Disability Commission Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Disability Commission Advisory Board. 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, Fios channel nine six two, as well as live streamed on YouTube where recording will be posted. I will turn it over to the board's new vice chair who is chairing today's meeting, Olivia Richard.

Hi. Welcome to the March meeting of the Disability Commission Advisory Board. We're gonna call the order and do some introductions. We'll start with, myself. I am Olivia Richard.

I am a member from of the board and the vice chair from Brighton. And I have blue headphones, a glasses, and I am a white skinned female with a red shirt on. So we'll go to Paulette.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Paulette Durrett. I live in the Madigan section of Boston. I'm an older black female wearing black glasses and a royal blue shirt.

Thank

you. Carl? Good evening, everybody. My name is Carl Richardson. I live in Brighton. Identify as a deaf white individual. I have a black hair. I'm told I look like Nathan Lane. And that's it.

Paul?

Hi. My name is Paul Karen. I identify as a white male with short hair, and I serve as a mental health advocate for the city, whereas I have family members and close friends, families that have outreached me for assistance through grassroots advocacy work in mental health. I serve as the treasurer and on the executive committee of the anxiety advisory board. I live in the West End Of Boston and work in the planning department as a supervisor and also serve as a labor foreman for local one fifty one laborers union. The oldest laborers in New England. Thank you.

Wesley?

Hi there, everybody. This is West Ireland signing. I am a white male with a beard, and I'm wearing a red sweatshirt. And I have two female sign language interpreters working with me this evening, so you will hear female voices, but I am a male. I'm a member of the advisory board, and I live in the North End. Thank you.

Juan

Yes. Hello, everyone. This is Juan Carlos Carlos. Ramirez. This is a Hispanic male with a spinal cord injury. I live in Boston South End and also adviser board member.

Are there any other members here tonight that I missed? No. Seeing none. Okay.

Olivia, I can just jump in if that's okay.

Oh, I'm sorry. Of course, Jump in.

I'm I'm a quasi member of the advisory board. Good evening, everybody. I'm Kristen McCosh. I'm the disability commissioner and ADA title two coordinator for the city of Boston.

And, Olivia, this is Andrea. That time allowed Elizabeth Dean Clauer to hop on who, would be our seventh member making us have a quorum.

Yay. Okay. Elizabeth. I I'm here. Hi, Elizabeth. Can you introduce yourself? What borough you're from and what neighborhood you're from and the visual description? Sure. I'm Elucidive Dean Clafferty. I'm an advisory board member.

I live in Dorchester. Okay. Now that we have quorum, do we have a motion motion for

approval of the minutes? Quorum,

I make the motion. Second?

I, missus Guano. I'm I second the motion.

All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Okay. Motion motion moves.

Olivia, Wes had his hand up. Wes, are you in favor or opposed? In favor. Wes is saying, I'm sorry. I'm voting

in favor. Oh, okay. Okay. The motion moves. Approved minutes, so move. Now we're gonna have a presentation from the office of green infrastructure on flood mapping. You can take it away.

Hello, everybody. My name is Kate England, and I'm the director of the office of green infrastructure for the city of Boston. I am a white female with red hair and a ponytail. And I'll let Julie introduce herself before we start our presentation.

Good evening, everyone. My name's Julie Wood. I work for Charles River Watershed Association. We're a partner on the project Kate is going to talk about. I am also a white woman, brown hair, and I have green glasses and a pink sweater on tonight. And I will pass it to my colleague, Joanna, to introduce herself.

Hello, everyone. My name is Joanna Arguto. I am the climate resilience engagement associate for the Charles River Watershed Association, and I am a Latina woman with brown hair and brown glasses on. And I'm wearing a gray sweater.

Alright. Thank you both. Julie, are you okay to screen share?

Yes. Can I just hit share, Andrea?

You should, as cohost, have that ability, but let me know if it doesn't allow you.

Okay. Nope. Looks good.

Thanks for letting us talk at today's meeting. We are doing a project that we're very excited about and that we wanted to share with everyone in this group. It has the possibility, the potential to result in some really wonderful improvements improvements to accessibility in the city of Boston. And so we're gonna talk a little bit about the project and what our goals are and what we're you know, what the project entails. And then we will also provide information about how individuals on this commission as well as the or excuse me, this committee, as well as people watching can can submit information to this work to help add to what we're trying to do.

So the project that we're talking about today is called the flood mapping and green infrastructure planning project. It's a bit of a mouthful, so we've been calling it the flood survey. Julie, would you mind clicking to the next slide? The project requires a little bit of context because, you know, we're we're doing a lot of public education around what is stormwater and green infrastructure. So I'm going to flip through our slides and talk a little bit about what is stormwater, what is green infrastructure, and then we'll talk a little bit more about the project and what we're trying to accomplish.

The slide on the screen right now shows a rain garden in one of the Boston Public School yards, the David a Ellis Elementary School in Roxbury. Would you mind clicking to the next one? So what is stormwater? When well, we're all most of us live in urban areas, and so we've probably seen stormwater if we maybe didn't know that's what it was. And when it rains or snows or sleets or wintery mixes in the city of Boston, and that precipitation falls on a hard surface that doesn't allow water to pass through it, that water runs off and becomes stormwater runoff.

And the way that we manage stormwater in cities is we have drains in the roadway and pipes underground that capture that water and transport it underground to our water bodies. Next slide, please. So we wanted to share printout of it used to be the Climate Ready Boston viewer, and now it is shifted over to the Office of Climate Resilience viewer. But what we're seeing on the screen is a map of Boston that shows areas that we expect to see flooding in the city, and those areas are shown with teal highlighting. And what we are seeing is a coverage for the city of Boston that shows flooding in all of our neighborhoods.

Not everywhere across the whole city, but there's occurrence of flooding in each of our neighborhoods. The the storm that we are showing in this image is actually not even a particularly large storm. This is a storm that we expect to see with some regularity very in the next ten years. And just wanted to point out that this affects everybody in the city of Boston, but not everybody feels the effects of flooding in the same way. Next slide.

So the slide on the screen now shows some examples of types of green infrastructure. The city of Boston uses green infrastructure, which uses plants and soils and other natural materials to capture water and allow that water to absorb into the ground. You may have heard of a rain garden or a bioswale. These are shallow depressed areas that allow water to flow into them and absorb slowly into the ground. They're typically planted with native plants and wildflowers and grasses and shrubs, and they're often quite pretty.

We also have tree pits and tree trenches. We have a lot of these in the city of Boston. You may have walked or rolled over them and not realized that that's what they that's what you were looking at or that's what they were. The tree pits and tree infiltration trenches are essentially, a tree is planted in a large underground stone reservoir that allows water to to collect and to absorb into the ground, but it also allows trees to uptake that water which feeds them. And because trees are getting the water and the nutrients that they need underground rather than having to reach for it towards the surface, tree pits and tree infiltration trenches also help to reduce heaving and tree roots busting through our sidewalks.

So these kinds of systems are great for trees, but they're also great for keeping our sidewalks intact and not heaped or unleveled. We have constructed wetlands, which are very much what they sound like. They are human made systems that function very much like a natural wetland. And we also have green roofs and living walls, which are plants that are installed on top of buildings or on the sides of buildings that can capture rain rain as it falls, allow that water to absorb into soil media, or to be taken up by plants, which reduces flooding down at street level. Next slide, please.

So we have talked a little bit about storm water and water flood management, but green infrastructure does so much more than just help reduce flooding. So we call green infrastructure co benefits, the the many things that our green infrastructure features do that that are not directly related to water. So they can help increase screen space in urban areas. They help support our tree canopy. They can reduce urban heat island effect by increasing the amount of trees and plants, but also by reducing the amount of pavement.

They can help with slower streets and improved pedestrian and cyclist safety. They as you can see in the image on the slide here, there's a bioswale, which is a long linear green strip that is separating the pedestrian zone from the vehicle zone. So individuals individuals who who are are who on are on the the pedestrian side of the screen infrastructure feature have a physical barrier between, you know, fast moving traffic and where pedestrians and cyclists and others are trying to move through the space. They also are great for increasing biodiversity and pollinator habitat. So we need all of these insects and pollinators in our city, so having additional flowers helps with that.

They can reduce energy usage and improve some of our environmental justice issues, so they help with air quality. They provide better access to nature in our neighborhoods, and they can help with food security. And they also provide great opportunities for environmental education, which we love. Next slide, please. So just a couple of examples of some green infrastructure that we have in the city of Boston.

The slide is showing a few pictures of New England Avenue in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. What you're seeing on the screen is plants that are planted in rain gardens and a long linear green strip, a bioswale. And these plants are native to to Massachusetts. Some of them are flowers, some of them are shrubs, and then some of them are native grasses that will grow up to three to four feet tall when they're mature. Next slide, please.

This slide has an image of the Rafael Hernandez k to eight dual language school in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. This is a large rain garden that has a number of native plants as well as some educational signage for teachers and staff on-site to use with students. There are a series of numbered small wooden blocks that are are spread throughout the rain garden, and the numbers on those blocks correspond to the number on a sign that tells the the children at the school, but also the staff and family members and others the type of plant, shows some photos of that plant, and also talks about the types of soil and sun conditions and things that these plants like. Next slide, please. And this slide is it has an image of the constructed wetland in Harambee Park.

Harambee Park is in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. This the slide is showcasing the the kind of expansive native natural, you know, wetland vegetation that is common in these constructed features. You're seeing cattails, and there are some trees along the sides of this wetland area and small stones that are delineating the edge of this feature. The in the background, you can see playing fields, soccer fields, as well as playground off to the the right side as well. Next slide, please.

So the project that we are doing, again, we're affectionately referring to it as our flood survey, has a couple of different goals. This project is funded by the state of Massachusetts MVP program, which is the municipal vulnerability preparedness program. So all the projects funded under this program have a climate resilience lens to them, and our project is specifically focusing on collecting information from residents of Boston, from people who live, work, and play in Boston to get a better understanding of where is the city already experiencing flooding, but more importantly, how is that flooding affecting humans? So most of what we have right now comes from the what we know about flooding right now comes from models, which are computer generated models that show where we expect flooding to be, but they're not brown truthed in the same way that data that's coming from humans is. So we're hearing stories from individuals who are directly interacting with flooding in the city, and we're getting more information from them about how it impacts their lives.

So for example, there was a puddle that made a ramp unusable, and I was not able to cross the street safely. So information that is important to us when we are thinking about where we prioritize our work to install green infrastructure to help fix some of these flooding issues. Additional pieces of this project include we're going to create a a data display, so a a viewer online that shows the information that we've collected from the public. The after we've collected all that information, we are going to be doing a site prioritization and initial design. And what that means is we are gonna look at where we're seeing lots of flooding in the city, and we are going to work with our community members who have engaged with us in this process to figure out what kinds of green infrastructure we'd like to install, what it should look like, and how it can help us to deal with some of the problems that we're seeing.

And then we're also gonna do some concept designs for that green infrastructure, which means that once we pick some locations where we've decided that we're going to install, you know, rain gardens and forest paving and other things, we are going to mock up renderings of what that green infrastructure could look like and what types of space it could take up, and should it have trees, and should it have flowers, and all of these different things that allow us to kind of show people what we mean when we're talking about green infrastructure. And then at the very end, we're going to have an interactive display as well as some resources where we're going to be able to share all of this out with the public, and people will be able to engage with it and then use the resources that we've created in their own work. So if a community group, for example, would like to create green infrastructure, they'll have resources to use. Next slide, please. This slide is showing our our our project team.

The kind of city of Boston is it is in the middle. You know, the city's office of green infrastructure is leading this work. My role is the director of the office of green infrastructure. I'm kind of our project lead. We also have support from other city offices, including office of neighborhood services, community engagement cabinet in general, and we are now engaging additional city offices, including our disabilities commission, age strong, and others.

And Boston Water and Sewer Commission is also engaged in this work from the kind of city government side of things. And then on the left side of the slide, you're seeing that the public is a is a key member of our project team. So it's residents, commuters, students, and people who visit the city. And then on the right side of the screen, you're seeing our community partners. So Julie and Joanna are here from the Charles River Watershed Association, but we also have the other watershed associations in the city, the Neponset River Watershed Association, and the Mystic River Watershed Association, as well as a number of community organizations like Visit Nubian Square, Ogden Square in DC, who are part of this team and are helping us to gather this information from the public.

And we also have a consultant working with us. Weston and Sampson is a local engineering firm who is doing a lot of the data analysis and helping us to prioritize locations to do this to do the green infrastructure conceptual designs and future installations. Next slide, please. So just wanted to flag for everybody that flooding looks different to different people. So the there are three images on the screen.

They show very different scales or levels of flooding. You know, the the first image that you're seeing here on the left shows, you know, just a little bit of standing water in the street, small puddles, but still, you know, water that's collecting and potentially, you know, causing slips and falls. The middle image is a puddle that is has stuck around after the rain has stopped. So, again, a puddle that is maybe making people change their path of travel while they're trying to move through the city. And then the third image on the right is showing, you know, a large flooding event where there's a large amount of water that is covering, you know, what appears to be sidewalks and pathways as well as creeping very close to a building.

And so there's, again, large scale flooding, but there's also small flooding that, you know, just causes people to change their path of travel. All of this is important to us, and all of this information is is what we're trying to collect from people. So we have a couple of images on the screen that show kind of concept level green infrastructure. So the things that we would like to create with community after we've collected data from everyone. So the image on the left shows there's there's an aerial image of the city that has it looks like shapes have been drawn on top of that aerial image to show where you could place green infrastructure in your neighborhood.

It shows there are callouts, little labels that talk about different types of green infrastructure, constructed wetlands, or stream restoration. And then there are labels in the bottom corner that show that the color coding that you're seeing on the image is explained in a color coded legend. And then the second image on the right is a little bit more it's a little bit more detailed, and it shows where individual trees or rain gardens could be placed. Again, this is a a sketch that's been done on top of an aerial image. So there's an image of the city from above, and then you're seeing, you know, a new way to visualize the street once some green infrastructure has been added.

Next slide, please. And last slide for me, I believe. So just some examples of the data we've already collected. So the flood survey is fundamentally it's a survey, and it's it's something that can be completed, you know, on a phone, on your computer. And the primary ask that we have of of our our submitters, our people who are responding is please just submit a photo.

So even if you're not sure about any of the questions on the survey there are only there are about five questions. Even if you're not sure about any of the questions, just attach a survey photo to the survey and hit submit. So what you're seeing are photos from real people who have filled out the survey. Again, there are three photos on the slide. The first one on the left is a large puddle that's in in the roadway.

The sidewalk is seems to be unaffected, but if you were, for example, trying to exit a a vehicle to get on to a sidewalk, you would have to walk through or move through a large amount of water. The second photo is also in the roadway. You can see a very large puddle that is in the crosswalk of the roadway, and it's clearly gonna make it difficult to get to the MBTA. You can see a photo of the the train that runs down the middle of Commonwealth Avenue, and getting over to the train is you'd have to move through quite a bit of standing water. And then the third image is from the Mary Ellen Welsh Greenway in East Boston, which is a a green a linear greenway that people use to commute.

They use it for leisure, and it's a it's a park as well. And there's quite a bit of water and debris that you can see that has clearly washed down from a large storm event is making it very difficult to use the pathway through the greenway. So real reports that we've received from people, and so just wanted to give everybody an example of what we're looking for. Next slide. Okay. I'm gonna pass it over to Julie. And apologies. I think I probably went a little bit longer than I should have. So, Julie, go ahead.

No problem. I think we'll wrap up pretty quickly here with these last few slides. So Kate already mentioned this, but why is crowdsourced flood impact data so important? Because hearing from residents, visitors tells us where flooding is a problem. To some extent, flooding is a natural occurrence.

It happens, and it's our natural systems can adapt to it. What we need to know is where is it a problem? Where is it causing damage? Where is it interrupting your day? Where is it making areas impassable, as Kate showed in those photos?

So computer models are great for just straight data on where water might pool, but it doesn't give us that human impact piece that we want and need to make our cities more functional for those of us that live there. We can also get real time on the ground reports in a way that we never could if we were trying to do some sort of data collection ourselves. So these are coming in in real time from all over the city. We have access to local and historical knowledge. If there is an area of flooding that has been persistently causing you issues, feel free to submit the survey and report that.

I will note we do have historic data from some other, like, three one one police fire reports, and that will get included in the data viewer Kate mentioned. So we have access to past data, but you're welcome. You don't have to be observing, experiencing flooding right in that moment to report it. Report past issues. I mentioned comes from all over the city, and then it's also a way to get people thinking about flooding, what it means for them, what it means in their neighborhood, what does it mean today, and what it might mean as our climate changes where we do expect flooding will be worse as Kate showed us on the map.

Okay. So we have a draft of the survey. I'm gonna walk through it. We would like to make it more accessible, so advice on that is very welcome. We'd like to make it as accessible as possible.

One way we've already done that is it is available in seven languages. So when you go in, you can select your language. If you want to be included on the project project email list, you can provide your email address, but that's not required. So first question is regarding the location of flooding. Where did you see it?

You can, type in an address, or, you know, place that the map will find, and then this pin should go to the location you type in. The date the flooding was observed, again, if this is a historic report you're putting in, approximate. It doesn't have to be exact. We've recently not had a lot of rain where this survey is going to be open for a while. Presumably, we'll get some rain, but it has been slow, so past reports, as I said, are welcome.

Briefly describe the flooding. Again, this is really up to your interpretation, but this is one of the few open ended questions where folks can give their take on what was observed, what their experience was with the flooding and impacts. How deep or how deep is or was the water? We're definitely looking for more inclusive language on this one specifically around depth. Important safety caveat on this one.

Do not go into floodwaters. I think that's well known, but just to be clear on that, that's not the expectation here. Is the water moving or still? Recommended attach attach a photo. Not required, but a photo is very helpful.

Again, not a required question, but what caused the flooding? If it's obvious, you can answer this one. If you don't know, just skip it. In Boston, being a coastal city, obviously, we do have flooding that comes up from the ocean even in dry weather. So even when it's not raining, we see that.

We are focused more on rain for this project. That said, we want as much data as we can get, so please feel free to submit. If you know how often does it flood here, don't know, just skip it. What flooded in this location? There's some various options.

You know, was it was it a home or a building, a basement? Is it the road? Like, the photos we saw, obviously, that's common. Was it the sidewalk, parking area, public space, or just add anything else you observe being flooded. And then this key question, how did the flooding impact you?

You know, damage impacts transportation routes, could not access where you were going, could not access your home, maybe damage your socks or shoes or other personal injury. It didn't impact me is also a fine answer. If you just observe it and wanna report it, great. Great. And then we've already heard feedback that could not access a sidewalk ramp, oops, would be a good addition to this question, and so we will make that addition as well as that's a common concern we've already heard.

And then hit submit, and that data will go to this team, and it will be used, for the process Kate described. So thank you again for giving us time in your meeting tonight, and thank you in advance for reporting some of your observations and experiences. And I'm gonna take the slideshow down for the question and answer. Alright.

Okay. Thank you. Questions from the board.

This is Andrea. I see Wes has his hand up.

Go ahead, Wes.

Thank you very much. This is Wes speaking. I really appreciate this presentation. I think it's critical information that you've shared with us because as I mentioned, I live in the North End, and I see flooding all the time, particularly in the Wharf District around, I would say, in the North End and then in the Seaport as well as well as East Boston. I see it constantly.

It's it's a regular occurrence, and it's very dangerous. And I also don't see a lot of green infrastructure that you were speaking about as well that would help to mitigate that, particularly in the Wharf District. And I've always wondered if, you know, there's some sort of an update potentially you might be able to share with us about that, as well as, the Boston Harbor. And I also have another question, but it's a separate issue. So, why don't you answer the first question, and I'll ask my second question after that.

That's absolutely. So we we're aware of certain neighborhoods that experience pretty consistent or regular flooding and appreciate any photos or specific locations that are particularly bad, that information is going directly into our planning efforts for installing green infrastructure. So we're creating a plan of attack, if you will. But when we say we're creating a plan, we don't mean something that's going to be enacted ten years from now. We mean we are planning for this year's designs and installations.

So to take the information that we are receiving from the public and then be able to quickly turn it around, you know, integrating green infrastructure into existing projects that are happening within these neighborhoods, as well as doing new projects, separate projects that are just green infrastructure installations is the kind of primary goal of of our office and using this this information from people gives us the support that we need, you know, to get funding, to encourage people to include flood mitigation and green infrastructure in their projects. It essentially it gives us, you know, data that supports what what we know to be the case, which is that flooding is happening everywhere today. You know, we show that these maps and these models that show what we're expecting in ten years, but we know that a lot of this is already happening right now. And so being able to to look at specific locations and move quickly to start installing green infrastructure, whether it's a rain garden at the surface or something underground that allows water to absorb into the ground and and not sit on the street or not sit on our properties is is essentially what we're trying to do, like, now.

So we do have projects that are that are designed, that are going into construction. Construction season is about to start up again for the for the spring in Boston, and there are some locations in the neighborhoods that you mentioned that that do have green infrastructure in their plans. It that are going to be built this spring. And then the sites that come out of this effort, the conceptual planning we're gonna be working on this summer and into the fall, and we've requested capital funding to build some of the the sites that come out of this work in another planning study that we're doing starting as early as late fall this year, early next year. So we're hoping to be able to turn around this this information pretty quickly and to use it for for speedy implementation.

I know Charles for Watershed Association and other watershed groups are also really looking to to build, you know, small scale green infrastructure throughout their watersheds. And we have a number of other community groups that are part of this project that are doing similar work in their neighborhoods. And so we hope to be able to bring more green infrastructure to to you all, to the public, you know, increasingly quickly over the next several years. So, hopefully, this spring, people will be able to to start to notice more more green infrastructure appearing in their neighborhoods or being built in their neighborhoods.

Thanks for that. I appreciate that information. Before I ask the second question that I had, are there particular CBOs on the Boston Harbor that are involved in this effort?

So we the law the Julie mentioned that we are trying to prioritize precipitation based flooding, and so our community organizations that are on the coast tend to be very focused on coastal flooding. So we have a a strong partnership with the Office of Climate Resilience who is focusing more of their efforts on coastal flood mitigation, putting in features and and nature based infrastructure to try to reduce flooding from coastal from sea level rise from storm surge. And so the Wharf District Council and other groups have been have been heavily engaged in in the work that's being done specifically for the for coastal neighborhoods. And then the majority of the CBOs that we have working on on the flood survey project are from they're from, let's see, Chinatown, Dorchester, Mattapan, downtown. We have some from actually, many from Dorchester, several from Easty.

So if you have the all that is to say, if you have a suggestion for CBO who could be involved in this, we would happily add them. We're still in a a place where we can continue to add partners to this work. And just understanding that a lot of what we're trying to prioritize is flooding that is coming from precipitation as opposed to just focusing on flooding that's coming in from the from the ocean because we already have some departments and others who are doing a good amount of work in that sector already. So we're trying to complement their work as a and and, like, also cover an area that wasn't sufficiently covered before. I don't know if that's helpful. Sometimes it's hard to work We're all journalists.

Absolutely. Very, very, City of Boston. I appreciate that.

Trying. To figure out who's doing what.

But I understand. So my second question, if I may, is I'm gonna be really honest here. This is the first time I've learned anything about the survey. I haven't heard

of it prior, the data collection that you're talking about.

Like I said, sounds really important. As a resident resident of the North End, I think it's interesting that I haven't heard about this before. So I'm wondering what sorts of advertising efforts you've been involved in, what tools, where it's been posted, because I haven't heard anything at all, and I'm sort of living in the danger zone here. So I'd certainly be interested in filling out the survey, but anything else I can do to help sort of get the word out. Where are you advertising? What efforts have you made in that regard?

That's an excellent question. Julie mentioned so the the survey was it's only been out for two ish months. So it it hasn't actually been open for very long. And unfortunately, unfortunately, but we chose to launch it during the winter when we weren't getting a lot of precipitation. So the city's digital team, which is the team that puts advertisements on bus shelters, transportation infrastructure, the city's, like, the trash cans and, like, all the city's digital boards and the community centers and all of that, all of those postings are going up this month.

So they're gonna you're gonna start seeing the survey and the QR code for the survey across the city on all of those kind of typical city advertising locations and platforms. We've also done currently, we're doing, like, social media and, you know, newsletters and and getting the word out through, you know, through through digital means. But because we were in a part of the year where it wasn't raining as much, we were getting some snow and some sleep. We didn't push it as as much in the first couple of months. But now that we're moving in to spring, the goal is for us to send out reminders before any major rain event or any rain event, as well as, again, have all of the the city's advertising and the city's platforms are gonna be promoting this as well.

And then our office of neighborhood services liaisons have just started putting all of this in their newsletters starting in March and April. And then we'll also be pushing it out at mayor's office coffee hours and other things which are coming up this spring. So we're using a lot of the city's communication channels. This this group is actually a really great example. You have your own communities that you're a part of, and now that, you know, now that we've shared this information with you, we we hope that you'll pass it on to others as well.

And then the watershed associations and the community based organizations are also communicating with their constituents to encourage folks to submit survey responses around storm events. But, again, more work to be done, especially now that we're moving into spring when we're expecting precipitation to be much more regular,

And one of our key activities will be going into the community and going to community events, and we have not identified all those available opportunities. So we would love invitations or just a heads up about, hey. This is a good event in my neighborhood so that we can those are also mostly warm weather, but so we can start to plan ahead.

Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from the board?

This is Andrea Olivia. I see Juan Carlos has his hand up.

Go ahead, Juan Carlos.

Yes. Hi. Thank you. This is Juan. Thank you so much, Kate, Julie, Joanna, everyone, the team for sharing all this information. I guess my comment is just a little extension of what you just recently discussed based on Wesley's question. And I wonder, how long will the survey you created be available to provide feedback? Is this something just temporary? It's gonna is is it here to stay for long time? And I wonder, considering that is it connected to the three one one app?

In in some ways, considering that some users also provide feedback through that platform. Right? So I I would remind that it would be helpful if users who are actively reporting issues already on three one one could be directly linked to the survey to provide more detailed feedback so you don't wanna lose the kind of information from especially from people who are already active and knowledgeable using that platform. So, yeah, that's it. And thank you so much again for sharing it.

Yeah. That's great. And so to your first question, we're planning on leaving it open indefinitely. So it just will always be available for people to submit it The work that we're doing that was funded by the the MVP grant, in June, we're going to be looking at the data that we've collected and starting that planning process, but we're going to continue to collect data ongoing for as long as people keep submitting it. And your question about the three one one act actually came up in a meeting yesterday that we had with three one one.

So they we've been told that they are going to add a link to the flood survey. Julie, this is news to you, to the three one one app. So the we had a meeting yesterday specifically to talk about people who are submitting, you know, storm water or flooding related issues to 311. We we wanna make sure that that information is getting to our project team so we can use it for the the work that we're doing, the planning that we're doing. And so every month, three one one is going to send us an an export or an output from the three one one system.

Any cases that have storm water, flooding, ponding in them anywhere will get sent to our project team. So in addition to the survey responses from people who are using our flood survey link, we are also going to be getting three one one cases that have flooding mentioned in them, and then we're also working with the Boston Water and Sewer Commission to get their information for when people call the Boston Water and Sewer Commission about flooding. So we we're setting up a system for regularly sharing that information across departments that are collecting it so that we can all have more information about how we can improve conditions in the city.

Thank you so much. Yeah.

Okay. Anyone else? Hearing seeing none, Andrea, double check me.

Thanks, Olivia. I am not seeing any hands raised or comments in the chat.

Okay. Thank you for your presentation. We look forward to filling out your survey for all the flooding you see in Boston.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you. We appreciate your time.

Alright. So we move on to the chair's report. Jerry is unavailable this month or this meeting. So, yeah, the report is that the executive committee met. We've honed in on a couple of priorities for this year in areas that we think we can make a bigger impact.

One of them is on food justice and food access for people with disabilities in the city of Boston, and another is in housing and Philly public housing.

Olivia, do you want me to read some of Jerry's report? Or

Yes. Please. I didn't receive it.

No worries. Yeah. Happy to. Okay. So first of all, let me say that I am humbled to be asked to lead such a wonderful group of advocates for people with disabilities in our city.

I'm sorry that I cannot leave this first meeting as I had planned a trip before being nominated as chair. I look forward to actively leading the group in the year ahead. Until that end, as Olivia mentioned, the executive committee recently met and brainstormed the following priorities that we hope will guide our work over the next year or even more. First, access to housing, particularly through BHA, addressing housing housing accessibility and availability. Food justice, ensuring equitable access to healthy and affordable food.

Transportation, investigating and improving accessible transportation options. PCAs, addressing issues surrounding access to and quality of PCA services. Mental health, promoting access to and quality of mental health services for individuals with disabilities. This is by no means an exhaustive list and the executive committee welcomes the input of fellow board members and the community to help refine our priorities and adjust them as needed. We envision that tackling the issues issue of food justice may be a multi month, if not multi year endeavor.

Thank you to Tara for bringing this issue to our attention. Thank you Olivia for highlighting the issue of housing. I mentioned the issues of transportation and PCAs which impact so many of us on the board and other constituents in the city, and Paul has been a long time advocate for addressing mental health disparities for city residents. The executive committee hopes that each board member will engage in the areas above that mean the most to them and areas that mean the most to them that may not be listed above. We hope that each board member will bring to our monthly board meetings one thing that they have done to engage their communities in the prior weeks since we last met.

That is why, as you may have noticed in the agenda, we are changing the announcement section to more of a board engagement section. It is not meant to put each of us on the spot, but as a way to highlight the ways in which each of us engage our communities. In addition, it is my hope that each one of us, when possible, will share our extensive personal and professional experience as people with disabilities through engagement with other city boards, committees, departments, and at public meetings. And let us not forget that in this charged political climate, we need to be more vigilant than ever in doing what we can to continue to advocate for and protect the rights of all persons with disabilities at the city, state, and federal levels. So thank you again for the opportunity to lead our work for the next year, and I look forward to working with each of you on continuing to make Boston a more accessible and inclusive city for all its residents and visitors.

See you next month, Jerry.

Thank you. Let's move on to the commissioner's report. Take it away.

Thanks, Olivia. Thank you, everybody. I'm glad to be here with you tonight. I was in the meeting with Jerry and the executive committee and Andrea, and I think we had a really good discussion. We really picked up where Wes left off last year as he was concluding his time as the board chair. People had asked certain board members had asked about priorities and different things that the board could be moving forward. And West put it in the hands of the new executive committee. And I feel like they really took that charge seriously and had a really good discussion. And I will go through some of the points that Olivia mentioned and that Jerry mentioned in my report tonight. So we'll go to the next slide.

Slide. To begin, I noticed that in Jerry's report, he mentioned the charged political climate that we are in today. So I do just want to acknowledge that mayor Wu, testified in congress last week. It was all over the TV and online, so I'm sure many of you saw it. But I just wanted to emphasize her message that Boston is still strong.

Boston is home for everyone, and Boston a safe city. So just to reassure residents and anyone else who's watching that our work continues despite what happens on the federal level. We are a local government, and we are here to enforce our local government rules, regulations, and mandates. I am the ADA title two coordinator for the city, which is a federal law, but it's really meant to be enforced on the ground in local government structures, such as the city of Boston government. So that's what we work on every day, and that work will continue despite what happens at the federal level.

So Maywoo did a great job. We were really proud, and we continue to echo, her directives to us that Boston is a home for everybody. On that note, I'd like to welcome our new executive committee members. Jerry Boyd was elected chairperson.

He

served as chair previously, and he was elected in February. So we're excited to have Jerry back as chair. Olivia, as she mentioned, she's vice chair and has also served as chairperson in the past. So we have two very experienced people at the helm of the executive committee this year. Tara Suthard is our secretary, and she's a new board member.

She couldn't make it tonight, but she did a great job in the first meeting she attended, the executive committee meeting. And Paul is our treasurer who has been on the executive committee for a few years now. So one thing that Jerry called out in his report, one thing we discussed at executive committee meeting was that we'd love it this year if each board member could really pick an area of focus to concentrate their advocacy efforts on. And I listed some of the priorities that people have expressed. And these are by no means limiting or prescriptive.

It's just really what people have expressed to us that they're interested in. As Jerry mentioned, he's very interested in transportation and PCAs. Bolivian has always been a strong advocate for housing, especially BHA housing. Tara mentioned that she'd like to work on Food Justice. As we know, Paul is really an advocate for mental health.

And Charlie is always looking into Boston Public Schools accessibility accessibility and education. Carl always updates us on legislation and what's happening in the legal world of the state house at the state level. So like I said, these are just some areas that we have expressed interest in and expertise in. So we would love it if those board members continue to kind of drill down and take some ownership on those issues when they come up outside of our meetings. And then other board members have expressed interest in a variety of things.

So I didn't want to assign anybody an area of interest, Juan Carlos, Wes, Zari, Richard, Paulette, Elizabeth, if there are certain things that you would like to focus on, we would love to support you in that. And that could be expressed in things like the new section that Jerry had mentioned on the agenda. Instead of announcements, it's gonna be it will offer an opportunity for board members to report out on things they've done. So for instance, if someone is particularly interested in environmental issues or climate change, they may have emailed the information about the survey to, like, a couple of groups that they're involved with, things like that. So we would love it if you really do take this information and spread it, the information that you get at our board meetings, and share it with your communities, your friends, your networks, because that's really how it's going to how we make systemic change is if we get the word out to everybody.

We met with the group before the presentation, and we pointed out some areas that they hadn't thought of. So when they get that lens of disability, it really helps everybody. So asking board members to think about the areas they'd like to focus on, and we can come back to that next

month. Next slide.

So we do have some events coming up. Our state of the city address, Mayor Wu state of the city address is next week. It is Wednesday, March 19 at 7PM in person at MGM Music Hall in Fenway. It will be on TV and it will be live streamed on boston.gov. So hoping that board members have RSVP'd and put in a note if they need any accommodations.

Our RSVPs were technically due today, but if you haven't responded yet and would still like to go, you can still, answer the email and let the mayor's team know that you're interested in attending. I'll be on vacation, unfortunately, so I won't see you there, but I'll try to tune in virtually from my vacation. Our Disability Community Forum is coming up again in May. It's going to be Thursday, May 8 from two to 03:30. Again, a hybrid event at Suffolk University Law School on Tremont Street and on Zoom.

So on the note that I mentioned earlier about everybody picking, an area of interest that they'd like to hone in on this year, I would love to have advisory board members participate in presenting the annual report if anyone is interested. I usually write the report and I break it out into categories of work we've done over the past year and things like housing is something that we may have made some strides in or done some work in. So for example, maybe Olivia would be interested in listing out the work that we've done in housing. And if we've done work transportation, Jerry may want to take that piece of it and present it to the people at the forum. So I would love to use it as a way to get board members more involved in the actual discussions at the forum, but also to give you some ownership of the work that we do at the commission because really you are linked to the community.

And I hope that it will encourage people to pursue their areas of interest and really become specialists in those areas that really, like I said, helps spread systemic access throughout the city. So we'll talk more about that next month, but just something to think about until then. ADA thirty five will be different this year. We won't be having our information fair City Hall Plaza. It will be more of a march and rally to celebrate the thirty fifth anniversary of the ADA.

On the big years like the twentieth, twenty fifth, thirtieth, and thirty fifth, we usually do a collaborative event with BCIL and other organizations. So again, we will do that this year. It's gonna be a little bit different. It will be a rally on City Hall Plaza. We're trying to get a flag raising event in the morning, and then it will be a march to Boston Common and a rally by the Embrace Statue Memorial to MLK, Martin Luther King, his wife, Corinna.

So more information to come on that. We don't have a time yet, but that's the rough idea right now. And then an update on another project we've talked about for a while. We're calling it the Ped Blues Project, Pedestrian Bike Lane User Experience Study. So as we all know, curb use in the city of Boston has changed significantly over the past few years.

We've seen things like bike lanes, like Uber and Lyft drop off areas, outdoor dining, bus lanes. There have been so many changes that it's really, kind of crowded the city streets and sidewalks. So Mayor Wu has put a temporary pause, I think thirty days, on curbside infrastructure changes. And she really wants to get feedback from different communities about what works and what doesn't work. So we had some funding to put towards a small project that we're collaborating on with IHCD.

And we're going to begin meeting with them this week to look at different areas of where bike lanes intersect with intersections and have different configurations, whether it's a sidewalk level bike lane or a street level bike lane, and where there could be potential conflicts with pedestrians, particularly where it would impact pedestrians with disabilities. So what we're going to do is gather information to try to identify some best practices for designs. We're not expressing at all that we don't want bike lanes because we know bike lanes can actually improve pedestrian safety because it keeps bikes off the sidewalk, keeps them out of the street, gives them their own dedicated space to be traveling in. So while we know there are some safety issues for people with disabilities, we want to help improve the process but not stop it. So we will keep you updated as that work progresses.

IHCD will be just documenting different interactions between people with different disabilities and different configurations of bike lanes. So we're excited to get that work moving. And next slide. Okay. So I just wanted to list some opportunities for our advisory board members. Colleen Flanagan, our outreach engagement specialist, has started what she's calling a disability outreach tour at Boston Public Library neighborhood branches. She's gonna visit every BPL branch in all the neighborhoods to meet with residents where they are because we know a lot of residents with disabilities come to our events. They come to our meetings. We see them. They're part of the advocacy community.

But there are a whole lot of residents who have disabilities but don't identify as having a disability or they're not necessarily advocate. They're just, you know, going along, living their life, like working or going to school or whatever they may be doing, taking care of their family, and they may not know what services are available to them. So we're trying to get out into the neighborhoods and meet people where they are. So Colleen began in February, and she'll be working on this throughout the year, visiting about two libraries per month. So that will be in our newsletter.

If any of you haven't signed up for our newsletter, please do so. It comes out weekly through email, and we always have information about upcoming events that we're working on or city council hearings you may be interested in. And these are all things, like I said, if you see a city council hearing on housing and that's your particular area of interest, you may wanna attend. You can attend most meetings virtually nowadays, so, it wouldn't involve having to pick out transportation and taking, you know, extra time to get to city hall. You can do most things virtually.

I had mentioned last month in my report that the city has a project called participatory budgeting. This allocates I think it's $2,000,000 every year that residents can weigh in on and suggest projects that could be spent on and then vote for which ones they like the best. So I had mentioned last month that people could vote on the final projects. We didn't get involved in sorry about that. We didn't have time to propose any projects last year, but I'm really hoping the boys can get together and propose some projects for this coming year.

And they could be anything from things that improve access for people with disabilities. Like two of the projects last year, I didn't have room to put them all on the slide, but one of them was food access and one of them was to put in benches at tea stops. I did put in the link. And, Angie, would you be able to quickly jump on that link? And so this is the cycle one of the winning proposals, expanding access to fresh foods in Boston, prevention initiatives in dense residential areas, programs to support incarcerated and formerly incarcerated youth, rental assistance for young adults, community gardens in Boston's neighborhood with limited access to food.

And I'm already seeing a trend of bench trend emerge in food access, which is something that we want to work on with the board. And then installing benches at high ridership public transit stops in Boston. Could you click on that arrow? Maybe we're up. And you'll see that this project got 150,000 to increase accessibility for those who may have difficulty standing, such as older adults, individuals with disabilities, and others who take the tea but may have physical disabilities or mobility impairments.

So think of this, like visit this page and think of things that you may wanna propose because this is real city money that you can actually direct towards projects. So I really hope that you'll think of some ideas that we can propose, and then we can always go on, like, an outreach campaign to spread the word and hope that people will vote those ideas into action. And this is a way that the board can really impact work that the city does and actually have a say in city budget. So please visit that link when you have a few minutes. And then the last bullet I have, if we go back to my slides, is Okay.

One more bullet. I'll go back to the. But, yeah, the mayor's office of housing housing is doing a survey. And this is MOH is creating a one year plan for spending its housing development funds. So they really want input from the community, but especially from people with disabilities.

We can give input in person, online, or in writing. There's a Zoom hearing on Thursday the thirteenth, which is the day after tomorrow. There's an in person hearing next week on Wednesday, and you can submit written comments through April 15. Again, if you want to really see systemic access, we need your voices to be heard. So please consider clicking on the link to learn more about this plan and giving input on how you would like to see the money spent. On that note, I'm gonna turn it over to Kai, our training specialist, and then I will jump on after they give their report.

This is Kai. Thanks, Kamesh. And hi, everyone. Again, my name is Kai. My pronouns are theythem.

I don't have my video on, but my photo is of me, a feminine presenting black person with large glasses and dark, like, black colored hair. And I am the accessibility and inclusion training specialist for our office. So I wanted to give a little bit of time or take a little bit of time to talk about some of the highlights of things that I've done since I started working for the city in the 2023 and give some information on how you all can tap into me as a resource. So just some quick statistics, highlights. I've done over 21 trainings since October 2023.

Those trainings cover topics like titles one, two, and three of the ADA, service dogs, language, etiquette, just any and everything that you can think of that pertains specifically to the disability community. I've given these trainings to elementary schools, support groups, offices within the city of Boston, and and continue to do that. And I have also developed some one pagers that we pass out to folks specifically on the first one that I can think of off the top of my head is our, on street accessible parking program, one pager that just gives, kind of guided information that you can find on our website, but in a paper form, for how to apply for an on street accessible parking spot. There's also 11 prerecorded videos on our YouTube channel, and, that is a clickable link. So if you have the slide deck, you are welcome to, and I encourage you to click the link to visit that playlist, so that you can see what prerecorded videos are there, different topics, again, such as service dogs, language and etiquette, some fun information about the overlap between black history and disability history, including, the Black Panther's role and the five zero four sit in, things like that.

And then finally, how to request a training. Again, another clickable link. This is a full web page and actually, Andrea, if we can go to it so we can see what it looks like. When you click the link, it'll take you to the boston.gov web page on how to request the training. This page kind of outlines, one, the guidelines that I consider when doing when looking at the request.

So I encourage folks to request it at least thirty days in advance, making sure that you are have an accessible location if the training is in person, noting that escalator access is not a substitution for elevators. I do prioritize city Boston entities or entities within Boston City limits. So that does include any of your, like, social groups, you know, schools, etcetera, things like that. As long as they're within the Boston City limits, limits, I prioritize those. And then I do specifically, this is more so for City of Boston departments, but ask that there's at least 10 attendees, but no more than 30.

And then you can fill out the training request form, which will walk you through providing certain information, like what your organization is or what group you're a part of, what the training topic is that you would like, number of attendees, event venue location, if it's in person. And there is also some suggestions for different topics that are in your training request form. So if you have any questions on that, my contact information is below. My direct line is 617, 635-3566. And you can email me, my first name, k y l I a dot my last name, kennedy@boston.gov.

And I'm happy to help you with any training requests. I really, really encourage folks to go ahead and request trainings for smaller groups if you have, you know, a support group or even just want, you know, friends and family. I know that we have board members who are particularly interested in public schools and and how we can better serve our disabled students. So if you are part of a SPED PAC group or anything of that nature, these are all places that I feel very comfortable with and would love to do a training on any topic that you think is important for folks to know. So thanks, Commissioner Mikosh, for giving me a little bit of time, and I'll pass it back to you.

Great. Thank you, Kai. And all board members have received a copy of my board report materials with the email from last week. So please take a few minutes to go through it and click on some of the links and let us know if you have questions or if you want to set up any of the trainings that Kai mentioned. I can honestly say I was on the YouTube channel a few weeks ago and it's extremely impressive, the number of videos that Kai has put together, and they all have really good information.

So like I said, the more we can spread the word, the more access and inclusion will spread throughout the city, which improves the lives of all people with disabilities. So thank you so much, Kai, for all your hard work. Work. We have a few other slides now with a program that we wanted to highlight also. And I was gonna ask Andrea if she could go through these slides, if you don't mind.

Absolutely. Thanks, commissioner. So you may recall, I think we've talked about this at a previous meeting, but it's a program that was successful last year and is coming back. It's an ebike incentive program. So the city of Boston felt, hey, if there are state and federal incentives for you to buy electric vehicles, cars, why not incentives to buy electric bikes? So it's a program where you can qualify if you are one of the following. You don't have to be all three, just one. A senior, person with a disability or chronic illness, or low income. You can be all three, but you only have to be one to qualify. And applications are open the month of April, so April 1 through April 30.

There are two different sort of pathways and two different vouchers that are in this program. The first is if you can ride a traditional bike, you apply and are entered into a lottery. For that, vouchers range from 800 to 1,500, to help reduce the cost of a standard e bike or cargo e bike. But if and and if you're a resident with a disability who can ride a traditional bike, you get into that program. But if your disability or chronic illness requires an adaptive bike, that's a separate process.

That is not a lottery. It's just you just get it if you apply. We expect around 50 vouchers to be available and it will actually cover higher costs. So the base amount, you will get at least $2,000 or you can get up to 50% of the cost of the adaptive bike up to about $5,000, whichever is greater. So if you buy a $2,000 bike, you get $2,000 free bike.

But if you buy a $10,000 bike, you get a $5,000 voucher, half the price of the bike. If you buy over that $12,000, you still only get 5,000, but, you know, that will will pay off a significant portion of the bike. This slide is a bit of a complicated table that I'm not gonna read out, but it basically gives you all of the possible amounts of money you could get depending on how you qualify and and what kind of bike you're getting. So that's here for you to look at if you're interested. Particularly if you're interested, I wanna make sure you get the more information.

So boston.gov/ebikes is the program page if you want to go read more about it. There's a virtual info session happening Thursday, March 27 at 12PM. It's on Zoom. ASL and other language interpretation have already been booked and a recording will be posted. If you're not sure about all these things and you wanna like see them and feel them and touch them and try them, they're actually try an ebike event which will have some of the adaptive like hand cycle stuff.

So there'll be one in Matapan, two on City Hall Plaza, one in Roxbury, and then another in City Hall Plaza in April and May. And one thing I wanna note is that last year, the standard e bike voucher program, twenty percent of people who bought a standard e bike were people with disabilities. So that's a a pretty good representation statistic given the numbers that we have in the city of folks with disabilities. So I my understanding is these are folks with maybe asthma or arthritis where walking pretty far is is, you know, painful but a bike helps them increase their mobility. And then we also helped purchase hand cycle attachments for chairs, trikes for people who need the additional stability, and other adaptive e bikes for folks who went through the adaptive program.

Great. So that is the end of my report, but happy to take questions. Zari, I see you have your hand up.

Yes. Thank you very much. So my question about the adaptive fight. What if any sort of fitting is involved in making the right choice? I mean, I'm sure a lot of people I mean, I as I was listening here, says, said, oh, I would love that one. But then at the same time, I thought, well, I'm not sure what would be the right one because there are many different types of adaptive bike. So what would you suggest that as far as making that determination?

This is Andrea. I'd recommend going to one of the try and ebike sessions or honestly just applying because part of the process is so what happens if you get it is you get a voucher and then you take that voucher to one of the partners that the city has partnered with and they have every kind of adaptive bike you can imagine. And so you go to the that bike shop and work with them. So that includes a location in the city in JP that will come to City Hall and do fittings for you on City Hall Plaza if that's easier for you to get to than Jamaica Plain. There's also one in Rhode Island, so they're pretty difficult potentially to get to.

But that is their job. They sell e bikes and they will work with you to find the thing that works for you. You don't have to know when you apply for the voucher exactly exactly what kind you want, just that you know you can't use a traditional bike.

Thank you.

Hi. This is Wes. I have a question.

Go ahead, Wes.

Yes. I have a question about the bike incentive program. Hold on for one moment, please. My child was here. Hold on. I just so suppose someone wants to apply for the new bike under the incentive program, and they realize they don't have the storage space for a new bike. There may be some people that may not be able to apply because of the storage. Is there a storage program within the city for these food bikes?

Great question. This is Andrea. No. That is not part of the program. There is additional, I think, a $150 for, like, helmets and lights and safety equipment like that. But my understanding is that there is not any storage because everyone's home, you know, is gonna be different.

A lot of new construction buildings are building in bike storage. I don't know if you've if you live in a larger building, if you've ever looked into that, but I see that a lot on plans nowadays that they are building in bike storage to a lot of new condo and apartment buildings in the city. But that that is definitely an issue.

Any other questions for the commissioner?

This is Carl. I have a first question.

Go ahead, Carl. So

in terms of adaptive bike excuse me. In terms of adaptive bike for people with disabilities, I'm I'm assuming so far they mean, you know, hand pedals and people with mobility issues. But do they do tandem bikes for those who are visually impaired and they get the ride with the partner?

Thanks, Carl. This I remember you asked this question last year. Let me see what my answer was at the time. Yes. So, yes, the voucher could be applied and I think that would count in the adaptive bikes category.

We can triple check so I can have put you directly in touch with the ebike program manager, but she was pretty sure that that would count under the program. I'll make sure you get the application, Carl. Might as well apply. See what happens. Right?

Anyone else? Alright. Hearing none, we'll move to board member engagement chair outs. Does anyone have anything that they've done this month? Yeah. Go ahead, Paulette.

Having difficulty getting off the list. I actually attended, the PCA rally today with, union eleven ninety nine at the State House, and, it was really very inspiring to hear the testimonies from not only the PCAs, but some of their customer clients. And so it I'm glad that people are rallying around that issue early because I see a battle for them in the in the future. Yes.

Thank you for sharing. Thank you, Paula.

Yeah. That's great. Thank you, Paula. Exactly what

I wanna know how can you even say hello to me, Paula.

I don't think I recognize you.

Don't think I did. Cowell works at the state house.

Oh, okay. But he wasn't with the group that I saw.

But, that report is exactly what we're hoping to hear, this year from board members. Anything like that that you've done, let us know. Olivia, were you there at the rally?

No. No. I couldn't make it.

So I I'll just let people know of a couple of upcoming events that I'm aware of. And if they have over the next few months, they will be several because it's budget season, so you'll see a lot of advocacy groups advocating for their priorities and concerns. The one thing know of off the top of my head, April 8 is autism. The autism community where the ARC of Massachusetts will be advocating. And then on April 9 is one that I'm very much involved in with the deaf blind community where we want the deaf blind to win this day.

And so those are two events at the State House, and those are both be located in Gray Hall. April 8 is autism day. April 9 is deaf blind day.

Oh, Westwoody put up a note in the chat. Go ahead, West. You can

Wes may be wrangling a child. I don't see him on camera. So unless he pops off, I'll yeah. Also, I'm happy to read out. Yeah. Yeah. Please do. Great. He said, attended the neighborhood meeting about the new community center that will replace Nazaro. That's one of the city's community centers.

The new community center will be next to the BCYF Mirabella pool. There were some issues about whether or not to shrink the pool size or not. Many people wanna keep the original size of the pool. So definitely keep us in the loop. We do review those projects for, you know, access, but we wouldn't need for example, getting into the pool, we would review things like hoist or zero entry, but the size of the pool, that's definitely a community process.

Yeah. That's great, Wes. It's good to know you're involved in that. We have seen some of the plans regarding that renovation and new build. So glad to know that you're in on it too from the community angle.

And Zari, I see your question to Carl about fly flyers for those state house days. I know I have a link to the autism day. I don't think I have a link to the deaf blind day. So I'll send you that. But Carl, if you have a link about the deaf blind day, I'll share it around.

I can I can send you a link, flyer? A

Thanks.

Anybody else have any updates?

Paul, were you gonna say something?

Paul, you're breaking up. We're having trouble hearing you. Maybe if you could put it in the chat.

Alright. I think we lost Paul auditorily. Yeah. Alright.

Can you hear me now? Is that any better?

That's much better.

Yeah. Sorry about that. I was in a different location. I don't know what this background is that showed up. It's like green grass, so use that. I don't know what that is. I want to say to Olivia, you're doing a great job tonight as a chairperson. Real great meeting, but I was able to speak to some community members of the Blackstone of the West End about mental health advocacy this afternoon and our community outreach at the board. I was able to give out my city of Boston email to anyone that has any questions or needs assistance, and they're very young. They're very grateful and thankful.

So if anything that needs to be reached, the commissioner or Andrea, you know, they know that they'll always been more than willing to help also.

And, Paul, just just to clarify, power is preservation of affordable housing. Is that right?

Yeah. Yes. It is. There's several locations around the city, whereas my brother lives at the one on the West End, and they have about 300 residents. So they're very grateful for the time and the connections, including the management team also, I've given my phone number and email too.

Thank you.

Cool. Cool. Okay. Any old business? No old business.

Nothing showing up on my radar. New business. We have a piece of new business. We wanna write a letter to the Abilities Expo to come back to Boston since they've come under new new leadership. And was wondering how the board feels about this.

Hi. It's Kristen. Can I just add a little context? Yes.

Please do.

I raised this issue to the executive committee because I remember several years ago, a lot of you may remember fondly the Abilities Expo. We always had a table there, and pretty much everybody from the disability community in Boston would go. They had a lot of, you know, staples that people need. They had, like, wheelchair repair. They sold things. They gave things away. It was a like a three day expo, and they go to different cities around the country. So they stopped coming to Boston maybe five, six, seven years ago. And at the time, the board wrote a letter to see if they would come back. And the owner was not able to do so because of the scheduling at the convention center, but now there is new ownership of the Abilities Expo.

So I know they have the schedule built out at least for the next year or two, but I just wanted to raise it as an issue because I know the board had been interested that in the past. So I give it to the executive committee for Olivia to move forward.

Carl, I I support the idea.

Brad, that's Daddy.

Supported. Yes. I my question is, I thought I recently saw an advertisement about them. I don't know whether it was on TV or somehow on the Internet. And I thought they were coming to Boston, but that might have been a mistake. But in your Yeah. Mhmm. You should have released it.

I got an email from them, and it is out there on on online, but it's not coming to Boston. The closest one is New York, and that's in, like, May. Other than that, it's, like, LA, Chicago, Dallas, I think.

You should definitely advocate for it. I know it was a greatly attended event, So I was supportive.

Well, we we could just find the old letter and change the date and and resubmit that letter. So I don't think there would be a hard act for this committee to do.

I can try to find the old letter.

If not, we still have the capability of running a new one. I support the idea of getting the ability to expo back to Boston. I enjoy it very much.

Do you support it enough to make a motion, Carl?

Oh, okay. I see what you're doing. Very thoroughly done. Yeah. This is Carl. I make a motion to that we write a letter to ask the ability that further come back to market.

I second.

Any discussion? Alright. Let's put it up for a vote. All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Alright. The motion carries. We're gonna write a letter to the Abilities Expo and try to get them to come back to Boston.

We'll look for the old letter and send it to you all to review for, next month. Great.

Alright. Does anybody have any other new business they wanna raise? Okay. Seeing none, hearing none, it is now time for public input. Andrea, go ahead and lay the ground rules.

Thanks so much, Olivia. So some of the ground rules are on this slide. For example, we are now at the public input section that is at the end of the meeting. Please use the Zoom raise hand function if you wish to speak and wait to be recognized, to begin. We do have ASL interpreters, so if you would like to sign your question, again, please raise Zoom hand function and I will pin you for the interpreters to find you.

Please identify yourself before speaking. Public input is limited to two minutes. Olivia, this is Andrea. I am not seeing raised hands or comments in the chat.

Okay. Having given sufficient time for folks to find the hand raised function, It's time to make a motion.

Olivia? Yes? This is Carl.

Can I make a motion to adjourn? Absolutely. Any seconds?

I see Wes.

This is Wes.

Paula's favor?

Five.

Five. Okay. Meeting ended at 07:11.

Thank you, everybody. Great job, Olivia.

Thank you.

Thanks, everyone. Good to see you all.