Disability Commission Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

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 it is being broadcast on Xfinity channel 26, RCN channel 13, BIOS channel nine six two, as well as live streamed on YouTube where a recording will stay. With that, I will hand it over to our board chair, Wesley Ireland.

Thank you, Andrea, and good evening, everyone. We'll proceed with the agenda for this evening's meeting. We'll call to order, and we'll start off with introductions. I'll start with myself. And when you introduce yourself, please say your name, your role, and which area, and a visual description of yourself.

Again, my name is Wes Ireland. I'm the chair, and this will be my last meeting as chair. I am a white male. I have a green shirt on, and I'm using two female sign language interpreters for this evening. I communicate in American sign language, and they will be communicating in English inter while they interpret.

Please, for members of the board, I will call them as I see them. Olivia?

And I live in the North End?

Yes.

Hi. I'm Olivia Richard. I live in Brighton, and I'm a member of the board. I am a white female with glasses, short brown hair, and I'm wearing a purple jacket tonight.

Thank you, Olivia. Carl, please proceed.

Yes. Hi. My name is Carl Richardson. I'm a middle aged Caucasian male in his mid to late fifties. I live in Brighton. I identify as a deaf blind member of the disability community, and I don't know what color shirt I'm wearing. So, you you guys hold your test to figure that one out. But, and I have salt and pepper hair.

Thank you, Carl. I think you are wearing a navy vest.

Thank you.

Charlie, please go ahead.

Good evening, every everyone. My name is Charlie Kim. I am a resident of the North End. I am on the advisory board as a as a member who advocates for children with disabilities. I am a senior of of I'm I'm United

of Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Charlie.

Paul, please proceed. My name is Paul Karen. I live in the West End. I serve as the vice chairman of the advisory board and serve as an advocate for mental health due to family members with mental health. And I'm wearing a blue shirt, black glasses, spring glasses. They have gray and short hair, a white Caucasian male, and I work at the as a supervisor at the planning department for the city of Boston also. Thank you.

Richard, please proceed. Thanks,

Wes. Richard Glovsky. I live in Back Bay, member of the board. White male wearing a sport jacket, blue shirt, no glasses. Can't say I'm a dude. Good to see everybody.

Thank you. And, Pollet?

Good evening, everyone. My name is Pollet. I'm in the Afghan area of Boston. I'm a older black woman with glasses and a black vest on.

Thank you, Paulette. Tara.

Hi, everyone. I am a white woman with glasses wearing a pink shirt. I am a wheelchair user. I'm from the JP Roxbury area, and I am a board member.

Jerry, please go ahead. Thank you, Tara.

This is Andrea Zari. Put her introduction in the chat apologizing for being sick. This is Zari from South Boston. I am a wheelchair user.

Thank you, Zari. Jerry, would you mind going next?

Yes. Just had to unmute there. And, thank you, Wes. And I'm sorry for being a few minutes late to the meeting, just finishing up work. But my name is Jerry Boyd. I am a Caucasian male, with, salt and pepper hair and glasses, and I am a proud board member. And I am from the West Rock Street neighborhood of Boston.

Thank you, Jerry. Let me make sure that I've identified everybody who's here with us.

This is Elizabeth

I'm missing someone. Oh, Elizabeth. Yes. Go ahead, please.

Hello. This is Elizabeth Dean Clauer. I'm a board member, and I live in Dorchester. I'm a Caucasian woman with gray hair, glasses, and I'm wearing a red and white hoodie.

Thank you. Thank you, Elizabeth. I think those are all the members that are online tonight. If I have missed someone, please introduce yourselves. If not, I will would like to introduce commissioner Mikash.

Hi, everybody. I'm Krista Makosh. I'm the disability commissioner and EDA title two coordinator for the city. I am a woman with blonde hair and glasses, and I'm sitting in front of a background of Boston City Hall.

Thank you, commissioner. The agenda for this evening, the next item, approval of the minutes. Are there any comments or questions in regards to the meeting minutes from the previous board meeting for January? Could someone please move to make a motion?

Paul, I make a motion for this up a minute to move up in January.

Thank you, Paul. Who would like to second that motion?

This is Jerry. I'll I'll second the motion.

All in favor, raise your hand or push the raised hand feature on Zoom.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

I believe the motion is passed. We'll accept the January meeting minutes as read and written. We'd like to transition into our presentation for this evening from the planning department with article 80 for public outreach. Please go ahead and proceed. Thank you.

Great. Thank you all so much for inviting me to join this evening. My name is Christiana LaHusa. I am the deputy director of community engagement here at the planning department. I am a Caucasian woman with dark brown hair, and today, I am wearing a white and green striped sweater. And I'm joined by my colleague, Manavi. Manavi, do wanna introduce yourself?

Thank you. Hi, everyone. My name is Monavy. I am joining in not fully in the city, but right outside the city from Somerville. But I recently started at the planning department. I'm a South Asian nonbinary person, and thank you for having us here.

I'm happy to share my slide. Actually, if you would share the slides, Andrea, that would be excellent. Thank you. Well, thank you all so much for having us to talk with you tonight. So we are here to talk about an update to our development review process.

So if you go to the next slide, specifically, we're talking about what is referred to as article 80, and what that means is article 80 is a section of our zoning code that sets the rules for how we, as city staff, with community members, review new development projects. Our development review process is a really important way that the city and residents help shape the future buildings that come to our city and what the city what our city really looks like and feels like. If you go to our next slide. So article 80 was put into place back in 1996, and I think we can all agree that a couple of things have changed since that date. And so we have heard very clearly from community members, from developers, and city staff that our current process for reviewing developer develop new development projects doesn't work.

And so the mayor has charged us with the planning K. Sorry. Someone jumped in there a little bit with a a mute, but let me continue. So the mayor has charged us with updating the way in which communities and developers and the city work together to shape buildings that come to our city. And that is when we say articulating modernization, that is what we're talking about.

On to the next slide. So we've been working over the past eighteen months to hear from community members, developers, and city staff about what has been working well and what isn't about our current process. We've, the first couple of months, we've been really focused on identifying the issues and doing a lot of research, looking at other cities across The U The US and Canada. And we've also been looking and we did lots of conversations with lots of different people. We then shared some ideas with what we think we could do to make the process work a little bit better.

We received a lot of great feedback from people. And then back in September, we released what we're calling our action plan that lays out our sort of most recent draft recommendations for how we think we can improve our process. And over the fall as well, we heard from lots of members of our disability community. The disability commission was kind enough to let us join on the disabilities news and views episode, and we also attended one of the civic engagement days, all of which were really great opportunities to learn from y'all. So really appreciate the engagement.

And so now we're moving into the next phase of the work, which is how do we take the ideas and the changes that we've heard from people and put them into reality. So if you move on to the next slide, we'll talk a little bit about what those proposed changes are. So there are three big changes that we heard as the most important to get right and make changes on. The first one is about our engagement process. So as we're shaping new buildings across the city, we have found that we've not heard from enough people who live and spend time in the city.

So what we're trying to do is diversify input and development, and that what that means is we want to have new and expanded ways to hear from more people, making it easier for people to weigh in and share their feedback with us and developers. The second idea is around having clear ex clear and predictable expectations when it comes to what we ask for developers to do in terms of what we're calling mitigation and community benefits. Essentially, what those mean are the improvements to our surrounding area. So this might be improvements to our streets or sidewalks, maybe adding curb ramps or new street trees. Currently, this is a process that is entirely negotiated, and we think we could do a better job of being more predictable around what we can ask for from developers.

And the third one, this coordinated review is how do we, as city staff, work more effectively with developers and with community members. So it's essentially updating our internal processes to make sure that we are really clear in the feedback that we're giving, really clear in how community input is used, and making sure that we're more timely in the steps as we move forward. So those are kind of very very brief what we've been talking about and what the proposed changes are.

If you

head on to the next slide. So I wanna briefly talk a little bit more in-depth about what the specific changes around how we want how we're proposing to change the way in which we do engagement for these projects. So we have three specific ideas. The first one, which I mentioned before, is that we'd like to introduce new engagement methods to make it easier for people to learn about and easier for people to take part in and share feedback with us. That includes digital, in person, and printed out option options.

The second one is being more clear about the rules and expectations of developers in terms of the early engagement that they do at the beginning of the process to help shape the basics of the idea of the new building. So what does it look like? What size? What type of building is it? Is it for housing? Is it for commercial uses? That type of thing. And then the third one is that we're looking to update our advisory group structure. So currently, those are called impact advisory groups or IAGs. And what we're proposing is we replace them with a community advisory team.

This is a structure that will be more intentional with how we bring people into the process so that we can better represent the diversity and many different ideas and experiences across Boston. On to the next slide. So here are some of the specific new engagement methods that we're hoping and or thinking about trying out and trying to allow, again, make it easier for people to learn about these projects and easier for people to share their feedback with us. So for print, we we're thinking about things like having flyers or infographics nearby a project, having signage right out in front of a development project so that if you're walking or rolling by, you can see that something is proposed for this location. We also wanna make sure we have lots of online or digital options.

So things like an online survey, having quick polls or quick surveys that pop up during Zoom meetings. That way, it's really straightforward and, hopefully, not too cumbersome for people to give us their feedback. And then potentially opening up a project call in hotline where people can call in and listen to a prerecorded voice message where they can learn about a project and then be able to share information or their feedback with us. And then a couple of in person options as well included a guided tour or site walk, information in local community centers or other locations within the community, having a visioning workshop where there's in-depth conversations around these potential proposals, and then tabling or having pop ups at community events or at local other areas. Again, going to people where people already are.

So those are some of the engagement opt options that we've heard people ask for and that we're proposing to try out. On to the next slide. So in addition to making sure that you all are aware of these potential chain or these upcoming changes to our article 80 process, I also wanted to come and ask for your advice and support. So we are going to be setting up some focus groups in April. And during these focus groups, the idea is that we will share some of the new engagement materials.

We really wanna make sure that we're bringing more people into our process, and so we wanna test out those materials with people before we put them into practice so we can know that we're really getting it right. We'll probably continue to tweak things, you know, as we move forward. I deal you know, there's no in no way will we get it right the first time, but we're hoping that having these focus groups before we launch things will help us really understand and make sure that they work as well as they can. So we're excited to hopefully hopefully some of the people in this room, but hopefully, you can also get out the words to other people that you know to help us to review some of our draft materials and give us your feedback. So my I have three questions for you all.

And after I'm done, you're welcome to write in the chat, or we can raise your hands and share over their voice. But my three questions are, one, what is the best focus group you've attended, and what made it work well? And on the flip side, what was the worst focus group you've attended, and what made it not work well? Those two questions are really trying to help us understand how can we be most thoughtful and inclusive in the ways in which we put these focus groups together. We really wanna hear from lots of different people's perspectives and experiences.

And, you know, we know that there's more for us to learn in terms of how to make a truly accessible and inclusive space. So we'd love to hear from your expertise and experience on those to help guide our work as we shape up that material. And then my third or, yeah, third question is based on the last slide of the whole list of different engagement methods from the digital and online and in person and print versions, which of those methods do you think are most important for us to spend time on during our to talk through during these focus groups? Which of those ideas do you think you have the most feedback to give to us? We've just to hear a little bit of what we're thinking, we were originally thinking of sharing some of our new survey questions to make sure that the wording we're using is really clear and understandable and going through our site walk.

That way, we can make sure that as we're walking people around either virtually or in person, that the way in which we hold site walks really works well for folks with disabilities. But we're open to talk through any of the potential options that we shared in that last slide. So I will yeah. Thank you so much, Andrea.

Yeah. I'll leave this slide up since there's more things to remember, and we'll drop your questions in the

chat for people to check. Perfect. I appreciate it.

And I see Wes is back on camera. Wes, if you wanna call on folks with questions.

Sure. Oh, yeah. That would be great. If you

could stop sharing the screen, so that would be very helpful. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Are there any questions from the board? I see Richard. Richard has his hand up. Go ahead, Richard.

Yeah. Thanks, Wes. Christiana, nice to meet you. Thanks for your presentation. I'm not exactly responsive to what you were asking about a minute ago, but and others on the call may disagree with me, but I am begrinned to say the least by what's been happening in Washington. And I'm just wondering if you have any sense yet whether it's gonna affect your efforts. I noticed in one of your slides you had diversity mentioned, for example. And I'm fearful that those with disabilities are gonna be disregarded by this administration. I'm not sure I've seen that yet, but I worry that it's going to happen. So my question is have you any sense whether that may impact your efforts at all?

If so, wondering how your your thoughts are about dealing with that.

Yeah. Thank you so much for your question. Yeah, a very a very good point. I would say what's happening in Washington is, of course, really challenging and but it is separate from the work we're doing here in Boston. You know, one way it might impact is maybe we change some of the wording we use, but I will say that the intention of bringing in more voices, people with many different ex life experiences and perspectives is really important to make sure that the work of planning and development review is done and is done well.

So I would say that the overall goal of diversifying our efforts and bringing more people in is not going to change. And we're definitely committed to moving forward with that work. The wording might just slightly shift.

Well, I'm glad that we hear the commitment's still there. I think I I doubt there's anyone on the call who disagree with that and and and would obviously support it. But it feels fairly wide ranging what's going on down there, and just I don't know if it's any of us are going to be untouched by it.

Yeah. I think it's a good point. Yeah. Lots of unknowns ahead of us, but I appreciate you all being here and, you know, pushing forward this good work.

Hey. This is Wes. I am going to recognize two people who have their hands up. I see Charles first, and then Paulette. Then Paulette. So Charles and Paulette. Charles?

Oh, thank you, Prashant. Thank you for the the presentation. I see first, I I do have a I'll start with question, then I actually have answers for your three questions. First question is, you had mentioned, and it's also in the slides, the peer cities. Could you share what what you consider which cities you actually consider to be peers to Boston and and in those collaborations or the you know, as you're doing the comparisons?

Definitely. I'll also share links to those two reports in in the chat, so you're welcome to read those over a little more in-depth. Manavi, do you actually want to answer the question on how those peer cities were chosen?

Sure. So, we have, so there were a range of cities that we considered initially. We chose cities that actually are on a slightly bigger trajectory than Boston and those that are comparable. Right? So we had, cities like Baltimore, which are similar in population size to Boston, where they're nestled.

And but and then we had Vancouver, which is an example from from Canada that we really wanted to understand what are the municipal practices happening there in terms of development. They're trying out a lot of experimental things as well. And then cities that are slightly slightly bigger in size. Right? So we, for those, we had Philadelphia as one that we were looking into.

It's going going through a lot of development and changes in how neighborhoods are structured, and it has a bigger population size to Boston. And along with that, we had Toronto, which was which is also a much bigger city, more diverse, And and, again, it was to kind of compare different trajectories of cities and possibly the kind of trajectory also Boston could could be picking up on because it has a you know, we are we we're in for a population increase of about 13% or so in the next decade, things of that sort. So we wanted to be prepared for what might be coming our way as well.

Great. Thank you. And then to answer your question, so I'll keep to the focus groups that I've attended that have been specifically conducted by by this administration because I've I've had other community focus groups, but I think this is probably more relevant on that. So the the most that I've attended are during the Boston Public Schools capital planning focus groups. So there were many opportunities, and there was wide I I had seen very good participation, and they did specifically go into neighborhoods and community centers and all that.

I think part of I wouldn't say you're asking what the worst focus group is. I I think it's the best there's challenges and their successes. So I think the way that they were administered or presented and then the engagement and the amount of time and the feedback that was requested was great. And the presenters and and all of that, I think the part that is is challenging coming and specifically I'm speaking on two perspectives. One, as a participant, as a parent within Boston Public Schools, then also as an advocate for the special education community specifically, there's a gap for at least a perceived gap in between the focus group questions and the feedback that was given to where the the plan and execution and discussion of what is happening next, that that there seems to be a gap there because the the biggest question that I hear that is coming up in the feedback that comes back to me is, what is that, you know, the the plan or whichever, what does that mean to me, right, as a parent or as a community member, you know, in the next year, five years, ten years?

Right? So I think that's something that that could be working. I know that in this in in the whole planning phase of of things, the communication of how that comes out is is always challenging. But I think that's the part. The data collection, I have not heard I've heard positive feedback on the data collection, the engagement, and the the numerous opportunities, right, to actually engage with the community. The the feedback that I hear, again, is is more on, hey. How did you get to these conclusions? Right? And and from all of the, you know, all of the data collection that that that you have done and all the research. So hopefully, that's helpful.

Definitely helpful. Really appreciate that feedback. I think we've heard a lot similar to what you've brought up about how important feedback loops are. We're sharing back how the feedback we've heard and how it has impacted the project or or the initiative that we're working on. So that being more clear with our communication is definitely something we're really trying to do and focus on as part of this work. So appreciate you elevating that.

Missus Wess, I wanna recognize Paula. Thank you. And then I see commissioner McCoff's hand is raised, and I have a question as well. But first, we'll go with Paula.

I have a little bit of feedback from recent focus groups, and one was about effective community engagement early on in the process. Folks were concerned that a decision had already been made even though it was being presented as an idea and that their opinion didn't count. And so the earlier that the community can be engaged in a project, the better off I think it will be. The other statement that I hear a lot of people saying is that they don't know what how this is gonna impact the community, and they mean the planners. And I think that the more transparent the process is, the better it will be in the outcome and how the people will accept the project.

So those are two pieces of feedback that I wanted to share with you.

Thank you so much for sharing that. Really, really helpful. And I think those two pieces of feedback definitely are connected with, you know, what we've been hearing and what we're hopefully moving towards of being more transparent with our process. I think going back to Charlie's point, how do we have better communication throughout the earlier engagement? Definitely a really important part of that.

And I think the to your second point about how it's really important for planners to really understand the community impacts, you know, that's really the goal behind having more engagement opportunities that when we hear from more people, we have a better real understanding about what the impacts are and how we can make sure that those are are managed or mitigated or avoided where wherever possible. So,

hopefully,

you know, this is always a work in progress, but I really appreciate that feedback. And, hopefully, we keep working towards getting making it a little bit better.

Machina Makash?

Thank you, Wes. Thank you, Christiana. Appreciate the presentation. I do wanna let our board members know that, as you can imagine, development in Boston is extremely complicated. There's so many pieces to it from before anything even gets a shovel in the ground to getting an occupancy permit to actually occupy the space once it's built.

So there are many steps along the way in this process, and this piece is really helpful to get your input early on when developers are thinking about different things. You can weigh in on the projects. I really, really encourage board members to think about starting to do that because development affects everybody, but it particularly can impact people with disabilities in terms of, like, open space and access on sidewalks and a whole number of factors. So two points I wanna make specifically. The first is that our staff is involved very closely with the planning department.

Our architectural access team works at the beginning from scoping sessions when people first think of an idea they want to build, and they lay out all their ideas. Our staff goes and says, okay. Those are great ideas, but you also have to consider this and this and this. So our staff is involved at every step along the way, often meeting individually with developers to talk about specific access concerns. So the second point I wanna make is to make things simpler for our staff and the public.

About ten years ago, we created an accessibility checklist, which is part of the article 80 process. And this is basically a summary of all the accessibility points in a development. So it's very easy for you review these developments quickly by just looking at the checklist accessibility checklist. It's usually about 10 pages, but it's kinda check boxes and, you know, notes rather than, like, 10 pages of of paragraphs. So it pulls out, like, all the vertical connections, like, where are the elevators, where are the ramps.

It talks about accessible bedrooms, how many there will be if it's a housing unit. It talks about ground level entrances, where they're gonna be used for, what the access is like. So it's pretty detailed, and it's really easy to give your opinion if you just read this summary. Because the the documents that come out on some of the planning projects are, like, 300 pages. So you don't have to read 300 pages, but to understand the points that may be relevant to you, you can read these summaries.

And I and my staff will be very happy to send you those checklists if there are certain developments you're interested in. But I would say you have a unique opportunity to weigh in using this checklist because that will really get you up to speed on things that are concerning to you. Other than that, I would encourage, like, the community meetings and and giving feedback online, things like that. But it is so important to get your feedback on development in Boston that we really hope moving forward that you'll participate. And that's it. Thank you.

Missus West, I'm thinking about the third bullet. Which engagement methods were the most crucial and to spend what were the worth spending the time on? I understand this was in person, remote, and in print. For the digital access? Were there any efforts made on social media for engagement?

Was there something shown on social media giving individuals the ability to respond on multiple social media platforms?

Great. Thank you so much for that question. Yes. Definitely. We did not list it on one of the digital engagement methods, but it is definitely one of the ways that we have been as part of this project, and definitely we'll plan to continue to share out information about projects to get feedback.

I think we we've heard from lots of different people that it's you know, they're on social media. It pops up on their phone or computer however they're looking, and so it's a easier way to reach people. In many cases, it can be made more engaging than just a normal written thing that might be on our live on our website. So it's definitely one of the things we're thinking about including. Actually, a a follow-up question for for you or for anyone in

the group strongly suggest this is Wes. Please. Your the demographics here Boston just strongly include that because of the demographics.

Definitely. I think it's a great point.

Any other question? Any other comments from the board? Thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing, and we appreciate those.

And, Wes, while we transition, this is Andrea. We will be following up with you about those focus groups, that Christiana mentioned happening in April where if you're interested, you'll be able to really dig into some of those details like, hey, if we make a a site visit, you know, part of every single article 80 project, how do we make sure that that site visit is accessible, things like that. So stay tuned, everybody. Well, we're not done with this conversation because we wanna make sure that the new version of article 80 community engagement is as accessible as possible.

Thank you all so much for letting us join you this evening. Really appreciate the feedback and the conversation.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you for your time, and have a good evening.

Alright. So we're gonna go next to the next item on the agenda, and that would be the chair's report. I'm just gonna need a minute. Give me one moment while I pull my notes up. Okay.

First of all, I do wanna say I've got a few I've got four items five items. I wanna say first, congratulations to city hall for being named as the newest historic landmark here in Boston. This may be good news for some people. Other people may think that City Hall is one of the ugliest buildings in the world. But with the stamp, that means that the building will be preserved for future generations.

City councilor Sharon Durkin currently chairs the planning, development, and transportation is is thrilled about this news and extended her gratitude to commissioner Makosh and another commissioner, commissioner Eamon Shelton and their teams, whose stewardship and advocacy have ensured this designation reflects both the history and the commitment to accessibility and inclusion. So this landmark designation will also include future commitments to enhancing accessibility measures within the building and ensuring that it remains inclusive and welcoming for all members of the public. K. So my next item is about tax season. So as you know, it's already tax season.

And in

case you haven't heard the big news for pet parents, starting this year, the IRS is going to allow deductions for pet expenses. While your furry friend can't be claimed as a dependent, you can write off certain certain costs under specific circumstances, such as for service animals, business use, income generating activities, and for fostering animals. For many of those people with disabilities that rely on service dogs, if your dog is a certified service animal that assists you to do you know, due to a diet diagnosed medical condition, expenses like veterinary care, food, and training can be deductible as medical expenses. So just be sure to consult with a tax professional because it's advised to determine whether you're eligible for any of these pet related tax deductions. Alright.

The next item is I wanna talk a bit about what's happening with the federal administrative changes. As you know, we all know that things are really moving very fast within the federal level, and I'm gonna try to summarize several things in what's actually rapidly shifting this landscape right now as we're entering this fourth week of a new president. Regarding the federal administration changes, the current president has already issued over 200 executive orders, and all of them are straight out of project 2025. And some of them are now actually held up in court. The federal administration has undergone significant changes affecting disability related issues, education, and with diversity, equity, inclusion programs.

Some of these things are Some accessibility features have been removed. In the first weeks of the new administration, the White House website actually removed the accessibility page. Their ASL, American Sign Language content, and features for visually impaired. Also, there were executive orders that have been impacting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Executive orders have terminated federal DEI programs, eliminating national disability, employment awareness month, and expanded anti DEIA tasks to private sector businesses.

Also, the Department of Education and Justice's Office for Civil Rights, the OCR, has actually frozen. The Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Education and the Department of Justice are frozen. That impacts its role in protecting against discrimination and enforcing the Americans with Disabilities Act and section five zero four, the Rehab Act. Also, the US Access Board meeting was postponed. So the the United States Access Board's annual meeting has been postponed with some speculation about its cancellation, which could affect federal access standards and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Also, American sign language interpreters and resources have been removed. American sign language interpreters and accommodation divisions were fired, and resources regarding disabled children's rights were deleted from the Department of Education's website. There's also been a funding freeze and program reviews. So the federal payment system freeze has actually affected impacted health, medical, and research programs with ongoing reviews for potential defunding for various special education programs. And an appeals judge yesterday actually ordered an unfreeze and that these funds must resume.

So lastly, there's a call to action, really is a call to action. So citizens are encouraged to call or write their congresspeople and their state legislators to advocate to advocate for disability protections and advocate for the Department of Education and Medicaid. K. So there's a lot that's going on. I'm gonna stop here and before I shift gears to the last section of this chair's report.

But before I do that, I wanna find out if anybody has any questions or comments or thoughts. I see Richard. Richard, go ahead.

Last, thank you for that. I'm wondering if it sounds like, you know, you've compiled a pretty good list of what's been happening that's affecting those with disabilities. I I don't know whether it's totally comprehensive or not, but I, for one, would ask me to circulate it to the board. And I would ask the commissioner if she's tracking this too, and may have something more comprehensive. I don't know.

But I certainly think it's something we should be on top of. It sounds like you are because which is happening there. But

no.

Richard, I'm not sure if your voice cut out. For some reason

Oh, okay. Well, I was saying that I thought, you know, you you made an important presentation. I don't know if it's comprehensive or not. I don't know if the commissioner has more detail to add, but I think it would behoove us to have a comprehensive index of what's happening. And I think it's important for us in our role to know that.

What what we do about it or what we say about it, I don't know. Maybe we talk about it tonight, maybe we don't. But I think we at least should track as well as we can. I understand it's like drinking from a fire hose. What's happening there that's affecting people with disabilities?

Yeah. Yes. It's really difficult to read. You know? It's difficult to read and to find reliable resources. I'm feeling that this is something that's not this is something that has to really not be overlooked in our community because something it's something that we're going to need to really stay on top of, as you said. And I'm sure that commissioner Makosh has additional things to add to this list. So, Charlie, I think you had something to say, and then I think I wanna ask the commissioner to add if if the commissioner has anything to add as well. Go ahead, Charlie.

Sure. Louis, thank you for your report, and and I appreciate that you had submitted kind of your thoughts earlier so that we can read them in, you know, with the minutes. I I think and and I've been putting some thought into this, and I think it is incumbent on us as advisory board members and as leaders that we do be objective as possible on these things. And when I say objective, meaning we have a collection of very distinguished experts on this advisory board, and the commissioner and and and the commission has access to experts that I think for instance, we have mister Blavsky, who is an esteemed attorney, who could potentially or reach in and explain some of these executive orders. Right?

And I wanna speak directly specifically to this that you're mentioning in IDEA. In order for us to even speak or to advocate, I think we need to fully understand all of the sides, right, and fully educate not only us, but then also the groups that that that we're representing in order before we give any opinions or even some of the things where we have to be careful on how we say things because we don't it's not really about the outcomes. We're only, like you said, are getting snippets from the news. But I I do wanna take something very specific, being very careful as it so I understand what you're saying that everything is being pulled directly from this the the document for project twenty twenty five. Correct?

And specifically, I wanna speak specifically to education, Department of Education, IDEA. I think as we if if people do make comments, they should either reach out to legal resources, other resources like the parent advisory council, special education parent advisory council, people at within BPS, there's general counsel there to ask what these things mean. Because if we just say it's coming from a project twenty twenty five, even without reading it, it's only 40 pages, and it's filled with footnotes. The whole plan is there so you can pull from that. Right?

And you can you're able to ask very specific questions that tie back so you can advocate. And I I wanna make it clear the difference that I believe in advocacy versus we're getting the word. I apologize. But in order to represent and speak to the parents, you know, specifically on on some special education, I wanna make sure that they're understanding and getting all of the information so that when they do go advocate or if they, and I know that people are saying go speak to your elected officials before they go do that to make sure that they have giving their personal opinions and how they feel, but then also have the the the proper background, right, foundation to substantiate these things. So I think my point is as we decide how it's or even go through it, I think and as I read your stuff, we should be asking the experts.

Right? What is this? And I know people are working on a legal impact. What is it's very complicated between the difference between ADA and IDEA. Right? And I think those are the things that people need understand first and foremost before going into the the items specifically of, hey, something could be affected. And I wanna give a very specific example. IDEA, the enforcement of IDEA is specifically stated from my understanding, not an attorney. Parents are the first line on the enforcement. That is very different from the ADA, which is civil rights.

Right? That's Department of Justice. That these types of things are where people get hung up and don't understand why aren't agencies doing something. It's because there's different procedures, legal remedies, and all those things. And I think we have to start with that basis for the people that we are advocating for and representing so they understand where to begin before saying and formulating opinions on what is going on. I just wanna state that as I try to be as neutral as possible on all this because it is very, I understand, very charged.

Yes. Thank you so much, Charlie, for that. I do I'm trying to be as neutral as possible and respect the fact that, you know, presenting these are the facts of what's actually happening at the national level. And, you know, I double checked my sources to make sure that all that information is actually accurate, which is important. Okay. Commissioner Makosh?

Yes. Thanks, Wes, and thank you, Charlie. Thank you both for your thoughtful remarks. I think, in general, we were everybody was gonna take a wait and see attitude. Unfortunately, we didn't have to wait too long. Like someone said, there were hundreds of executive actions taken in the first two, three weeks impacting people with disabilities among many other groups. So, fortunately, our office does not federal funding. Many city departments do. We do not. So we are really trying to focus on doing our work.

Our work will not stop. Nothing we're gonna do is changing. I I don't know what the impacts will be for the city overall, but it won't impact our budget. It won't impact our work. I would say that there are a lot of disability organizations doing a lot of advocacy and activism. Charlie, I'm not sure which word you were looking for, but the activism

No. Thank you. Yes. The difference between advocacy and advocacy.

Thank you, commissioner. I forgot the word. A lot of activists, a lot of advocates. There was a webinar this afternoon by a national group looking at zero four, another civil rights law. So I would say, you know, anyone's interested, you know, please, like, reach out to us for different groups or, you know, within your communities, specific things you're interested in.

Like, mentioned the SPEDPAC advisory council, things like that. But we're really just focusing on our work and trying to understand what changes are gonna happen out there. Right now, we're fine. I said as a department, we don't know about the rest of DEI. We know disability isn't always included in DEI. Not always named. Sometimes you'll see DEIA with an act for accessibility. But so far, we've only seen accessibility explicitly mentioned in a few of the executive orders. It hasn't been widespread. So we're still a little bit under the radar.

Not fully, but I'm sure there are many, many impacts to come. So our attitude right now is we're gonna focus on getting our work done, supporting the residents as best we can, continuing moving forward, and we'll address things as they come up.

Okay. Thank you, commissioner. Are there any other thoughts or comments or questions? Okay then. So I guess the last the last remarks then I would have as board chair, I'd like to share.

I'd like to thank everybody for the opportunity and the confidence to have me lead our wonderful meetings for the past three years while also juggling with my personal and professional life, including a toddler and a newborn who are now four and a half and almost 18 old. I do have two big achievements that I am proud of. First of all, for setting up our executive committee check-in every month, which is usually at least two weeks before these meetings, to go over topics of interest from our board and from the community and to provide recommendations with different guest speakers who could come and give us presentations. And I would like to thank Andrea Patton for doing an amazing job with all of these planning logistics. Really, I'm glad.

It's just been amazing. I also would like to add that I'm happy that we've narrowed to one instead of two presentations for these meetings to allow for more interactions from our board and from the community during these meetings. The second achievement, which is probably no surprise to you, is the captioning ordinance in the city of Boston that was passed by the city council and signed by mayor Wu in December 2022. You know, there are some there are some hurdles ahead with public awareness regarding the ordinance. This disability commission still has a lot of work to do to get many places and public facing televisions in compliance with leaving the captions on all the time.

I plan to advocate for this at the state level, and I found some key stakeholders to help. And so, hopefully, this can you know, we can get our state legislators to pass the statewide captioning bill. Because as we all are ambassadors to the to the local disability community, I realize how important it is for us to advocate at the legislative level for the needs and to impact societal changes. And lastly, I've always brought up topics of innovation and forward thinking, issues that impact our disability community. Like in last month's report on one this is one particular company that markets AR, automatic recognition smart glasses, to include captioning features.

So, apparently, there's a growing number of these companies working on this feature. And I'm hoping that this this innovation and forward thinking, these topics do stay active in future meeting discussions, especially in the future chair's monthly reports. And I would like to end a note on this topic. So we're about to enter what is a tech industrial complex era. And we're seeing this expansion of artificial generation, general intelligence.

Right? So there'll

be many types of AI, and AI types of initiatives, but AIs must be safe and trustworthy. So for inclusivity and access needs in planning and development and commercialization of these products, the companies should have full time employees with disabilities as well as owners with disabilities. For example, there's a growing number of companies involved in sign language recognition and or called avatars. And it is encouraged that these companies have owners who are deaf, that they hire fluent deaf signers who are deeply involved in signing communities to ensure linguistic and cultural accuracy. So that is all of my chair's report, and I thank you.

Commissioner Akash, I believe you are next on the agenda. I'd like to turn the floor over to you.

Thanks, Wes. And thank you for those remarks, Wes. That really hits home with all of us. You're absolutely right when we talk about businesses

needing

to incorporate people with disabilities into planning. You know, to have that authentic lens and the lived experience is irreplaceable. A bunch of people can sit around in a room, but if they don't have certain disabilities, they never understand them the way we do. So I really appreciate those remarks. And it seems like there's a lot of scary things I know in the future.

So one thing that we do wanna focus on, though, is getting out accurate information. The mayor is extremely committed to truth and is encouraging people to look at the city website for updates on things that the city's working on. Social media can blast things out quickly, but we never know if they're actually real or not. So I would encourage people to just maybe take a take take a deep breath, process information, and we know everything that's out there isn't true. So we will absolutely be in communication with you for things that we hear, things of concern that you may be able to weigh in on that will impact you.

We will commit to remaining in touch with you about those sorts of things. So with that, I'll ask Andrew to pull up my slides. Thank you, Wes. You did a great job as chair for these last three years. If I don't see you before you leave.

Oh, that was from Charlie. Sorry. Thank you, Charlie. Okay. So my report. It's not too long tonight because I know we have other things to stay at two. But I did wanna let people know that we have a tentative date for our state of the city scheduled for March 11 at the MGM Music Hall in Kenmore Square. You'll all be getting invitations, and we will keep you updated if that date changes. But that that's pretty much the date we're looking at right now. We also secured a date for our disability community forum, our annual event to hear feedback and input from residents with disabilities and answer their questions.

It's gonna be Thursday, May 8 from two to 03:30. It will be a hybrid event again at Suffolk University Law School and on Zoom. Board members are invited as usual to cohost this event with us. I will be writing up an annual report, and I will get that out to all the board members before the event so you can add in any of your own bullets that you'd like to. But we would love it if you attend with us and maybe have you speak a little bit more this year about what your interests are and and how people can get involved with COVID.

Another big event that we scheduled a day for is ADA thirty five. And we're not doing our typical event this year on City Hall Plaza. Since it is a big anniversary, we're gonna join BCIL and other disability organizations to commemorate the year anniversary together. We did this on the twentieth, the twenty fifth, and the thirtieth anniversaries. So this year, we will gather on July 23 approximately eleven to two, but we'll confirm times with you afterwards closer to the date.

But what we're gonna what the plan is right now is to do a flag raising on City Hall Plaza and then invite people to join BCIL for a march to Boston Common in a rally at the Embrace Memorial. It's gonna be it will have a different feel than our information fair. We will really try to connect Moses with resources. We don't wanna totally give up that opportunity because we hope a lot of people will attend, but we're not gonna have staff from other agencies attend on the plaza to give out information. We'll have information that we can just hand out, like, on a few tables.

But, really, I think the the goal this year is to rally and March and talk about defending laws like IDEA and ADA and five zero four to be sure that everybody knows that people with disabilities aren't gonna stand for being swept under the rug or aren't gonna stand for losing their rights. So I will get more information on that as we get closer to the day. Next slide. Okay. So I wanna mention some opportunities for our advisory board members.

Last month, I did speak about the Commissions on Disability Alliance or CODA. These are monthly meetings led by the disability policy consortium, and they come from municipalities all across the state. There are many different towns local to Boston where you have peer advisory board members, and you work on a lot of the same issues. So we would love it if you would attend with some of our staff. Usually, Colleen attends, and sometimes Patricia attends. Colleen, if you're here, would you like to say a few words about CODA to talk about some of the topics they work on?

Yeah. Can everyone hear me? I think you can hear me. Okay. So like commissioner said, the CODA statewide coalition brings together your peers. These are disability advocates who have been appointed by their respective mayors. Participants from Cambridge and Somerville and come together. And they talk about issues that we see here in Boston too, things like how to embrace bike lanes and other kind of hot button issues. But us attending a staff isn't exactly the same match as you guys, and you're such great ambassadors to the city. I hope you can join me next Wednesday, March 5.

All the meetings are on Zoom. And it'd be great if somebody could email me to let me know that they can attend. And then maybe going forward, advisory board members can rotate and things.

That's a great idea. Thank you, Colleen. So we will email out the link to CODA after this meeting, but as Colleen said, we it will be great if anyone wants to attend. Colleen's also doing an outreach tour at different Boston Public Library branches in the neighborhoods. She's beginning it on February 27 from three to five at the Faneuil branch in Brighton.

And this is just an opportunity to try to reach residents in their neighborhoods, residents who don't come out to our events, residents who may be busy with families or working and, you know, maybe not even identifying as someone with a disability, but who may keep some some of the services that the city has to offer. So, Colleen, we'll be hitting a dozen or so libraries over the next few months. So we'll keep you updated on that, and we hope you can spread the word. She'll be making a flyer that will get out to you soon. And then one final initiative that you can get involved in is what's called participatory budgeting.

And the city has an office of participatory budgeting, which was launched in 2021 to give residents from historically underrepresented communities a greater say in how the city disperses funding. So we know for years that people who were disabled, people of color, women never had a seat at the table. So now we all do. And if you click on that link, you can vote and give your say on how the city is gonna spend $2,000,000 in funding. It's a really empowering experience.

It's also a great look at, like, the workings of the city, like, how we spend our money, how we decide priorities, and it actually gives you a real say in the dis disbursement of this money. So we hope you will log on and vote, and it's open until February 15. So just a few more minutes. Next

slide.

Okay. Then just I do wanna mention since it is tax season, the Boston Tax Health Coalition is up and at the end. We they provide a lot of services, some of you may know, but they provide free tax prep for residents earning less than $70,000 a year. The services are available remotely and in person over at over 30 neighborhood sites. Residents can file safely while maximizing their refunds and credits, including the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit.

Assistance is available in a number of languages, and you can find out more on boston.gov/taxdash. And then also, we are always able to provide disability accommodations, including our continued partnership with Deaf Inc, which has designated hearing impaired and low visual, blind and low vision resident accommodations every Sunday from February 3 through April 13 at the Charles Union Community Center in Bright. And many of you may remember Lynn Dan, who has spoken at this meeting before. Lynn, I may have seen you in the audience. Are you here? Do wanna just say a quick something about the Tax Help Coalition?

Lynn, give me one second, and I will send you a request to unmute.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Yes. This year is pretty exciting because we have in

the past worked specifically with

pilot programs to the blind, but now it's really whole the disability community. And as Kristen said, that there's the general tax program that's available to individuals at all locations with reasonable accommodation. But then it's the on Sundays, it's the specific one at the Charles River Community Center, that specific disability community. It's scheduling times, we I also would really like to make be at other organizations if you have any circumstances or places for me to give information to about this happening, I'd love to have your awareness. I go.

I be. Here I am at the office. And so thank you. It's it's happening again. Yeah. It would

be great if our board members could spread this information to their communities, your networks, your email, groups, family, friends, just to let them know about the service because it's a really great service. The city has a very strong financial empowerment department, and they work on all kinds of things. And this is just one way that people can maintain financial wellness and look to to move forward with their financial stability and well-being. So I think that's the end of my slides, but I'm happy to take questions if anybody has them.

Missus West? I see Zari has her hand raised. Go ahead, Zari. Zari.

Okay. Thank you, commissioner. Just have a quick question about the March on July 23. So I wanted to just see if the decision about the day is is a firm one because I've had a few folks who have reached out to me directly with the concern that usually these events take happen during the workday. And, of course, you know, with many of us

Yeah. Thank you, Zari, for the thoughtful comments.

My staff and

I did actually debrief after last year's event because it was so hot. So we talked about maybe doing a different month, a different time of day, you know, making some changes for our next event. Well, this is a group event this year. The date is kinda set in stone, so to speak. And I think it would be really difficult to do a march on a weekend in the streets of Boston.

So where this is gonna be like a march in a rally, it's it makes more sense for the city logistically to do it during the week. But I I definitely understand your comments, your concerns. The good news is there are a lot of events during the few weeks in July celebrating the EVA, and I don't know if we can put together some other type of event. We can look at that. I don't know how much capacity we have, but we'll definitely think about that in planning for 2026. So thank you for raising.

Missus West, any other questions or comments, thoughts for the commissioner? Thank you, commissioner Nicholas for your report. We're moving on to the architectural access report from Patricia Mendez.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Patricia Mendez. I'm the director of architectural access for the Disabilities Commission. I have a brief architectural access report today, and more of a report is a little homework for for you all. I'm going to preview a project.

The actual project presentation is going to happen next month at our monthly meeting. But the homework that I would like to give you is to share the information under I don't know if you're able to pull up my slide. It's just one slide two slides. I'm going to share that the the state of Boston, in partnership with MassDOT, Mass Department of Transportation, is planning a project in Austin, Brighton in the area of Beacon Yards. And okay.

Thank you, Andrea. So I'm showing you the slide of Alston, Brighton. And on the right, going from top to bottom, you can see the river, Charles River. And then the area of the project is around the mass pike on that curve. And the project is basically straightening that curve of the mass pike.

Okay. So in this slide, I'm showing you two links. The first one on top is the project website, and then the next link is a summary, the project fact sheet. So I encourage you to go and explore this project and come with questions for next month. So next month, we're going to have the presenter of the project to give you all of the details and to actually present the project. But I'm giving you the this preview today, and then I'm gonna share the slides with you all. So

as I said,

the city of Boston has been working with community members on MassDOT since 2020 on their revitalization of the Upper Olson neighborhood by developing the Beacon Yards area of Olson Brighton, which is currently bounded by Ash Fort Street, Cambridge Street, the B U BU Bridge, the Cambridge And Franklin Street pedestrian bridge over the Mass Pike, and the Charles River. This project aims to improve the livability, connectivity, and increase open space by streaming the Mass Pike, adding transit connections on the commuter rail and local bus services, and replacing other aging infrastructure. City representatives are looking forward for feedback from the disabilities community for the location and design of existing and new pedestrian paths and other neighborhood improvement. Please feel free to explore MassDOT project page and prepare to ask questions and provide feedback to the city team's presentation next month. And that is the end of my ask.

Thank you very much.

This is Wes now. Does anybody have a comment or question at all for Patricia? Okay. This is Wes again. I do have a question about this particular project. It talks about the the commuter rail. Is the is that that the purple line then, which which lines of the purple line the communal system are gonna be impacted?

I think this is the I think this is the Worcester line, but I would like to double check. And it would be definitely a question for the presenter next month because I don't wanna say something that is wrong.

Hi. It's Sarah. Can you confirm that is the Worcester Line between Boston Landing and Lansdowne Street. I believe there's a proposal to add a station in between those two stations on the Worcester Framingham line.

Thank you, sir.

Great. Thank you. I see that Andrea has put the link and the information of this project in the chat, and there's a fact sheet as well in the chat that you can look at. Are there any other questions that pertain to Patricia's report?

K. Thank you, Patricia. You're welcome. Thank you so much.

Okay. Moving along on our agenda. The next item is announcements. Are there any board members, or does anybody have any announcements that they'd like to share? I'm not seeing any.

It's quite quiet. So next on the item is old business. Do we have any old business that we need to take up this evening? Okay. Then the next item moving along, do we have any new business?

Does anybody need to propose any new business for discussion? Okay. So next item on our agenda is, the elections. So the elections for the executive committee. I'm going to go through and explain the process, and then there's just a few procedures we need to do.

First of all, I'm going to repeat the names of the nominations that were submitted last month, and then I'm going to ask for additional nominations from the floor. And I'm gonna ask that three times. And then someone, not me because I'm the chair, someone should be someone should make a motion to,

vote for

the person in the role, and then we'll take the vote. Okay? So right now, are there any questions or comments about how we're gonna proceed?

West, this is Carl.

May I say something? Something? Yes, Quam. So if

I remember correctly from all the other boards and commissions I serve on, you can run the election for the vice chair, the secretary, and the treasurer, but probably your vice chair or somebody else has to run it when it comes to your name.

Thank you, Carl. This is Andrea. I think Wes was just referring to someone else making a motion to start the vote.

No. But I agree. Okay. Alright. Whatever.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I know it's usually not me as chair to to call the vote, so I just wanna be clear on that if someone has to. Okay.

So someone else other than me has to make the motion to call the vote. So when the time comes. Okay. So what we have then is Jerry has been nominated is a nominee for chair. And I'm gonna ask three times now, are there any other additional nominees from the floor for this chair position, the position of chair?

So, again, are there any other nominations from the floor for the position of chair? And again, for the third time, can I ask if there are any other nominations? This is Carl. I move that we

close the nomination by unanimous consent. Okay.

All in favor, say aye or raise your hand,

please. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay. Okay. Great. Congratulations, Jerry, on your new appointment.

Thank you very much, Wes, and to everyone for their confidence in me.

Alright. Next, we have one moment, please. I'll be right back. Okay. Sorry.

Like I told you, I've got a four and a half year old I was getting distracted by. Okay. Olivia is our is a nominee for vice chair. And I'll ask, are there any other nominations from the floor for vice chair? Okay.

For the second time, let me ask you, are there any other additional nominations from the floor for the position of vice chair? And for the third time, are there any other nominations from the floor for the position of vice chair?

Missus Carl, I move that we close the nomination process and and vote by unanimous consent for Olivia for the position of vice chair. Okay.

Thank you, Carl. Are there any opposed? K. Seeing none. Congratulations. Olivia.

Thank you.

Mhmm.

Okay. Next, we have a nominee for treasurer. That is Paul. Paul has been nominated for position of treasurer. Are there any other nominees from the floor for the role of treasurer?

K. Second time now. Let me ask you. Are there any other nominees or nominations from the floor for the position of treasurer? And for the third time, are there any other nominees for the position of treasurer that have that are coming from the floor?

This is Carl. I move that we close the nomination process and approve Paul for treasurer by unanimous consent.

K. Are there any opposed? Okay. Seeing none. Congratulations, Paul.

Thank you very much. It was an honor and a privilege to serve as the vice chair for the past two years, and I look forward to the treasurer's role. Thank you.

Okay.

Next, the final executive committee position is for secretary, and we have Tara has been nominated for this position. Are there any other nominees from the floor for the position of secretary? For the second time, let me ask, are there any other nominations from the floor for the position of secretary? And for the third time, are there any other nominations from the floor for the position of secretary?

Missus Carl, I vote that we close the nomination process and vote for Tara by unanimous consent for the position of secretary.

Okay. Are there any opposed? Anyone? No? Seeing none. Okay. That passes, and thus Tara is our new secretary.

Thank you.

Okay. So I'd like to thank each and every one of you who are gonna be serving on the executive committee. And now on the agenda, we have an opportunity for public input. And I would like to remind anybody who would like to make comment that there is a time limit.

Hi, everyone.

Actually, I'm gonna hand this to Andrea. Andrea, could you please remind people of the rules for public comment?

Absolutely. Thank you, Wes. I'm gonna pull up a slide as well just real quick. So you may have noticed you are unable to unmute yourself on your own. If you would like to make a public comment, please use the raise hand function or mention in the chat that you would like to, and then I can give you unmute.

I can

give you I can request that you unmute so that you can unmute yourself. We ask you to identify yourself before speaking, and we do limit public comment to two minutes. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Andrea. This is Wes. So we're open for public comment. Is there anybody from the public who has input or comment?

Wes, this is Andrea. I'm not seeing any DMs to me or other notes in the chat.

Mister call may make a motion to adjourn.

Yes. Carl you can. Alright. I don't move.

Make a motion to adjourn.

Missus Paul, I second.

This is Jerry. Before we adjourn, I just wanted to, publicly recognize. I know a lot of us have in the chat and throughout the meeting, but I wanted to to take this opportunity to to publicly thank West for for his leadership of of the advisory board for the past several years and and and just really, I think you've done a fantastic job with. And and, yeah, I I have big shoes to fill, but but, you know, I I really, really appreciate all the work that you've that you've done, and and and it it has not gone unnoticed, I'm sure. And and I'm I appreciate the fact that you'll be staying on to to, you know, always advocate and and lend a helping hand where you where you can.

And and I I really appreciate your your leadership. And I'm I'm happy to to and glad that we'll continue to be working together. So

Thank you very much, Jerry. Really that real I really appreciate that.

But now I can you know, now we can adjourn.

Yes. Okay. So I will officially close the meeting at 07:15. Thank you all, and have a good night. Bye bye.

Thank you. Take care, everyone.