Good afternoon everyone, welcome to the City Committee on Persons with Disabilities.
Today is Thursday the 17th, we are at 3 o'clock and we will officially begin our meeting.
I believe we have some public comments via phone, so we will get to those first.
Thank you Chair. We do have one caller that has signed up to speak and staff is queuing them up on the phone right now.
Thank you Sir.
Hello caller, are you there?
Yes, you are on with the Committee on Persons with Disabilities, if you will state your name and address and then your four minutes will begin.
Okay, my name is Sheri Anderson, my address is 8485 Jim Crystal Road, Denton 76207. I would like to voice my opinion on support of this Take Me Home program.
I am a mother of now an adult autistic son and I really wish this would have been in place when he was younger.
Just an example of what a parent goes through a lot of times, when we moved to a new home, I would print a flyer with his picture, his information, my information, my contact information and went door to door and told neighbors that if you see him outside by himself, he's not supposed to be out here and please let me know.
A lot of autistic kids, they call them runners sometimes because they love to get out. The amount of locks on my doors was incredible just trying to keep him in and I do believe that if this would have been in place at the time, I would have had a lot of comfort in knowing that.
I have recently been in touch with Chief Dixon and he was going over some of the concerns and I'd like to address a few of those. The first one is that this will make more contact, more encounter with the police.
First of all, I don't understand why that's a bad thing. They're very trained, they know what to do in these situations. If a kiddo is raised to where they respect authority and they're taught that the police are not bad, which most of them are not, then this shouldn't be an issue at all.
I'm confused on that because say the child went missing, they would call in a missing person. Who would be contacted? The police. So you're talking about the same group of people here that we would go to for help.
Second one is who signs the person up for this program? The legal guardian. I think it was voiced that this person would not have a choice if they want to be signed up for this program.
An example I would give, if you're a parent of a child, wake up sick, 102 fever, say ear hurts. As a parent you're going to take that child to the doctor to get it looked at. If you tell the child we're going to the doctor to get your ear looked at and they say I don't want to go, you're going to take them anyway.
It's your responsibility as a parent to protect that child and this is a way of protecting them. Another issue was how do we know this is not an abusive home that they're being returned to?
We don't, but the police are very trained and they have different programs to make sure that's not happening. They do their investigations, they ask their questions, just like with any other person that would be returned to a home.
They do this all the time for Alzheimer's, dementia, multiple different conditions that that would need to be addressed and they are fully aware of that.
So as a parent of a child that has fought this he now we're looking at a program that was implemented by the Texas Department of Public Safety on the driver's license. If an autistic child is pulled over, the officer knows that that person may have a communication that might be altered.
This is the same type of thing. If they sign up for that and they're very high functioning if they can drive. So yes, they can voice their opinions if they want to be on that program.
But this is the same thing that would be for younger kids, older adults that can't make even those decisions like someone that could drive.
So I would really support this program and I will do all I can to support it and help this get implemented for parents of autistic kids and families that bring some peace and comfort to them.
And that's all. Thank you. Thank you. And Chair, there are no more callers for this meeting. I did want to mention that there were, I believe, 11 virtual white cards filled out by the public.
Those were all sent to all of the committee members and will be included in the record for the meeting minutes. So thank you.
Thank you, Stuart. And thank you, caller, for your comments. And I trust that the committee members had an opportunity to go through through the written comments to help you better understand.
We will move on to Item A, CPD-20-019, consider the approval of the minutes of the July 16th, 2020 meeting.
Move to accept.
Do we have a second? A second. All right, we will approve the minutes of July 16, 2020. Move on to Item B, CPD-20-... Excuse me, Val. Yes.
We need to have an announcement of who makes the motion and who seconds. I'm sorry. And then the approval has to be called by name of the meeting participant, yay or nay.
So if you would just go around the audience and call on each person and ask for their vote, yay or nay. In the virtual environment, that's a requirement.
Thank you, Becky. So we'll go around the screen as I see it. Val Morgan? Yes. Sonia Redwine? Yes. Sally Austin? Sally? Yes.
Okay. Tamara?
Okay. John? Yay. Okay. Allie? Allie, you're on mute, please. I'm sorry, yay. Okay. And Joe. Thank you.
Was that it, Becky? Okay. Thank you. Okay. We'll move on to Item B, CPD-20-020. Receive a report, hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding the Take Me Home program offered by the Denton Police Department.
And I do understand that we have the Police Department Chief Dixon joining us to give that. After, what we'll do is we'll allow Chief Dixon to make the presentation and then do our questions and comments afterward.
I would just go around the screen and just call on you for your comments and questions. And if we need to go around one more time, if you come up with another question or comment, we can do that just to better make use of our time.
Thank you, Chief Dixon, for joining us and the floor is yours.
Good afternoon, sir, and committee members. Thank you so much for having me today. My name is Frank Dixon. I am your Chief of Police. I will try to share my screen here. Hopefully, it will work.
Is it up on your screen? Yes. Perfect. Yes. Chief, that's what I was going to ask, if you could make it full screen. Thank you.
Absolutely.
I want to start off with a short presentation and we're going to start with what is the Take Me Home program.
This is a free voluntary program where you can register an individual who could have a difficult time communicating with an emergency.
It was originally developed in 2005 with the Pensacola Florida Police Department and working with the Autism Society, which at the time was and still is the most part a grassroots organization out of Florida.
And it was developed specifically to help police departments recover missing high risk children with autism that are on the spectrum.
There have been several cases around the country, as I'm sure you're all aware, where missing autistic kids have been found in bodies of water.
That seems to be one of the common denominators with children that are on the spectrum.
They like bodies of water. In July of this year, there was a child found floating in one in August of this year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, another one in a creek behind their home during a period of heavy rain.
So these two groups got together and talked about what would be information that police departments would want to have while they're actually responding to the initial call for help.
Because what we do now is we have officers that are dispatched. They respond to the house.
There's an inordinate amount of time. There's a time gap where you have to go there. You have to interview the parent or the reporting party.
You have to find out their descriptors, what they look like, what they're wearing, where they might be going, when's the last time they were seen, and what the take me home program does is it shrinks that time.
You have real time intelligence from the time the 911 callers place to the time the officers are being dispatched, where they know that the missing child likes bodies of water.
So immediately one officer is responding to the house. The other responding officers are starting to respond and look for bodies of water around their residence.
Excuse me, Chief. Could you make the single slide a full screen presentation, please?
Is it not showing up that way?
No, it's showing the current and the next slide with your notes panel.
Let me see if I can fix that.
Chief, on this slide, if you go up to display settings at the top, that might give you the option you need.
Let's see.
Do you duplicate?
You want me to fix it?
There.
No, I can't see you. Do you want me to fix it?
No, that's okay.
So the program adoption, there's now over 500 agencies across the country that are participating. There are several in the DFW area, including those listed here, and we stopped it sick, but there's many more.
Frisco, Keller, McKinney, Plano, Southlake, and Saxey.
We tried to make it as user-friendly as we could, knowing that sometimes transportation can be an issue for anyone that's engaging with the police department, not just in this endeavor, but many others.
So we made a form that you could do online. We made it available in English and Spanish.
We also gave people the option to receive annual email reminders when they need to update their information, because what we want is, annually, if you move your residence and you forget to update your information, maybe this will prompt you.
And then it's obviously voluntary, so you can opt out at any time you want.
It's treated like public safety secure information, just like we do with all criminal justice information.
It's in a secure database that can only be accessed for the sole purpose of locating high-risk missing persons.
Dementia, Alzheimer's, autism are the three main ones, and it's only in the case of emergency, and this is how the program operates.
So you have a reporting person, say they have a missing verbal or non-verbal person, has descriptors in there, a photograph, hopefully, their likes, dislikes, where they like to go when they leave their residence.
Officers start searching the surrounding area.
One goes to the house to finish taking the initial report, because the conditions may have changed while they were driving through.
The person has recovered.
They start at the same time, they're doing the same investigation on the scene that we do now.
So without this program, you still have the ability for someone to call in a missing person that's trying to flee a residence because of some kind of neglect or abuse.
The scene investigation goes to determining that very thing, and it happens on a daily basis now.
We find out the family dynamics, we find out are you truly the caregiver, are you the guardian, do you have a court order that says that, what are the family dynamics, the dispatchers are running background history on the residence, have we gotten calls out here before for family disturbances or acts of violence.
And like I said, we do that now.
So we take the person back, and that is the ultimate culmination of this is a successful recovery of someone that is unharmed.
We can return them to their home and everyone is able to leave happy.
The second way this program works, which would have really benefited us about a month ago.
We were dispatched to a residence of about 830 at night.
It was called in initially as a burglary in progress.
Oh, homeowner called in, she was in her house with her kids.
A white male entered the residence without knocking.
What they thought was a burglary in progress was someone that may have been on some type of narcotics.
Or maybe look into their family harm, officers were dispatched.
The first two officers got on scene, went inside the residence, got the homeowner and the children out of the residence.
And just by chance, one of the responding officers has a relative that is on the spectrum.
And the officer realized that some of the mannerisms that this person was exhibiting were exhibiting things that.
Led them to believe that they may be on the spectrum. The problem is there was no identification on them.
They were, for the most part, nonverbal.
So it took a couple of hours to call around and thankfully the officers on scene did what we expect.
They called around to the ISD, they called around the campuses, student resource officers.
Looked in our databases for any residents close by that may have reported someone missing.
All were negative until they reached an SRO or reached a counselor who just happened to remember.
A student that they taught a couple of years earlier that lived in this neighborhood.
We were then able to find an address, go make contact with the parent.
Who then realized that their child they got now, who was actually a 19 year old.
Came over and we were able to reunite them.
So had we had this person in the take me home program.
We would have been able to research given the geographic area where they were located.
So they were about a block away from home. We would have had descriptors to research.
We would have reunited them a lot quicker.
And had that certain counselor not being contacted.
There's no telling where we would have gone with trying to reunite this young person with their family.
So with that it was pretty short.
But I am open to answer any questions that you may have or address any concerns that you may have.
Thank you, Chief Dixon. I will just go around the screen and we'll go that way.
Val, you're on my screen first. If you have any questions or comments.
You can feel free to ask them if you need to pass until if you need more time, that's also fine.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chief Dixon, thank you for your presentation.
And I guess my most burning question is how long has the police department been looking at implementing this program?
And then what was the actual implementation date?
I was looking at implemented from October 2018 when I came in or our technology infrastructure will not allow for it until we got our new technology on board this year in 2020.
We looked at how we could revisit that. We were able to get it implemented.
And I believe it was in June when we finally, August when we finally got it up and running.
So it's only about a month.
And so.
How many individuals have signed up for the program at this point?
At this point, we're at about 26, 26 total.
We're going to Sonya. Yeah, so thank you for your presentation.
I think the intent of the program, right, is positive. There's positive intent in trying to reduce harm.
And so of those 26 that you said are currently enrolled, do you I know you mentioned in your presentation that you all do your typical protocol.
Whenever you're responding to a missing person and verifying caregivers and things of that nature, do you all do that on the front end as well?
Well, you can't do it on the front end as far as the 901 call, although they vet like, who are you calling in, right?
The primary purpose is for us to get dispatched because we're already behind the curve at the onset of the 901 call.
So they start asking some probative questions through 911 as we're being dispatched.
The officers that arrive on scene will then start probing further to get more clarification.
Yeah, I guess my question really is, though, like of those 26 that are currently enrolled, you all go ahead and bet the caregivers and and the information that's listed as they enroll, or is that just done as you're responding to an incident?
Well, you can only only bet it as much as you can.
I mean, the purpose of it is only to bring people back when they're missing.
So the likelihood of someone with ill-content wanting to sign someone up with information that's only going to be used if they come up missing is pretty negligible.
So it's kind of like when you're kind of co-signing your child up for, I don't know, a driver's license or anything else, you're vetted as much as you can be in the moment.
What we don't want is to make it prohibitive where people feel like that they're being overly scrutinized and we get into kind of HIPAA related items of trying to pre-screen them to the point of now you have to prove to me that your child is important enough for us to allow them into this program, which in many ways it could be viewed that way. Does that make sense?
Sure. So there's not anything done on the front end just to eliminate barriers?
Correct.
Okay. My other question is, as you were interested in implementing this several years ago, right, as you were entering in, did you seek the input of your community members at that time?
Or even prior to implementing the program, or is it just something that you had seen done in other communities, other departments, or even in your former precinct?
It wasn't done in my former department, but I have talked to a number of families here in the area that have kids on the spectrum that were very excited about it.
They're actually pretty bummed that it didn't happen earlier because I started the conversation pretty soon after I got here.
If y'all can remember, there was an incident at one of the schools with the child who was on the spectrum before I got here.
And that's what really got me thinking about it early on when I got here in October is aside from giving the department more training, which we did on a number of occasions, what else can we do to go the extra mile?
So that was one of the things that I talked about and started getting guidance from parents that have children on the spectrum and started kind of educating people on it.
Because although it's a nationally known and recognized program, it isn't really, I guess it's a dichotomy, it's not nationally, it's not really known in certain areas.
And although we had a number of agencies already up here doing it, it wasn't known in this area.
Yeah, well, I think it's probably safe to say that, right, unless you are really in that situation, you probably wouldn't be aware of programs like this, right, if it wasn't personally important to you.
My other question is, I know it's really focused on, like you mentioned, individuals with dementia, Alzheimer's might be on the spectrum.
And so I think the creation of the program really took into account those perspectives.
Were any other perspectives of other persons that may have other disabilities taken into account as you were implementing this program?
So that's a great question, because we actually went outside of the scope and we've allowed people to register loved ones that suffer from depression.
If you guys have been following the Grand Prairie Police Department, actually implemented the program about a month ago, it's similar, but different to the Take Me Home program.
The center is just on mental illness, but we kind of allow people to bring that into this conversation as well.
I mean, anything we can do to help our community be safer and recover people when they come up missing, I mean, when you're talking about people that suffer from depression,
you're really on a very tight window trying to get that information and get it disseminated quickly to potentially intervene before something you have a bad outcome.
So we absolutely have been talking about that.
Yeah, and I know you all receive quite a bit of training on mental health or CIT training and things like that, crisis intervention training.
And I know you all are working on implementing some new programs related to mental health.
So I'll be excited to learn a little bit more about that.
What type of training do your officers receive?
I know in the example that you provided with the 19 year old male who entered the home, the officer had experience with a family member who was on the spectrum.
So recognize some of those things.
So what are you doing or maybe what has already been done as far as training your your officers on how to best respond to individuals with a variety of disabilities?
So we haven't gotten into the variety yet.
We have done two specific trainings directly tailored towards the spectrum, one online and one in person, two different ones.
And actually, the one that was in person went a little bit deeper than just dealing with people and trying to carry on conversations with persons on the spectrum, went a little bit deeper than that.
But we're looking and I will tell you that that's going to probably have to be something that we collaborate with you all about,
because there's not a great deal of a broad range of training with law enforcement and persons with disabilities, whether that be learning cognitive across the board.
So that would be an interesting prospect for us to collaborate on bringing you into the police department to help in that endeavor, because that is someplace where I think we could do a lot better.
I think this committee would appreciate that opportunity, just given a lot of different perspectives, whether it's a lived experience or an advocate or an ally, just the various resources that we're that we're aware of.
And now I'm dominating this conversation, so so I'll wrap it up to one last question.
So we talked about the different training opportunities.
You know, the caller that we spoke to today or that spoke and in some of the comment cards that we've talked about, you know, talking about minors.
Right. But as they as they age out and become adults, you know, can they remove themselves from the program if they don't feel, you know, that's something that that they need or because their parent had already enrolled them or their caregiver?
What does that look like?
No, it's completely voluntary. So if someone becomes an adult and they move out of their home.
Or they don't they're not deemed and have a caregiver or a guardian, then that's really they cannot.
Thank you.
So, yeah, Sally, do you have any questions or comments?
Yes, Mr. Chair, thank you.
And thank you, Chief Dixon.
I was kind of surprised to hear you say that someone with depression might be might be signed up for the program.
I typically don't think of would that be a minor?
Well, I don't I don't know specifically what age they may be, as I sit here, but I do know that we have one or two.
I'm just thinking about guardianship. So that was why I typically think of someone with depression, someone else having guardianship.
Well, I don't want to get too deep in their cases, but I think that they they know that they're their spouse or their loved ones sign them up.
OK. And what types of people would would would be ineligible for someone to sign up?
What are the parameters of where you say, well, that doesn't really fall into this program?
No, I think that's going to have to be something we know when we see it.
What our vision is, is to try to capture as many across our community as we can to try to help and not really tailor this and leave someone out that we can potentially help.
I mean, the the premise behind it is to go a little bit further than the program was designed for because of our city, because we're getting right.
Why not try something a little more forward thinking and try to capture more folks?
So that's really the thought process behind it.
If there's a concern that comes up when someone tries to register, then staff will immediately alert us so we can look at it and then make a decision based on that.
OK. And my other concern is that, as as you all know, sometimes someone that has mental health issues, just seeing someone with in a police uniform can set those situations escalated into something that might not have occurred before.
And what type of preventative ways of working with people would you utilize?
Well, that is one of the leading reasons why we're bringing our mental health division on line.
It's going to be a co-responder model that's going to have a police officer and a clinician, both of them in plain clothes.
So there is we're taking that element out because I fully realize that just the pure vision of this uniform coming into your house or or seen on the side of the road automatically heightens tension.
Right. So we're looking that's exactly why we're going that direction is to hopefully minimize that that angst, that worry.
But more importantly, to foster relationships as they start connecting with consumers and they start having a relationship and they know one another.
Our hope is that in the limited follow up that they do, then when someone feels like that they're starting to decompensate, they can pick the phone up and call proactively and say, hey, I know John John's a good person.
Not only is he a police officer, but I know John and Sally, they work together. He's a clinician. You guys come over and help me out.
And that saves, you know, bridging that gap.
And then my last question is, how is this access?
Is this through non-police emergency that somebody would call to send out this team or would it be just 9-1-1?
It's going to be through either any mechanism that you want right now, all those, whether they're not emergency or 9-1-1 calls are through the same center, the same dispatch center.
So we'll be getting the same information.
OK, thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Thank you, Sally. John, do you have any questions or comments?
Yeah, kind of just one. Thanks for the presentation and coming before the committee.
My question is kind of on the vetting, and I wonder if it would be possible or even better if when a person signs someone up online,
which is a good resource to do it quickly, if on that submission, there is an interview in person
to either view documents proving their legitimacy to sign the person up, you know, either a guardianship paper or I can't think of the term, the other thing.
But it shows that that person is legally in the position to make choices about the individual they're signing up.
And, you know, just the interview itself would assist you with the first thing you talked about earlier in the incident where the officers would show up at the residence
and interview the folks about different details of the person, either clothing or things like that.
So if that kind of interview process could be done at the very beginning where the guardian had submitted the person to be in the program, would that be possible?
We will look at that. I don't know what the legal ramifications of that would be for us to go out and start probing more to legal and HIPAA related things.
But we could do that even if we got. So I'll talk to you. I'll talk to our legal about that.
I just figured I mean, either in the online submission, there be a PDF document showing something because it might not be a parent.
It could be a nephew or a niece that, you know, now lives with another, you know, with part of their family.
But they have the documentation that shows that they've taken over guardianship or something like that.
I don't think I don't see how those things would be to, you know, diving into privacy if the person wants to sign a person up for this program,
which I think has very good intentions and could be great for people if they could just show that proof and anything.
And also just give the officers or whoever does the interview just a chance to, you know, sit and you can answer questions in person to make sure that everyone involved feels comfortable.
Maybe even the person being signed up gets a chance to either view the uniform in a very non-threatening environment or any things like that.
We will definitely look into that and see how viable that would be for us to do.
I guess my only concern is if people decide that that's going to be too much for them. Sure, don't do it.
I mean, they're still going to call 911 when people go missing. Sure. We're not going to have a fraction of that information.
We'll definitely talk about how we could potentially do that. Yeah, because I'm thinking about in the public.
So I'm worried about a store owner or just somebody on a sidewalk and a person on the spectrum or with any other mental disability is walking around town.
And just any random person picks the phone up and says this person's bothering me.
So it falls to the rights of that person with the disability having their rights violated just because somebody got uncomfortable.
I don't want people being picked up off the street just because an individual got uncomfortable.
It's possible that the person that has the condition hasn't done anything.
And I don't know how that's actually avoided, but that's just part of the thing.
I read a couple of the comments and one of the email that kind of mentioned that the autonomy of the person with the disability,
their ability to function freely with independence.
So I'm not saying the program shouldn't be used or anything like that. It's just the hopes that are working out well.
Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, John.
Ali, Allison. Thank you so much for your presentation. Thank you so much for recognizing me, Mr. Chair. I've got a lot of questions, but I've crossed a lot off.
Thanks to Sonia. I'm going to try this as quick as I can.
The first question that I have is there why this is a two part question. Is there data on success rates in other cities and states?
Excuse me, Ali, can you speak up a little bit or get a little closer to your microphone?
Oh, yeah, sure. Is this better? Is that better?
Can you hear me? I can hear you. I think that's better. Can everybody hear me?
OK, all right. Thank you. Sorry about that. OK, this is a two part question.
First off, I wanted to know if you had any data of success rates from other cities for either A, a kid with autism, autistic child eloping and success rate of them getting homesick.
But B, success rates whenever it's other type of police escalations involving a person with a disability where these programs have been implemented.
You cut out a little bit in the middle. I heard the first part, the success rate of recovery. What was the second part?
The second part is the success rate of a police escalation situation, perhaps in the in the form of a breakdown where the police have successfully gotten the person either home or to the proper care as opposed to other unideal circumstances.
Is there been any success in both of those instances?
Well, there's been success with the Take Me Home program. There's not numbers to to track how many people that have been signed up have then gone missing.
We have then been successfully recovered. OK, we know that across the country after the program was implemented, there has been less children being found deceased.
But it's kind of like police cars driving around town, you don't know what you don't know about kind of what you're what you're discouraging.
So for us here, I think since we just are in the infancy of it, we can set up mechanisms to flag those like to flag the people that are in the program now.
And then if we get caught tracking if there isn't success, I think that would be an interesting thing for us.
We're probably the first city to actually do that. And that would be a good time for us to try to grab that information.
OK, that's that's helpful. Thank you.
And then, you know, I know that we talked mostly about missing people or a missing person situation involving perhaps a child on the spectrum.
And I'm an adult with autism. So I have a couple of questions involving that as well.
Is this and in the other emergency calls, like I understand that if it's a missing persons, we know that protocol.
But for another emergency call, for example, someone with autism, that's my age and having a breakdown and maybe I'm not registered.
What would be the protocol in that situation? Does that change the protocol if I'm not registered?
No, you're called missing. No, if I had, let's say, for example, I'm the 19 year old breaking into the house.
Right. Or I'm someone on the street that's acting erratically, which in my world is commonly called stemming or something of those situations.
And I wasn't registered. What would the protocol be then?
The protocol would be the same as they did in that burglary in progress to make contact with you, to connect with you.
And then once everything is calmed down to then try, if you don't have identification on you, you try to work backwards and trying to find out.
Where you live, if there's someone we can call that will help and not necessarily a caregiver.
Do you have a friend or a colleague that we can call to kind of help you in the moment?
Because I think what people don't. There's more police officers and firefighters and paramedics that have friends and family.
There that have dementia, Alzheimer's and are on the spectrum that people know about.
Right. So the human component we can't take out of trying to still connect this program specifically just helps bridge the gap of information lag a lot quicker.
So we're hoping to recover. And that's why we're only missing people.
OK, so if you get an 85 year old that suffers from dementia, then we know that they drive a great Chrysler and they like to get on the highway.
Right away, we need to start looking for long way drivers being reported on the highway.
Those are really the ones that come out the tragic. OK.
OK, and how fast like whenever let's say we get a call and I'm the 19 year old acting erratically somewhere and I am registered for the program.
How quickly are the officers notified of my disability?
Well, they won't know if you're just out. So if you're out like on the square and some other people call in for something not related to you being missing, the officers won't know until they get there and they make contact with you.
And then they start breaking it down and doing their own investigation to find out because it may be that people are calling in saying, you know, you know, you're standing right.
And other people that may be familiar may recognize it, but someone else may think that, you know, you're intoxicated or you're just belligerent or whatever.
So it's up to the officers to be able to look there and look at the characteristics being exhibited, being able to break that down and have a calm conversation and then find out.
So no one would know that you're on your even in the program until we got you identified in those instances.
OK, so with this. So then in that instance, would the reaction be different if I was in the program versus if I wasn't?
That's that's what I'm asking. Like, what's the difference here between the take me home program for adults being registered and then just police activity?
Because we wouldn't know in the police activity one that anyone's registered in the program until we had to identify if you're missing from your house.
When people call in, they're going to tell us your name and that you're in the program and that you're missing.
So right away, we know that your information will come up.
OK, OK, and I know that you mentioned and I'm a I'm a in the autism community in more ways than one.
And I know that you mentioned that you spoke to parents of children with autism.
Did you speak to any or anybody in the adult community with autism about this as well?
So we actually talked to what's the name of the. Oh, yeah, well, we talked to the Unity Autism Center as well.
OK, so the therapist you talk about KFAC, Kristen Farmer Autism Center.
I'm getting a yes. OK, I just wanted to know if there was anybody that actually that was that was involved in this program and planning that actually was on the on the spectrum
that could consent to speak for themselves. So we did talk to adults over there in the program at UNT.
Now, whether there was people in the program, they're on the spectrum that I don't know, but I can tell you that they were very supportive of it.
OK, and we're happy that we're bringing it here. They didn't voice any concerns about it.
Right. That's a treatment center. So whether they knew about the program before or not, I don't know. OK, OK.
OK, and I understand that. And I think I think that that's all the questions that I have right now.
I'll probably swing back around. I've been writing questions down as I go and I'll see if there's anything else there.
But I appreciate your feedback. Thank you. Thank you.
Well, Tamara, do you have any questions or comments?
I knew me myself. They use Argentinian.
I understand because I had a motor vehicle accident. I brought a lot of local goods. My question is, how did you promote this to take me home?
So we from we really went through social media. We're kind of being inside a big television market.
We're kind of relegated to using the media and then through the city of Denton to promote it and get the word out.
And that's really kind of what we're dedicated to.
I do think that a couple of the larger media markets picked it up and ran stories on it.
And my second question is about the dogs with him.
To make brand injury. Yes, ma'am. Anything for dogs like that? You talk about the city children. What about me?
So there are no programs for TVI, but I think like I talked about a little while ago,
that's where I think locally we can do a lot of really neat, innovative things that other people haven't done yet.
And not only bring in members of this committee and the police department to have conversations with police officers to help train,
but different forms of disability look like and the intricacies of different people that we may look one way and we may function another.
And I think there's a lot of neat things that we can do here locally that I'll be asking for help with as we move into 2021.
Thank you. Thank you, Tamron. Joe, do you have any questions or comments?
OK, thank you, Joe. And Rex, do you have any questions or comments?
It's good to see you again, Chief. You're looking good.
My comment, my first comment is people are going to go missing with or without this program,
and I can see that the program is going to help expedite the return of lost people, whether it be children or adults.
And my other comment was being a naval officer, I was stationed at Norfolk, which is the largest naval base in the world.
And we implemented this program a number of years ago and it's worked quite successfully out there, Chief.
And we have a disproportionate number in the military of children being born with autism and these children are being recovered quite readily.
We also had a side benefit is it also recovered lost and exploited children somehow.
I don't know the details, but there were several instances where there were lost and abused and exploited children that were recovered due to this program.
I don't know how that happened, but I know it's a voluntary program.
I think that there was some misinformation or lack of information from some of the comments not to say that that can't be remedied.
I think it's an excellent program, Chief, and I appreciate your time and I do appreciate your service to the community and that's all I've got.
Thank you, sir. We appreciate it.
Thank you, Rex. And I think we've gone all the way around.
Does anyone who's already made a comment have a quick question or comment? Allison, go ahead, Allison.
And I know that I came at you pretty hard, but I have a couple more questions and I do want to say that I feel like this program, in essence, has a good heart, like comes from a good place in the heart.
I feel like it's premature and I think that there's some things that need to be hashed out before we start registering people with disabilities.
But another question that I have for you, is there any place in the budget or anywhere in this program where perhaps the police can contract therapists, behavior analysts or anything like that, as opposed to, hey, my buddy, the counselor, let's get him involved in this situation?
Is there someone contracted that could be on call to be involved in this program and perhaps be the first responder as opposed to or perhaps be a first responder along with the officer?
Well, when we're talking about high risk missing, yeah, when we're talking about high risk missing persons, we're not talking about someone being on call.
This is a very emergent 911 call where we are literally looking at minutes before someone's dead, potentially.
So the first response has got to be immediate and it's got to be emergent, which is, again, that is the only reason that this program was ever formed.
It was to very rapidly disseminate information that police officers need when they're going to a high risk missing persons call to help us locate, return as quick as we can, people that are in the high risk category.
That is it. That is the sole purpose of this program.
So the first response of getting a counselor out there, I don't know how that would even be able to happen.
But I guess my question was, yes, I'm sorry, sir, I did not mean to interrupt you.
That's OK. But with the implementation of the mental health unit, you're going to have a mental health team on duty 24 hours a day.
Well, there's a very high likelihood that they're going to be responding. They're going to have a mental health clinician with them, which I know isn't the same thing, but at least as a clinician that has a certain degree of experience.
OK, and there's parts of that I do that I do like in the first response situation.
For example, saving lives is obviously important and eloping is a huge thing in the autism community and it's a huge danger.
And I respect and ultimately appreciate that part of it. Also, with the idea of a car accident where perhaps the caregivers or guardians are incapacitated and there's someone with a disability in the vehicle.
That's another instance where I like this program a whole lot.
I just I have concerns in the other areas of that about how we can get to those escalated situations with the first responder and how to de-escalate that situation better with someone with a disability.
An escalated situation like a 19 year old kid with autism breaking into a house, I'm sorry.
But that wouldn't be called in under the auspices of a take me home program.
OK. OK.
I'm sorry, I'm done. Thank you very much for your answers.
Thank you, Allison. Any other quick questions or comments from anyone that already went?
No.
Oh, I'm sorry, Sally, I didn't see you. Go ahead, Sally.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chief Dixon, I was wondering about how let's say that I see some someone that seems to have some mental health issues and I'm concerned for them, but I don't want to send uniformed officers to the scene.
I'm just walking by and observing someone that is really seems to be in distress, but is not causing harm to anybody.
How would I access a welfare check on these people rather than having a rather than having a uniformed officer show up?
So as it stands right now, before we get this mental health division stood up and deployed, there is no mechanism to do that.
You can call MHMR, but MHMR is going to then contact the police department because they have already said that they're not going to send their social workers out as a first response to calls for service.
The second part of that is the Texas Health and Safety Code. Texas Peace Office is the only ones that can involuntarily commit someone or get them help if they refuse to go get help.
Which is another big reason why we're standing up the unit the way we are and design it the way we are to try to make those outcomes become more positive in nature.
Less about the criminal justice system and more about connecting consumers with the resources they need.
So let's say that this person, it seems to have mental health issues and they are in distress, but not not not they endangering anybody.
So the officers would be dispatched there, and then they would take them where?
So officers get dispatched there, they'll make contact with the person, they'll do an assessment on them, and then they'll determine whether or not they think they need to call MHMR, which is the second step in the process right now.
MHMR will then do an assessment on them.
If they deem necessary, then they'll call the Denton County Chair's office who will dispatch a mental health deputy out to do a third assessment on the person.
And then if they determine that the person needs to be taken in for an emergency detention order, they will then take custody of them and take them in.
If upon the first contact, the person self wants to voluntarily go seek mental health help, then our officers can facilitate that.
That's really connecting them with MHMR and then taking them to a resource.
And the resource would be a house like a psychiatric hospital bed?
Correct.
And I understand we just have very minimal beds in Denton and the nearest state hospitals, Wichita Falls, correct?
So what I've come to find out since being up here is, so we have six beds on a daily basis in Denton County.
That's for the entire county, not just for the city.
And then in Wichita Falls, I think we have 12 or 13 beds for the county.
But you're looking at a population creeping up on 900,000, right?
So we're really trying with the implementation of this unit, we're working more closely with MHMR, with Judge Jan over in the mental health court.
We're working with our partners at UBH and Mayhill.
We're trying to really focus on getting proactive resources to consumers before they start decompensating and leading to them being in crisis.
We're trying to capture that before they get to the crisis stage, in hopes of connecting them to outpatient resources versus those involuntary inpatient.
OK, and then my last question is, so then the Denton police or the mental health deputy would transport them to Wichita Falls if the beds are full in Denton County?
So if they're full in Denton County right now, then the county would either put them in one of the other facilities in the metro place and then as a last resort, they would potentially have to drive them to Wichita Falls.
OK, thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
Thank you, Sally.
Val, real quick, because I know we're running long on time.
Thank you. Very quick question, Chief Dixon.
Is there a protocol in place for all of the things?
I think these have been some very probing questions.
So for citizens and not just the participants of the program, is there a protocol that could be reviewed to know if this happens then next?
So for citizens that are missing?
For individuals to know how the process works, anyone, not just the individuals who are impacted.
Yes, we've put out this information on our department pages a couple of times.
We're going to put it out again in the near future, and we'll reach out to some of the local media and the Metroplex to see if they want to pick up the story as well.
I mean, it's a well-known story in the Metroplex, so I don't see a reason why they wouldn't want to run it.
But we'll get the message out again to the general public to let them know.
OK, thank you.
Yes, man, thank you.
Thank you, Val.
Thank you, Chief Dixon.
I just wanted to take a few minutes.
I have tons of questions and comments, but I know we're running out of time.
Many of those have been addressed.
I think the main concern for me and maybe many others, I think outside of the original intention of the program,
which is a pretty clear example by our first caller, is for parents and families of their children, especially on the spectrum,
who are runners, who will flee. And I think based on that and the intention of that, obviously the program was built for that.
I think where we get into the concerns and questions is when we start painting it with a broader scope and a broader brush of different disabilities.
We're talking about people who are deaf and a deaf culture. And how does that look like for adults or young adults who are just out on the square
and they have an overbearing parent that put them on the list because they want them home?
And how does that look like for responding police who may not be able to communicate in sign language
or now are put in a place where you have to decipher here's a 17-year-old kid just having fun versus the mom who put them on the list
that wants them home, maybe they're not missing?
I think the voice of the disability community as a whole definitely needs to be involved if this program is going to be put in a broader scope.
With the intention of how it was put together, I think it works. But I think the narrative needs to be that it's for families and parents.
It's not necessarily for disabled children and kids because obviously as a child, you don't know what's good for you, what's good and what's not.
I think sometimes the way we read the press releases and all that, when the word disability and disabled come across,
that's a big broad spectrum and disability is not a monolith and you can't really treat, even within the same disability, individuals the same.
So I would really like to, you know, hopefully follow up with this and maybe even get reports on either how the program will just remain as its original intent
for families and caregivers of children on the spectrum or obviously for seniors who are, you know, living with dementia or maybe missing.
Period. I think when we go beyond that, then we start into the scope of a person like myself, a person like Tamara, a person who is an amputee,
a person who, because disability is such a big word and there's a culture behind that and I think without our voices,
programs like this get a bad rep, even though I know I understand the intention, it's just missing those voices is where we get to, where we end up finding ourselves in a bit of a struggle.
Yeah, I want to just make sure I clarify that this is not for any disability. This is solely for high risk, life threatening, those things that I talked about.
If you're not on the spectrum, if you don't have Alzheimer's, dementia, or if you don't have a life threatening.
Now we made a concession for those persons, a couple people that expressed concern about their family members that have thoughts of depression.
We made concessions for those, but people can't call in and just put people that have a random disability on there because those are not, you're not high risk.
Like no one on here is high risk of being injured because of any potential disability you have unless you meet the criteria of the program and it is very specifically tailored for just that.
So if a parent can't call in and say, I want my child on there because I don't want them, you know, out of the square or random people can't call in and go, hey, you need to come get this person because I think they're in this program.
That's not the way it works. You've got to call in specifically and say, my loved one is missing. They have Alzheimer's and I signed them up for this program, which spurs our dispatchers that then go into that database and then pull out your information and then broadcast it.
So I just want to make sure that everyone understands that this is very narrowly tailored to those circumstances because otherwise we really, there's no need for the program, right?
Exactly because then you just end up putting anyone on the list. And I think that kind of language could help, especially on the registration form because even on the registration form it says, you know, type of disability, autism, dementia, and it includes deafness, blindness, et cetera.
So it really leaves a broad area of, you know, for someone who, oh, let me check this out. Oh, man, my 18-year-old is deaf. Let me put them on there. So it does not, it does not clearly reflect what you're saying right now.
So perhaps the language on there specifically should reflect exactly what the program is meant for.
I'm looking at someone, so when I turn my head, I'm looking at someone else.
And I think it's supposed to, you're actually taking notes right now, but I think the intent of that was are they X and Y, not X or Y. So we'll clean that up.
Okay, great. I know we took a lot of your time and I appreciate you taking the time to explain to us. I really encourage you and our members of the police department to really work with the community, touch base and education.
I think it's an education process on both parts. So we want to make sure that our police are protecting and serving, and that's all of our community. So again, thank you, Chief Dixon, for your time and joining us.
Thank you. And if it's okay, I would like to reconnect with you all to bring you in to the police department for some training. And if nothing else, some roundtable discussion early next year and start laying a better groundwork for better understanding for both sides.
I can, I will definitely send you an email just to follow up and then we can touch base that way.
Perfect. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Great. We are going to move on to our next item, which is item C, Receiving Report. Hold a discussion and give staff direction. Sorry, my screen.
Regarding accessibility and the development services building remodeled police headquarters and police substation.
Mr. Chair, we do have Scott Gray with our facilities department available to give you that presentation. And we're queuing it up right now. Okay.
You know, while we're waiting, I just really want to thank the committee members for taking the time to ask the questions and putting some thought behind this on a good job. Thank you.
Okay, there we go. Sorry. Had a little technical challenge there. Good afternoon, Chair, members of the committee. Again, my name is Scott Gray. I'm the director of airport facilities and real estate.
I'm actually here pitch hitting this afternoon. Our subject matter expert wasn't available, so I'll do my best to go through this brief presentation. And then if I can't answer your questions, I'll certainly get that answer back to the committee.
So the facilities management department does have the responsibility to look over all city owned buildings that are in the city.
We are subject to the 2012 Texas accessibility standards, which includes a number of things that we follow, including the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
That does include technical requirements for identifying accessibilities to sites, facilities and buildings. We promote primarily focus our effort on the building itself and then the accessibility from the parking lot to the building.
And then another portion of the city will take care of sidewalks and things of that nature.
We are required to be compliant with not only those regulations, but regulations provided by other federal agencies, the International Building Code, the American National Standard Institute, amongst others.
And then TLDR and the U.S. Department of Justice does have the authority over those existing facilities if we are not in compliance.
I'm here this afternoon really to talk about these three projects that are underway and then something we'll be moving forward with.
So the City Hall East police station headquarters facility you see there on the left is a renovation project for the police department headquarters that is completion and design.
We'll be moving forward with construction probably in the January timeframe. We might be lucky and get started before the end of this end of this calendar year.
So that project is already designed. We've worked with our outside architectural firm and they are required to be compliant with all of those regulations I just stated.
So those things have all already been incorporated into the design for us to be compliant. The one in the middle is a brand new building.
It's the vintage street police substation. That too is completed design and we'll move forward here shortly.
And then lastly, on the right is the Denton Development Center Development Services Center, sorry, which is across the street from Old City Hall West,
which is a renovation of of the the grocery store that will be our development services folks new home.
That building is already in renovation now and it's scheduled currently to be completed by the end of this calendar year.
A number of the bullets points listed here have all been incorporated into these three buildings, including the wheelchair ramps and handrails, accessible parking, close the entry, the automated doors,
cane detection, emergency strobe lights and audio. The counters primarily in in these facilities have accessible heights counters in various locations, braille signage, accessible restroom facilities appropriately.
Size door widths in throughout the buildings and then lighting levels as well.
We're excited about getting these projects completed. As I stated, the development services building will be open right towards the end of the year.
And then the other two buildings will be a year or so out before those are completed.
One of the other initiatives that we are working on, we included in our in our city council requested budget with it.
They'll be acting on here yet this month. Our budget starts in October. We requested funding to do a a full assessment of all existing city buildings with a registered accessibility specialist that will identify all accessibility deficiencies in all of our buildings.
There was a focus on all buildings prior to 2012, but in talking with the contractor this morning, we are going to look at every building just in case something may have gotten missed on some of the newer facilities.
So they are going to analyze at the current moment. We believe there's 80 structures in this city that they will be analyzing anything from a small restrooms. It may be the parks locations all the way up to the city hall, city hall East and so forth.
That project willing will include a comprehensive list of whatever deficiencies that are found.
It'll include cost estimates on all of those individual line items, and then they will be prioritized and then we'll use an implementation plan that will be developed to request funding to get those things corrected likely over a period of time.
At this point, I don't have an estimate on how much those will be, but that that contractor will be coming back to this body.
I think we will have them ready to go here in November, December timeframe. We'll have them back in front of this committee to talk about the project and they will come back and present their findings as well to get your input.
Last bullet point there is really about what's eligible for the requirements. All city buildings that have an estimated construction value for $50,000 or more, which in today's world is pretty much just about anything that we construct of vertical nature, is required to be registered with the state and comply with these laws.
So this study will actually ensure that we meet all of those requirements as well. There are provisions in the regulations that allows certain items to not be compliant based on economic and feasibility to do those improvements.
I can't give you an answer to if those exist today, but those will all be identified. And again, we will be back in front of you to provide all the findings and then ultimately to go to city council for funding of any of those improvements.
So that was a very quick brief presentation of where we're at from the facilities department and I'd be happy to entertain any questions. And again, if I can't answer your question, I do apologize, but I will get it back to our subject matter experts and we will get that back to the committee.
Thank you, sir. We'll go around like we did last time. We'll start with Rex. Rex just got up, so I'll go with Sally. If you have any questions or comments, if not, that's fine.
Under the, thank you, Mr. Chair. Under the, there is a door, automatic door opening and then under that was a bullet that said cane detection. What is the function of cane detection?
You know, that's a great question and I don't think I have the capability to answer that, but I believe it's somebody with a cane that will actually detect to open the door in case, you know, because a lot of times it may be challenged with, it's either weight driven or it's sonic driven.
So I think it has to do with that, but I will confirm that and get an answer back to the committee.
Okay, thank you. That was my only question.
Thank you, Sally. John? Yeah, the cane detection thing threw me. It would be nice, but I can't understand how it would work, so I'll look into it also.
Okay, thank you, John. Joe, do you have any questions or comments? No. Thank you, Joe. Sonya? No? Okay, great. Val, do you have any questions or comments?
No question. Thank you. Ali, Allison? Questions? No, okay, great. Tamara? No question. Okay, thank you, Tamara. And Rex, do you have any questions or comments, sir? No comments, no questions. Thank you.
The only question I have, when it says automatic doors, are those doors that I got a grocery store, you walk in and they're automatically open or is this a push button?
No, these will be automated doors, so when you walk up to them, they'll open. And we are in response to COVID, we are normally would have had one door, but we're actually having an entrance door and then a separate exit door to separate coming in and out of the development services building right now.
And we're incorporating some of that same thought into those other facilities. Great. Great. All right. If there are no other questions. Thank you, sir, for your time and presenting to us. We appreciate it.
Certainly, I appreciate it. Thank you. We will move on to our next item. Just bear with me while I pull this up. Letter D, CBD 20-022. Receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction regarding considerations for the recruitment and hiring of an ADA coordinator.
Over the ADA coordinator / transportation planner.
Good afternoon, members of the committee. This is Brian Young, the city traffic engineer. Let me share my screen.
All right, can you see that?
Okay, sometimes it takes a while for it to come up. All right, so I'm here to talk today about what is a new position for the city of Denton. As you are aware, Mark Oldefont left the city this past June and has moved on to greener pastures.
And so in backfilling Mark's position, we are looking to add some additional skills and some additional experience that we think will help not only the ADA portion, but the multimodal and the ped bike bringing all of that together into a little bit stronger and more robust skill set.
So we've identified two primary focuses. One would be a transportation planner, and the other is the ADA coordinator.
The planner part, which is really the new part of this, is really intended to focus on transportation projects. And this, of course, is coming from a multimodal aspect, ped bike, ADA, but really more project related.
So we want to develop those strategies that are key and successful execution and then make recommendations and coordinate those improvements from inception to construction.
The ADA coordinator part is, again, the looking for that compliance element and making sure that the projects that we do bring to the implementation portion contain all those necessary ADA elements for us to be in compliance.
So we've talked about the ADA coordinators for the city, we have an HR coordinator, we have a facilities coordinator, and this position will really be responsible for public rights of way.
So that's primarily roads and those facilities that are adjacent to roadways, not necessarily buildings and not necessarily parks.
Again, you heard that the facilities is under beginning the process of their ADA transition plan and parks is as well.
We have completed our ADA transition plan, so we know where our deficiencies are.
And this person will be responsible for working in the public right of way, which if you look on the right hand side of your screen is a roadway, a highway street, a sidewalk, alley, waterway and utilities.
Any of those areas that are associated with public right of way is kind of the purview of this ADA coordinator.
We'll be looking at barriers for parking, for travel pathways, accessibility at intersections, signalized and otherwise, and noncompliant sidewalk elements, curb ramp elements, et cetera.
And really try to look for opportunities for the city to sponsor some of these ADA type events.
What we would like for this committee to do is to kind of start the thinking process of what elements of the skill set are more important. Is it a personality where you want somebody who's engaging and does well with the public and brings that type of connectivity, personal connectivity?
Is it more experience? And this is the background tab of having done this type of work from a municipal standpoint for many years.
That's the kind of when we say background, that's what we're talking about. Or is it really more along the lines is certification more important so that we know that they are up to standard on the current training and the current requirements, legislation and that type of thing.
So as we build this job description and we are currently in the process of building this job description, it would be helpful for us to know what are the important elements that this committee sees.
So we'd like to start that discussion at this time. And so our next steps, well, we're already starting, we've already begun the development of the job description.
So we're pulling elements that we feel are important relative to that transportation planner and that ADA coordinator and creating a new position in the city.
This job description does not exist currently in the city of Denton. And quite frankly, I've looked around and somebody coined the term unicorn and it may be, but I've not found any neighboring city or city of any size with a position that is really charged with these kinds of responsibilities.
We think it's a natural fit to bring that ADA multimodal element into our engineering group so that we can ensure compliance as we go to construction and develop these projects.
So we're in that process of developing that job description. We'll post it, interview and hire. And then we'll bring that person on to be an active participant in this committee future.
So that's where we are today. And with that, I will take questions and comments and let me stop sharing my screen.
We'll go around the room again. Rex, do you have any questions or comments? No?
No questions or comments.
Okay, thank you, Rex. Sally?
I'll just mention, I do like that they're the combination of the transportation and the ADA coordinator, because my soapbox has been people,
for example, using walkers and wheelchairs that want to not being able to access push buttons coming and going from one location to another without having to go into traffic.
The other one is there are bus loading ramps, but then there's no sidewalk going up to it. A person in a wheelchair actually has to go across grass.
And if it's been raining or something, obviously that can be an issue.
And it seems like the hold up on fixing a lot of these has been that it's privately owned. And how would these so with these issues be addressed by this person?
Not on private property. We can work with property owners. But the primary purview of this position is to work within that public right away or those public easements.
So if if we have an issue that lies outside of that, then we can offer some coordination assistance with the private property.
But typically we will not do any work or we will not we will we will not develop a project that involves private property or private property ownership.
But you would be working with the transportation, Denton County Transportation Authority.
Definitely working with the Transit Authority. Yes, ma'am.
In that case, if there is a bus loading ramp that is inaccessible because of the like what I was describing, that there's a concrete loading ramp to get to the concrete loading ramp.
You have to go across grass and other terrain. In that case, could the could the bus stop be moved to somewhere that is accessible for the person for walker?
And so if we cannot make if the stop at that particular location is not we can't make it accessible for one reason or another.
We've got a big drainage easement or some other physical barrier that we are not able to overcome.
Then, yes, we will work with DCTA and try and find a more appropriate location for that stop.
However, most of that most of the bus stops are located in public right away.
There may be a few that are not, but most of those are. So it is our goal, obviously, to make our public rights of way accessible.
And so unless there's just an obvious, easier choice to move it, we will attempt to make the location accessible without relocating.
OK, great, because it does make sense to me with the issues that I've seen around town.
It makes a lot of sense for me for these these these to be meshed.
So thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Sally.
John, you have any questions or comments?
Just a comment, I think, because I'm not really sure on the background detail for the applications,
whether there's necessary to have actual certifications will be really great.
So I would just think it'd be great to have the chair of this committee.
And I've heard there's another committee with similar interests or focuses
to be included in reviewing applications or even sitting in on the interviews
just to get an idea or be able to add knowledge.
Or more knowledge to the interview process. Engaging the interviewees.
OK, I can forward that request.
Thank you, John. Joe, do you have any questions or comments?
I have one comment. The bus stopped on the other side of Barney Gray.
Near Tannistown Cafe. It's not accessible.
The bus stopped across the street from what? Chinatown Cafe is not accessible.
Oh, OK. I don't know if we can do anything about that.
We'll certainly look into it. It's probably on our list and something that we can work with the Transit Authority.
OK, thank you. Thank you, Joe. Val, do you have any questions or comments?
Well, I guess my main question is that this position for transportation and ADA coordinator,
is the city still looking at not hiring an ADA coordinator for the entire city?
I don't know. I know that currently the structure is divided into three, and I see Ryan's got his hand up. I'll defer to Ryan.
Sure. So currently we do have a policy that's been adopted by council that stipulates the three coordinators over three respective areas.
Rides of way, employment and facilities. So currently that is the policy adopted by council.
So staff would not be able to make a change unless council made a change to their policy.
OK, I think that's very, very important. Just curious on why the council perhaps later and perhaps having someone working under that individual,
because there are so many facets to ADA, each of the elements where these individuals are split in responsibilities in the different departments.
Just a comment. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Val. Sonya, you have any questions or comments?
I'm just looking at, you know, the three boxes that you have, personal qualities, background and certification.
For me, I probably would prioritize background and just what they can bring in that may especially be innovative for our community
that we haven't experienced or we're really trying to fill a gap there, because I think certifications you can get as I move into that role.
So that's kind of how I would look at that. Personal qualities for me, I don't and Ryan, you may be able to answer this for me.
I don't know if this person would be our staff liaison or I'll be honest, I'm not sure who our staff liaison is right now in the absence of Mark.
And so, you know, being able to work with a diverse group is going to be important regardless of the position or whether they're working with us or not.
But definitely if they're going to be our staff liaison. So for I am your staff liaison right now, though, I will say, you know, bringing that candidate in.
Of course, you know, there'll be a time that that candidate has to get up to speed.
There's a lot going on transportation side of things, particularly.
But I think the city is going to do pair you with the liaison that has the best chance of making this committee successful and bring value to the community.
So it could very well be this person, but I can I can say that we're going to pair you with the the person we think is going to do the best for you as committee.
And we're glad to have you. Thank you.
OK, Tamra, did you have any questions or comments?
As ever, yeah, I agree with that. Do this committee need to do something by an ADA coordinator?
So that the city council can vote on it.
Is that a question, Tamra? Yeah, OK, I'm sorry.
So the question was, is there something that can be done? Yeah, I don't.
Maybe Brian has an answer to that. Our staff liaison.
So, if I understand correctly, the the question is, can.
Can this committee make a recommendation to council regarding having a single ADA coordinator?
This committee can make that recommendation to this committee.
I would ask the council council, pardon me, the committee, if they would like to discuss the issue prior to making that recommendation,
that way staff can bring a presentation and can discuss with all the ADA coordinators.
But I'll leave that to the committee on whether they want to make that whether they'd like that to be brought forward to make that recommendation.
And maybe we can briefly talk about that in contributing items.
Time permitting.
Did you have any other questions, Tamra? I do want to lose that question.
OK, thank you.
Ali, did you have any questions or comments?
I do want to agree with Tanya that I feel like experience is the number one priority to my personal opinion.
If you are looking for feedback on how we should weigh these qualifications, I agree that experience is going to be number one.
But I also think that, you know, certification could come quickly.
Allison, I apologize for interrupting you. It's a little bit difficult to hear you again.
OK, hold on. Let me get close.
I was just going to say I agree with Tanya that the background and the experience is probably going to be at least my favorite priority over that.
But I think that I should also express the weight of getting those certifications very fast and as many as you can.
There's just so much there's just so much that you have to know.
And I just feel like that's also pretty important.
That's all. Thank you, Allison.
And I'll weigh in just a little bit. To me, I think this is an excellent opportunity to start looking outside the box and proactively looking for someone that represents our community.
The radical idea is that there are disabled people who have the certification and the background and the education.
It's just where do we look for these people?
So I think once the description is made and maybe a preferred qualification of personal experience with a disability is placed on there,
then where can this be disseminated, where those individuals can be identified and can apply?
I think whether it's one ADA coordinator or three, I think we need to begin having representation of the community that this committee represents, but also that the city serves.
So I would, you know, I would echo, you know, certifications or certifications.
I would assume that people applying for this are certified or have a certification, you know, in the background.
It's one of those things you want somebody young that will learn the job the way you want to learn it or someone that's a veteran who has done it a certain way that you have to reteach.
So I think primarily one of my one of my wishes would be to have someone that that has that personal experience with a disability and represents our community.
Any other questions or comments?
Thank you, Brian, for your time.
We appreciate it.
OK, we will move along to item EECPD20-023 general updates.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We did provide about five updates in your packet.
I don't know if you want me to go through each one or if I can just stand here and answer questions from the committee, if they'd like any clarifications on these update items, I'm happy to do that.
Does anyone have any questions on any of the items or or need Brian just to quickly just list them?
Sally?
Yeah, I'd like for him to list them, please.
OK.
Brian, if we could just quickly quickly run through them.
Yeah, sure.
So we did have a question about the scheduling of future virtual meetings.
Normally, this committee meets monthly when we were doing in-person meetings, but due to the pandemic, we are holding virtual meetings.
And due to the limited capacity, because all virtual meetings have to be recorded and streamed, we are only able to do those every other month for the vast majority of our boards, commissions and committees.
So that would result in our next meeting being scheduled for I believe it's November 19th.
And so we'd skip the October meeting.
Of course, anything can change depending on Governor Abbott's orders.
But we anticipate this to be the case at least through the end of 2020.
Kind of moving on, we did update our organizational structure.
I included a copy of our org chart with the packet.
I don't think anything directly affects this committee, but it always helps to know when things change around.
That way, if you do have a question on a particular item, you understand a little bit better about how the city is set up.
We do have one update from when this went out.
Our city engineer, Todd Estes, is pursuing other options outside the city.
And so we've elevated our deputy city engineer, Becky Davini.
She actually works with pretty closely with Brian and is in charge of all of our new road construction projects and reconstruction projects.
She has not been in front of this committee, I don't believe, but she's eminently qualified and has hit the ground running.
So we also get a question about committee member terms.
So we do have some holdover.
So some committee members were scheduled to rotate off and I listed them out in the committee in 2020.
This would have been after what was going to be the May election where we would have a new council to appoint or reappoint committee members.
Due to the pandemic, the election has been postponed to November 3rd.
After that election and the new council is seated, we will work through those reappointments.
And if you do have any questions about that, I encourage you to reach out to Rosa Rios, our city secretary.
She can answer any questions you have about your role on a committee or commission or board.
There was an update from Jessica Rogers on the downtown reinvestment grant policy that was brought up at a previous meeting and recommended for approval.
And then we did have an update to our closed captioning.
Our chair requested an update on the costs for closed captioning because we did provide those a year ago during the budget process.
And the costs have changed, as they often do, and we did provide those in the report.
And of course, our next committee meeting is the 19th at three p.m., pardon me, November 19th at three p.m. via Zoom.
Are there any questions regarding any other updates, any comments?
I guess my question, Brian, is what would be the next steps then to look into getting these meetings captioned?
I think we're looking at Zoom for a little bit and people not being able to attend in person.
We'd like to have these meetings accessible to as many people as possible.
So how can we tap into that budget and what does that process look like?
Sure. Well, you know, of course, this is a it's an advisory committee to the council so you can issue a recommendation or advisement to the council.
And what we could do is we could bring forward an item to walk for this committee to walk through the issue,
make sure that you're making an informed decision and then provide you the opportunity to vote as a committee on a recommendation to the council.
Because there's a pretty significant technology component and depending on how many meetings or how many boards,
commissions or committees would be included, the conversation may change a little bit.
So I think that conversation and feedback would be needed from the committee, but of course, we can put the committee in a position to make that recommendation.
Is that something that we can add to our next meetings?
We can. If that's the direction of the committee, the consensus of the committee.
Does anyone have any contentions against that or no?
So it looks like there is a silent consensus.
Great. And concluding items.
Are there any concluding items, issues, comments, suggestions that need to be brought up?
No. All right.
Again, I'd really like to thank each of you for taking the time to review our comments that we received today.
I think that's the first time that we really gotten some engagement from the community.
So it takes some time to read through that and understand the content.
So I do appreciate that. I appreciate all the color that we had earlier and the comments that we received.
Thank you for taking your time for that. And we will be done. Can we have a make a motion to end our meeting?
Move to adjourn.
Second.
Okay. So we will adjourn our meeting at four fifty p.m.
I thank everybody for being here and everybody for watching. Thank you.
Good job, Val.