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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCommission On Disability - Minutes - 03/10/2005Commission On Disability Minutes 2005 March Regular Meeting Council Information Center, City Hall Building, 300 LaPorte Ave. March 10, 2005 Approved In April 2005 Regular Meeting Attendance: City Staff Liaisons: Guests: Susan Williams Rachel Palmer Lisa Schell Steve Rierson Steve White Jerry Patterson Mark Beck Peggy Graff Maureen Boyt Melinda Suits Call to order, Susan Williams, Chairperson —12:22 P.M. Motion: to approve the February 2005 Regular Meeting Minutes by Mark, second Jerry Amendments Change the independent living forum from "Mark will sit on the panel" to "Mark will sit on the panel if nobody else wants to" Change action by Susan to write a letter on the grocery tax as follows "Action: Susan to write a letter opposing the repeal of the grocery tax" Motion approved as amended on voice vote Motion: to approve the February 2005 Special Meeting 1 Minutes by Mark, second Jerry Motion approved on voice vote First Call — Lisa Schell Lisa started out at CSU and wanted to volunteer and was impressed with the number of opportunities in Ft. Collins. First Call has an on-line database that anyone can use. It's the same database that they use when someone calls 211. First Call does health and human services referrals. People want to talk to a real, live person. And it helps to have a dialog so that they can help the caller put together a comprehensive plan to get them the help they need. You can get the same information on-line, but without the dialogs, and the dialog is important. How can First Call better facilitate resources for people with disabilities? Examples of areas that First Call works within: Substance Abuse Mental Health Family Response Team First Call's Information Resource Specialists attend meetings in many of these arenas First Call needs input from the COD Melinda has a list of resources in First Call's database from a keyword search: keyword "disabled". Specific conditions, such as "amputee", can be queried as well. To get every single record from applying to disabilities the Commission on Disability would need to talk to the First Call director Lisa heard that the COD is attempting to put together a resource list. First Call puts together resource lists for Loveland, Fort Collins, Greeley, etc. Susan: We decided that you guys do such a good job that we would let you do it. Melinda: Isn't 211 for mental health - you could be put on with a therapist right away in an emergency, for example. (Connections?) Lisa: If we receive a crisis call, we have a protocol, 3 levels 1) We give the number for connections 2) A three-way transfer, stay on the line and dial someone else, once the connection 3) Send them directly to 911, e.g., a suicide. Susan: Say I call 211, and I'm going to commit suicide, why would I then call connections? Lisa: I would say in my mind the fact that they're calling me, I can do something. I can call 911. That's probably what I would do, I wouldn't simply give them the number for connections at that point. If it's a land line we can send emergency services there immediately. We don't normally see that information, but we can have that data (phone and address) revealed to us if we need it. We also have several other counties coming on-line soon. We got a call from a lady in Craig. She was in trouble and couldn't breathe. She had a cell phone. The tech was able to keep her on long enough for emergency services to figure out where she was calling from and get help to her. I don't want to get off on the extreme cases that we get. Were not 911, but we're not 411 either. Susan: How many disabled people use your service? Lisa: A lot: seniors, seniors with disabilities, mental health, care givers, blind, etc. Susan: Can you reveal the reason for a majority of the calls? Lisa: Yes. That's not a privacy issue. We keep a narrative. At the end, we say what the need was and whether it was met or not. Did we find something that could help the caller? That data is stored with anonymity. Susan: Do you have a way to check up on people that originally called? Lisa: We do have an opportunity to do follow ups. Susan: Say I need a rebate, if I called 211 would you tell me how to obtain the rebate? Lisa: Yes. We would tell the person how to go about getting the rebate. Susan: How do we get the resource list leaflet? Lisa: There are some here at the City Hall now. Susan: At the Senior Center too? Lisa: Yes Susan: Library? Lisa: Yes These lists are on-line as well, so you can also get your own or get somebody with a printer. Susan: There are a lot of churches that rely on 211 for help. Lisa: Churches are a really strong source of help for our community right now and if things continue in the current trend then we will need to rely even more on them. A lot of volunteer service crews that help where nothing else can, often come from churches. A lady needed to move and had 4 recliners, 2 dressers, etc., and she can't do that on her own. A service crew from a church is planning to come out and help. We call churches and they call us. Susan: Churches around the city are starting to step up. If they can't meet the need, then if they had the resource list they could help someone find who can. Lisa: We're constantly training volunteers in churches in the community. Maureen: Help us help you. What can we do? Lisa: Any of us that have the interest to look at the database on-line and test our database against services that you know about. There's a procedure that we use to enter services. Usually not for - profits, unless it's an exceedingly unique program, but we don't advertise for companies. So, test our database. Susan: Jerry can you check it out for accessibility? Action: Jerry to check accessibility for their website Action: Commission to check to make certain that all the resources we know about are in there. L: 2 heads are better than one, 10 are better than 2. Steve: Say I want to attend the COD meeting, how do I get there? Well, there's a former site that has the COD information. Does First Call keep track of any information like that? Lisa: We're doing a big push right now to cleanup and update our database. Susan: Please keep us informed if there's anything we can do. Lisa: I'd like to keep coming to the meetings. If there are things that you can steer me towards, events, meetings, that you know up or come up with, please let me know about that. Melinda: Do you keep information about annual events? Lisa: We have a way to post that kind of information. For example, I put some information about parenting classes on our site. But, I would need a lot of guidance for what exactly to put on the that list and exactly what kind of information to list about the events put there. Steve: I'm part of an amputee support group. It came up in our group that we should get on 211. Doesn't it require a lot of paperwork? Lisa: No, it's not hard. We want to put out the message that you do have tojump through hoops. We don'tjust take everything. We try to really understand what we're putting in the database. How long has it been going on, for example. Susan: Would there be a place for an art show? We started putting on an art show just for people with disabilities. Lisa: That would be a good thing for our related links web page. E.g., a "disabled events" link. They don't link to other sites, just information from our site. They are categorized and it would have related events in a table form. Susan: How would they get more information from there? Lisa: There would be contact information Resume Writing Class Steve: We have 30 computers where I work where we can train people on how to write resumes. Susan: Any suggestions on how to get 30 people? Steve: it doesn't have to be all at once, we can do a few at a time. Mark: How extensive of a class? Steve: A couple of hours of just getting to sit down and figuring out what to put in the resume. Susan: How can we find people to come and take that class? Steve: I'm not sure. Melinda: You can list it in the paper for "things to do" Susan: We wouldn't get very many calls. We need to figure out how to get people there. It's difficult to do. Mark: Why would we do it then? Maureen: Would we target agencies that help people with disabilities? That seems like a reasonable place. Lisa: The resume doctor at the Workforce center is a good resource too. Susan: Steve can look over the packet that Lisa provided about job seekers in Colorado and see if we can do anything with that. Mayor's Awards We decided to take the year off Steve White met with Diane Jones and Willy Diane said that our money comes from the city managers office's contingency fund. She was reluctant to release $3000 from that fund for the next year. Basically, we need to ask again in June and see what the balance is at that point on the fund. There was interest in regard to sending out mailings. We decided it would probably cost $100-$200 and they would fund that. There is a mechanism to roll money over into next year, they are just unwilling to do it at this time. Susan: Next month we're going to have the awards luncheon Action: Invite Marty Tharp to the awards luncheon Susan: Should we put together something to go out on the Mayor's Awards contact list? Mark: One of the things we talked about was to have an ongoing discussion on the Mayors awards. Susan: They need to put together a draft of the letter that would go out to the mailing list from the previous mayors awards. The letter should go out between now and September. Other Business For subcommittee meetings, we've been moved on the fourth Thursday for this month to the council board room. Motion: to suspend the rules to continue meeting beyond the time limit (as per Rules and Subcommittees Section 1.1.B) By Jerry Motion ruled out of order Motion: to consider By-laws Amendment #016 (Attached) By Jerry, Second Susan The amendment was originally presented at the February 2005 Regular Meeting, February 10, 2005. Jerry: The text has been revised from the original proposal, but only to clear up the language, the actual content is the same. If anyone objects to this, we can start the notification process over again. Members receiving proper notification (as per By-laws Section G.1) Susan — At February Regular Meeting Joan — At February Regular Meeting Steve — At February Regular Meeting Jerry — At February Regular Meeting Mark — At February Regular Meeting Laura — At February Regular Meeting Jeff — At February Regular Meeting Peggy — At February Regular Meeting Maureen — At February Regular Meeting Members that have not been confirmed to have received proper notification of the amendment Melinda Paul Motion is ruled out of order Motion: to adjourn by Peggy, second Jerry Adjourned: 1:46 pm City of Fort Collins Amendment#ots Commission On Disability By -Laws Amendment Proposal Previous Text: E.2.e) The term of every Executive Committee position ends on the first regular meeting in January after the regular election of a new Executive Committee. E.2.f) The term for every Executive Committee position shall be about one (1) year, the time between one January regular Commission meeting and the next January regular Commission meeting. E.3.a) Nominations for the Executive Committee positions shall be held at every first regular Commission meeting in August. E.3.b) The regular election for the Executive Committee positions shall be held at the next regular meeting after nominations have been taken. The election must occur as the first order of business. Action on Previous Text: Strike E.2j.. Strike E.2.e and E.3.a and replace with Proposed Text. Strike E.3.b and replace with section E.3.e as in the Proposed Text. Add sections E.3.b, E.3.c, and E.3.d as in the Proposed Text. Each subsection from E.3.c to the end of section E will become E.3.f and so on. Proposed Text: E.2.e) The term of every Executive Committee position shall be from the completion of the regular election of that Executive Committee to the end of the next regular Executive Committee election. E.3.a) Nominations for the regular elections for Executive Committee positions shall be held at a time and place established by a motion of the Commission in accordance with the guidelines, rules, and regulations of the City of Fort Collins for Boards and Commissions. E.3.b) Nominations for a regular election of the Executive Committee must be held in a regular meeting of the Commission no later than the first regular meeting of the Commission that is in the same month, one year later, as the previous regular Executive Committee election (in other words, regular elections are required to be, at most, held once a year), unless otherwise required by the guidelines, rules, and regulations of the City of Fort Collins for Boards and Commissions. Upon adoption of this amendment, the first regular election of the Executive Committee will be marked as having taken place in the February 2005 Regular Meeting. E.3.c) Nominations for every position are closed by the chairperson or a motion approved by two- thirds of the quorum of the Commission at any time and may be reopened by a regular motion of the commission at any time during a regular meeting prior to the start of the election. E.3.d) Nominations for any position may be reopened at the next regular meeting after the meeting that the nominations were first opened only if they are the first orders of business. E.3.c) The regular election for the Executive Committee positions shall be held at the next regular meeting after nominations have been opened. The election must occur as the first order of business following the final closing of all nominations. (The final closing of all nominations is at the discretion of the chairperson, seeing that there is no more nomination activity desired by the Commission members). Rationale: The city requires that we hold elections for our Executive Committee in February. Our by-laws dictate that we hold elections in September because we are required, by our by-laws currently, to hold nominations in August and the elections are required to take place in the meeting right after the meeting where nominations take place. Instead of re -amending our by-laws every time the council or the city changes their policies, let's give the Commission to change the elections to match whatever policy the city comes up with. This amendment attempts to do this while attempting to preserve the original spirit of what was in the by-laws. Also, there was some minor confusion about nominations and opened and closed and all of that in this last election cycle. The by-laws didn't seem to be too flexible to allow for nominations to be carried on. Technically, while a nomination remains open, no further business can be conducted (you try doing the minutes for that and try to make sense of it!) So, it is best that we close the nominations for a particular seat before proceeding to the next, or to other business. The nominations can always be reopened, if this is passed, up to the point right before the election. The chairperson decides that everyone is done doing whatever they want to do for nominations and should not use their discretion to deny a nomination. These changes to the nomination process were, in part, necessary due to the change required by the City and, in part, to make the nominations process formally more open and in line with Robert's Rules Of Order.