Sep 15, 2022 Committee on Persons with Disabilities on 2022-09-15 3:00 PM

I'm on your list. I'm on your list. But you have to get that. Yes, you have to get that. I'm on your list. But you have to get that. I'm on your list. But you have to get that. I'm on your list. But you have to get that. Do we need a list? Do we need what? Do we need a list? List? Oh, introductions? I don't think we need to. I don't think we need to. But we'll introduce the staff as they come up with their items. But I think we can proceed to the first item, Mr. Chair. Okay. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] Oh, on the screen? Give me just a second, I'll pull that out. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] No! [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] There's our general today. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] Okay, I'll second it. So, I guess all in favor would be the next step. And we do have some staff members from Parks and Recreation here to present this item. If you all would like to come up over here, we can get you going. And I'll pull up your presentation, which is one of these. Tamiya? Yes. I'll literally do this. There it is. Okay. There you go. Okay, perfect. All right. Hello, everybody. My name is Tamiya. I'm the Adapted and Inclusive Recreation Coordinator for Parks and Rec. I came and presented to you all in March, so this is a little bit of an update on what we've been doing since then, as well as some new stuff that we're wanting to implement and wanting to get some feedback from you all on. So, yeah, today, so we're going to be going over the program update, what we've been doing in Adapted Rec, how it's grown since I last presented, and our program brand recognition, the areas identified for our improvement going forward towards the future, and some next steps. So our program update. So our Adapted Rec program is programs specifically designed for individuals with disabilities, both intellectual and physical. We have a variety of programs. So we have art classes, sports classes, socials, some dances. We just added a tech class, and we've been doing that for a couple weeks. And they've been growing and increasing consistently over the last year. So currently, we're seeing about a 60% to 75% increase in participation. Since March, we've expanded to get a new partnership with Dent ISD's High School Transition Program. So we've been working with them for a little over a month now. And then we also have some more community involvement. So before, we were mostly working with people from group homes. We have more individuals from our community that have been starting to come to our programs now, which is really fun that it's growing outside of just those confined groups. And so now we're servicing about 100-plus individuals now at this point. So we've really kind of hit some great milestones since March. So our Adapted Rec updates of what we have moving forward. So we're going to be bringing on a Special Olympics program. So this will be a competing team for adults anywhere past that transition age. So since the ISD has a really great special education program, they really have that school age group very well taken care of. They have a lot of opportunities for them. So we're really focusing on that transition age, because that's what we've been getting some feedback on that it's lacking. So adding that competition will kind of elevate it, as opposed to just being a recreation-focused program. And so we've also increased our UDLs in our centers and programs, so our universal design. So we have been increasing our best practices as far as having more auditory and visual cues across all of our programs, some things like that. So just making those minor adjustments, that way somebody doesn't have to ask for those accommodations. We kind of already have them integrated in. And those are just useful for everybody, regardless of disability status. And we've also, very excitingly, gotten some new equipment recently. So this right here, it's a Freedom Chair, so it is an all-terrain wheelchair. And the thing that's a little bit different from this one, as opposed to some other ones that we've seen, is that this one, these red levers right here, the user is able to push themselves. So it allows for some more independence in programs, rather than needing somebody to be pushing the chair themselves. So that one, we just got it in last week, and we're taking it on a test drive with one of our participants in a couple weeks. So hopefully it works out well. We tried it out in the parking lot, and it's great. So we are excited to actually take it out to the trails and see. And then we also, at North Lakes, got a non-motorized treadmill. So this can help with people with an abnormal gait. So then that way, they're setting their own speed and their own pace and not having to match the treadmill. The treadmill works for that. So if y'all want to come by North Lakes and see, it's right whenever you walk in. So that's pretty fun. So our program, Brand Recognition, we are wanting to -- I mentioned this back in March, but we've really kind of taken a little bit more steps towards it now. But we are wanting to rename our Adapted Rec program to have everything branded as AIR, A-I-R. So Adapted and Inclusive Rec is what that stands for. And by renaming and redesigning the play logo to go along with our AIR logo, we're hoping that this makes programs easily recognizable as being disability-friendly. And it connects the city's ADA programs to our Adapted Rec programs. And we're also hoping that this is kind of a rebrand and a relaunch for our programs for people who don't know that we're currently offering them, that we'll kind of make this a big deal. That way, we can let them know that we're having it. So we're hoping to see a pretty good jump in numbers, hopefully, whenever that happens. So moving on to our focus areas for process improvements. So we have five areas that we're currently looking at. So it is our accommodations request process, our inclusion statement, staff training, our Adapted Rec-specific program guidelines, and then a participant intake form. So these were all linked in a folder, so hopefully y'all had a chance to take a look at those. But I will be touching on some points on them. And of course, if y'all have any questions, we can get those answered for y'all. For our accommodations request. So we are developing a formal process that the entire department will be using for our accommodations whenever they are submitted. So the way that this is going to help us is going to establish a way to respond to these requests and have them answered in a timely manner and make sure that the participant is letting us know ahead of time that we need to do some extra training, get extra equipment that we have the time for that. And it also designates responsibilities for each of these steps. I'm one person, so it's kind of hard for me to be everywhere at once. So hopefully if we can break this up, then it'll make it a lot smoother and make sure that those requests are all getting got to in a timely manner. And this also will include our best practices for document security and retention. So this will be something that we work with tech services on to either create a password protected file that only specific people have access to or doing an online thing that way people's health and disability information is not well acknowledged. So we'll be working with tech on that to make sure that all of that is secured in a way that is best for us who needs to access the information but also that the people providing the information feel well doing so. Next is our Included Statement. So this document is pretty long. It's about four pages. So it's designed to set our departmental procedures. So this covers everything from staff training, from what this looks like, our future, how we're tracking the information. It really covers everything for our inclusion. And this is not just specifically disability inclusion, but obviously that's a big part that we recognize needs some help. So that is why it's included in this as well. So like I said, this is a very long document. So we have condensed it to have a public facing statement that will be on the Parks and Rec landing page or website landing page. So that way as soon as you click onto that Parks and Rec page, it says, you know, it's like a three sentence short paragraph. We're dedicated to inclusion in our programs. And then it also will have the links for the accommodations request and for the ADA page link there. So then that way everything's all nice and well rounded. And then the full inclusion statement will also be linked below that. That way people who are interested in the entire process have access to it. So next for staff training. So we're working on some standards of practice development and FAQs. That way our staff has a very open door policy on coming and being able to feel comfortable asking questions so that they best know how to approach the community and provide for them the best that they need to be. So we've already implemented quarterly training with the Texas Parks and Wildlife. So this was one that we did back in the summer. So we did one just dedicated to service animals and it was a very well rounded. We got a lot of questions answered. We got a great kind of grip on what our policy is as far as pets and service animals and all of that. Their rights and this is all in accordance with ADA. This was through their ADA office at Texas Parks and Wildlife. And then ARPA has a parks for inclusion policy as well that we make sure that we're aligned with. And then commit to inclusion is from another one. I think that's its own movement, commit to inclusion. So that one is also in public spaces. So we also integrate those in a civil law. So our adaptive rec specific guidelines. So these, the outline increases some of our safety procedures that we didn't necessarily think of whenever we first brought back adaptive rec. So it's some things that increase our safety measures for our staff as well as participants. This includes some participant expectations. And just making sure that our programs are best suited for the individuals coming to these. And this would be provided during registration. So just like our parks code of conduct is provided anytime that you register for a program, this would be along with those adaptive rec programs. So the participant intake form. This is a voluntary form that would be completed when registering for adaptive rec programs, requesting program accommodations for specific programs in parks and rec. And it is, this is also, it's two pages. So this is just the first page. So it would just be some general information, contact information, emergency contact information, demographic information. And then this, these lines would be where you are requesting the specific accommodation. So it would be, I need anything. I need the all-terrain wheelchair to go on this program, things like that. And then this is the health information part. So this is where they can put what their disability is, that way we have a little bit more insight on how we can, what accommodations we can offer if we can't complete their entire accommodation. So this is just the request form. So this is what we would use. This is what would be document protected and only accessible to the individuals that need access for it. Yes. I have a question. Okay. You said it was voluntary, but it includes really critical information like emergency contact. So that sounds to me like it shouldn't be voluntary. So our waiver that everybody in parks and rec has to fill out anytime that they're signing up for a program already includes that information. So this would just be something that way we can kind of match it up to their information in our system. This wouldn't be the only emergency contact information. So our next steps moving forward towards this. So we are bringing this to y'all so that way y'all can give us some feedback on what y'all think we need to change, add, take away, anything like that. And then after we kind of get the thumbs up from y'all, we move on to our department review. This would go to our internal higher ups. So they make sure that they think it sounds great, think that it's something that's worth implementing. And then it would go to legal. So as it is now, it has not been reviewed by legal, but a lot of the documents are taken from or have inspiration from other cities or other current parks and rec documents. So I'm hoping that it's not too far off from what legal would already be approving. Following legal review, it would go to the Parks, Recreation and Beautification Board. So this is once they adopt it, then we start implementing it pretty much right away. So depending on how long this process takes, it could be a few months still, but we're hoping that we're able to get this out rolled out fairly soon. And then we would be able to start more department training and implementation, making sure that everybody across the department is on the same board. Any questions? Yes, ma'am. You mentioned about this database about information that people are voluntary. So I've been wondering if it would be useful for us to get a general database about who are we serving? Who is our committee serving with people with disabilities? And I wondered if that would be information that they could be asked to let us have or what do you all think? Do you all think that that's information that would be useful to us or not? I think it has some practicality to it, but I believe that each division or department within the city is able to point their people to the right resources in order to do that. For me personally, I don't think that I need to know who we're serving, but that we're making services available for whomever we need. That's just me. Yeah, I appreciate that. And we will be using the information and the data provided to track, that way we can kind of see the trends on what specific accommodations are being requested, get a kind of a grasp on what disabilities are most prevalent in our community, that way we can add that to our best practices that's already integrated in our programs. I can add, and maybe this is more of a request than I'm just kind of dropping on Parks and Rec right now, but as this program is rolled out and you do get that information on the types of accommodations that are being requested, that can always be something that, depending on how quickly they come in, on a quarterly or twice a year basis, that could be reported to this committee, so you have a better understanding of what the needs are in the community, or at least insofar as they are for parks programs. So I have a question. Being relatively new on this committee, is there a way for the community to reach us directly to communicate needs, to give feedback on these services that we're offering? I agree that we don't necessarily need to know each individual, but I do personally think that it's important to work constantly in communication with the community that we're serving, and letting those voices be primary and first. So is there a system? When you say, you mean the committee? Well, not the committee, but just the way that those who are using the services can give us feedback, maybe continue to put in requests, and not just through parks and recreation, but all of the kind of projects that we're involved in, and even in any potential future projects. I think I understand. Yes, so I would always encourage them, you know, all of your city email addresses, and that's one of the reasons we shifted to using city email addresses, was that so people could reach out to you as a member of a public body to express any concerns, desires, questions, hopes, dreams, and they can do that to you guys directly. We do post that information on our website, to be quite frank, it's not on the main page. You do have to go down a couple of layers to get it, but that is the best way I think for people to directly reach out to committee members that deal in the issues that are important to them. And absolutely, I think that it's very important that they do reach out to you and speak to you, and you are appointed by the council to be representatives and speak for the disability community on this body, and the more that you are engaged with them and they're engaged with you, the better discussions and directions we set here. So, absolutely. Thank you. And I think it is working with the city emails because I received a communication of concerns from a parent of a child in another school district outside the city of Dill, and so I was just able to reach back to her and give her some tips on next steps, whatever, and I thought that was pretty amazing that her need was that significant that she would reach out into another city to look for help. I had a question. You mentioned Special Olympics opportunities, because I know with COVID a lot of our Special Olympics for our people out of high school cratered, and I think that's come back for the most part. So, it would be neat if there was coordination through the city, because it's more likely to continue on and have some we've maintained. How would we find out about that? I mean, more speaking as a parent of someone who is in Special Olympics and everything, like the bowling and the track and all that other stuff, they just sort of fizzled out. Yeah, whenever we start all those programs officially, they'll all be on the Adapt Direct page on the city website, and then I'm sure that we can have a way to have those on the Parks and Rec catalog as well, and hopefully in the next play guide we can have that information in there as well. So, we're in area 11 for Special Olympics, and so we've been working with them to try and get some of their programs hosted up in Denton. That way we can kind of spread the word that way. A couple weeks ago we had a town hall meeting for Special Olympics that was hosted at North Lake Shark Center, so that kind of was our first "we're going to be starting a program, come to our facility." And we are also working with our athletics department to host a tennis tournament in April, the Special Olympics tennis tournament. That way, as our program is growing, we can get some other people here. That way we're recognized as a Special Olympics city. Well, I'd like to commend you on increasing your participation to 500-plus. I think that's amazing. And reaching out to the transition group. I have a question, and I may have missed this, so I apologize. If a participant or a parent has a child that maybe has a disability that's, you know, they would participate in a normal setting, but they just need some accommodations that are between them and the coach or whoever, how is that presented, either in the catalog or online, so like, "Oh, here's the form where you can request this." Like, is it clear, like, that service is available and how to access it? So, whenever we get all this implemented, so that would be very publicly listed. So, it would be in the catalog, we could have how we have that shorter version that will be on the website. We can have an even shorter version that's sent out on all of our emails. That way people know, you know, any accommodations request, go to the Parks and Rec page for that. And that way, yeah, and that's what that accommodations request form is designed for, is people that can participate in the traditional programs, but just need one or two extra things. Or if you had somebody that had a visual impairment or a hearing impairment, but they wanted to go to a class that we can get them, you know, "Hey, come 30 minutes early. We'll go over what we're going to be doing today." That way you can follow along with the, you know, limited sensory input that you're getting. So, that's what that accommodations request is really designed for outside of the adaptive rec specific classes. I would just, you know, make sure it's obvious because that's so easy when there's so much information in this. That's what they're looking for. And if you have to go to so many different pages, then it gets hard for them. Which is why we were prioritizing putting it on the Parks and Rec homepage, rather than a lot of cities that already have implemented this, they have it under their adaptive rec. But if you don't particularly know what adaptive rec is or don't know to look there, then it's hard to find those request forms and those guidelines. So, that's why it is such a priority for us to put it right on the landing page. That way as soon as you click there, it says, "We're committed to inclusion. If you need anything, let us know." That way we can get it rather than you having to jump through hoops to get those accommodations. Could it also be like where you pay? Like, because a lot of people pay online, like another reminder, like, yeah, that'd be good. And yeah, we can implement that into either adding it to our parks code of conduct, that we can have something in there, or on the receipt have that it says, you know, if you need accommodations for this program, contact so-and-so. That way we have it, yeah, kind of listed everywhere. That way no matter if you're already registered, if you're looking to register, if you're looking online, if you're at the rec center, then you can get it accommodated. You can't miss it, that's why. So what would be a reasonable time frame for someone to place an accommodation? So what we're potentially looking at, which this could change in the few weeks after ruling this out, is about two weeks usually gives us enough time for the participant to register. And it would also depend on the timeline that we set internally as for getting it, making sure that, you know, you have two days for us to see your request, and then it'd be reaching out to the instructor and then figuring out what the accommodation, if we can accommodate, if we have kind of a bounce back for it. And then that also hopefully will give us enough time to set up a time if it needs to be extra time, if it needs to be a pre-meeting for the program, or also getting equipment ordered. So that equipment order part would kind of be what changes your timeline. Some equipment takes a while, some we can get off Amazon and get it tomorrow. So you might want to put a little statement on the form that especially equipment is needed that might increase the amount of time to respond or to provide. Is there a place where your adaptive equipment is listed, where people can go and look and see what y'all have currently? Not currently. Our equipment is a little scattered. So it might be hard to have a, you can come and see what we have. We might be able to have a online catalog that way if they reach out, then we could say we already have an all-terrain wheelchair. We already have grip assist gloves. We already have foot straps for equipment. So then that way we could easily and quickly answer those rather than kind of running around to see, does somebody have this? Yeah, I was thinking that somebody might, like someone that has a disability, might go to the page and be like, oh, you know, oh wow, I could do it if I had this thing that they already have. That they might not know about if they haven't had exposure to a recreation therapist in the past. Yeah. So we're hoping that in instances like that, also them reaching out, we could, if they don't know what equipment they might need, then we could also say, well, it sounds like this might work best for you, which is where on the request form where we would like for them to list the request, but then also list a little bit about their abilities. That way we can kind of say, you know, given this is your diagnosis, these are your abilities, this specific request accommodation might work better than the one that you requested. Okay, good. Yeah. Good. Any questions? Yeah, if you all have any other questions or need any more information, I'm like a crazy person with my email, so I'm always on that. So feel free to reach out that way. I don't really answer my office phone because I'm never in there. So that's probably not the best way to get in contact with me. Thank you all for letting me present to y'all. Thank you. Are you excited to be here anymore? Absolutely. Good report. I want to try the cherry now. Oh, yeah, we can get you out there. Oh, you want to try the cherry now? Yeah. It's pretty fun. I'm sure he will. We do need to get anti-tick bars for it because I fell off of it. It was going up a pretty steep hill. You need to let me put a GoPro on you and we can just do the whole thing. Would it work for you when you're at the market every Saturday? Does this work okay? Yeah. Okay. He's got some pretty wide meals. Yeah, it works. Unless it's money, money. Yeah. Here you go. Thank you. Thank you. The next item on them, there's nothing on them anymore. Do what? There's nothing on them. No action item on that one. The rest are not action items. The next item on them is on me. All right, so I know you guys are clamoring for really important, interesting stuff, so I brought you a policy discussion today, so get excited. You're stuck with me for the rest of the meeting. All the rest of these things are mine. I wanted to broach this topic with the committee. Those who are on the committee from its inception know that there was concern on the committee at a certain point in time to seize ADA policy with respect to our ADA coordinator. We actually, per policy, have three coordinators. One is a representative from HR. One is a representative from, I guess, it's probably my first slide. Maybe not. One is a representative from Streets, who is Nathan, who's been here several times. And one is a representative from our facilities department. Those are outlined and enumerated in our policy. And what we've kind of found that as this body and the city has been a little bit more involved in kind of setting up our disability framework, how we take in accommodation requests, what our grievance process is, that the policy we have may not meet what our needs are. So just getting the background out of the way, this is a policy that you can see online. It's policy 100.02, so if you navigate to our government heading and go down to policies and procedures, it's right there. We do have three ADA coordinators. The policy is pretty well focused on employment matters, which is pretty typical for a lot of cities. Not too many of them have a separate ADA policy. Some do, but many do not. We really realized some practical challenges with having three ADA coordinators. The first of which, it really does not provide a lot of clarity on if you have an accommodation need for programs or services, who is your point person. Now, we may have a specific point person if you specifically want a parks program accommodation. We're setting up a process for that. Or if you're in a library and you need an accommodation right then and there, but for general accommodations for the city, related to maybe a number of programs that are not specific to one single department, we don't have a person outlined for that, or it doesn't seem like there is one, which maybe one of those folks could kind of take the ball and carry it, but to the person, the member of the public who's requested an accommodation, it may seem like we just don't have that person. Additionally, when you have three ADA coordinators and none of them has ownership over programs and services, you kind of get into the practical problems of, okay, we have an accommodation request, we have a question, we have something that has come to us, who's taking this? And that can cause some delays and miscommunication, which on a good day just kills time, which maybe needed time, but on a bad day, it really miscommunicates to the member of the public and it doesn't seem like we have really a plan in place for how to provide them what they need. So we sat down and we discussed a slight change to this policy where we essentially go down to two ADA coordinator roles, it's bifurcated, that might seem like we're not making much of a dent in our problem, but we would essentially have one person to coordinate everything employment related, so if you are an employee or you're an applicant for employment with the city of Denton, this is your route, this is your person, we have a specific process for that. And then we established an ADA coordinator for everything else, and their main role would essentially be to coordinate, so they would not have to be necessarily the expert like Nathan is with streets, or say someone on a facilities team is with our buildings, or say someone on parks is with their programs, this person would be there to just make sure the process runs efficiently and make sure that we as an organization are continually improving to provide services that are accessible to all. And they would be, there would be no confusion on who all the questions go to, provided they're not related to employment, and there would be no question on who the complaints or the grievances go to and who's running those processes. I feel like, we felt like this provided a lot of, a lot more clarity to the public, you as committee members, if someone presents you with an issue, you would say well you need to go talk to this person right here, here's that person's email address. And that would also make sure that that person is also accountable, so if that person you're talking to does not get their issue resolved, or is not, they don't get a response when they reach out, we know exactly who's responsible and who's accountable for that process. So, our benefits are with really kind of having that new setup where it's a one for employment, one for everything else. It helps the internal coordination, it provides that public clarity, and the way we would set it up is, it would be a city manager designee, so it wouldn't be tied to one specific position, not one specific department. We're going to make sure the best candidate for that job is in that role, someone who understands or has capacity to learn more and engage with ADA issues, accessibility issues, disability issues, so that we can not have to be kind of tied to someone in facilities or someone in streets as our policy outlines. So, that's my presentation, three slides guys. But that's the direction we want to go. What our concern is, what we wanted to bring it up to you guys is any unintended consequences, because any time you mess with the policy, there could always be some unintended consequences that we don't realize, or are we not going far enough. But we wanted to have a conversation with this committee to make sure that we are heading in the right direction, and I'll show that now. Well, from being on the committee from the very beginning, this is a very positive, good move, because this has been my concern about ADA coordination. It's good for the city internally, that needs to happen. But public facing, those individuals, we're going to get the runaround from one person to the next person to the next person. So, I'm glad to see that you're trimming it down so that citizens have a more direct contact for addressing their needs for involvement within the city. So, for me, that's a very good move. Is the complaint or grievance process, or if there is one, is that clearly where the public can find it, and then what is that process is my next question, and the reason I'm going there is because usually if there's a grievance process through any place, then there's going to be some type of formal setting, and it's like, so is that coordinator person going to then delegate who sits down at that first meeting, or is that person? I just want to make sure under federal, state, law, whatever, we're doing everything we're supposed to be doing, and it's not confusing when it gets into the process, if that makes sense. Well, and I'll kind of walk you through. We do have everything housed at cityofdent.com/ADA, and so this is essentially our ADA webpage where we house most of our information. We do have our grievance process. At another point, email the ADA coordinators. It's not a single person. It'd be great to have email. Sandy, our ADA coordinator, it's a specific person with a name and a phone number. But we do have an area where you can get information on requesting an accommodation, and then we do have an area toward the bottom on complaints and procedure. You can submit a grievance online if you want to, but in our grievance procedures, we do line that out. It's based and kind of borrowed from resources provided by the Department of Justice. We didn't want to make too many modifications to it, although if we start getting a lot of grievances and we find that the process doesn't work, we certainly will, and that would be something that would get brought back to this committee. But I would say if anyone on this committee or anybody that you know has experience with grievance processes, either as administering them or being a person to go through that process, and they want to take a look at this and they find something that could be better, I think we're always happy to hear that. A process is always good. A procedure is always good until it's tested. And so that's when you kind of find where the issues can lie. I'm always good for feedback, so we like to tweak things when we do that. I think if you stick with the federal outline for grievances, that can go wrong, and that the city just has a way to help that individual facilitate that process. And when you go through this, you'll see that it does outline 15 calendar days. You know, we had to make some modifications because this is ACD 88, so we would say, you know, if we make this policy change, we'd have to update it. You know, another 15 calendar days related to a complaint appealed to the city manager or designee, and so it's pretty specific in outlining, although I don't want to sit here and tell you that it's flawless at all. We've not, since we rolled it out, we've not received a grievance through this process. Quite frankly, I hope we don't. Has your legal department looked into it? I mean, I'm an attorney and I do these schools, you know, so it's like, there has to be something that either are from other cities or somebody they can talk to to know that, yeah, this is normal. Yeah. But my concern would just be that I think I like it the way you divided it with HR and then having one person delegate. And as long as it looks like it's worded pretty well or they can be delegated from there. So, you know, the designee. It takes your question. It did go through our legal department. Well, then it's probably fine. Mike's not here, so I can't get back to you. So that's, that's where we want to go. I do have, I'm a little concerned about losing possibly the expert, the street expertise, but would this person still be ADA slash bicycle pedestrian coordinator? So I'm not sure to what extent his title would change, but those folks who are the subject matter experts would still be involved in the process. They would, they would be brought in for those items where they have that specific area of expertise. So Nathan, you know, he would still be here probably on a regular basis talking about ADA issues as they relate to streets and sidewalks. And if we did get a question or a complaint come in that's related to streets or sidewalks or pedestrian issues, the coordinator, that would be, Nathan would be the first person that the coordinator would, would reach out to and they would coordinate a response together. So the coordinator wouldn't, isn't necessarily the subject matter expert, but the coordinator makes sure, is there to make sure that the process works and works as it should, that people get their responses. And also as someone to look out to make sure that we as an organization have things in place so that we are appropriately trained, but that our systems to meet the needs of people who have disabilities are working. And it's hard to do that. It's hard to have that level of accountability with three people. But will they, will it still be a joint position? You don't know that with the bicycle pedestrian? No, no, I think that probably if we, if we establish a policy, one ADA coordinator is not my, he would still be the bicycle pedestrian coordinator. His title might just get a little shorter. Okay. But I think the nature of what he does relating to ADA, it would, would not change. Okay. Make sense? Okay. Thank you guys. [inaudible] [inaudible] Okay. So we did this last year where at the beginning of the, kind of at the turn of the year, I should say, we brought forward a, there we go, kind of a discussion on it for this group to help us set our path for the next fiscal year in terms of what this body would like to discuss. What issues are important to you? It was incredibly helpful with staff, kind of knowing what your priorities are so we could line those discussions up and make sure that you were getting the information you needed. And I'd like to do that again. Since we are not quite the whole committee today, we may bring this item back again next time just to make sure we get full input. But the, the goal of this is, is to help set that, that plan for next year. I think everyone can probably maybe, maybe do without this slide, but I'll do it anyway. So this committee was created in 2018. It got started in earnest in early 2019. And under, under its enabling ordinance, it's really to advise the city and advise the city council in areas including disability concerns, accessibility accommodations. You know, I'll have another slide that kind of goes through the specifics, but it generally applies to city projects and activities, but not necessarily does it have to. So we can have some other outside entity come in and speak on some topic. But, you know, the city may or may not have the ability to, to, to have that other entity do anything specific. So under the charges of committee, and this is in the enabling ordinance, the committee can really talk about and discuss and decide and vote on a lot. You're here to be an advisory body for staff and one for council as well, should the need arise. And it's everything from, from infrastructure like sidewalks and ramps to our transition plan, which we have presented on before. Adaptive accessible parks. We've had some park discussions here in the last year. New facilities, which we don't have too many of those coming on, but existing facilities certainly. Talked about the library at the last meeting. Signage. Parking lot rehab projects. Seems very niche, but that was mentioned in the ordinance. I think the biggest area in my mind of opportunity are improving city operations. So our programming, how do we make things that we do, the services we provide more accessible and kind of increase the connections that we have with those who have disabilities and disability community. And improving operations with other entities. I think early on we had at least twice, maybe three times you've had DCTA come in on different topics. And then of course, just like you received today, parks and rec adaptive rec activity. So, and I wanted to kind of provide this to you guys to just kind of share how broad your scope is. It is not terribly narrow. Y'all did give staff some areas of interest from the last time we had this discussion about a year ago for what we would focus on in the fiscal year 2022 timeframe. Adaptive rec was one of them. We just had that conversation. We had to wait on that one because we did not have an active rec coordinator. We lost one during the pandemic. We talked about, Bob came in and talked about the emergency management plan. We've had several sidewalk discussions. Mobility projects have come in as they've come up. We've had a number of park projects. We did have a conversation on special events and disabilities. We did have an ADA plan follow up conversation. And then you did early on, you got a website update because we rolled that out about a year ago. A couple that we've not gotten to, sheltering during emergencies. We haven't gotten that one ready to bring forward yet. And the 311 system, unfortunately, is not quite close to implementation yet. So that one's still a number of months off. But what I'm hoping to at least start the conversation today is to just hear from you what is important to you guys that you agree needs to be discussed or should be discussed in the next year, knowing that things that we can't anticipate will come up and we'll get those in as best as we can. And that's kind of where I'm going to stop talking and just open it up to the committee. What issues would you like to talk about in the next year? Bring back special events? Bring back special events? Oh, so special events, events that the city, so we have a special event process. We have large events that the city that run through that process, think arts and jazz, which I think is this weekend. And that all the way down to a number of smaller scale events. But those are things that the city coordinates or they partner with. And when we had that discussion last time, they were at the beginning stages of making improvements to the policy to make recommendations and then leading into kind of more stringent guidelines that you were going to ask the city to partner with you or you're going to be using city facilities for an event. You need to have these things in line with regarding accommodations. So they got some initial feedback from the committee in that presentation. They are scheduled at this point to come back for a follow up in November. So that was, I'm not sure if you were there, but that's kind of the level of it. It's anything that goes through our process because they're using public street or they are using a city facility or they're using city resources or city park. Basically, you're doing something that uses the city's money or stuff. Well, I've got a few things that were my concern for the coming up here. The first one is GoZone, and I would really like for us to get a good idea. I was thinking maybe we could do just a simple online survey to get feedback from people with disabilities about are they able to get a vehicle that has a wheelchair accommodation. I'd read just different things that people will post online and I hear a lot of frustration about, you know, I felt like when the woman came and talked to us, everything sounded great that she was proposing, but I did not find it to actually pan out. And I am very concerned about our public transportation and accessibility, which for the buses wasn't really any issue. And that's a concern of mine because I see the vehicles, but there are individuals, I believe, that are in wheelchairs that are especially built for specific posturing and what have you, that they cannot be out of the wheelchair to sit in the vehicle to transport from point A to point B. And I think we asked that question. I never heard a resolution for that. So, yes, GoZone is concerning. Okay. Perfect. I've seen people being picked up too in situations that are not safe, disabled and disaster away from happening if something had gone wrong. And I've noticed many, many bus stops are no longer available. I mean, they just say this is closed. I think I've seen more closed than one that's open. So that is a major concern. And I know it's not a city issue, but the bus does go through the city. Well, and we can invite DCTA to come and this body has questions, has concerns. Yeah, they had talked about it when they did the presentation. They talked about people that need, that couldn't leave their wheelchair to get in. They talked about having access from like behind. And we were discussing, well, how would that work? And, you know, where are they going to be loading? And is it going to be safe and all that kind of stuff? And that doesn't seem to be the case. We can reach out to them and try to find one of our meeting dates or any of our discuss your own meeting dates for the next year. We'd like to have you come in and talk about it. Okay, that'd be great. Okay. And voting equity is another one. I'm concerned with some of -- oh, I'm sorry, Joe. What is the legal problem of people riding on in their chair on the bus? People riding in the chair on where? On the bus. On the bus. On the GoZone. Is it legal for people riding in their chair on the GoZone? On the GoZone. The bus on the ground. It should be on the bus. Yeah, the bus accommodates, but I don't believe the GoZone does. I don't know when I need the vans in my chair. We can -- well, I think we need to frame it today. Yes, if they have specific vehicles that will say to transport individuals in their wheelchair. Yeah, like span and -- I want to say both access and span. They come to my son's rehab and there are a couple people that stay in their wheelchair and then go on wheelchairring. And then voting equity is another one. I'm concerned with some of the laws that have been passed and it's going to be more difficult for people with disabilities to vote for absentee voting, and I'm very concerned about that too. So I would -- just a simple question. Is that something where you would see this as just to have a discussion to better understand what the law -- what it does and doesn't allow? Or are you thinking that you might make a recommendation? Well, I would like to hear about what is allowed and what isn't. What is actually -- from people that are actually running elections. You know, what are people able -- what accommodations are they able to do? What things aren't they able to do? And then from that, we could make recommendations. So we contract with the county to run all of our elections so we can invite the county? Yeah. And just kind of go through -- provide clarity on those issues that you mentioned, you know, with absentee voting and maybe provide a little bit more. Because, frankly, every time I go into a polling location, I see it and I forget it. So I can tell you what accommodations are available for folks with any kind of disability. So maybe I can give a broad overview of that. Is that all you would say? You know, just make sure what are the options for people with disabilities. I know in the past when I ran an election, you could go out to a car and they just -- and it's all protected. I'm part of a new voting -- well, decisions being made, that's not going to be an option. That's my understanding. I know they had that option, I think, during COVID. Has that always been -- It was before COVID. And then you were saying the mail-in. That's very, very confusing. Well, it's, again, a good opportunity for this body to provide -- you know, not to get the information, but also provide feedback. Maybe we can post some of the clarity that we see on the website. Any other issues? I'm still concerned about disaster planning for people with disabilities. Yeah, I'll say the same thing, especially considering the summer was especially tough for many. And we were right on the verge of having another grid issue. The high of 300-plus days, we're now going into winter pretty soon. And that's a major concern. So I think in the last one, you all got kind of a broad overview. Do you want to drill down into any one particular -- 'cause disaster planning is a really broad topic. Do you want to drill into any particular area as it relates to persons with disabilities? Just from people, disabled people that I know, like, accessing temperate control spaces in the event that power does go out, whether that's heat, AC, accessing food and necessities, in the case that roads are closed, especially in the winter, medications, making sure you have access to medications, and an ability to store medications properly. So accessing food, medicine, and health care, and accessing shelter. And transport during all those events. Transport and backup. Electricity is vital for a lot of people, for their equipment. And one thing I also wonder about is if there was an evacuation order for any reason, I don't know what, but if there was one and you don't have a vehicle, how would you access evacuation plans? Okay. We've got -- we can get Bob in here. He's got plans for that, so I don't know what they are. He tells me if he needs to. But he can come in, and I'll mention these specific things to him, but he may want to go into some other related topics for you guys. Okay. You know, there was a group once that had these type of tabletop discussions, and those individuals that were involved included the school system, emergency assistance here, like the fire rescue police, and the county emergency management team, FEMA. And there was a process in place to find people with disabilities and make sure that there was some assistance for them. But I don't know what happened with the food. It just disappeared. And this was well before the pandemic. Other things that we've experienced. And the demographics would be important to them. I'll also ask them how we incorporate this demographic in our -- because we still do tabletops. We haven't done any full-blown exercises that I'm aware of, but we did Table Club actually about two weeks ago. And to what extent we incorporate those issues into our planning tabletops, and also I'll see if there's an opportunity to -- I don't know if something can be done, but maybe a tabletop that focuses solely on those issues and potentially even bringing members of this committee in with that to be essentially the subject matter experts. We'll see if that's an option as well. [SIDE CONVERSATION] And I think this group just needs to continue to keep on top of the safety of pedestrians and bicycle riders. Every time I drive around town, I'm like, please stop. I'm trying to talk to the car from the studio, the driver. I just -- I think they have done some improvements upon -- and then they give so many seconds for somebody to turn right, and then the pedestrians get -- Yeah, I agree. That's what we need to consider overall. And we talked about it at one time about how some of that safety information and the laws need to go printed in your electricity bill. [SIDE CONVERSATION] So a thought I wanted to have is that we, rain or shine, we bring Nathan in at least twice a year to give an update on pedestrians on our wall, where we're at with our sidewalk plan. And maybe six months ago, we want to do these segments, here's what we've done, and here's what we haven't done, whatever that might be, and kind of what the plan is going forward. And I thought it would also be good to have Mia back maybe kind of on that same timeline to just give us an adaptive rack update. Because they deal so closely with folks who need the accommodations, who have the disabilities, and we can get kind of a more regular information on that. And hopefully she'll be able to kind of tell more about the types of -- kind of speaking to that community need that they brought up earlier. [SIDE CONVERSATION] One thing I did want to mention, and I don't think you need to think of it right now, I'd like to add back in our -- we used to have an agenda item on our agenda called "concluding items." And I don't think it's -- oh, it's still on here. We'll put it back on, I think we'll put it back on. But that's kind of a time at the end of every meeting that if you have a more -- something that's a little more time sensitive that you'd like to see at the next meeting. As a committee, as a body, y'all can recommend that. But also, if anything that is discussed, you feel like you want to make a formal recommendation to counsel on that, we can bring that back at the next meeting. Or if you see something coming down the line and you all feel that you want the option to make a formal recommendation to counsel, we can post it that way. If it's not posted as what we call a consideration item, where you consider it and vote, you're not able to vote. And we'd have to repost that for the next meeting. So I just want to remind you guys that staff, we love the direction, but also you can give that to counsel. And if you vote to give some sort of advisory opinion or some sort of direction to counsel, what we would do is we would take that and we would communicate it to them and give them a report every Friday. And we would communicate to that to the counsel and then it falls in their court to act on it. Whatever it is you're recommending as a body, they can then act on it. Which is how we got to the closed captioning from several years back. You guys voted on it. Counsel members said, hey, they voted on this. I want that in the budget and enough of them voted on that budget. I want that item in there that it's a reality today. So don't worry about that. Do you think that it would be possible to do a simple online survey about the GoZone? I think it would be hard for the city to do it. I think that's something that you could request GoZone do. I think the challenge would also be, and this is true of any online survey, is how do you tell if they are your target market or not? How do you tell if that person has a disability or not? And it's difficult to keep multiple people from taking multiple times. And then also people who feel very strong, we banded together in skewing those results because they all take the survey. They're not typically representative, so you just have to know that going into it. But I think that would be something where DCTA would have to be the ones to lead that effort and find a way to make that happen. Is there any way for us as a committee to seek out that information? Of what? Of how difficult it is for people in the community to get a ride on GoZone if they have a disability that requires some type of wheelchair especially. I think that could be... Help them formulate the questions. Yeah. And they made hard copies. I know that I have a community where I can circulate that among people with disabilities. And try and, I guess, have it in a way that it can be mailed in to them. They may have another way that's much better than mine. Well, that might be... Because I'm just concerned, like I said, I'm just going by what I'm reading online. What people are posting in debt and pages about GoZone is where my information is coming from. And I think we need... This is serious stuff. I mean, people need to get around. They need to get to their jobs, you know? And it's really critical to living your life. And I just really want us to be able to get the feedback we need from the people that need to get that. So, I mean, perfectly honest, I think the fact that you're hearing it and the fact that you're seeing it, I think that's just as good as the data that any survey would provide. Because that survey data is going to be inherently difficult. It's not going to be a scientific, valid survey. There's going to be a lot of error in it. But I think the simple fact that you guys are observing in the community, that there are issues and this is what you're hearing from the community, personally, I feel like that's enough to take your grievance to DCTA and say, "Either you don't have the solutions or you have the solutions and you're not communicating." If that's what this body chooses to tell DCTA. But personally, I feel like that would be an additional step that would not really change much for you. I think your ask of them would be the same. Okay. I have a question. Now, anybody with ADA can apply to Access and get that service and they do take care of wheelchairs. Right. And GoZone may not yet at least be advanced to that position. So I'm thinking wherever you're hearing that online. It seems to me that it's people that aren't linked up with that and then there's a certain process you have to go through to get on that. And there has to be a timeline, I think, of six months. Yeah, there is an application online with DCTA and then you fill it out and you submit it. And they can probably expedite that given the situation, you know, it's affecting my job. Okay. But I think that it may be able to be approved within two weeks or something like that. Okay. I know that we've had to do that with my son. Okay. Okay. What's the background? I mean, I'm a little bit new to the committee. It's been a year. So before there was this GoZone, was there more city services for people on buses or like how were those same people getting around? The buses or Access, right? Did we cut back on bus services on the GoZone? Yeah. So maybe the bigger issue is they're not going to do what they're supposed to be doing. We need to be pushing to get bus service back and get away from the GoZone. But the buses cannot handle wheelchairs. Okay. The ones that are going to do? Well, those are the big ones. Yeah. Oh, the big ones? Yeah, they go down to the level of the curb and you load on and then they pick you up. It's like they need to talk about it more. But, you know, sometimes if another entity can't do what they're supposed to be doing, you have to go to... And it costs more. If you have to ask months or weeks in advance against services, that doesn't sound very compliant. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think the bus service, I mean, there were a lot of buses riding around town empty. That was the issue. But they're there, you know, on a fairly, you know, keep the schedule. And, you know, if you have to be at work at this time, you catch it then and go get it there. And then you can carry your baby stroller on it if you need to. You can get it on with a wheelchair. Joe can get on and his partner... Yeah. The little couple in there, they were not as comfortable. It goes on seems to be kind of among the young people. Okay. It's kind of like a cheap lift. Right. Right. I know that the... The one on the opposite side of the bus is not accessible. The go-zone is not accessible? The bus. The bus, the bus, is it? No, not anymore. We don't have the accessible bus as an option. Very cheap bus routes right now. Yeah. They did reduce some of the bus routes. Yeah, I think we only have like the UNT pretty much. So they can't really... I might, when I reach out to them, I might communicate to them. And I don't want to put words in the committee's mouth. So if I write it down right, that, you know, the committee felt there was a certain level of service to those persons who had disabilities. And since we transitioned to go-zone, that service has been reducing the options, the accessibility options, the availability, that this level of service has been reduced. And there are some more specific concerns about how persons with disabilities, specific wheelchair-bound persons, use these services. And they'd like to learn more about what's available and ask questions about these pain points. Yeah. And I think that will lead into probably a really big discussion. I'll have to carve out some time for that. But I think that's, you know, come tell us what you do and what your response is to these things that we've observed. Also, we've perceived a reduction in service for this demographic, policy law-based or not. Yeah. I can communicate that. Okay. Thank you. They have just a bit of background there on the process of hiring a new executive. I guess it's the executive director of DCTA. So this one may, they may be reluctant to come visit us until that person's a couple months in the saddle. So this may be something we take on early in the next calendar year. But if you guys want November, I can push for November. Well, no. I mean, I think that if they're hiring a new person, that's a good point. Okay. I think they should be able to have some, because they won't have the knowledge base to discuss actually what we're talking about. Well, so I've got so far. So I have, and this is not, again, we'll add on this as you goes on and I will bring things back next meeting just in case if someone's not here. But I've got GoZone, voting equity, disaster planning, kind of those specific areas relating to sheltering, food, medicine, health care, transportation, electricity. We've got to build in sidewalk pedestrian updates at least twice a year and adaptive rec updates at least twice a year. And then for November, we've already got a special events update already built into that one. So you'll get a follow up on that one as well. I think that's what I have. And for the disaster planning, the water also. You know, I know that they were having water available for people, but you had to be able to go pick it up. Okay. Well, I have one more slide basically just to say, we'll confirm it at the next meeting. Get some more ideas and confirm kind of our plan. And then I will do a much better job of including kind of basically giving you this at every single meeting in the general report. So you all can kind of see what our plan is and how far we'll progress. And the only thing. Oh, sorry, go ahead, Chair. You know, I'm. Okay. So I'm not sure if everyone had a chance to look, so I'll just run through it very briefly. So our non-discrimination ordinance is up and running. It's live. It's active. One of the ways this might impact persons with disabilities. Obviously, we have a grievance process if you have a disability and you did not get your accommodation or you had an issue with city services, we have a grievance process with that. Although if you have a complaint against a restaurant or an apartment complex, the NDO might be an avenue for you. But I'll remind the committee that in a lot of those cases, if we can refer a person to a federal or state entity, we do that first. So, you know, we refer them to HUD first or we refer them to DOJ Department of Justice first. But if they if either of those organizations don't take up their cause, don't don't run that through their process or they say they don't have jurisdiction comes right back to us and we investigate that. So we've also had a question at our last meeting regarding library volunteers. So I think, yeah, in my memory, it's fuzzy. It's been some time. When library previously presented to this committee several years back, a statement was made that people with disabilities cannot volunteer. And I had not retained that one, but some people on this committee heard that. And so when we had that discussion last meeting with library staff, it struck weird to them. It struck weird to me. So we went out and confirmed it. No, you have a disability. You can volunteer with the library. You might not be we may not have accommodations for every single job, but you absolutely we want and need any volunteers. So we're happy to have them disability or no. I know a girl, well, young lady that has volunteers at the library lot at South Branch. I'll mention closed captioning. I think the last time we told you is it was going to be installed is installed. So if you watch our council meetings, a little CC button and just click on it and it works surprisingly accurately, surprisingly good. When I first saw it, I was impressed by how much it was actually capturing that was correct. That's a thing now. So again, this committee. And then one thing I'm going to start including is since we do have that grievance process and request for accommodations, I will start listing the number of requests that are filed through our ADA website and the number of grievances processes that are filed through our ADA website on a quarterly basis. We have had none. So that's maybe that's good. Maybe we just need to get the word out that this is available to people. But I'll just always present that to you guys in our report going forward. And that's I think that's the report. Oh, next committee meeting, November 17th, right here, 3 p.m. That's the report. Yes, Mia, who did the presentation earlier, if anyone wants her business card, I do have it available. Someone's trying to get a hold of you. Is it okay if I say something? Say it again one more time. Is it okay if I say something? Yeah, you're the chair. You can do that. If anybody wants to come out to the market, I have a lot of new stuff going with it. It goes really professional. And I hope that you're all over in my area to come see me. Okay, cool. Is this in the community market? I got two more tables. I got people getting ready to buy a couple of tables for the market. That's terrific. Getting up early in the morning. And I heard that you got your aids, too. Your assistance? Oh, that's great. The day in the DL. I didn't get it. I'm sorry. The day in the DL. I made a motion to get ready. Did you do concluding items? Oh, concluding items. Any concluding items? No. All right. Okay. And then you don't need to motion for adjourn? You can simply adjourn if you'd like to. Okay.