ORDER-2021-93 : Appointment of Erin Heyneman, 54 Highview Avenue to the Commission on Disability for a three-year term; said term to end on the last day of February 2024.

Transcript (~15 min @ 1:56)

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▶ 1:54 Maya Jamaleddine: I would like to start with the order 2021. Um, that's 93 appointment of Aaron. 54, how do you add to the commission on disability for a 3 year term set term to end on the last day of February 2024? And I would like to suspend.

▶ 2:24 Maya Jamaleddine: Rule motion to suspend the rules motion to suspend the rule made by, um, uh, seconded by, uh, vice chair.

▶ 2:40 Speaker 2: I don't care please call the room. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

▶ 2:55 Maya Jamaleddine: The rule is now suspended, and we have Mayor Proder.

▶ 3:03 Speaker 1: And the Mayor and the candidate.

▶ 3:05 Speaker 3: And the candidate.

▶ 3:08 Paul Brodeur: Good evening Madam Chair and members of the committee. I appreciate again the opportunity to come before you to offer Ms. Henneman's name for your consideration to the Commission on Disability. As you have seen from her resume, Ms. Henneman is an educator with all the training and the empathy that comes along with occupying that crucial role in our society. She will, if she chooses to, discuss a little bit about her perspective on disability in the community and her potential work on the commission should you decide to go forward with her nomination, which I obviously hope you will. I do want to, by way of background, let you all know that Erin stepped up an officer service as a member of the anti racism task force. And as I think you all know, we had a tremendous. Response to that, and really couldn't accommodate all the folks. With membership that step forward, and she's 1 of those folks to step forward. But the good news is that we discovered some folks that, quite frankly, speaking for myself, I didn't know about before within the community that are also prepared to step forward and serve in other important roles for the community. And Erin really, really fits that bill. So I offer her candidacy to you with my highest recommendation and hope you approve it.

▶ 4:49 Speaker 4: All right, am I can I speak now?

▶ 4:54 Speaker 4: Thank you, Matt. Yes, please. Okay. Thank you so much. Mayor broader and thank you to chair and the committee members for being here tonight and considering my candidacy. I, uh. I would like to share a little bit about my background as a disabled person. First, I was a high school senior when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I was 19 years old. I swear this won't be a long story, but it was a long time ago. And for many years, MS was on the back burner for me, except for a few flares, and I had long-term fatigue during that time. But I've been dealing with a disability condition for almost 20 years now. But it was really not a big issue for me until last summer. And last summer, I had a catastrophic relapse that resulted in paralysis. So the entire left side of my body was paralyzed from the shoulder to the toes. And I'm left-handed, as luck would have it. So it was a wake-up call for me. I was hospitalized for six weeks during the pandemic. And during that time, I began relearning to walk. And it's not an easy task wearing a mask at any time. But wearing a mask in July, it was very difficult. um and thankfully due to medication and intensive physical therapy i'm today i'm walking with only a leg brace which is amazing to say considering where i was nine months ago um unfortunately so my my arm did not has not done as well in recovery and so um because i'm still affected by that um i am i've had to learn to write with my right hand which was a big change um and i've had to make use of assistive technology um and i've had to adapt in a lot of ways and it turns out that some of the adaptations are easier than others um so i can give an example of that so i'm actually because i couldn't i was having trouble joining the meeting i'm doing this on my cell phone um with a selfie stick actually and a pop socket and i am very lucky that when i got sick popsockets were extremely popular because I already had one. My OT would have recommended I get a popsocket for my phone, but I already had one, so it was great. But at that time, it ended up being that one of the most important tools in my recovery, the popsocket, was necessary because I needed to hold my phone with my only working hand. It wasn't just easier for me, it was essential. I also used audio dictation for my texts, and that made transitioning into mostly dictating my writing a lot easier. So I had been using these things in daily life already because they were designed for universal access. Nobody would think that a pop socket would, you know, be necessarily for a disabled person, and yet it was my lifeline, really, being able to hold my phone and talk to my friends and family and and my job too and to speak with them so um both of those things were essential and i don't and they were designed to be universal and i think that's really important when we're talking about disability issues um in my career as an educator that uh that mayor rotor mentioned um i've had i've a 13-year career as an educator and i've always found that universal design for learning makes everything easier for me and accessible for everyone in my classroom and it's a true win-win um for example when you when a teacher designs a unit with a class with access in mind at the beginning rather than adding the access on to the end like something that you're tagging on to the end of a lesson that you're giving only the student that that needs it or that has an accommodation for it um it usually works better if it's something like a checklist or graphic organ i'm an english teacher by the way so if it's something like a checklist or a graphic organizer i i find that if i give that to everyone in my class a it takes away the stigma from the student that might you know i i'm discreet anyway but it takes away the stigma of a student that would have to explain why they got something um it takes away that stigma and then everybody has access to this tool that is helpful um so that's been my experience as an educator as well um Luckily, I've had mostly good experiences and with access and Melrose. However, my disability shifted my perspective and now I think I have a more nuanced perspective of what access really means. So, as a last. I'll give you a last anecdote. Great example of this would be at school pick up. So I was well enough by. Let's see by when my daughter, she, my daughter in 1st grade when she went back to in person learning. i was well enough that i was driving a car and i could walk but i was using a cane and i couldn't really stand for a long period of time i would have to sit down if i was going to be standing and i was waiting outside for school pickup and there are plenty of benches at my child's school which is awesome so it's like that's already built in to the melrose you know to our structures um so there are plenty of benches for me to sit on but the access issue came in when i was sitting on a bench in the playground waiting for my daughter and the group of new parent the group of parents of first graders had decided to congregate about 15 feet away from me and i i'm a really sort of i'm a friendly person i i love to meet the parents you know of of the students that'll be in my daughter's class i would have been right over there with them if it wasn't for the fact that that bench was 15 feet away now the answer that is not building having a bench closer because this was a specific situation but i think that speaks to what access really means to me now it's being able to be in the conversation with the parents um whether that's um some maybe i could have had something to lean on over there or i should have just gotten up and spoken up for myself but i was feeling really self-conscious for one of the first times in my life honestly i felt really self-conscious about it um and i think that that's what access means to me today um so like i said i don't have the answers but i hope to bring this perspective to the committee um and firsthand experience with the issues um as a teacher i really love to collaborate with colleagues so i look forward to collaborating with the commission members to make melrose a leader really in providing access for all and yeah that's all thank you so much and um

▶ 11:56 Maya Jamaleddine: i would like to um start with questions from uh hello counselors um counselor stewart

▶ 12:05 Robb Stewart: sure i'm mad chair i believe uh uh counselor thomas had his hand up before i did so i i would

▶ 12:11 Maya Jamaleddine: defer to him okay thank you sorry uh counselor thomas i did not see you first so you can go ahead

▶ 12:17 Cory Thomas: That's quite all right. Thank you, Ms. Chairwoman, Mayor Broder, welcome. Councilor Stewart, thank you so much for your continued politeness. Ms. Newman, welcome, and thank you for being here, and thank you for being so candid and open and sharing your past experiences. It was very touching to hear everything that you've been going through and the success of your recovery in dealing with MS. Yes. How will you bring your own experiences to, you know, Melrose's newest commission, Commission on Disability, and how will you continue to advocate for people with disabilities and bring awareness to this commission in our community?

▶ 12:59 Speaker 4: I think that on the commission, I would, it would be really important for me to, I think, to share my lived experience, just because of all of the things that I mentioned, we're all things that did not occur to me before I became disabled. It was, I would have never thought of it. I might have read about it in a professional, you know, something I was reading for school, but I would never have thought of that. And it seems like common sense when somebody says it, and in so many issues of disability access are about those types of things that, you know, it's Making the obvious common sense. The common sense, um, making the, the obvious and making it obvious to the commission why it would be helpful.

▶ 13:58 Cory Thomas: To change them to change things that needed to be changed. Thank you very much. And again, thank you for being here. I look forward to recommending your nomination. Thank you so much. Thank you.

▶ 14:08 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Madam chair, and thank you for this great recommendation. I do want to. Just express my gratitude for you stepping up and being able to share. Your experiences, it's close to my heart in particular. My mother spent the last 20 years of her life and nursing home with multiple sclerosis. so I'm very close and I understand very well your situation and I appreciate that you instead of dealing with it on your own is you're willing to step up and project out to others that may be in a similar circumstance or something that could be even more challenging. It's you know it's nothing that anybody ever wishes upon themselves it's something that a voice needs to be had and i do appreciate so thank you um just i appreciate the uh the efforts that you put forward on this

▶ 15:16 Maya Jamaleddine: thank you manager thank you councillor stewart if anyone else would like um to ask any question

▶ 15:31 Jack Eccles: or seek um councillor eccles um i was just gonna thank miss heineman for um stepping up and sharing Her story and a motion to recommend for passage.

▶ 15:40 Maya Jamaleddine: 2nd, okay, we have a motion to recommend made by consular echo, seconded by vice chair. And I'm sure please call the roll my name.

▶ 15:52 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah.

▶ 15:58 Speaker 2: Consular echoes yes. Yes. Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. President Sinella? Yes.

▶ 16:09 Maya Jamaleddine: 6 yes. Okay, congratulations and we'll move forward with proceeding and I would like also to echo my, um, my fellow counselors and thank you for sharing your, um, your story with us. It's an honor for us to be able to share you this story and, you know, try to work with you on making Melrose more accessible and for everyone.