Commission on Disability — 2022-02-14
Minutes
City of Melrose Commission on Disability Meeting Minutes Meeting Date: February 14, 2022 Commissioners Present: Garin Boyd Karen Burke David Hoff Margaret Sheets Judy Bushee Commissioners Absent: Erin Heyneman Paula Weiner 1. Call to Order Commission Chair Hoff called to order the regular meeting of the Commission on Disability at 6:06PM. 2. Approval of minutes from last meeting A motion to approve the minutes from the 1-10-22 meeting was made by Commissioner Sheets and second by Commissioner Bushee. Passed unanimously. 3. Public Participation The Ped Bike Committee congratulated us on getting the MOD grant and encouraged us to consider public participation and is happy to help with the grant especially regarding outreach. Emmanuel Andrade, an access consultant offered to give advice and guidance. 4. Massachusetts Disabled Persons Protection Commission Presentation • DPPC is dedicated to reporting and investigating abuse against people aged 18-59 with disabilities statewide. • The various different activities of the DPPC were described to the Commission-see PowerPoint. • Jenefer Raymond from the DPPC encouraged the Commission on Disability members to undergo a longer training. The DPPC is doing more outreach to schools and hospitals to give them information. City of Melrose Commission on Disability Minutes – February 14, 2022 1 5. CODA Update • The monthly state meeting of disability commissions was held on Wednesday February 2nd. • The meeting included information on the American Community Survey for finding disability information, a video on design requirements for housing, and resources from the Institute for Human Centered Design. 6. SEPAC Update • The Commission will be attending the Special Education Parent Advisory Commission on Monday February 28th at 7:00. • All commissioners were encouraged to attend. Commissioner Heyneman and Commissioner Weiner will attend. 7. Follow up on training for commission members • The January 19th training for all board and commission members was discussed. • Commissioners were reminded to complete the Conflict of Interest Acknowledgement form, and return it to the Commission Chair. 8. MOD Grant Award update • Commissioner Hoff described how he attended a City Council meeting and got very nice feedback about the grant. • An article in the Patch newspaper was written about the fact that this Commission is a grant awardee and this article was shared on the Commission’s Facebook page. • The City Council accepted the grant and there will be an upcoming meeting where the Commission on Disability will meet with city staff about the grant. 9. Follow up on letter to Mayor regarding ADA coordinator Commissioner Hoff described how he sent a letter to the Mayor about the ADA Coordinator Paul Johnson. The letter suggested that the city hire a staff member to work on this as a job. 10. Communications update: logo, social media, web page, email outreach, etc. ] • Logo designs were reviewed. All Commissioners present discussed the merits of each design. It was felt it was best to vote on the logos at the next meeting. • The Commission is working on developing strategies such as liking other organization’s pages and getting more active on Twitter generally, to get more social media followers. • Be sure to like our Facebook page! 11. Community survey update • Commissioner Bushee and Commissioner Boyd met in the middle of January to discuss ideas about meetups. • There may be future opportunities for people to gather for the survey. • Commissioners discussed how a game night or other events could be held to get people to fill out a community survey. City of Melrose Commission on Disability Minutes – February 14, 2022 2 • Commissioner Bushee has a lot of great ideas to tap businesses and organizations in Melrose such as Follow Your Art that has a Diversity Coordinator we could work with. • Commissioner Boyd will schedule a follow up meeting with Commissioner Bushee and Commissioner Heyneman to create the survey. • Commissioners agreed it was best for the survey to be anonymous. • It would be good to get community feedback about the Commission’s transition plan. We need to think through what we can get accomplished by the end of June. • To ensure the community survey we will create is accessible, Commissioner Hoff can have some of his coworkers help with that. • Somerville’s assessment, as described by Emmanuel Andrade (community participant) involved conducting survey and analyzing findings from the survey and asking for public input. • The process of gathering and publishing Somerville’s survey results took the Somerville Commission 2 months to complete. 12. Follow up on meeting accessibility guidelines update Guidelines have been written. It was felt that further action on it should be put on hold so as not to confuse people. 13. MA Down Syndrome Congress Presentation to Chamber of Commerce An upcoming public meeting about Your Next Star initiative was discussed. Your Next Star is a public relations campaign that seeks to influence employers to hire people with Down’s Syndrome. Commissioner Hoff will keep the Commission updated. 14. Officer Election – March Meeting Commission members were reminded that the March 10th meeting will include annual officer elections. Paula was reappointed for 3 more years to the Commission. Elections will be discussed further next month. Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and Treasurer positions are available. 15. Adjournment Meeting was adjourned at 7:03. Motion made by Commissioner Boyd, seconded by Commissioner Bushee. Passed unanimously. Meeting minutes submitted by Maggie Sheets City of Melrose Commission on Disability Minutes – February 14, 2022 3