Disability Commission Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Go. I, I really apologize, for being a few minutes late, but here we are. So whenever you're ready.

Great. Let me give Cable the heads up. When they are ready to go in, I will give the open meeting law notice, and I'll kick it to you. Great. Great.

Good evening, everyone. The open meeting law requires that I notify the public that this meeting is recorded. Therefore, please be aware that an audio and visual recording of this meeting is being made by Boston City TV, a part of the City of Boston office of cable communications, and is being broadcast on Xfinity channel 26, RCN channel 13, and Fios channel nine six two, as well as live streamed on YouTube where a recording will remain and for viewing after this meeting. With that, I will turn it over to our chair, Jerry Boyd, to start the meeting.

Great. Thank you, Andrea, and welcome everyone to, the first meeting of the Disability Commission Advisory Board for 2026. It's hard to believe that, a new year has started. But without much further ado, let me, let's kick things off by having introductions for the advisory board members. Olivia, why don't, we start with you?

Hi. My name is Olivia Richard. I'm the vice chair for the disability advisory board, and I hail from Brighton.

Great. Carl, why don't you, introduce yourself?

My name is Carl Richardson. I live in Brighton. I identify as deaf blind, and welcome. Happy New Year.

Great. Paulette, why don't you introduce yourself, please?

Good evening, everybody. My name is Paulette Durette, and I live in the Bad Pan section of Boston.

Great. Zari, why don't you introduce yourself, please?

My name is Zari. I'm nursing, and I I live in South Boston. And I did an appointment so far as individual with.

Great. And, Paul, why don't you introduce yourself if you have a minute, please?

My name is Paul Karen. I live in the West End, and I serve as a mental health advocate. Trying to advocate for family members and friends, and happy New Year, everyone.

Happy New Year. Andrea, am I missing anyone? I don't see anyone else from

the board currently on. Jerry, it's Richard.

Oh, Richard. There you are.

Hi. Apologies every apologies. I for some reason, I can't get my video to work, but that may be scaring you, actually. So it could be a benefit to all of you who are on tonight. But, anyway, Richard Glovsky, a member of the board. I live in Back Bay, and happy to be here.

Great. And I see Juan Carlos is on. Juan, if you could introduce yourself. We missed some of that, Juan, but we appreciate your dedication being on. It looks like you're on your commute, so we'll let you we'll let you mute and get, safely home.

Andrea, I'm gonna ask again, any other folks that I I might have missed?

I think you've got all of the appointed members of the board.

Great. But if you'd My name is Jerry. Okay. My name is oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Andrea.

I was gonna say commissioner Mikash is on if you wanna invite her after you finish out for the board.

Oh, sure. I'll introduce myself, and then then we'll have the commissioner introduce herself. My name is Jerry Boyd. I proudly serve currently as chair of the Disability Commission Advisory Board, and I live in West Roxbury. And I am also a wheelchair user, and I have salt and pepper hair with a Bruce Springsteen t shirt on currently. And go ahead, commissioner.

Thanks, Jerry. Hi, everybody. My name is Krista Makosh. I'm the disability commissioner and ADA title two coordinator for the city. I also use a wheelchair for those on screen who can't see my whole image. I am a woman with blonde hair, and there is an image of city hall in my background. Welcome everybody to tonight's meeting.

Great. And and moving, right along on the agenda is the approval of last month's meeting minutes, December meeting minutes. Do we have a motion to approve? I have a motion that

we approve the minutes. This is Carl.

Any seconds? This is Paul. I second. Any discussion? Hearing none, do I have a I'd like to conduct a vote to approve approve the minutes? Please feel free to say aye, wave, or or raise your hand. Aye. Aye. Aye. I believe the motion passes unanimously.

That's great. Excellent. Thank you so much for that. And next on the agenda is a presentation regarding snow management in Boston from our very own Andrea Patton. Go take it away, Andrea.

Thank you, Jerry. Yes. I will be, presenting on snow management. We've had just a few light snow, snowfalls so far this year. Nothing too large yet, but, we live in Boston. So you never know when a when a snowstorm is gonna hit, when a nor'easter is gonna hit. So with that in mind, I'm gonna pull up some slides. Get it into slideshow mode. So snow clearance in Boston. What are the rules when it comes to snow clearance in Boston?

Well, who does the clearing? First and foremost, property owners. Anyone who owns property in Boston is responsible for clearing the snow from the sidewalk that is adjacent to their property. They can pass this along to tenants. If they put it expressly in a written lease or a rental agreement, property owners can pass it along to a tenant.

If you are a tenant who is unable to, clear snow by reason of a disability, that gets into Fair Housing Act and reasonable accommodations requests. But as far as the ordinance says, yes, property owners can pass that responsibility on. When do people have to clear snow? Well, have to clear sidewalks and curb ramps within three hours after it stops snowing. And if it snowed overnight, then within three hours of sunrise.

The ordinance does not require you to wake up, set an alarm for midnight, and go out and start shoveling right then. You can wait until sunrise. And what is it that folks have to clear? It's required in city ordinance to clear at least a 42 inch wide path of travel. Obviously, the sidewalk is not even 42 inches itself, you clear the whole sidewalk, but many of our sidewalks are wider than 42 inches and that is the minimum that you are required to clear.

If your property is on a corner, you're required to clear the curb ramps as well to ensure that path of travel into the crosswalk at the street. You're required to remove ice down to bare pavement, so that may require salting or sanding or other things, but, you know, just taking off the top layer of snow and and leaving ice behind is is not allowed under the ordinance. Nor is pushing or shoveling the snow into the street. That makes it harder for everyone involved. Gotta find a place to pile the snow elsewhere.

And there are fines associated with shoveling into the the street if you are found to have done that. Speaking of fines, there are fines if property owners fail to clear the sidewalk or the curb ramp that they are responsible for clearing. For commercial properties, that is $250 for each incidence of snow or curb ramp, two separate fines that are not cleared. So if you clear the sidewalk but you don't clear the curb ramp, $250. If clear the curb ramp but not the sidewalk, which I've never seen but that would be interesting, again, $250.

If you clear neither, $500 for for not clearing those those pieces. Residential buildings that have more than 16 units, more than 16 apartments have fines of a $150 associated and residential buildings with fewer 16 or fewer units have $100 fines for not clearing their sidewalks. So when we're talking about sidewalks and and curb ramps and the city of Boston's operations, what does the city of Boston do as a city government? Well, first of all, just to level set, there's 1,600 miles of sidewalk in the City Of Boston. If you didn't know that, it's a lot of miles.

And city of Boston staff clear the sidewalks and the curb ramps that are adjacent to city property just as any other property owner is responsible for doing. Yes. The public works department who's responsible for issuing fines for failure to clear have written tickets against other city departments. The Boston Public Library or the Parks Department have in fact been ticketed by the Public Works Department if they don't clear the sidewalks adjacent to the park, adjacent to the BPL. So we do clear sidewalks adjacent to property that we own as a city government.

The public works department also piloted a limited curb ramp specific program in 2021 and made it permanent in 2022. This covers curb ramps in high foot traffic areas in every neighborhood. So there's at least one location in every neighborhood of the city that they consider a high foot trafficked area, main streets, things like that. They call it their square work. There are lot of places that we call squares in the city that are intersections.

So they do clear the curb ramps in these designated areas. It's kind of a living list. Right? People change, new developments grow up, new buildings get built by the city, so it's it's not laid out in ordinance what locations these are or anything like that. And it's important to note that it's the same staff whether that's a city staff member or a contractor who just plowed the roads.

So speaking of the roads, these are the priority for the city to ensure that public safety and emergency assets can get around as soon as possible after a snowfall aka, you know, EMS, fire, police, the MBTA, you know, these are critical services that the city is focused on getting around. And so between city staff and city plows and the 10 contractors approximately each year that we work with who put out 700 to 800 pieces of equipment, all of those folks are out there responsible for 800 miles of road. And when you count each lane, you know, separately, if it's a two lane road or or going in each direction, right, it's about 1,400 lane miles that the city clears with those 10 contractors and their in person other in house staff. So after clearing those 1,400 miles

of

road, those are the same staff who go home, get a shower, get a bite to eat and then hop into smaller equipment that can clear the curb ramps. And the third bullet on this page is bike lanes because again that happens after the roads, after the folks get a break, get a shower, they get into their smaller equipment like a bobcat, if you know what what that piece of equipment is, and they use that equipment to clear bike lanes and to clear the curb ramps in those high foot trafficked areas. Alright. There's some other public areas that people definitely love to know about and hear about. So the first is bus stops.

So in the city of Boston, the bus shelters are owned by the city. So if there's coverage and a bench underneath that coverage, almost certainly it's a city of Boston asset. And we have a contractor who maintains those, fixes them up, puts up the advertisements that you see in them, and that contractor is also responsible for clearing the shelter of snow when it snows. They are required to clear for both the waiting area, right, if snow gets kicked in to where you wanna be waiting underneath the cover, and they are required to clear such that you can board. So as I describe it, sort of punching through that wall of snow that might get built up on the curb ramp so that you can step from the or on the curb.

So you can step from the curb to the bus or the the ramp can deploy. That is a requirement of our contractors at those shelters. The MBTA does do some clearance as well. They clear snow from the stops on their 10 and I actually think this is 15. I wrote 10 and I meant to Google it.

I think they upped it to 15. Their 15 highest ridership routes, which as I'm sure you can imagine are largely stops in the city of Boston and some other municipalities as well. But they clear the snow from those stops on those routes. MBTA stations, the MBTA is gonna be responsible for clearing snow from their own property. They own, you know, a certain amount of the kind of front yard if you will, the plaza out in front of their stations.

And they're also responsible for clearing any sidewalks that are immediately adjacent to their property just as any other property owners would be. So sometimes it's not always as obvious because it's not the sidewalk directly in front of a station but maybe it's next to like a rail yard. If the MBTA owns it, you know, they're responsible for clearing it and the same with state property. State owned buildings, state owned parks are responsible for clearing the adjacent sidewalks to their buildings. So what happens if you encounter an uncleared sidewalk or an uncleared curb ramp three hours after snow or three hours after sunrise?

Boston 311. You can call 311, you can email 311@boston.gov or you can use the boss 311 app. Email or the app are particularly encouraged if you are comfortable using those because you can include a picture. So you can include a picture of exactly what the problem is and that is gonna help both three one one and Public Works. Because the three one one team is gonna route it to the appropriate place which is usually Public Works, but Public Works will actually then go fine.

Right? They'll know who to fine whether it's a state agency themselves, you know, a private property owner. So that picture is gonna be really really helpful to see what the issue is and exactly where it is that that you need someone to clear. And in 2026, at least as of four days ago when I pulled this number after the last snow, the city has already issued 290 failure to clear sidewalk of snow violations. We are out.

Public works is absolutely out even those little, you know, gentle snowfalls that that still need to be cleared. Just because it's not a blizzard doesn't mean folks don't need to clear their sidewalks and don't mean the city isn't out taking it seriously. For context, in 2025, we issued about we issued exactly 5,943 failure to clear sidewalk snow violations. So if you're curious, we are out there writing these violations. I forgot to put a slide that says questions but that is the end of my presentation.

So if there are questions, I can absolutely take them as I'm sure there will be. We may have lost Jerry, I think.

I'm muted. Oh, sorry. Was muted.

I was trying to find you in the list to bring you up.

That pesky unmute button. Thank you for your report. Andrea, I'm surprised that we've already had 290 or so violations. Does that mean that they've been issued fines? What's is a violation different than a fine, or or do you not know? Or

Great question. They are not different. So that is 290 fines that have been assessed because a violation was witnessed by public works.

Do we ever, do we have numbers, or do we, or can we track the follow-up whether those actual fines get paid or or or what happens?

Yes. Absolutely. So, this is one of the public datasets that the city publishes. I'll drop the link in the chat. And so it'll list the address, the date of the violation, whether it's open or closed, meaning whether it's been paid or not, the amount of the violation, the, you know, code, and any notes. So

Okay. Great. Thank you very much. And I see Olivia has a question.

Yes. Where does that fine money go to?

Great question. I believe it goes to, public works the public works department budget, operating budget. I don't believe they have a specific fund that it has to go to, a specific set of actions it has to fund, but I will triple check that.

Thank you.

Okay. Thanks, Andrea. Thanks for that. I am actually I'm gonna try to fix my microphone. I know my report is is next. I don't know if we could skip down to something else. Maybe somebody else could or Olivia or you, Andrea, could could take a couple of the next items while I I try to try to fix my audio issues? This

is Andrea. Absolutely. Commissioner, I don't know if you wanna do your report. If, commissioner Makash, if you we wanna go in that order.

Can we have Patricia go next? If you're ready, Patricia.

Okay. Sure, commissioner. Thank you.

Can you hear me okay? Yes.

One, my name is Patricia Mendez. I'm the director of architectural access. And today, they instead of my architectural access report, I'm going to share with you a new city of Boston website that is called citywide project tracker. I'm going to share my screen, and I'm going to share the project tracker live live, and I'm going to show you how to use it. And it's very easy to use.

I'm going to search for projects in Hyde Park, and it gives me oh, it gives me a list of projects in the neighborhood. And when you you click on each project, it takes you to additional information, and it takes you to recordings with information on the project and the recording of the actual discussion and the actual questions from the neighborhood. So I I think it's a wonderful resource and very easy to use. So I'm here in in Hyde Park. Oh, let's just play with the windows here.

Okay. So I'm looking I'm getting a list for I'm doing something wrong here. This is live, everyone. So I wanna actually, I want to switch to Alston. Alston.

Okay. And it's taking me to Alston projects, and let's click here on the North Beacon Street. Okay. And this is an example. It it is easy to read, and it shows the phases of the project in this case, and it's complete.

It's gonna show you a map of the location as we have here on the right of of the page shown by the the red marker line. And it talks about the design details and more information about that particular project. This one has neighborhood context in this case and where to contact the project. And then a list of updates. And if you go in there, you can find alright.

This one is an example of the recording of the virtual meeting. I find those very informative and fun to to watch, yeah, and things like that. So I invite you to search. The name again is the citywide project tracker. And I'm happy to answer some questions.

Patricia, this is Andrea. Is this every development project in the whole city or just city of Boston run projects?

This is this is both both city of Boston projects and private development projects too.

Okay. I see Jerry is still off screen, so I think he may still be working on oh, I have a DM. Ah, he's gonna come on on screen.

Yes. I don't know if you can hear me any better now, though. Yes. Is it any better?

I'm seeing nods.

It's better? Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And any other questions for Patricia?

I don't see any. Am I missing anybody, Andrea?

I don't see any hands. No.

Great. Thanks, Patricia. Really appreciate your report as always.

You're welcome, Jerry. Thank you.

Alright. Commissioner, if you're ready to go now, I'm more than happy to have you go next, or do you want me to give a brief chair's report?

He can give me

chair's report first.

Sure. My report will be very brief. I just wanna hope that everybody had a good holiday season, and I wanted to give a shout out to the commissioner's office, particularly around the the mayor's inaugural the the swearing in of the mayor and the and the city council and the mayor's inaugural address. I was fortunate to attend. You know, I know Andrea particularly, you know, did a lot of work around that event, making sure that it was accessible.

You know, I spoke with her the morning of of the event when I arrived, and and she said I think you said you had 12 or fourteen fourteen folks that had signed up requesting requesting assistance. You know, I I know not not that many, at least wheelchair users, attended, it looked like. But the folks that did attend, we were, you know, very comfortable spots and and had a good view of everything and and just wanted to give a shout out to you, Andrea, and the commissioner's office for making that event accessible to us. So so thank you very much for that, and and great work as as always. And I also just want wanted to encourage everyone, when we get the opportunity to go to such events, it's it would be great to see more of us, more board members there, and more folks, you know, who need us you know, who need assistance, folks with disabilities at these types of events.

You know, as we say in the disability community, nothing about us without us. And as representatives of the city, I think it's really important when we can to to to go to these events and to make our, you know, presence known and and just just to highlight the important work that that we do for the city. So I would encourage us, you know, again, whenever possible to take advantage of of of these, you know, kind of more high profile events when possible. But I also recognize that that everyone does a a great job here, and we all have busy lives and other work commitments and other family commitments that prevent us from taking advantage of some of these things. But I do think it's, you know, an important part of our role for the city to to participate as much as we can.

Again, thank thank you for, you know, all the work that that, you know, you have been doing on behalf of the city and and look forward to working with you in the coming year. I know we have, you know, elections coming up next month. Who's ever, you know, in this chair in this you know, leading the group next year. It's been my pleasure, you know, for the past year to to to lead the group. You know?

And I've had the opportunity to to lead us on a couple of different occasions now, and I really, you know, feel quite honored to have that opportunity, and I look forward to to working with you all in the coming year, you you know, in whatever capacity. So thank you very much, everyone. And with that, we'll move on to the commissioner's report.

Awesome. Thank you, Jerry. Alright. Andrea's gonna pull up my slides. And is my microphone sounding better now, Andrea?

Sounds good to me. But as you know, this room is tough. I

know. Technical challenges. All right. So as Jerry mentioned earlier, opening the meeting, welcome to 2026, everybody. Just want to start out by thanking you all for all the hard work you do and all the time that you give to the city. We really appreciate your service and value your input tremendously. So thank you all. Okay. First slide up. I have a brief report tonight. It's not too long. Just some updates generally on the city and my department. So as we've talked about a few times, we all know about the city's office of participatory budgeting. Voting is opening tomorrow, and it runs for a month through February 15. You can find the link there.

And in case you don't remember, participatory budgeting is an allotment of funds that the city has set aside to let residents decide what to do with it. So ideas were proposed back in the fall. And they've been, you know, narrowed down to a few ideas that will be posted. And you get to vote on the ideas that you like. And I believe some of our board members may have submitted an idea or two. Jerry, did you submit one?

I did. I did. I and I believe Tara was considering sending one in sending one in anyway. I don't don't know if she did. Don't wanna put her on the spot. But

What was your idea, Jerry?

My idea was around around an accessible getting, like, an accessible van that the that that folks could use, you know, the disability commission could could use, you know, and kinda be available for folks who who may need it. So

That's great. And, Tara, are you on? I don't know if you submitted anything or if you just had an idea. You're welcome to share.

Hi, everyone. I'm on I unfortunately, I wasn't unable to submit an idea. However, I did attend one of the nights where we teamed together at a bunch of people from BCIL to kinda look at the ideas and narrow it down a little bit.

That's awesome. Thank you so much for doing that. And like Jerry said, we love it when you participate in events that aren't just our meetings, that you get involved in the city. I think that's really providing, excuse me, civic leadership with the disability lens. So I'm really glad that you were able to attend, Tara. And think about ideas for next year because, you know, the portal for ideas will be open before we know it. Okay. Another update I wanted to give people. I don't know if the board members know this, but our office does a series of trainings and what we call little segments called in the know. They're little PSAs, public service announcements.

So if you go on our YouTube channel, and I'll link this into my report after the meeting. I'll put a link in. But on our YouTube channel, we have a series of trainings that Kai, our former staff person, had done. And we also continue to upload different webinars that we do, like our trainings in October during National Disability Employment Awareness Month. We do a monthly show called Disability Access and Action where we interview a city department, kind of like the format where they come to this meeting.

We have a converse I have a conversation with them. They talk talk about what they do. And then after that segment, we have a little PSA called In the Know where Andrea or Sylvie or one of our other staff will give, like, a little five minute segment on what you can do to get involved in the topic that we just discussed. So for example, if I talk to the office of emergency management, we might talk about the city's plans for an emergency evacuation. And then in the no segment, Andrea will say, you can sign up for Alert Boston, and this is how you do it. So super valuable information. We'd love it if you wanna log on, check them out, and also spread the word because there are a lot of different topics, too many for me to list. Colleen works on this. Chris works on this. Sylvia works on it.

So it's really it's a it's a lot of our work represented on this YouTube channel, so I encourage everybody to check it out. Next slide. And then I'm sure everybody got a copy of the advisory board dates for 2026. They're all on Wednesday, pretty much like the third, second or third Wednesday. And again, we'll be hosting we're planning for 11 meetings this year, combining November and December.

According to our bylaws, we have to have 10. But this will be our schedule for the year unless anything changes. And then my next slide is some advisory board updates. So we are still waiting back to hear on the names we submitted to Mayor Wu for our new members. We're patiently waiting. And once we get those names, we will set a date for an in person swearing in, hopefully with the mayor. So please stay tuned for more information on that. And I wanted to take a few minutes just to talk about the meeting format. So those of you who've been on the board for a long time may remember that we used to have three presentations originally at our meetings. And then we pulled it back to two, one city department and one nonprofit agency.

And then we switched to just one presentation per meeting to give people more time to, you know, listen, ask questions, and, you know, speak about other things. And last year, we added the shout out section. So I wanted to ask if there are any other changes people would like to make starting this year in the meeting format, if you'd like to add another presentation, if you think this is a good kind of use of our time. We could also talk about ideas for ordinances and city council hearings. I know people said they like the shout outs where everybody's picked their own kind of topic that they wanna focus on and then talk about that at the meetings.

So I really wanted to open up to the board. You know, the bylaws don't really say what the content of the meetings have to be, just that you give input to our office on things that are your concerns. So, Jerry, as the board chair, I will throw it to you to see if you have any suggestions or if you want to ask board members if they have any. Really just wanna turn it over to you.

Yeah. No no problem at all. Happy to happy to lead a discussion in regards to that. Anybody have any ideas, or or does the are folks happy with the with the current status or the current format? I know, you know, as the commissioner said, the feedback that I've I've heard or or the disability commission has heard is that folks are happy with the shout outs.

But but as commissioner said, I think the bylaws give us a lot of leeway on how we format these meetings. So if anybody has any ideas for any changes, feel free, you know, feel free to to to talk about it now and or let us know. But, you know, I'd be happy to entertain any ideas now of folks or any feedback now if if anybody wants wants to say

anything. Ethan, I don't want to put anyone on the spot. But really, the two things I want to bring up are the meeting formats. Because really, this is your board, and we love it when you take the leadership and take the lead on things. So we want to empower you to do that. So again, two things I'm raising are the meeting formats. We know the executive committee meets with Andrea to recommend presentations. I believe, Carl, years ago, you were the one who suggested that maybe three presentations was too many.

I thought three was too many at the time. Yeah.

I remember you said that, which is fair. Again, like we said, it's really your meeting. We want to support what your priorities are. But if you think you'd like to do two, we can do that. Like I said tonight, maybe a shorter meeting. Maybe we make the presentation shorter so you can learn more because we really only have 11 times that we see each other a year. So it all depends on what your priorities are.

And I'm then the hoping second two, but not three. Okay. Have we also looked at what other I mean, there are three fifty one towns in Massachusetts, so there's a lot of commissions that meet. Have we looked at some of the formats of what some of the other commissions do?

No. But that's an interesting suggestion if people would want to look into that. I know I've gone to Cambridge's meetings a handful of times, and they post I get their newsletter. So I know they they post their agendas. We could look at that.

But then also, think one of the board's biggest successes since I've been here is the captions ordinance that really, really changed accessibility across the city. So if there are any other ideas, you know, we can get in touch with city council. We have to work with the intergovernmental relations office, but we can certainly propose city council hearings. We can look at other ordinances. If there are things you notice around the city that you think would benefit with a different accessibility component, you know, that's really what you're empowered to advise us to do.

And we're happy to take your priorities under consideration and see if we can move the needle forward in any way. So really just want to say thank you all for your hard work. And any ideas and priorities that you have, we're happy you know, carry out some of the work to help you achieve them.

Thank you, commissioner. And and like like commissioner and I said, Jerry is the chair. If you if you don't have ideas now or don't feel comfortable sharing now, we can certainly discuss this as part of the executive committee and and maybe hash hash out some some ideas for the for the early part of the of the year for for the format of the meetings. So

And also, thanks. I just wanted to mention, Andrea put in the chat some of the ideas for the participatory budgeting. She wrote that the 13 final ideas include fresh food access. I know that's something that Tara was concerned about. Workforce training, which we're all concerned about. Employment is a huge issue for people with disabilities. Sobriety supports. And I was actually just meeting yesterday where the you know, talking about different things that we wanna get involved in. So this is something that I could see, you know, having some sort of connection to. Housing stability, funding for residents, including residents with disabilities, and several more.

So I encourage you all to log on, take a look at the ideas, and click on your notes. Thanks, Jerry. I'll turn it back to you.

Thanks so much, commissioner. And, really, thanks for the reminder about, you know, how this is our meeting. And and we can really, you know, change the format, you know, as needed to to meet to to meet our needs. So I know we you've given food for thought for the executive committee and the rest of the rest of the board members to to think about how we wanna shape shape the meetings going forward. So but now the next part of the meeting is going to be the shout outs.

Again, don't wanna put anybody on the spot, but if anybody, you know, has had has had done something interesting or worked on something interesting since we've last met, now is the time to to share it. So please please don't be shy. Jerry? Yes, Carl. Go ahead. Right ahead.

So a couple of things. Next week is the governor's date of the state on the twenty second, which is Thursday evening. And I am proud to say that we will have interpreters on camera with actual deaf interpreters doing the signing on camera. So it'll be fully accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing community plus captioned. And so if the governor will be giving her update on the state of the union for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

On a more personal level, I have been working on two issues over the last several months that I I feel impact the disability community, maybe more in particular, the blind community. One is service animal denials. Back in November, the service animal user community testified that two different bills for two different hearings. One was for s twenty seven fourteen sponsored by Joan Lovely, Senator Lovely, which was the bill to create a commission to look at the study of discrimination against service animals. I am happy to report that they have passed favorably out of committee and is now with the senate ways and means.

And I will be a number of us will be meeting with senator Lovely and senator Kennedy next week, actually, to discuss next steps in that bill. So stay tuned for more on that. And that would just create a commission that includes all stakeholders from children, families, and persons with disability commit committee at the state health to MOD to different organizations such as ARC and and all be involved in looking how we can better enhance and and protect the laws that service animal users have. Second bill was h twenty sixty six, which was a bill to do with finding Uber and Lyft drivers. That hearing was well attended.

We had, oh, I don't know, 15 to 20 service animal users testify. The legislators took a lot of interest in it, and I've heard that the speaker's office is looking at this bill. But there's a couple of things there. The union and Lyft riders are trying to unionize, and they don't wanna necessarily find the drivers. So we don't know what to do with that bill yet. That hasn't passed our committee. It passed the sixty day decision deadline. But it'll have to it'll have to be voted on by March if that's the deadline to vote bills out of committee. So stay tuned for more details on that. And last thing very briefly, I don't wanna monopolize monopolize all this time.

As many of you know, my newest thing is autonomous vehicles because I really do believe that'll improve the lives of people with disabilities. As you know, we testified at two city Boston hearings on the ordinance, Bannon, autonomous vehicles, and the and the no vote was taken so that and the city council's legislative term ended, so nothing happened. But in the meantime, Bill Hannon of BCIL I think, Jerry, you were at the meeting. Right? Weren't you?

Yes. That's correct.

Right. Bill Hannon of BCIL invited a number of advocates from the disability, including myself, Jerry, Chris Hart, who many of you know from system wide access at the MBTA, Nora Nagel, to meet with the union, and we had many union representatives. It felt like David versus Goliath, to be honest. We have the team third. We have the MBTA Mechanics Union.

We have the Food and Restaurant Union. We have the FEIU five zero nine. It was it was a it was a bit it was it was a a good presence by both sides. We both explained our point of view, and I think we did a good job of listening and understanding that it's not necessarily one side fits all, and let's see if there's things we can agree on. So I don't know that anybody's mind has changed either way completely, but we at least understand that we're gonna have to roll up our sleeves and find a common common ground to go forward.

And I I we're waiting to hear what the next steps are. So that's it for me.

Great. Thanks, Carl. Olivia, I see that you have your hand raised.

Yes. This is Olivia. Normally, I'm a bit of a ray of sunshine when it comes to BHA and public housing. Joke. But one of the things that the housing authority has done is they're changing their front door buzzing systems, the access systems, to a control panel called ButterflyMX.

And the app that comes with it is very voice over accessible. I will say the user terminal down in the lobbies is not blind accessible. This is something that the task force brought to me. I've noticed, and I don't know what the housing authority is gonna do about it, but this is a system that they're rolling out.

Olivia, can you something.

Olivia, this is Jerry. Can you clarify what the what the butterfly system I mean, what what the system will do?

It allows for digital control over the locks down in the lobby. So you can allow visitors to access the building using your smartphone.

Oh, okay. So does that mean that buildings will no longer b h a b h a buildings may no longer have, like, doorbells? Or

No. It's a doorbell that goes to your phone

Okay.

Through an app on your phone.

Okay. I could see that I could see that being a challenge, though, for for folks who who don't easily use a use a smartphone.

Oh, it's been it's been interesting trying to get the information access out to particularly the older Russian speaking community in my building. K. They've had challenges and have had to do some one on one training.

Great. Well, thanks for sharing that. And to to me, you always are a ray of sunshine, Olivia. So no matter what no matter what topic no. I'm serious. No matter what topic you bring up, you always try to look at the at the positive before before pointing out the accessibility negatives or the lack of accessibility. You always try to stick at least something positive in there anyway. So so I I appreciate that. So kill kill them with kindness. Right, Olivia? Kill them with kindness. Yep. Right. So thank you. Richard, I see you had your hand

raised. Yeah. Thanks, Sherry. I have some of you may be familiar with the state pension system. It is an extraordinarily under resourced and slow moving, to say the least.

So I've taken on now three cases pro bono in federal court to require the appropriate agency to determine the rights of those who are disabled, who have applied for benefits, some of whom have been waiting ten years for the process to play out before they get a determination as to whether or not they're entitled to benefits. So I'm about to start the third case this week. And so far, in the first two, I was able to get the system to decide the two cases of people who'd been waiting for many years for a decision. So Richard. Yes.

What is it?

It's only a five person commissioner headed by Secretary Goldberg. What what what the red tape or is it there so many demanding?

Well, it's it's it's a long story. But is do you know who Dalla is?

Yep. The

Department of Administrative Law Appeals? So once somebody applies for pension benefits, there's a whole process they have to go through. They apply, then they sometimes they wait a year or two for hearing anything else. Finally, they may get a notice as to how they proceed next. There are a set of rules that are incredibly complex.

They call for people most of whom are doing this on their own to comply with rules that require the size of the type they use and the pages size and all kinds of incredibly, I think, burdensome aspects to it, with sometimes very short deadlines met by delays by the agencies involved. So it's a multistep process, at the end of which a final determination administratively is made by the Contributory Retirement Appeal Board. And the appeal board, the case two cases right now that I one, I just got resolved. But just that piece alone, people have been waiting for over four years for the appeal for the CRAB board to make a decision. I've been told by the lawyer who represents CRAB, you know, he's been pretty candid with me about how limited the resources are they have.

There are three people who decide each matter. They meet only once a month. One of the cases I had when I asked where my client was in the queue, they said he was number 141, and they only meet once a month to decide cases. And I believe that those who are on the board do their best, but the resources they have are inconsequential. It's just them.

I think they have a paralegal. That's it. And they literally have hundreds of these backlogged. There are two types, essentially. One are those with disabilities, and then there are the others who are just trying to get their pension for whatever reason.

Insofar as those with disabilities are concerned, they meet only once a month. And as I said, the clients that I've taken on have been waiting some four years or longer just for the last piece of the process, the CRAB appeal, to be determined. And that's after five or six years to get to that point. So what I'm hoping ultimately because in each instance, you know, the the agency decided to, you know, decide to decide the case, I'm I'm just hoping that eventually I'll get some judge who who

will

make a decision that will send a message that the state really needs to do something about this. It's very unfair.

So thank you, Richard, for for taking on this issue. Just a brief question to for clarification. Does every any everyone, every state worker who who, you know, tries to collect their pension have to go through the same process?

Yeah. Now some people, you know, will will get their pension in a shorter period of time. But, you know, others where there are contested issues go through years and years of the process. One I have now, at an earlier stage, she won in in front of DALA, and then Crabbe appealed. And then she's been waiting four and a half years for her

decision If I just retired, I'm a state employee. Right? If I just retired but did not put in the disability claim, I would just be putting in for my pension. That's a routine matter. They tend to just let those go. You know? Okay. So if I think you're talking specifically about people who put put in disability claims. Let me ask you this, Richard. Is it the same if you become disabled, meaning because of an accident on the job or whether you become disabled because, like, you had a heart attack. You know? There there are two types of this. I forget what they call it, but there's two types of disability claims. One on the job and one on if you just physically become disabled. Is it the same onerous procedure for both?

Well, it's different. If you're disabled on the job, then you have a workers' comp claim.

Okay. That's what I thought. Okay. Well,

thanks for advocating on behalf of of folks, Richard, and thanks for bringing the issue up to the board. Anyone else on the board have anything that they'd like to share? Not seeing anything. I guess we'll move on. And I may need some clarification in regards to this next agenda item. It's the executive committee elections. I know we're gonna hold elections next month, but is there something that that we should be doing in preparation for those elections, Andrea or commissioner?

Yeah. Great question, Jerry. So note of order is that you cannot nominate and vote in the same meeting. So the intention is to have people nominate you can nominate yourself, you can nominate someone else, as has been the tradition for the last several years at least since I've been here. Folks who are interested have communicated with commissioner Makash and she will formally nominate the slate today.

Folks who wish to accept the nomination will do so verbally or in the chat, so we know you you agree. And then at our next meeting, you know, your names will be listed in the agenda. We'll do a second call for nominations just to make sure that if anyone's changed their mind, but we'll be able to vote in February after nominating folks today.

Okay. Great. So should I ask on the from the floor if there's folks are interested, or or are we ready to take up a slate now, or how should we proceed?

If you open the floor for nominations, anyone who has them can speak, and I do happen to know commissioner Scottson.

Okay. I well, based on that, I will open up the floor for nominations. And commissioner, would you like to would you like to put some forth?

I'd be happy to, but I just wanna make space at the beginning for anyone else who hasn't communicated with me if they are interested in nominating themselves or anyone else. I'll just give the board members that opportunity before I speak. K. Hearing that, I don't see any. Do you see any hands, Andrea, Jerry? Okay.

I don't. So go right ahead, commissioner.

Thanks, Jerry. So what I would like to nominate for the twenty twenty six year of executive committee is Zari for board chair, Jerry for vice chair, Olivia for secretary, and Tara for treasurer.

Commissioner, have all these four people been communicated with and accepted the nomination or accepted the willingness to serve?

Yes.

We would ask that they all indicate in this meeting as well if you could unmute or put in the chat.

Happy to serve.

Thanks, Jerry.

Absolutely. I'm happy to serve, and looking forward to the next steps.

Thanks, Ari.

Olivia said Olivia said she accepts in the in the chat.

Thanks, Olivia.

Tara, are you still happy to serve?

The chat, Tara has accepted.

Yeah. I want to see a detailed budget.

I see a thumbs up from Tara.

So I believe the next step is we wait until next month to do the actual vote. But in the meantime, you know, if anybody has any other thoughts, you do have these next few weeks to consider nominations and also consider who you would like to vote for.

Great. Thank you, commissioner. And as I said in in my report, you know, it's it's it is my honor to to serve with everyone, and it's my continued honor to to serve and particularly serve on the executive committee, and I I know that Zari Zari will do a great job if she is formally formally elected. And I, you know, I know the entire executive committee will do a great great job informally elected next month.

So On that note, Cherry, could I just add sorry. I I would be remiss if I didn't thank Paul for his service on the executive committee. Paul, I know you've been on for several years now, and we really appreciate your your advocacy and, you know, all the work that you do on behalf of people with mental health. So thank you for your service, Paul.

It's been an honor and a pleasure. Thanks for including me, and I look forward to serving on the advisory board still. That's a great slate nominated.

Yeah. I wanna second that, Paul. Thank you so much for for stepping up in leadership, and I'm glad that you're staying on the on the advisory board.

Thank you. Feeling's mutual. It's been a privilege.

Thanks. And thanks, everyone. But, again, you know, again, feel free as commissioner said to to think about it if you wanna throw your hat or somebody else's hat in the ring next month during during during the election. Please feel free to feel free to do so. You know, it's my hope that, you know, everyone will serve in an executive capacity at some point during their time on on the board if if at all possible.

So so it it is a great experience. So thank you, everyone, for considering it, and thank you for for for nominating us commissioner, and and we look forward to serving. So now under old business, I see we have autonomous vehicles. We had a we had a great presentation in December from I said from Northeastern. And any follow-up to that, Andrea?

Thanks, Jerry. Yes and no. There's no formal, motion or anything on the table right now from members of the board, but, I have heard from folks that this is a topic that you wanna continue discussing because it is sort of ripe for the advisory board to give some advice. Right? There is this question of what should be the city's policy when it comes to autonomous vehicles.

And so I have heard from board members that you do wanna continue discussing and learning more and to potentially give advice, give testimony, you know, write a letter or something like that may come out of it. So with that in mind, we, as staff, are continuing to search for a second presenter. We've heard from a technical expert about what they are. There are some some policy experts out there, some officials in other cities where these vehicles have deployed like Austin and San Francisco, Los Angeles. So we'll be working with the executive committee to identify the best next presenter to talk about this issue with you all.

So just leaving it on the agenda mostly as a heads up unless and until there is a motion, from you all to do something or to let it drop.

Is anyone on the advisory board now? Is there something that they would like to to say on this topic, or or are we comfortable waiting to discuss it further in executive in in as part of the executive committee?

The only thing I'll this is Carl. The only thing I'll tell you is I do think we should it's coming whether we'd like it. For instance, last night in the New York governor's state of the state, she proposed legislation to allow autonomous vehicles in the state of New York except for New York City. So it's coming, and I'd like the disability community to have a voice on the accessibility for blind people, wheelchair users have a voice on making sure they're away vehicles, people with hidden disabilities, make sure they have the ability to use the vehicle. I don't want this to be a wild wild west like it was with Lyft and Uber, where now we have no way of enforcing discrimination whether it isn't just service animals that are being denied on Uber.

Wheelchair users who can manually transfer into a car, but drivers are making assumptions when they see them so they pull away. People with canes, they pull away before they even pick up. So I'd like I'd like us to be involved. It's coming. I don't know what the next steps are. I don't know where to take this, but I would like just this to be an ongoing subject as the matter of as the subject evolves over time that we just occasionally look at it and see how we can help shape policy.

This is Jerry. Thank you, Carl. And I think I think you're you're speaking the language of the executive committee. You know, I I think that's that's what we wanted to try to do. We wanna try to help shape the city's policy and and and and be part of that discussion.

So I think I think the the the current executive committee is right is right in line with you. So so let's hope let's hope we'll it's true in the going forward as well. So so would anybody else like to weigh in on this topic now? Seeing none, I will move on. And now now it's time for public input portion of

the

meeting. Andrea, can you give me a little minute spiel, please?

Absolutely. Hi, everyone. All members of the public are invited to give a comment or to ask a question. You may notice you are not able to unmute yourselves on your own right now. If you have a question or comment, we ask that you use the Zoom raise hand function, come on camera and and raise a hand or wave at the camera, or indicate in the chat that you have a question or a chat.

Once recognized by the chair, you will have two minutes to give your question or comment. If you would like to sign your question or comment, please note that as well in the chat so that I can pin you so that folks watching at home have equal access to your comment or question. So again, please indicate that you have a question. If and when you are recognized by Chair Boyd, I will send you a request on mute and time your comment or question.

So does anyone from the public like would would like to make a comment or have a question? Am I missing anyone, Andrea?

I am scrolling to see if anyone's coming on camera, but not seeing anyone.

Oh,

Jerry. Hold on just one minute. Just wanna give anybody yeah. Do you see anybody from the public? Was there anybody from the public on tonight, Andrea?

We do have a few members.

Okay. We don't wanna put them on the spot, but, you know, now would be the be the time. But I think we've given them opportunities. So there's always we we do appreciate folks from the public attending our meetings and and would encourage you to to to speak up at future meetings. Continue to attend and and speak up at future meetings when you're comfortable. So hearing that, mister Richardson, do I would you like to make your motion to adjourn?

Since you're wearing a Bruce Springsteen t shirt and you are the boss, I wanna ask for a motion to adjourn.

Oh, I thought you were gonna say you were gonna ask for a for a motion to run, to board to run, Carl. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm sure on air. Anyway, any seconds to that motion to adjourn?

I second.

Paul, I second. Paul, let me get to it, Paul. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Alright. We are adjourned, and we'll see everyone next month. I really appreciate everybody's work, and it was a great meeting. And and and stay safe, and we'll see you next month.

Thanks, everybody.

Good night, everybody.