HomeMy WebLinkAboutCommission On Disability - Minutes - 10/26/2000COMMISSION ON DISABILITY
MINUTES
OCTOBER 26, 2000
Members present: Don Fish, Laura Burnett, Steve Seefeld, Bob Palmer, Nancy Baker, Alan Apt, Kathryn
Johnson, Susan Williams, Mark Beck, Rob and Romola Fritz. Guest present: Kathleen Sixon
The meeting was called to order by Nancy Baker. The minutes were approved as printed. (Moved by
Don, seconded by Laura.)
Susan presented her idea about developing an emergency fund to help local citizens who have a need for
emergency medical help, such as the young girl mentioned by the mayor in his talk at the Mayor's Awards
ceremony last week. The mayor was supportive of the idea, but in a memo to Susan, City Manager John
Fischbach expressed his concern that city funds cannot legally by used it this way. The commission
discussed the pros and cons of raising money for such a fund ourselves. We decided it would not be
appropriate for the COD since we are an advisory group, not a funding one. Members pointed out that
the amount of money needed for even one recipient would be very large, and there would be many
requests for the funds that might be available, Deciding who would be chosen to receive the limited funds
be very difficult. In addition, raising funds is an extremely arduous task, one which would take an
inordinate amount of time and energy of the members. Instead, the members discussed the idea of the
COD being more of a clearing house for requests, directing them to appropriate funding sources. It was
decided that this would be an appropriate subject for discussion at the COD retreat on November 9.
The subject of the food vendor for the meetings was raised. Some members have indicated some
dissatisfaction with the current service. Steve gave a short history of food vendors, indicating there had
been a number of problems with other vendors in the past, including non -delivery and double billing. He
offered that if any member(s) would like to suggest a different vendor, he would be glad to consider it.
Nancy reported that she had a letter of resignation from Board member David Marckres. He indicated
that he must spend more time on his college courses. Nancy and other members indicated their regret that
he was leaving and acknowledged his contributions to the Board, including serving as secretary last year
and also being in charge of the Mayor's Awards Ceremony the past two years.
Steve reported that Suellen Jones, who is with the adult services at the downtown library, called about a
meeting they will be having on November 22 to raise the awareness of the library staff concerning
disability needs. Kathryn and Susan volunteered to go. Susan indicated a long-standing concern about the
availability of the elevators during fire drills or actual fires. If someone in a wheelchair was on the second
floor when a fire broke out, the only way that person could exit the building would be by elevator.
Although the law requires that elevators stop operating during such a situation, Steve indicated that
several years ago the city worked out an agreement with the fire department to leave the elevators running
since the nearest fire station was close enough that response time would be very short. Susan expressed
her concern that the library staff did not seem to be aware of this arrangement. She was glad of the
opportunity to attend the meeting.
Bob asked if any commission member knew of a person named Bryan Roland. The city has received a
bill from the Holiday Inn for Mr. Rowland's 4-night stay there at the time of the Mayor's Awards
Ceremony. No one knew the person in question, and all agreed that since the program was for only part
of one day, there would have been no need for anyone to stay overnight. .
Nancy reported that she had had a call from Mike Byrne, the COD City Council Liaison, concerning the
visitability proposal that Mike has presented. Mr. Byrne indicated that the city plans to look at the
updated multi -family building code with visitability in mind. However, there is nothing in any code about
single family dwellings. He would like the COD to develop an educational campaign directed at the
developers/builders of single family dwellings in the city. Mmebers questioned the availability of funds for
such a campaign and suggested that instead the commission could develop an outline of a plan for what
could be done. Ideas suggested included creating a dialog with the builders about the visitability concept,
and possibly flying someone in from another city involved in visitabiity, possibly Austin, to tell of that
community's approach. It was indicated that the discussions with developers should occur at the planning
stage, not the inspection stage, which is far too late. Steve suggested that this should be a priority for
next year's work plan.
Susan reminded the other members that we had discussed advertising in the utility bills about the trial
program of providing signing at council meetings. Other members brought up the need to get feedback
about this service and about the need for closed captioning and for large print and braille materials. Since
they had already offered to do so, Susan made a motion, and Kathryn seconded it, that Bob and Steve
check on the possibility of arranging for this request for feedback. The motion passed.
The next agenda item was the Proposed Amendment to Chapter 2, Article III of the City Code. Members
indicated that they felt this was simply streamlining procedures, to make them more manageable. Since
time was short and no one raised any concerns, Nancy suggested that if anyone wants to discuss this
amendment, we can do it at a later meeting.
The commission members spent some time reviewing the Mayor's Awards Ceremony last week. Bob
thanked all the committee members, including Susan, Kathryn, Laura, David, and Don. Thanks also went
to Alan for arranging the good advertising in the Coloradoan_ the Forum and the Northern Colorado
Business Report: to Steve Sutter for arranging the vendor displays; to Nancy for arranging for the
speaker; to Laura and Don for moderating the program; and to Bob and Steve for all that they also did to
help it be a success. Alan mentioned that he had put in a call to Poudre High School to try to arrange for
students to videotape the event, but he got no response. Members agreed that it had been a great event,
very well done and well received. The response to the vendor displays was good, and the speaker was
very effective. While the turnout was good (around 75 names were on the sign -in sheets), last year's
turnout was some better. It was suggested that in the work plan session during the next meeting we can
try to develop ideas to increase turnout for next year's event. Some concerns were expressed about the
letters of invitation not having been received by the appropriate employees in some of the businesses, as
well as wrong phone numbers provided for the follow-up phone calls. It was suggested that we could plan
a follow-up letter for next year, to improve the communication about the event. We have a phone list
of possible employers to contact, and it was suggested that this list could be posted on the COD's web
site. (David had been serving as our web master, and we need to find someone to take over that role.)
Nancy spent some time telling about Easter Seal's new office that will be open soon, allowing the
organization to start a supported employment program for the disabled. Anheuser Busch was very helpful
in providing a $5000 grant that Easter Seals has been able to use to generate about $150,000 to $160,000
in donations for this new office. The office is tentatively set to open November 15.
The members supported Romola's suggestion that she send the minutes of our meetings to our Council
liaison, Mike Byrne. They also asked her to update the COD phone/E-mail list after members provide
updated information at the work plan session.
The neat meeting, to be held on November 9, will be a three-hour session to develop neat year's work
plan_