>> Hi, good afternoon, everyone, welcome to the City Committee on People with Disabilities
meeting.
It is Thursday, November 19th, and we will call this meeting to order 301.
My name is Val Vera, the chair of the City Committee on People with Disabilities.
Thank you all for being here.
Do we have any public comments or -- >> There are no public comments on the form
and we have also not received any phone calls.
>> Okay.
Great.
Thank you.
Then we'll move forward with item A, CPD 20-025, consider the approval of the meeting minutes
of September 17th, 2020.
I will ask someone to take a moment to approve those.
>> I'll move.
>> Job seconds.
So the minutes are approved.
Thank you.
We will go to item B.
Oh, go ahead, I'm sorry.
>> Ryan, your microphone is up.
That's the equivalent of the mute button.
>> That should be better.
We'll actually need to do an individual voice vote, if that's all right, so that each member's
vote can be counted for the minute recorded.
>> Okay.
>> So we need everyone's vocal approval.
>> Vocal or just a hand raise would be fine.
And so you can -- if you want to just call them out by name and then they can respond
either with a hand raise or vocally, that would be great.
>> Okay, Rex, Joe, Sonya, Val, and Sally.
Okay.
Am I missing anyone?
No.
Okay.
So now the minutes are approved.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ryan.
We'll go to item B, CPD-20-024, receive a report, hold a discussion regarding the library
virtual programming services.
>> Good afternoon, committee members.
I'm Jennifer Becker.
I'm the director of libraries here with the Denton Public Library, and I'm going to share
my screen.
There we go.
So we wanted to share some of the programming ideas that we have had to switch to thanks
to COVID-19 and see if there was any feedback we could get on how we could make sure that
all of our programs are inclusive and available to all of our citizens.
So we used to do programs in person, but because of COVID-19, we have switched to a virtual
format, and we are offering three types of programs.
The first one is video shorts that you can find on social media.
We have Facebook and Twitter, and those are about two to 10-minute short recordings, and
they tend to be focused on children, so we have story times, craft activities, those kinds
of things.
We also have some book talks where we talk about recommended things that people can check
out or new materials coming out.
We also have on-demand video tutorials and activities that can be found on the library's
website, so these are recorded videos.
They're often a slideshow or screen capture with voiceover.
One thing we have started doing is making sure that we do have the transcripts below,
so if anybody is unable to hear any of the text as it's being read or talked about, then
that's an option on there.
So we've started adding those, but those are just on-demand recordings.
And then we've also started doing live programs with Zoom.
That's the technology we're currently using for our live programming.
This image on the right is an example of one of those live programs.
It's an interactive activity where somebody's sharing information or there's discussion,
and there's back and forth between participants and the presenter.
And then another service that we've also switched to virtual is our book-a-librarian service,
which we've always offered, but it's traditionally been done in person for anybody who needs
one-on-one assistance.
We have a variety of topics that we can help with, usually involving technology or accessing
some of the library's resources online.
Of course, we aren't able to do that in person, but we still want to make sure that we can
provide that service, so we've switched to doing that via Zoom or over the phone at this
time.
One of the challenges with that is it's usually the technology that's causing issues that
people need assistance with, and if you have technology frustrations or issues with technology,
Zoom is sometimes more frustrating on top of that.
So we do also offer it via phone, so we can try to get at least people comfortable with
doing certain things on Zoom, and then we can transition to Zoom where we can share
screens.
So that's kind of what we have switched to.
And some of the things we're trying to look at and make sure that we can catch early on
as we are switching to this virtual platform are accessibility considerations, are there
alternative programming formats or technologies we should be considering, and then also we
wanted to hear from the committee if you all had any suggestions for specific program topics.
We are always looking for input from community members for any of our programs.
Back when we were doing in-person ones, we'd look for that, and then now that we're doing
virtual, we'd love to hear any input on that also.
So I'm going to stop the share.
So I'd love to hear any input or suggestions that you have regarding how we can make sure
that our virtual programming is still easily accessible and available and serves the whole
community.
Go ahead, Sonia.
Hi.
I'm so excited to hear more about all these programs and, you know, seeing how other people
are adapting their usual in-person activities into virtual settings, so thank you for that.
One thing that I did notice in your social media videos is that you don't have any captioning
on your social media videos, and so that would be really important, and I know different
programs, even PowerPoint now has captioning capabilities, and it's pretty accurate, and
so does Zoom.
So those are just a couple of things that I noticed just right off the bat.
Great.
I would add to that, maybe it's more of a question, but I'm assuming there's like a
reasonable accommodation statement for people who need a reasonable accommodation, need
to call in or a week or so, whatever the timeline is before.
So what type of allowances are available for someone who says maybe they need a sign language
interpreter as opposed to the captioning?
We do have that as part of our program policy, and we just ask that somebody calls in.
I want to say it's 48 hours, but I'll be honest, it's been a couple of months since I've looked
at the time of the policy, so I can follow up with that exact policy and have that sent
out to the committee for y'all to take a look at that.
But that is part of our program policy, yes, that anybody can call ahead with any reasonable
accommodation, and we will do our best to make sure that we are able to do that.
And I think another one, and it's something I was going to start today and I forgot, it's
a basic one.
It's called audio description.
So when with Zoom or any kind of FaceTime for those who are blind or low vision is that
the speaker describes who they are on the screen or what they would see.
Okay.
So for me it would be, you know, I'm a light brown male with four beard glasses and a black
hat on.
Okay.
So it's more of a habit thing than...
That is very helpful.
But it also makes it more inclusive.
So if we were doing story times, let's say the recorded story times, and I know that
we are showing those picture books when they're only so big on that tiny screen anyway, would
it be something that would be helpful that as the librarian is reading the story then
is also would give the description of what's in the storybook also, the images.
Yes, most definitely.
Okay.
Tamara, you had a question?
Okay, I'm sorry, I thought it was your hand.
Any other questions or comments at all?
Rex?
Yeah, we can't hear you, Rex.
We're unable to hear you.
Perhaps your microphone is turned off.
You can't hear me?
There it goes.
You're good now.
All right.
I'm sorry.
My apologies.
I'm an amateur radio operator and I work with some of the astronauts on the International
Space Station.
We all are amateur radio operators and they have worked with various schools and libraries
around the country and where they have talked with people from outer space and actually
sent video down and this might be a learning tool for people who are shut in.
You could live stream that from the library.
I can help you get in touch with NASA.
One of the astronauts that went up is the latest astronauts that went up as a fellow
naval officer.
I'm a retired naval officer, one of the other ones.
He is from, I think it's just east of Denton here and I'm sure he and his family would
be thrilled to be able to have him talk to Denton County here and share his experiences
with young people especially those who have aspirations of advanced learning and science.
I love that idea and we will be contacting you.
I think that would be very popular.
I know in maybe in the past in-person activities especially with our youth population you may
have provided the materials to do the activities.
Is that still available as a grab and go option for families to collect materials?
Yes.
That is something we are starting.
We are actually prepping right now.
We normally do a three program season.
We are prepping right now for a December/January winter season and we are prepping a few programs
with those craft pickups.
We have one going on right now for teens.
November is National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo.
Teens can come to North Branch and through the curbside pickup or right now it is still
open today and tomorrow to pick up a NaNoWriMo kit which is a to-go pack with some writing
prompts and I think there are some snacks in there and that kind of thing but for the
crafts and we are looking for that for all ages also.
You will see that in the winter and then the spring season which temporarily will be February
through April.
We are also expanding it into there.
Thank you.
Any other questions or comments?
Well thank you so much.
We really appreciate your assistance and we look forward to making some of these improvements
and following up about the astronaut program.
Thank you.
We will go on to the next item which is CVD 20.026, Receiving Report Holy Discussion gives
staff direction on the City of Benton's Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives as a mouthful.
It is a mouthful.
Hello committee members.
My name is John Nelson.
I am the new Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer here at the City and it is my privilege
to be here with you all today.
I would like to take just a few minutes to highlight for the committee some of our recent
diversity and inclusion efforts and talk about our program and goals for the future.
Let me see if I can get my presentation pulled up here quick and share that with you all.
Okay, come on, apologies, we will get there.
All right, can you all see that?
Yeah.
Perfect.
Okay, so first I would like to share some of what we have been working on for the past
couple of months.
First up, with regard to training and resources, HR conducts training courses on the topics
of harassment prevention, discrimination, diversity several times a year.
These are open to all employees, supervisors and managers.
Disability is specifically discussed as one of the protected classes in these trainings
and we do go into detail on the ADA as well as the Amendments Act of 2008.
These topics are also part of our new employee orientation course that every new hire is
required to go through when they're first onboarded with the City.
We plan on continuing these trainings as well as hosting an annual legal update for our
supervisors and managers to continue to reinforce this important information.
In addition to training, we've also recognized the need to provide more diversity and inclusion
tools and resources to our employees.
We've created a resource page for our employees that we update weekly that now contains hundreds
of hours worth of content and we're working to expand this page with additional content
on each of the protected classes.
Next up, starting the conversation, you know, issues can't be addressed until people are
made aware of them and people won't be made aware of issues until we talk about them openly
and honestly.
So over the past few months, we've been working to try to help people start to have these
conversations about diversity issues and inclusionary efforts.
This has included a few different things, production of PSA videos from the City and
from the Police Department, both affirming our commitment to serving our diverse community
and listening to their needs.
We created a web series for employees that we called Unfiltered, you know, because one
of the most impactful and transformative ways we can develop is to learn about our own blind
spots and this important series tries to help expose our blind spots and help employees
see life through a different set of filters than their own.
You know, a common response people have is to disbelieve somebody's experience because,
you know, it hasn't happened to me, so I don't really think that exists.
So by hearing individual experiences from people that they know that they work with,
employees hopefully will gain greater appreciation and acceptance of different perspectives,
different experiences, will be more empathetic and understanding, and will be able to work
together for greater access and inclusion.
Then lastly is our employee panel conversations, which feature small groups of employees discussing
personal experiences and insights into diversity topics and situations.
We record these conversations, we post them on that resource page that I mentioned.
And then finally, to put more focus and resources on this important cause, my position was changed
last month to Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, and I am incredibly humbled by this
opportunity that I'm really looking forward to working with our employees, working with
city leadership, and working with the community to do some good.
And one of the first things that we've done is to draft our diversity, inclusion and equity
statement.
In this statement, we identify three core values in our initiative, and these values
are humanity, accountability, and willingness.
In the statement, we define what each of these values means to us, and we provide statements
about what we affirm, what we expect, and what we want.
It's our hope, and this is still just a draft, but it's our hope and our intent that this
statement will serve as the foundation to our future efforts and be used as a guide
to help us make decisions and create more safe, accessible, and an inclusive environment
for everyone.
So speaking of the future, our goals going forward, they're broken down into a few general
focus areas.
First up, education.
And we recognize that so much gets derailed by misinformation and misunderstanding, and
we want to increase communication, increase training, increase resources for all of our
employees, the different departments, and our HR staff as well, make sure they're properly
trained.
Engagement.
We want to hear what people have to say and where we need to focus our efforts.
We'll be involving more people in the conversation.
We'll be conducting surveys, hosting meetings, creating opportunities for people to participate
in this important work.
Recruitment. Obviously, this has a huge impact on the diversity of our workforce, and we
want to enhance our recruiting efforts to develop a diverse talent pipeline.
We'll be working closely with our talent acquisition team and our hiring managers to make sure
that there are equitable opportunities for jobs, for mentorship, and career planning.
The city as a workplace.
We want to better track our diversity numbers, begin to establish consistent diversity metrics
and reporting.
We hope to examine policies, practices, a look at pay and positions to ensure that not
only do we have a diverse workforce, but an equitable organization as well.
And of course, community.
We want to listen to those that we serve.
We hope to partner with departments and community groups as we start this journey to create
a safe and inclusive environment for all.
So just in closing, this for me is about the humanity that we all share, you know, there's
so much that people bring with them from the outside that's outside of the job descriptions,
the minimum qualifications.
I believe I really do believe everyone that comes to work for the city has something good
to bring to the table.
And our purpose, our objective is to create a workplace where every single person knows
that they're unique and individual contributions.
They're welcomed and they're encouraged, you know, that's what we're working towards.
And I am super excited to be part of this journey.
So thank you for allowing me to take a moment of your time to profile these these initial
first steps that we're taking.
And I'm happy to answer any questions or take any feedback that you might have.
Quick question, I know you mentioned the ADA amendments, are there any plans to do any
type of more cultural competence trainings or discussions when it comes to disability?
So be more terminology, language, history, disability culture, that's not, that's not,
it's more of a soft skill versus, you know, technical ADA training.
Right.
Yeah, there's the legal requirements, but then there's a day to day interactions for
sure.
Correct.
And that's something that we're definitely focusing on in the building of that resource
page is what are the terms?
What are the definitions?
How do you take action?
How do you have conversations?
So that is definitely something that we're interested in building up as we go forward
for sure.
Sonya?
Hi, excited about this.
This is awesome to see the city taking these steps for diversity, inclusion and social
equity.
One thing as you were talking about kind of next steps, some things that came to mind
were just what what is the current culture around diversity, inclusion and social equity
within the city and how that's being measured and how you're going to know when you've made
any progress or any change.
She's taking notes here.
And that's, I mean, we are maybe a month into this, and so that's definitely all on the
table.
And so I appreciate the feedback.
As I mentioned, we we want to send out an organizational survey and kind of get a base
level read on the organization.
And once we have that information, we'll be able to better answer that question for you.
Yeah.
We have that.
Yeah.
Because as I was thinking about like the videos that you were talking about, I think, you
know, that's a great starting point.
But then, you know, what do you do with that?
After you watch the video, are you all having conversations?
Are they guided?
Do people feel comfortable sharing their stories?
Because if the culture isn't there where they feel comfortable, then it's going to hard.
It's going to be hard to get volunteers and to share their experiences.
And so there's a definitely a lot that can go into it.
And I'm sure you have lots of next steps and things that you're working towards.
But those are some of the things that I was that came to mind.
And then I was out as I was reviewing the statement, the statement is is really long.
Honestly, I mean, it's hard to sum up everything that you want to do until one pager for sure.
But if is this something that do you all have a committee that's working on this that's
representative of all the diversity and inclusion in in the city of Denton at all levels, right?
So not just race and ethnicity, but definitely taking into account abilities, taking into
account religion and sexual identity and gender identity and all of those things.
And so that's something that as I was reading the statement, it's it's good, it encompasses
everything.
But there are definitely some certain populations that I think need to be identified.
And to really say this is where we really want to go and what we recognize as important
for for the city of Denton.
I appreciate that.
And yes, I was just talking with the HR director this past week about the creation of a diversity
committee.
That is definitely one of the first things on our list.
We haven't got to that point yet, honestly, we're working with employees and getting the
employee committee together, but we have not gotten to that community committee yet.
You can always reach out to me, I'm happy to take ideas and give feedback for sure.
Great.
Any other last questions or comments?
Thank you, sir.
We're going to skip to letter E, CPD 20 028, receiver report, hold a discussion and give
staff direction regarding the implementation of the our way crossing at the downtown intersections
of Oak and Elm, Oak and Locust, Hickory and Elm and Hickory and Locust.
Good afternoon.
Thank you, Chairman and the members of the committee.
Brian Young, city traffic engineer here to talk to you today about the all way crossing.
We've taken we've modified the term a little bit based on your recommendation.
So we're let me pull up my presentation.
All right, can you see the presentation?
Yes.
Okay.
So just a little bit of history in September of this year, the city council approved based
in no small part on this group's recommendation, the continuance of the all way crossing around
the square.
If you remember, the all way crossing is a dedicated pedestrian interval where no vehicles
are moving.
It's only pedestrian traffic.
So it is push button activated.
But you get right now I think you're getting about 26 seconds to cross with no vehicles
allowed to move at all.
So the approval that the city council is moving forward with and the concept that they wanted
to move forward with is not only the continuance of that pedestrian only interval, but the addition
of the diagonal crossing so that you can go from corner to corner diagonally in addition
to the traditional crossing one street and then crossing the other to get to that far
corner.
So we are currently in the process of putting together a design package and hiring a design
engineering firm.
But we do have some questions and I thought it would be appropriate to come to this group
first.
I want to look I want to show you a few slides.
And then let's show the corners, because we have some challenges that when it comes to
those downtown, those four signals, those four corners, those intersections, because
a lot of landscaping and a lot of the physical improvements have been made that we're going
to either have to work around or remove or replace or relocate something.
So I'm just going to walk around the square.
This is this is Hickory at Locust.
So on your left is looking north and on your right is looking south.
And you'll notice adjacent to the courthouse where my cursor is moving, pretty easy corner.
But if you look across, we've got the signal hardware, we've got landscaping.
So our goal is to try and find a way to get a crosswalk diagonally from this from the
northeast corner to the southwest corner and from the northwest corner to the southeast
corner in addition to the four crossing pathways that we currently have.
And so if you look on the on the right hand side of your screen, we're looking to the
south at that same intersection, similar obstacles in the way we got a lot of landscaping, we've
got some of the signal hardware, not necessarily the signal hardware is not necessarily easiest
thing to move.
If you look at the size of some of those poles, they've got a close to a four foot foundation
and real estate is very tight.
And so it's hard to find a new place to put a hole that big.
So we're going to try and find a way to work around what we've got landscaping is a little
bit more forgiving.
But we'll talk about some as we get through these photos, we'll talk about some some ramping
options.
And that's really what I want to do today is get your feedback on how best to move forward
with a design that will serve the community most effectively.
So moving on to Oak at Locusts, again, looking on the left hand side of your screen, you're
looking north, both of those corners are they have in some at some level some obstruction.
So again, we're going to have to plan our way around and determine the appropriate ramping
configuration.
And again, if you look on the right hand side of your screen around the square, fairly flat
and seemingly easy accessible, but you get you get across the street and then we start
with the landscaping and the pavers and and some of the signal hardware.
And I'm just going to go quickly around the this is Oak at Elm, again, a lot of landscaping,
the signal hardware seems to be a little further back in these locations.
And then on the right hand side of your screen again, around the courthouse, not necessarily
a problem.
But if you look across the street, we've got these same issues, hickory down very similar.
So moving into crossing types, and I'm going to start on the right hand side of your screen
because this is something that we have we've been moving away from, but it's still an acceptable
option.
In fact, I just attended a an all day ADA webinar with a group called Accessology.
And this is some of these are from their presentation.
Sometimes we just have to we have to use a solution that fits the problem.
And so that blended transition, where we have basically laid down the entire corner, preserves
our normal crossing locations, but also allows us and not necessarily in this slide.
But if you can imagine a diagonal crossing marked as well, we still we don't have any
barriers there, so we'll still have to put our detectable surface and we can do that
in three discrete locations instead of the what's shown here is basically the entire
wrapping the entire corner.
So that's one option is to lay down the entire corner and just put our detectable surfaces
where we need them.
The other option is just basically if you look at this middle, you continue the sidewalk
around the around the radius of the back of curb.
So you've got this five, four, five foot sidewalk, and then you just ramp down at that 45 degree
point.
So right there in the middle of the curve, you're going to have this the ramp flats,
the landing area with the detectable surface, and then crossing diagonally across the intersection.
And I just wanted to show you that on the left hand side of the screen, this is currently
what we have the column perpendicular, we call them directional.
But we have two, you know, very distinct crossings on our and I when we go back, you can see
that here, we've got a crossing on on oak, and then we've got a crossing on hickory down.
So again, we would just create this pathway around the landscaping, we might have to all
alter it a little bit, but we could put up that what we call the parallel configuration
in here, or we can ramp this down all the way, or we can significantly alter the intersection
and try and put a directional ramp, which is very much like what these are, right through
the middle, that might have to require some signal location, relocation, etc.
So we have two options.
Moving forward, we have we have three physical options, we can do a directional ramp that
that parallel or we just lay down the sidewalk, or we can do that the the blended transition.
But staff believes that we should select a single crossing type and have a consistent
treatment at all four intersections.
So you've got 16 corners that need to really, they need to function the same.
This is creates quite a very much a system, these four intersections, and I don't want
to throw a blended transition on one corner, and a directional or a parallel ramp on the
opposite corner, or even at at different intersections, we believe we should pick one and move forward.
However, we can allow the design consultant to tailor the crossing location to each, at
least to each intersection specifically, so that crossing type may be different at Elm
and Locust than it is at, excuse me, Hickory and Locust, than it is at Oak and Locust.
But it'll be the same for that for each intersection.
So the intersection will be uniform, but the system may not.
So there's two ways we're recommending option one, I think we just need to do to weigh the
pros and cons, look at the how best to implement on each of these corners, pick one style,
and then move forward.
So with that, I'm going to look, I'm going to go back to this slide, just to refresh
your memory.
Again, this blended transition where we would have, and they're showing detectable surface
for the entire arc, and we would probably maintain just three different pad pads, and
then crossing the markings in the street to align with each of those three pads, or we
simply wrap the corner with a five, four or five foot sidewalk.
We have our landing area and detectable surface with the, and again, if you'll look at these,
we'll have the landscaping behind that sidewalk area.
So you'll have a ramp here, you got a ramp here and a ramp here.
And basically, this, what is currently pavers will become a sidewalk area.
So that's one option, or we can consist, be consistent with the way we've got it started
out there.
Again, the directional ramps, and then we just take all of the landscaping out.
Very much if you look at the, on the right hand side of your screen, we're up against
the courthouse, we would just simply put another directional ramp in addition to the two that
are there.
So with that, any other questions?
- I don't like the parallel one, the parallel one.
- You don't like, he doesn't like the parallel one?
- Because if, if he's not paying attention to where he's going and you have a sidewalk
and a landing ramp and he's not paying attention, he could hit the ramp and tip over.
- Okay, good feedback.
- I like the idea of flattening out that whole area.
- He likes the idea of flattening out the whole area.
- Okay.
Any other questions or feedback before we move on to next steps and then I'll stop sharing
and we can have a more discussion or, or we can, we can have that discussion now.
- My experience with the blended ramps is that they're too difficult for blind people
to line up with.
No, I'm not, I'm not a fan of the blended ramps.
- Any other comments?
We'll have a chance to discuss this more and, and formalize some kind of a recommendation
from the committee.
Let me go ahead.
This is my last slide.
I'll just give you a little quick update on next steps.
We're going to finalize a design contract, hopefully by the end of January, and it really
depends on what that design fee comes back, whether or not we need to go to city council
for approval if we do add a month and then working through design.
Hopefully by the end of April, if we have to go to council for the contract that pushes
to May and then bid to work construction and we're hoping to get this constructed and again,
a lot of it depends on the type of ramp we, we select and how much of the, the landscaping
or the signal hardware we have to relocate, but September, October of 2021.
So with that, I will stop sharing and we can have a little bit more discussion.
I don't mind there being a ramp right in the middle.
That'll be easier than the sidewalks because if you put the sidewalks in, someone might
tip over.
So let me ask a question and this is just basically just come to mind.
If I'm looking down the road for potential hurdles, if we, if we select a design that
will require the removal of most or all of the landscaping and that becomes untenable
because all the corners would look like the corners adjacent to the, to the courthouse.
And so I know that a lot of the downtown businesses want it to look pretty for this group.
How critical are the diagonal crossings?
No, because you're watching, you can work, you don't have to go in an angle.
You don't have, if you're walking already, you don't have to walk in an angle.
I don't really understand the point of doing diagonal crosswalks.
It, well, from a, from a signal operation, it allows us to cut back a little bit on the
time of the pedestrian interval, because if you want to cross right now, we're trying
to give you enough time to cross two streets.
So if we can cut that a little bit, then we can, one of our, one of our fears, one of
our concerns that we, that we work to prevent or to not cause is driver road rage when they're,
they're sitting there waiting.
And so if we can, if we can provide enough time by shortening the pathway that you can,
you can cross, get to the far corner where you want to go and we give you enough time
to do that and in doing so we actually get to give some time back to the vehicular traffic
and the cyclists, then that's a win-win.
And that's, that was a thinking behind the diagonals.
It's just kind of a scramble.
You can go whichever corner, whichever direction you want.
It's working now.
You're correct.
You're, you know what, we've got enough time now to cross safely one and possibly two legs
of the intersection and we're not getting a whole lot of pushback from any group.
So, but city council wanted us to investigate the opportunity to install the diagonal crossings
and it, for a lot of people, it seems like a natural, yes, I want to cross from here
to there.
You could, you could actually cross from, I mean, once you're in the street with the
pedestrian interval, you can go anywhere you want to.
So we're just trying to make it safe and accessible for that diagonal crossing and that's kind
of why I wanted to know how important that is to this group.
It's a time saver.
It's a convenience factor.
But if, if we have to gut those corners in order to put those diagonal pathways in and
people say, well, they're not really that important.
We'd rather have the landscaping.
That's the question I'm asking is, is if, if it comes to it, how important are they
and what are we willing to give up?
He likes the landscaping better because it makes Denton look better and it makes the
square look better and he doesn't have a problem crossing anywhere on the square.
I think one of the, I'm sorry, Rex, let me say this real quick.
I think one of the challenges with this with disabilities is you have two different inclusion
needs.
You have those of us who are, have mobility disabilities, wheelchairs, walkers, but then
we also have those with blindness or no vision.
So for me, the blended round corner, perfect.
That's a wheelchair user.
You have more space, you have more area to cross for someone who's blind or no vision
using a cane or a dog, you need that, that walkway, that narrow to guide you.
So having that wide open corner, it's going to be hard to navigate, you know, a straight
line, even diagonal.
I'm curious to hear from Sally, you know, if you can describe that more, have you seen
those that actually work?
Yeah.
When I worked for the rehab center for the blind in Austin, they put in the blended corners
and they had to put back in so blind people could, they had to tear them out and put it
back in like you're talking about, so blind people can light it up with their canes because
it was just way too difficult for blind people to use blended corners to cross.
And I hear what you're saying about being a wheelchair user, it makes more sense.
Rick, you have your hand up.
Yes, I've been down there on the weekends, you know, when there's been a lot of activity
and it's very crowded with pedestrians and the ability to diagonally cross has been,
it has been a godsend if they could get that because in a wheelchair and trying to cross
has been, well you can't get across sometimes and there are, if you've been down there when
there's been events going on down at the square or there's been an arts festival or there's
some other activity and there's more activities all the time going on down at our square.
So I think that if we can come up with a suitable way of addressing a diagonal cross for all
parties concerned, it would really benefit the pedestrian traffic and the vehicular traffic
down there.
So I think we should look for a solution to the issue, you know, to make it acceptable
and suitable for blind and wheelchair bound and walker, you know, people use walkers and
canes because it is getting, it seems like every time I go down there for an event, it's
more crowded than the last time.
Okay.
I think my personal feeling, I don't think the square is that big of a metropolitan area
where this is so needed, especially if you have to compromise landscaping, if we have
to choose between excluding a certain part of the disability community.
It just seems like whichever direction, if it stays with the diagonal and you have to
pick one of those designs, it's going to be difficult for a certain group in our community.
So I don't know, to me, I don't even know if it's worth the resources at the time, what
have you.
And I don't know if that area, the square, is that, other than San Diego where they have
the diagonal crossing, it's a huge metropolitan area, it's spread out, I mean, there's tons
of people every day, so I see the need for an area like that, I don't know if the square,
you know, is demanding of that, of all that design change, and then we're alienating either
the safety and comfort of wheelchair users or those that are blind or vision impaired.
That's kind of my thought, but...
I mean, I need to go out there a lot, and even before COVID, there was a lot of people
out there, and I never had a problem crossing.
Even before COVID, he's never had a problem crossing.
Okay.
So the challenge we're having is making the diagonal crossings accessible for all the
different groups.
That's the challenge.
It's legal to do it right now, even without a ramp in place or markings in place.
We've encouraged it.
I mean, we've provided this discrete interval in the signal cycle where only pedestrians
are moving, and if you're in a wheelchair, it's totally legal for you to take the ramp
off of the side and then cut diagonally across into another ramp, even though it's not directly
on the corner.
You can still, that's legal, and we are providing enough time to do that currently.
So really, the question is, is it really, really critical?
We would love to, but how critical is it for that diagonal crossing to have an accessible
approach?
Because if I don't want to compromise from one, you know, provide it for one group and
compromise for another group, we really, like you said, we really need to have a solution
that works for all groups, all users.
It's just, and the only one that I can think of that I've seen that does that is that third
ramp in the middle of the corner.
So we've got the two ramps, one on each side.
We just do that exact same thing in the middle, and so that's kind of what, that's how I was
leaning and I'm not trying to put words in anybody's mouth, but my idea was that that's
probably what we would select, and then we let our design firm tell us what the impact
of that design is going to be, how much is it going to cost, and then we let the city
council decide, is it worth the dollars to construct?
I think we need to go through the exercise of determining what the impact, both for the
visual and physical impact on the corner, we're going to have to remove all the landscaping,
we're going to have to move sigma poles, and then the fiscal impact, how much is all that
going to cost, and weigh that against what benefits we get, because like I say, right
now, it's legal to cross diagonally, there's nothing that says you can't.
I would again just echo, I think for this committee, I guess we would have to focus
more on what's the most accessible and inclusive for everyone in the disability community,
so it sounds like the third option, without us having to think about what it costs, what
it compromises, what it takes away, we have to look at what is inclusive to the disability
community as a whole, so it sounds like that, to me, it sounds like that third option that
you're speaking about, probably the one that fits that criteria.
For clarification, what we're talking about is the third directional ramp in the middle
of the arc of the corner, so that we have three discrete crossings with landings, detectable
surface and markings across, okay, so is that the, I guess, I'm not sure what kind of action
you need to take or direction from the group, if that's your direction, that's the way we'll
proceed with our design firm, and then we'll bring it back to you once we have the design,
and say okay, here's what it looks like, here's what it costs, and then we'll take that with
your recommendation to city council for their approval as well.
Where is that going to take away from that landscaping?
Is that going to take away from the landscaping?
I'm sorry, what?
Is that going to take away from the landscaping?
It might, we don't know what that, how much of it's going to have to be impacted, we may
be able to relocate some or expand it in a different direction, still provide landscaping,
but we may have to alter it in some way, and until we get into a survey and design and
find out what utilities are, and if we can or cannot move the signal equipment, we won't
know that, but that will certainly be part of the design process, and then the evaluation
process as well, because if we end up having to take out all of the landscaping, I'm sure
other people than this group will have something to say about it.
Okay, Sally, would that option serve the blind vision of your community?
Yeah, I think that having a third ramp that would be lined up with the other one with
clear sides would work, and my personal feeling is I don't know that it's necessary to have
that, you know, like when you can go down a ramp now and cross.
I really, for the blind population, my guess would be, you know, it's easier just to cross
one street than to make the diagonal cross, so I don't think that that's something that's
really going to work that much for the blindness community, because they will have the other
option of going just across one street.
Right.
Okay, so unless anyone has a different opinion, a stronger opinion, that seems like that's
what the consensus of this committee is.
Yes.
Hands up, or a yay, or a finger, or, yeah.
Okay.
Okay, I think I have the direction I need and I appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Okay.
We will move, put the agenda here, I'm sorry.
We're back to the DCPD 020 027, receive a report, hold a discussion, and make recommendations
regarding the use and funding of captioning for a certain city of their own public meetings.
Okay, guys, I got a hat trick for being muted and talking for this one meeting, so Ryan
Adams, customer service and public affairs, so I'm switching over to the staff seat for
this one and I'm going to give this presentation, I also have Billy Matthews, our DTV manager
on the line, he's going to fill in all the gaps and help out with the questions.
He's very intimately knowledgeable with the closed caption systems that are available.
So let me share this with you guys.
That is not the right one, bear with me.
It's 16 hours.
Let's try one more time.
Okay, I think I got it.
Can everybody see this?
All right, great.
So you know, this is a topic that's not unfamiliar with this committee, you know, it's been
discussed several times, I think probably from meeting one, you know, how to approach
closed captioning, just to give a little bit of overview of what we'll discuss today.
It's a pretty short presentation, but what we'd like to do is just one more time since
it's been some time since we've last discussed this, just give the committee just a review
of what closed captioning options exist within our technological capabilities, some of the
considerations for those pros and cons on using them, and then I've left space and this
agenda item is created and crafted so that the committee can make a recommendation to
the council regarding closed captioning.
And we've given you a draft starter recommendation that you can edit as you see fit, we left
a couple blanks in there to fill in with some of the information from the committee's discussion
and this will require a vote from the committee to make that recommendation, but we'll get
into that in a future slide.
So if I can take a quick minute, so this was originally brought up from the committee in
past meetings just as a desire on the part of the committee to have closed captioning
for public meetings, so for instance, council meetings or for instance, this committee to
have those closed caption and while you guys are a part of this meeting right now, if you're
not aware, we do broadcast these meetings and we do put them on Denton Television and
they are also available for stream on our website and typically within 24 hours of the
meeting, you can go on our website and you can view a recording of the meeting.
Currently, the meetings are not closed caption on our website or on DTV, however, at the
request of the committee in a previous meeting, we have started posting them to YouTube, our
YouTube channel, where YouTube has a native closed captioning component and so if you
go to our ADA page or what used to be our committee page and you choose to view a past
meeting, you will be able to view the YouTube video and view the closed captionings there.
So there are a couple different options with regard to closed captioning for public meetings.
Option A is a live captioning component and that is actually real time captioning for
live programming, so that assumes that most of your viewers are going to be watching in
real time and that is highly dependent on a lot of factors, most of which is when these
meetings occur in the long term, of course, we are on a shifted schedule, but going forward
I would assume that we would likely revert to an evening schedule on a weekday.
The accuracy of this technology is accurate to a point, so again, it is in real time,
so issues of sound, issues of the clarity on the point of the speaker can highly affect
how accurate the closed captioning is.
I think you have probably all seen some level of this closed captioning in your daily lives
and know sometimes it is good, sometimes it is not quite so good.
Option B is a post meeting captioning.
This is where we would have our meeting or our meeting would be held, it would be recorded,
and the live captioning would then be refined by a human being on the back end and about
three to four days later we would receive a very clear recording with captions that
are very accurate and also a transcript that could be shared for anyone who would need
it.
Option C, and these are options for you to consider for public meetings at the City of
Denton, option C is that we hold where we are and make no change and continue posting
recordings to YouTube in order to use their native captioning.
So in a nutshell, these are the different high-level options that the committee has
to weigh today.
And we wanted to give you a little bit of information on the costs of those options.
So each one, the first two options, of course option C is free, YouTube does not cost us
anything, I don't think, we might be writing a check, but Billy would know about that.
Option A and B do have a cost, there's typically a one-time cost, but definitely an annual
ongoing cost.
So for option A to do the live captions, it would take about $24,000 of a one-time cost
for hardware to make that happen.
And of course this is not something the City is currently budgeted for, and our current
budget which is, I'll say it's been tightened due to the pandemic and some uncertainty on
the economic front.
So we did not include that in the current year budget.
And then if we assume 15 meetings per year, there's about a $30,000 annual cost.
And of course that's scalable.
So if we do less than that, we might be able to recoup some annual savings.
If we do more, it might be a little bit of an additional cost.
I think it's important for the purposes of today's discussion to get a very good understanding
of what meetings are priorities for the committee to have closed captions.
We have 30 some odd boards and commissions.
It may be the committee's desire to close caption all of them.
It may be the committee's desire to only do a select number, but that's important information
for staff to build budget numbers around.
And B, the non-live option, the one where it's more accurate, but it's a few days afterwards,
the cost is a little bit lower.
There's no hardware that we have to purchase up front.
We do have a just an annual cost based on the number of meetings.
And I will say, bless their hearts, our council, they tend to have long meetings.
And so the cost does go up as the length of the meeting goes up.
So if meetings are over four hours, which council meetings typically are, that cost
will increase accordingly.
And we did want to provide at least some sense of the on-demand views that we receive for
our committees.
And Billy pulled this information.
So and this will kind of weigh in as you consider these options.
We don't have any information on how people view it live.
We're not able to capture that.
But in terms of on-demand views, on average, city council, we have about 750 views.
So that might be a couple of views by the same person or all each a different person,
but 750 different views per council meeting on average.
This committee, it's a good bit less, but it's about 25 views on average for on-demand.
I'm going to pause right here and I'm going to ask Billy to fill in anything or correct
anything I've misstated because he is much more knowledgeable about this.
First of all, good afternoon committee and my pleasure to be here.
Ryan, you hit all the nails on the head.
There is no cost for the YouTube option.
And if there's any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
But I think you've laid it out there pretty good.
Mr. Chair, would you like to pause here for any questions or would you like me to proceed?
I think we only have one or two slides left.
I want to go ahead and finish and then we'll reach out into a discussion.
Thank you.
And so we're providing this information for context.
So as this comes up in the future and budget gets discussed, the option that we choose
and what meetings we do may cause that budget number to fluctuate.
So I just want the committee to know that would be the reason why.
Just the number of meetings, the length of the meetings, and then the option.
So what we're asking the committee today, actually one more slide, that works out.
What we're asking the committee today is to provide any feedback that it would like to
to staff regarding closed captioning, but specifically to see if you can provide direction
on the option, A, B, or C, if there's a preferred one, particularly if you had to choose one
and what would meet the needs or what could you live with.
I know we can't have everything, but we'll certainly try to get what we can.
And then scale.
So is it important to have closed captioning for all boards and commissions and council
meetings?
Is it just council and this committee?
Is it another mixture of boards and commissions?
I think that's an important thing for us to understand.
And what we've done is we've just given you just a very starter blank example of a recommendation.
So this could be in the form of a motion of recommending to the city council that they
fund an option, A, B, or C, as it applies for closed captioning services.
And we put in for all city council and committee on persons with disabilities public meetings.
That could change.
It could be whatever public meetings you feel need to be considered and included by council.
And we put that it would be considered for the 2022 budget, which starts that process
starts in April, May, or sooner if possible.
And that gives staff flexibility to where if funding does become available, we would
not be beholden to the 2022 process, neither would the council.
So it almost says at the latest we would consider it as part of the budget, but if there were
an opportunity earlier than that, then we could explore that opportunity.
And once you guys as a committee, once you make your recommendation to council, which
I think is something that has been missing from previous conversations on this topic,
we're going to communicate that recommendation to council.
And we will either bring it forward, part of the fiscal year 22 budget again, that starts
in about the April timeframe as a supplemental budget request.
Or we a council member can request to have that be placed on a work session.
And then there's a process to have items added for work session discussion.
And if council wants to discuss that at a work session, we would present this this information
probably in more detail given the recommendation that we would have for the committee from
the committee.
And council would be able to provide direction, have a discussion, and give staff marching
orders with regard to this issue.
And of course, regardless of any of these events, staff is going to continue to evaluate
future options and opportunities as far as closed captioning goes.
So that that is a lot of talking from me, I'm going to close this presentation.
I'm happy to answer any of your questions or defer to Billy for anything that's hard.
If I believe we can do combinations, so you could do A and B, or you can make that recommendation,
you can make a recommendation for A and C. B and C may be a little duplicative, but it
doesn't have to be just one, you could recommend a combination.
I'm going to throw my thoughts in here, and I did have a couple of questions.
I think obviously we want to be as accessible and inclusive as possible.
So that would be option A. I don't know, as you mentioned, if we need every commission
or board to be captioned, obviously our committee, because of what we do and who we are, and
I would think, as on the slide, all city council meetings, because of the nature of their business.
I guess my question is, if that were to take place, obviously captioning is not accessible
to anyone, so the understanding would be that there may still be individuals who have accommodation
requests for sign language interpreters, because people who do ASL typically cannot read English,
so captioning doesn't work, and vice versa.
So that would have to be the understanding that this wouldn't be a substitute for other
accommodations.
Correct.
Those other accommodation options would still be options.
Right.
As a request, right.
And then I guess the second question is, the cost for the one-time cost, the $24,000 for
the hardware, would that cost still be there if council agreed to just do captioning by
request?
So let's say we're not going to caption every meeting, but if a request is made to caption
it, we still need that hardware, that one-time cost, regardless.
For option A, we would, so whether we did one meeting or a million, we would still have
to pay that cost.
The annual cost, again, that's dependent on the number of meetings, scalable to a point,
so you do have to purchase a minimum amount of meetings, so we wouldn't be able to scale
it down very low.
I want to say they're buckets of 50 meetings, so that would get us council and maybe y'all's.
And then we can always add more buckets on if our meetings run over, or add another bucket
if we need to, so there wouldn't be much of a cost saving by really minimizing the number
of meetings.
Yeah, I think my feeling, obviously, we're going to be as accessible and inclusive to
everyone.
And again, being in a virtual world right now and for the foreseeable future, individuals
can't go to a physical meeting and participate, so this is the only way right now to be engaged.
And option A would be the most appropriate option.
And Billy, can you clarify with option A, that's only on the live version, so those
captions will not show up on recorded stream versions, is that correct?
That's correct.
That technology, the one-time cost, and then the annual cost depending on how many meetings
would be live only.
So it's live on the TV channel, as you see it if you're watching live or live on the
live stream on the website, but it's not getting captured and married with the file.
So there would be an additional cost, much like option B, which is a post meeting where
they could clean the live up for any unintelligible or clean that up, the manpower cost for that,
and then marry the corrected captions to the video file.
So the on demand for anybody that viewed it after the fact, and if you go on our website,
our council videos go back to 2009.
So from now forward, those captions would be married with those meetings if anybody
wanted to go back.
But the live is live and then it's gone.
Sorry, there was options A and C, that would be doable because C is free for doing YouTube.
That's a great point.
For this committee, because that is the only, you know, y'all's meetings aren't 12 hours
every week, much like some of the council meetings.
So we do use the YouTube feature for the native captioning.
So for your committee, if we were to do live and continue to do the YouTube, that is an
option.
Now, okay, thank you, Ryan on the stats that you gave regarding viewers for the meetings,
are those meetings captioned, or they just replay of the meeting, Billy, were those numbers
they came from, were those the YouTube numbers or were those from the website?
Those meetings are from the public meeting area on the website, not the YouTube analytics.
So those are non captioned copies of this meeting on average 25 a meeting.
So do we have any numbers on the viewers who look at the YouTube captioned?
I can effort those, we don't have those today.
I'm sorry.
Well, I'm thinking of the cost involved compared to the number of people who are actually utilizing
the resource.
So I'm just looking at utilization and resources invested, trying to figure it out.
So if we could get those numbers on individuals who are looking at the captioned meeting,
I think that would be, it would be more beneficial for me.
We can absolutely get those numbers and email those to the committee.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
To trade doubles advocate on that one, it's one of those, if you build it, they will come.
So if captioning is available, real people that need captioning start viewing and being
more engaged.
Whereas now we're, for instance, for me as an activist and advocate, I really don't push
this meeting out there because I know it's not accessible to anyone, to everyone.
So I can't consciously say here's the committee on people with disabilities, oh, but if you
need captioning, you're not going to get it, a certain population out.
So has this committee's meetings been available on YouTube at all?
Yes, ma'am.
They're on currently, as Ryan mentioned earlier, on the this committee's website page on cityofdenton.com.
As you scroll down, there's a section of to view past meetings with captioning.
Like here, and it takes you to a YouTube playlist that has, we've only televised, I believe
this is the fifth or sixth one, but all the ones that we've done are captioned on YouTube
and this one will be by the end of the day tomorrow.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Any other thoughts, questions? Well, my thought, I don't know how pressed we are to get this
to the council, but for myself to make an informed decision, I would like to know the
utilization on the YouTube captioned access, how many have done that?
That's just one person, and if the committee wants to proceed, proceed.
I think my argument to that is we're talking about the live interaction of this meeting.
So happening right now, as in our last meeting a couple months ago, we had a real good and
productive discussion on a heavy topic with the police chief.
So how many people were not able to participate in that because captioning was not available?
Or how many people would have if we had it?
How much more engagement would there be versus on the YouTube where that's the day after
the meeting's already done, the discussion's already happened.
So basically more of, okay, this is what I missed 24, 48 hours ago.
That would be my perspective on because if this committee, if the committee on persons
with disabilities, then we have to ensure that every disability is able to access it.
So, and right now, that's not the case.
If I can maybe ask a clarifying question of the committee, and this is not necessarily
an either/or, but if the committee finds that they have a preference, I think staff would
be interested.
Do you feel like it would be better used?
It's a bit of a trade-off having, if you are going to recommend option A or option B, is
it more important to have live, because we don't know who's watching live, we're not
able to capture that.
Is it more important to have a live caption solution that is likely less accurate or to
have a very highly accurate solution, but there's a delay of a number of days before
that's available to anyone?
And I'm speaking for this committee, council meetings, any other public meeting.
Does this committee have a preference?
I think having it live would be important, just like Val was saying, so that people can
have more interaction, and of course, you know, with most disabilities, you have seniors
that can tend to have more hearing issues as they age, so there's a whole population
that may not have considered themselves to be disabled, but yet would have more engagement
with the city's committees if it was a live situation.
But I agree with Val Morgan that getting those numbers and feedback would be very helpful
to see, but by the same token, I do see that people, when they would be hearing, oh, well,
we can just watch it and interact, you know, while it's going on live, that definitely
is very important, too.
Chair, this is Billy Matthews.
I've got an update on those YouTube statistics.
Adam Scott of our staff just got the analytics, if you want me to share those with you.
Please.
Yeah, over the four videos that are available on YouTube, all of them are captioned.
There's been six views total.
For how many meetings?
Across the four meetings, six views total.
And so how was that publicized?
And are we the ones looking at them?
That'd be another question.
Certainly, it's on the, you know, the Committee on Persons with Disabilities page on the website.
But to the Chair's point about it not being live and the fact that it's not in the repository
where the other meetings live, so they're not captioned live, and then where all of
the other meetings, including this body's meetings, live in that space on the website.
This is a separate space that I'm not certain has been publicized.
We did publicize it.
I apologize.
I did not mean to interrupt you.
I'm done.
Okay.
We did publicize it when we were many moons ago when we originally started doing it.
However, we've not done that since the pandemic or since we've resumed our virtual meetings.
Tharnia.
Trying not to be like Ryan and unmute myself.
I said that with much, much love.
So it's definitely a hefty cost, right?
Like, no doubt, this is definitely an investment.
But thinking about the previous presentation by the chief diversity and inclusion person,
I mean, if the city is making that kind of investment, or at least on paper, right, that
diversity and inclusion is important to me, that means this is part of that inclusion
piece.
It should be part of their inclusion statement.
And if they're going to say that this is an affirmation that we are really putting resources
behind being an inclusive city, and that includes not only staff, but also the community members.
And so while views are important, you know, and looking at that, I don't know that that
should be the sole reason that we choose to do something.
I think we have to look at the intent behind it and the message that we're trying to send
out to the community about the direction that we're moving.
That being said, I don't ever watch anything live anymore, to be honest, you know, I'm
okay watching things after they've happened.
And especially, and this is me, I mean, watching things live doesn't necessarily mean I'm getting
to engage in the discussion that's happening.
And so, you know, I think that's something to consider as well, like if we're talking
about, you know, I'm more engaged because I'm watching it live.
I don't know that that's the case necessarily for me, but I do think we need to look at
it from a holistic perspective and not just on viewership and move forward from there.
Those are my thoughts.
And a couple thoughts to that came to mind, I think we have to consider also committee
members.
I mean, I'm sure at some point, this committee will have individual or individuals that will
need captioning.
So when that happens, what do we do?
Where we have this already in place where, oh, no problem, you can, you are now a member
of the committee, you can participate because there's captioning, so, or do we not have
it?
And now when we select committee members, we're going to tend to not select people who are
deaf or hard of hearing because we don't have that technology.
And I think, I mean, I'm hearing costs and views, and it kind of sounds like ADA arguments.
You know, when I go to a building, oh, I'm sorry, it's not accessible because it costs
too much.
And not so many wheelchair users come here anyway.
So I think we need to be careful.
With this committee, how we're viewing this and what lens, I think our purpose is to make
sure that we're inclusive of everyone and then make those recommendations as such.
The finances, the views and all that, I think those are outside of our purview, in my opinion.
But I'm going to go around and make sure that everybody has an opportunity to have a question
or a thought.
Rex, do you have any thoughts or questions?
>> No, I'm a little dismayed that only four people out of six people looked at the last
four meetings.
I'd like to see us advertise the YouTube more.
>> Rex, I apologize, would you be able to speak into your mic just a little bit more?
>> Is that not clear?
>> It's just a little soft.
>> All right.
I don't know why it's soft, but I'll do the best I can here.
I'd like to see us promote the use of YouTube more than we have been and get people to direct
it towards that.
I was just made with a few number of people that actually viewed the YouTube videos of
the meeting.
Maybe if we could see a larger participation on the YouTube, that would generate some more
people and justify the cost.
That's my only comment.
>> Okay.
Thank you, Rex.
Jo, do you have any thoughts or comments?
>> No.
>> Okay.
Sonya, you're ready.
Val, do you have any additional?
>> Well, I think that Sonya made a very good point about diversity and inclusion and that
we should not be the only people out advocating and the people to tune into the YouTube or
the captioning because it's available now that we have that avenue that they need to
make that group, make that information available as well.
And I think if we have more pushout from our committee and other entities within the city
that we have that service available, I always -- bad point on my part.
I always look at things for cost effectiveness and I'll have to grow out of that over time.
However, we need to include everyone in all mediums for participating in city activities,
not just for this committee, not just for the city council.
There's a lot going on.
The virtual parks and recreation event where they're trying to make a decision about a
new park and what's going in it, then they're still part of our community, the disability
community specifically that's not there.
So I just want us to serve the people, want us to do it in a stewardship way of responsibility
and making it happen.
And I can hear the city council saying you don't have enough viewership to justify this
cost.
They don't have a stake in this committee or the diversity and inclusion at this point.
So when we make our motion, we just -- we need to make it clear that other entities
within the city are going to help this committee promote utilization of that kind of a resource.
All I have to say -- >> Tamara, do you have any questions or thoughts?
>> No.
>> Sally?
>> I think I agree that we need to be inclusive and that's a key role of our committee and
I think we should have the closed captioning live.
>> And Ali, do you have any questions or thoughts?
>> No.
I mean, I support the idea of let's go ahead and put our energy into closed captioning.
I feel like it's a situation where we'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not
have it.
By the case, I mean, we are coming up on our year where we may have new committee members
that would need these open opportunities to join our committee.
I think that it's important that other members of our community are able to have the closed
captioning and be able to participate.
Now, as far as the argument over YouTube and adding the equipment, I think that it is important
to have that available in the real time personally.
I mean, I think that it's nice to have it on YouTube and I'm sure we can watch it later
and all of those things, but I think that if something is coming up where it's important
like even community discussion or community call-ins, then that's something that we would
need to consider and have available to our community live.
>> Brian, I have a question.
With the captioning equipment and that availability, would that also include meetings that are like
part of some meetings or other, or are we just talking boards and commissions and city
council?
>> Yeah, these would just be boards and commissions.
So typically, when we're talking about this boards and commissions public meetings that
are of advisory committees of the council, so boards, commissions, committees, they would
and only those that are televised, currently all committees are televised, although when
we revert at some point away from virtual public meetings and we would go back to in-person
public meetings, not all of these meetings will be televised.
So folks will return to coming back in person at some point in the future.
Our community meetings that are right now virtual, we do those through Zoom and we do
post those to our YouTube channel, where the native closed captioning is available.
Although on the same token, when we revert to in-person meetings again, we'll probably
still do virtual community meetings, although we will not do as many and do in-person meetings
as well.
>> And that's a good point, where once we go in person, I think this committee was one
of those that was televised, so my understanding is the intent of that was to make it accessible
for people to view, which in case, again, it's not fully accessible to every member
without captioning.
>> I would like to make the recommendation, and I think I mentioned this earlier with
Denton Library's discussion, with some of the other departments within the city, like
Parks and Rec, who are holding virtual meetings to use the closed captioning function within
Zoom, because then once you record that and you post it, it'll have it already embedded
in it, and it's pretty accurate.
And so I think there are some things that we can do right now that would make these
meetings more accessible in this format until we go back into more in-person settings.
>> So it looks like we're at the point where we need to make a motion on a couple things.
First of all, probably we should decide on A, B, or C. So is it appropriate that I make
a motion, Ryan?
>> I don't think you're prohibited from doing that.
>> Okay.
>> I'd like to make a motion, and then we vote on option A as an option for captioning.
Does anyone second that?
>> I second.
>> Do we need to hear from everyone?
>> When you vote, you will need to do a voice vote.
Would you like to clarify, so that we can bring correct information to the council,
which committees we'd like to use, and was the language in the proposed -- the example
that we gave you, was that sufficient to be considered in the fiscal '22 budget, if not,
or at the next opportunity?
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
>> Yes.
And I don't know if we have to vote on it all as one piece, or -- because what I thought
was option A, and then we would decide, okay, which committees would be the more appropriate
to -- >> Since it's one action item, I think it would
be good to wrap it all up in two motions, and then have everyone vote on that one motion.
>> Okay.
So I will amend that motion and add that our meeting and city council meetings be the meetings
that are captioned.
>> I second.
>> So I guess all in favor, we're going to have to raise our hand, or say aye.
>> Aye.
>> Okay.
Any opposed?
>> I think Tammy wants to say something.
>> Okay.
I'm sorry, Tammy.
I thought that was a raise for a vote.
>> We would not be able to accomplish C for the council meetings due to their length.
>> Okay.
>> Likely would not be able to do that for any additional board and commission meetings
in the future due to the sheer size and number of them.
>> Okay.
>> Becky, did we record everyone's vote?
>> It needs to be by name, for the record, please.
Val has made the motion, Val Vera as the chair, and it needs the comment on who seconded the
motion, and then the consensus vote individually.
>> Was it Tamara that seconded the motion?
No?
>> It was Allison.
>> Okay.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
>> Thank you.
>> Okay.
And I can -- I'll please have each individual just say your name and say, "Aye."
>> Yes, please.
>> Sunny Redwin, aye.
>> Allison Kelly, aye.
>> Emma Begum, aye.
>> Tally Austin, aye.
>> Val Morgan, aye.
>> E.A. King, aye.
>> Okay.
That is everyone.
Correct?
Okay.
Great.
>> Thank you, committee, and as I mentioned in the presentation, we'll communicate this
recommendation to the council, and at the very latest, this will be brought forward
in the late spring as part of the fiscal '22 budget, and council has the opportunity to
discuss that earlier at their committees.
>> Ryan, will the comments from the committee members here be added to that as far as in
the spirit of diversity and inclusion and --
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
>> We'll pull from the minutes, but I'll specifically mention that was one of the driving factors.
>> Okay.
All right.
Thank you, everyone.
We are at CPD '20 029 staff reports.
>> So that's me again, and everyone received a -- the staff report with a couple of different
items.
I did just want to point out three particular things.
So we have updated our ADA web page, and this is new information.
This is with what I would think is a better conformance with what is prescribed by the
Department of Justice in terms of notifications and notices, and also resources including
a grievance process, and that can be found at cityofdenton.com/ADA, and so if you want
to check it out, please do so.
It does have committee information.
You migrated information from the committee page to this page, knowing it would be a lot
more accessible to people, and if you do have any questions or comments about it, please
feel free to reach out to me and send me an e-mail.
I'm happy to talk with you about any improvements we need to make to the page.
The take me home program was a very deep and thorough discussion at the last meeting.
I do want to draw your attention to an update memo that the chief provided in your backup
materials and let you know that that's there.
And then I also want to -- we are required to -- actually, the chair is required to just
give a brief report on absences from the previous meeting.
In this case, it's going to be the previous two meetings, and so, Mr. Chair, I can read
them off if you'd like.
This is a requirement just for all of our boards and commissions.
Would you like me to do that, Val?
>> Please, thanks.
I appreciate it.
>> So we did have one absence from the July 17th meeting.
That was Tamra, and that's being classified as an unexcused absence.
We do have criteria that allow it to be an excused absence.
Our previous meeting on September 17th, we had two absences.
Mr. Sam Alphonse had an unexcused absence, and Beth Haswell-Kirkby had an excused absence.
And I want to just encourage anyone, if you're not able to make it to a meeting, totally
understand.
Just reach out to the city secretary and give her a heads up, and that way she can properly
record your absence.
It does happen.
So just make sure you reach out to Rose's team on that.
>> I'm sorry, say that one more time?
>> Okay.
I'll tell you what, if you don't mind, just reach out to the city secretary, and you can
figure out how to classify that.
>> Okay.
Because I want a question on there, and I want an excuse.
>> Oh.
That will happen, though.
>> Yeah.
>> And the other final heads up I have is simply a reminder of the next meeting.
And that's scheduled right now to take place on Thursday, January 21st at 3 p.m. via Zoom.
>> Thank you, Ryan.
>> Yeah.
>> And we are at our concluding items.
If anyone has any announcements, thoughts, questions.
And as Ryan mentioned just a minute ago about the report about the Take Me Home program,
I encourage everyone to read that.
There was significant change.
And also, for those of you that participated in that discussion and did some research beforehand,
I appreciate that.
And I know the residents that were affected by the program appreciate that.
And those of you out in the community who vocalized, thank you as well.
And I don't have any final thoughts, announcements, questions.
No?
Okay.
Well, this is our last meeting of this year.
So of course, we want to thank everyone for treading through this very difficult time
and doing this virtual thing for our last year for meetings.
So I know it's been difficult, everyone taking the time to come here virtually in the middle
of the afternoon and serve our community.
So thank you.
And thank you for the one or two people out there that are watching this.
Hopefully next year we'll be able to grow on that.
So I will make a motion to end this.
Oh, Beth, I'm sorry.
I was just going to point out Val had her hand up, her electronic hand.
I just want to make sure she didn't have anything else to say in closing.
No.
Okay.
Thank you, Becky.
All right.
Unless there's something else, I'll make a motion to end our meeting.
Second.
Second, third.
Everyone good with that?
You need to record that.
Sally, you're good with that?
Charlie?
Okay, well, then that concludes our meeting for November and I want to wish everyone happy
holidays and we'll see you next year.
Holidays.
Happy holidays.