've been discussed um and I see three people with their hands raised so I will call on them in the order that I saw them the first is Carl the second will be Charlie and the third will be Richard go ahead Carl so one of the things I heard during the commissioner report is that they're involved in many different departments across the city and have an impact that way and I'm wondering if the board can do the same thing and maybe be a surrogate for the commissioner's office and maybe a number of us maybe we could set a go like three member of the 13 member board will join other boards within the city of Boston and report back and so there'll be two things one will be educating this committee on what other agencies are doing and then we'll also have a voice and impact in other areas of what um the city of Boston is doing so it doesn't always fall on the commission that we can also have an impact so I'm just wondering if that a potential goal that we can say maybe three members serve on or it doesn't have whatever can serve on other committee and then report back to this on what is going on um this is Wes um I think that was actually one of the goals mentioned in the survey Carl and I I didn't see it at the top of the list and therefore I wonder whether it was voted for by a majority or by a high number of members I know but I'm bringing it up anyway okay okay thank you for that I appreciate the input um any other comments about Carl's uh suggestion for before we move on to Charlie okay let's move on Charlie uh the floor is yours hey um I didn't did did Richard get to go sorry um I didn't know because his hand is still up or did you go rich I was just going on the order uh no Charlie you were going to be next go ahead oh okay sorry I do see that sorry um no I I think and thanks for for circulating the survey it was interesting because I didn't vote for some of my things because I saw uh similar type of goals and I um and and it's I think it's interesting to see the survey results because there are a lot of the commonalities between them and I don't want to create more work or anything but I immediately kind of saw a specific graph that would show how things um intersect U um and and a lot of um a lot of the board members have very similar um uh similar ideas concerns and goals so I I'm excited you know to start this conversation I know that hope I I don't know if there's a hope that we're going to get it all of it done today but um I do appreciate the the end results of a lot of the higher level things such as transition Services work you know job creation all those types of things for um um for a lot of the community and and and and I all of this that I I see a lot of it falls into that one bucket um Andrea I appreciated the the slide that you showed of the four buckets that the commission actually does and and in the one um bucket on community outreach so it's very very helpful to see I think a lot of our goals fall into into some of that which I can see that that you guys have a lot of work on your hands so so um trying to figure out how to help set the goals but then also not um uh create an environment where they they wouldn't be achievable due to potentially limited resources so hopefully I'm making sense this is Wes thank you Charlie uh Richard go ahead the floor is yours sir uh thanks W um I would urge the Comm to take a um big picture view of this for starters there may be ideas that relate to what we might agree upon but I I don't start with a big picture um I've been involved with um government at the state at the at at the municipal state and federal levels I have um represented and served on on nonprofits and for-profits of all sizes and um every entity I've ever been involved in adopts a business plan and um and this is not to say that to suggest that all the efforts that the commissioner and their staff are making and have made are not spectacular um but they their activities um um you know work plan activities whereas I would urge us to think about the big picture and what would our goals be uh what the should the commission's goals be so for example we've got 75 to 880,000 citizens of Boston who are disabled you know how do we most how do we best impact all of them and so what you do when you develop a businessmen I'm sure many of you have had this experience is you come up with your goals and then then you develop how you're going to get there and you put that into the plan then you have something to review after each year to see what you've accomplished what you haven't and then you renew the process the following year and you look at what you were able to accomplish and you try to accomplish even more in the year to come and then if you haven't finished something in the year before you try to get back to that and finish it and so I I I would urge the commission to think about the big picture think about what we're talking about here in terms that are um comprehensive and uh and then go from there thanks BL Mrs West thank you Richard thanks for that um as a person living in Boston um I will say you know 75 5 to 85,000 people living in the city of Boston with disabilities is is a remarkable number uh and I agree that we need to find a way for the commission to impact as many or all of those people as possible um at various levels so I appreciate um your your commitment to the prioritization of that uh Zary I see that you had a question in the chat she said thank you Andrea will it be possible for board members to I'm sorry hang on one second while The Interpreter finds that um thank you Andrea would there be an opportunity for board members to learn about what tools you use to measure success yeah this is Andrea um so the processes that we're working on in the equity and inclusion cabinet include measuring success in a number of ways uh many of them as many of them as possible are metrics so for example um before we were in the equity cabinet um our department had to report to city council each year as part of the budget process how many constituents did we talk to how many accessible parking applications did we process what was the average time to process them in in days how long did it take us to give people responses um and technical assistance sorry technical assistance on architectural plans yes the number of technical assistance um uh percentage of technical assistance questions that we answered and the number of ada8 title 2 um consultations we gave so a lot of them were raw counts and that could be one thing uh to Richard's point about impacting everyone in in the city you could what does impact mean you could say that's coming to your meeting set a raw count for how many people you want to come to your meeting um or you know the city plans that commissioner mentioned the the surveys and uh input opportunities we send is there a raw number of surveys you all want to answer to make sure the disability perspective is in those surveys um those are raw counts that you could do to measure success um there are other ways to measure success that are more qualitative um if you wanted to look at um you know the the quality of the events that you have or something like that I I be happy to you know provide some additional um advice but primarily we try to use as many quantitative measures as possible so raw counts and you know time to answer questions percentage of questions answered things like that hi it's Kristen U MOS I just want to add a little bit of context to um before we continue the discussion um two points I want to make um first is that I just want to be sure that board members um contain their thoughts to the board and not to the office because we have our you know our directives laid out and we're doing all our work so make sure that um the business plan ideas or whatever you have like that Richard contained to the board um because when we did get some um input on goals and things some of them kind of crossed over but we want you all to focus on the board and in that context make sure you consider your bylaws cuz they lay out very specific things that you are enabl to do through legislation uh this is Wes any other questions or comments um about the survey results the floor is open I would like to ask Andrea to send the results out to those of us uh board members so that we would have some time to be able to reflect on them while considering the list um and we can think about those goals for the board um with that list in front of us it's going to take some time unfortunately there's not going to be any easy overnight solution um for any of these questions uh Carl I see your hand is raised I don't know whether that was from before did you have another comment or question no that was from before I'll take it down okay great and Charlie go ahead Charlie um yes so this is Charlie um I will be full disclosure I was one of those who who sent in a little bit to granular um items in but it was very helpful to gain a little bit more clarity um after having a conversation uh with with um Andrea and also the presentation that that was shown um but I I think it would be helpful um to kind of commissioner if you can explain I mean so the goal setting and and you are stating this um that the goal setting is for the board The Advisory Board and then the goals you set forth the goals um within the cabinet for the the um your department right yes so I'm trying to trying to understand so we can do this effectively right to see how those cross over right because this should be a collaboration and it should be not on accountability but we should be celebrating the ability to to to show metrics and to you you know to to actually achieve things together and and that's where I'm trying to if you can help kind of um put a little more clarity on that um in the sense of uh you know goal setting on the board level that then that you envision that can then help support and and and kind of trickle down to to the department is so yeah absolutely so um what we really want to do in my office is we want to give people with disabilities a seat at the table and you are first ones in line at that table so we that's why um during our monthly board meetings we bring City departments to you you know we'll bring like the um the transportation department to you to talk about the curb RM consent decree we'll bring elections to you so you can ask questions about the accessible voting um policies and procedures um and I will say like I know a lot of other the cities would like be really excited if the commission did that like you never have to worry that you won't have access to a city Department Department because that's what we had to do we had to facilitate this um you know we bring BPS to talk about you know what they're working on to you because all these City departments are really accountable to the public and you are the appointed board who represents the public the disability public to the city so I think um that's a huge thing that we bring you to parment and you can give direct input and as I mentioned earlier I am going to commit to being more intentional about sending you all opportunities like the um surveys for Boston um blue bikes like so that was a survey that U the transportation the bike bikes commission put out to say we're going to install all these new um bike stations where do you want them now you may know you know your neighborhood better than someone who works in City Hall so that's your opportunity to say well it's really a bad idea to put it here because this is a narrow sidewalk and I know like you know families with strollers are always on this Corridor so let's not do that so I think one way that you can directly like work with us is when I send out these opportunities take advantage of them like give your voice to them like fill out the surveys that I asked that I send and um also I mentioned the developments the big developments part of the um article 80 process we have an accessibility checklist and this checklist basically summarizes all the accessibility components of a certain development we can send those to you you can review them because all these developments offer public comment so you may see um and this this is a perfect summary right it's a huge development it's a 300 page document that we get but all we really need to focus on is the checklist which is about eight pages so if we sent them to you to say hey there's a new building going up in the north end and this is all the accessibility features they having an open meeting like in two weeks would you dissipate would you give input so I think if I send you or my staff sends you um things like that where you can have direct impact on City Planning and policies I think that's a great MCH for you to get involved and if I could add commissioner um vice versa you all know about things happening in the neighborhood that we don't um we're not in the North End you know every every day the way we're in City Hall so if you hear about an opportunity to participate in your neighborhood um you know or a concern in your neighborhoods or concern in your communities that we need to know about tell us or bring it to the board if it's an opportunity for the board to present um or or offer an opinion on so um just add to commissioner like 2A we'll bring you City surveys you bring us other surveys um so that we can be be in touch right and a perfect concern like that is outdoor dining how do you feel about outdoor dining in the North End as a parent of a child with a disability will'll get your input directly to the people who are making these policies so it's a real um bridge that like I said you have a seat at the table we want your input in that way wonderful thank you Andrea I did want to add one comment about the blue bike survey I did participate in that survey I did participate in that and my wife knows that I'm interested in the blue bite expansion so she encouraged me to do it thank you she encourage me to do it that is one way that I've participated in other projects through the parts of Boston um Wes can I also add one more thing um okay go ahead thanks so another thing that's laid out in the bylaws is that you will um get information out to the disability community and I know that was a goal that a lot of people checked off so that's why I say um you know after these meetings go through the documents that we share with you and please spread them out like um you know like our webinar is coming up in October we'd love to see um a lot of parents from the um special uh sped pack uh special ed uh Team come to those meetings trainings because they'll learn stuff for their kids you know really sharing the information that we we send out is um is critical and it might seem like a small thing but it's really not because like Andre said you're in the North End you're in um matapan you're in South Boston we're not but you know let let your neighbors and friends and and people in your different groups know about the work that this city is doing and let them know even if you don't want to weigh in on the Building Development maybe they would want to like pass along the information a new development is going up in matapan you can weigh in on it you can tell them what you want to see and they will listen especially if you say you're a member of The Advisory Board not that you speak for the board but that you have this position as an appointed official um your word you know will make it will make an impact thank you for that addition we are running out of time it looks like we've got about 10 minutes left here I'm going to go ahead and wrap up the agenda the next new business item are the bylaws being updated to match the state standards I can explain there's one item that the city of Boston bylaws uh has been told to the board about the bylaws say that one board member may be a representative of a family member with a disability on the state level bylaws it says that a board member shall be a member of a family with someone who has a disability so we want to change the language of that bylaw to allow the requirement of at least one board member that has a family member with a disability I wanted to let you know we're not going to vote on it tonight but probably at the next meeting we will be discussing that and then vote if it's appropriate are there any questions or comments about that part this is call may I speak go ahead Carl so I'm wondering and I don't know because it's been a while since I've read Robert rul the voted but I'm wondering if that could be considered a friendly Amendment and not necessarily up for vote because we're simply following date regulation for the bylaw the match so I'm even wondering if we should just go ahead and change that I don't know and I would ask the attorney on this call way in is that something that we have to vote on or since we're simply playing a map State bylaws do we have to vote on that you know I don't have the answer to that Carl that's a good point the Andrea that to check with Legal C or should we just play a bace and vote on it at the next meeting I thinki uh Wes wants to call on the next board member first okay I'm sorry didn't do that yes thank you sorry Andrea uh let me say that again Andre did you have a comment so this is here I can answer Carl's question but uh Wes I thought I saw you signing that you wanted Richard to go ahead you could go ahead and um yeah so I uh would have to check officially and legally I'm also not a Roberts Rules of Order uh person but I do know that the state law would uh supersede would would Trump the local bylaws so in effect you are already Bound by HJ so it would be a formal vote not a substantive change um so I can check if it can be you know a consensus motion without a vote okay okay I'll now go to Richard M well I I'm not sure I caught that thought I heard you say for example this would be a change is this the only change that's being U proposed that's the only change okay can maybe send a red line it's a simple change maybe send a red line version of to every everybody before the next meeting sure I'm going to ask Andrea to take care of that perfect Andrea says yes that's fine now let's go to pette you can go ahead so when was the last time that we revised our bylaws this is West year definitely before my time on the board I'm not quite sure does anybody else know I think it was 20 2013 when we changed it from 9 MERS to yeah that was 2013 Carl thank you Charlie go ahead yes um thank you I I just wanted to make sure that we don't take a simple vote so that we could see the red line um because I think it's it's important I can't remember the exact language but from my perspective and I think the law states that a non um a board member without a disability shall be on that has a a child a loved one with a disability and not self- serving whatsoever I just want to let everybody know the perspective and how much I appreciate actually being on the board um to to to be on to learn your perspectives as as as adults but then also to try to bring and learn the perspective of of where I'm at uh trying to navigate everything and and raising a child with disabilities uh especially in such a large city as Boston with all the different services so um whenever those those red lines circulate and I know we'll have a discussion I I I I want to say how important I think that the seat that I'm in is um being the sole uh member without a disability um but that I I I do significantly appreciate how much I've learned uh from everyone uh in the in has it been two years I think it's been almost two years now um for serving and and to understand and gain that perspective and then to see H how to Advocate I me that that that's I just want to be clear that I I'm really learning how to Advocate better as as uh as my daughter starts to you know as she grows up a and um goes through life so thank you Charlie it's it's Kristen I just want to say um we value this role so highly it's critical to have a parent um especially a parent of someone in BPS um who has a disability U we had that this slot vacant for a long time and we were really making efforts to get that filled because we agree it's a critical perspective that we we need on the board and we do have um another member who has a family me who doesn't have disability but has a family member so um you are not the only one but yours is certainly critical okay now is a good time to transition into the next item here on the agenda it's the public input portion would anybody like to say anything at this time from the public any comments if you do want to say something there's two minutes left this is Andrea from the board uh from the commission can be using myself now uh if you're from the public please use the raise hand function or the chat to indicate that you have a comment and yes as Wes mentions you have 2 minutes to make your question or comment uh but I will have to send you a request to unmute if you have one so please indicate visually or in the chat is there anyone who would like to make a question or comment from the public all right is somebody willing to close the meeting Mr chair I would like to make a motion to adjourn excellent can I get a second got pette raising your hand first excellent everyone in favor raise your hand I I I the meeting is now adjourned it is 7:29 thank you have a great evening see you next month for