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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCommission On Disability - Minutes - 04/13/2006Attendance Susan Williams Steve Rierson Joanie Cook Peggy Graff Beverly Hageseth Bill Livingston Paul Osteroff Terry Schlicting Melinda Suits 1. 2. 3. 4. COMMISSION ON DISABILITY MEETING MINUTES Qpe, <. / 3, Zoo/L Thursday, A006 Fort Collins City Hall Council Information Center 12:15 p.m. City Staff Liaisons Steve White Annie Houston Mayor Hutchinson Guests Mark Beck Mary Warring Laura Burnett Call to Order: Susan Williams called the meeting to order at 12:17 p.m. Approval of Minutes of the March 9, 2006 Meeting: Beverly Hageseth made a motion to approve the minutes of the March 9, 2006 meeting. Steve Rierson second. Motion carried. Introductions: Introductions were made around the table and included Mayor Doug Hutchinson and Mary Warring from North Front Range MPO. Open Discussion General Public: Mary Warring from the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization attended the meeting. May distributed copies of MPO's 2005 Annual Report and stated they were a long range transportation agency that works in the region and stated they were working with Larimer County on a Health and Human Services Transit Transportation Plan. She said the reason for the plan is that Federal Legislation is now mandating that Health and Human Services and Rural Transit Services be consolidated to improve services and make it more efficient. She noted this is in regards to rural transportation outside the city limits and has nothing to do with Transfort. She stated the goal of the plan was to build a coordinated system and stated the first phase is to do a survey asking questions about the transportation services in Latimer County and what our assessment would be of that. She stated she was at the meeting today to ask that a representative from COD complete the survey. She stated a committee would be formed, hopefully by the summer, to review and discuss the results of the survey and then move forward with the development of a plan which needs to be completed by the end of the year. She stated that when the committee has been formed if one person from COD would like to attend the meeting they may do so. Bill Livingston volunteered to attend the meeting. 5. Discussion Items: -Mayor Awards: Joanie reported the subcommittee decided to change the format of the Mayor's awards this year. The plan is to ask the Mayor to read a proclamation that October is National Disability Awareness Month at the first Tuesday Council Meeting in October and then instead of having a regular October COD meeting, have a luncheon for all those nominated, announce winners and present awards at that time. In addition, ask the Mayor to announce the winners at the next Council meeting which is on the third Tuesday of the month. Joanie also stated the subcommittee should plan a meeting in May to continue making plans for the event. Suggestions were made to have the Coloradoan and Channel 14 attend the luncheon as well as contacting the Coloradoan to advertise the call for nominations when it is ready to go out. The contact person at the Coloradoan is Pat Ferrier. Mayor Hutchinson stated he would be delighted to do anything he can to help. -Art Show: Susan stated the subcommittee met and there would be no art show this year as we are revamping the event. She stated that Barbara Schoenberger (Senior Center) suggested that we develop a mission statement for the art show as well as conducting a survey of past participants to see what suggestions they may have on improving the event as well as any special needs they may have. Joanie distributed copies of possible questions and read the mission statement which is, "To increase the public's awareness of people with disabilities by showing their creative abilities." Susan stated once the questions are compiled, Kelly DiMartino would help us develop it into a survey. Some discussion ensued regarding extending the show to include crafts, however Susan stated that she did not want to do that. Bill suggested contacting physician's offices who have patients in rehabilitation as many patients in rehabilitation work in arts/crafts as it is a good part of their healing process. 6. New Business: Voting Machine Demonstration: No presentation made at this time. Acessible Space Incorporated (ASI): Susan gave an update on the ASI project. She reported Stephen VanderSchaef, who was trying to build a 23 unit, 100% accessible housing unit in southeast Fort Collins has been granted approval by HUD and will be moving forward with the project. She stated Steve mentioned that the City is working with him to make this happen at no cost to the City. Some concernes regarding transportation issues were expressed and Steve Rierson reported he checked out the area and it was not far from Harmony Road at all so that may not be an issue afterall. Melinda stated there was an article regarding the project in the Coloradoan recently and she would bring that to the next COD meeting. - 7. Subcommittee Reports Practical Housing for All: Mark Beck stated he had some goodibad news regarding PHA. He stated there was an article in the paper regarding building accessible homes and although it didn't mention PHA, it talked about universal design and was informing the public of its availability. He stated the bad news was that Channel 14 had an equipment failure so they will not be able to run the edited version of the PHA feature and they don't know if they will be able to retrieve the piece or not. He did state the regular show featuring PHA had run in January, February and March. In addition, Mark stated that he is finding that his time and energy for continuing with PHA is not what he wanted it to be and feels it may be time for someone else to take over. He stated he has given himself another two months to open this up to other people and see what kind of changes can be made to continue with the accessible homes concept. He stated he has spoken to Larry Armstrong who is working with a group out of Denver HPA called the Active Living Council. He stated they are doing much of the same work as PHA and discussed with Larry the possibility of extending that program up into Fort Collins. After some discussion by the Commission, Terry Schlicting stated he would be very interested in becoming involved with PHA as long as Mark would be willing to show him what is involved and what he would have to do to continue. Mark and Terry will schedule a meeting to discuss issue further. Susan Williams stated that COD did not have money in the budget to provide frames for certificates for PHA however they were willing to provide the certificates. Mark stated that depending on what he decides to do in the next two months, that may not be an issue. Public Outreach: None Media Relations: None 8. Community News and Updates: Steve Rierson stated he was asked by the Election Committee to look at election sites that weren't accessible during the past election. He stated he did that last week and that some improvements had been made although there were still issues that needed to be addressed. He stated he made several recommendations to the committee however he did not know if they will follow through on those recommendations. Steve did say that the committee purchased portable door and curb ramps to use during the next election and that he tried them out and they worked very well. Susan will write a thank you note to Scott Doyle's office for doing this and have Annie send a certificate of appreciation with the letter. Susan reported Terry volunteered to take up the Heavy Door campaign and that she e- mailed Channel 14 about the possibility of doing a piece on that during the month of October. She reported she gave them Terry's contact information although Terry has not been contacted as yet. Susan stated Steve Blois will be attending the May meeting to discuss the emergency preparedness plan for the City, however they having nothing developed for people with disabilities as yet. She stated COD may be able to come up with suggestions for them. Mark Beck stated the NOD award went to Cambridge, Massachusetts and one of the reasons they were chosen was because of their emergency preparedness plan. Melinda reported that Boston was also awarded as they do sign language and disability awareness training with all of their volunteers and that 1,350 police officers get training on individuals with disabilities. 9. Adjourn: Motion: Melinda Suits made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 1:34 pm. Bill Livingston second. Motion carried. Respectfully submitted. Joan A. Cook