Disability Commission Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

One, my name is Andrea. The open meeting law requires that I notify the public that this meeting is recorded. Therefore, please be aware that an audio and visual recording of this meeting is being made by Boston City TV, a part of the City of Boston Office of Cable Communications and is being broadcast on Xfinity channel 26, RCN channel 13, and Fios channel nine sixty two, as well as being live streamed on YouTube where recording will be posted after the meeting. If you need the agenda, I'm about to put a link in the chat. If you have any questions about communications access such as captions or ASL, you can also DM me Andrea Patton, and I will help.

With that, I'll turn it over to our acting chair, vice chair of the executive committee, Olivia Richard.

Hello. Good evening. Welcome to our final meeting of the year of the Disability Commission Advisory Board. We'll start with introductions, and we'll start with Carl.

Okay. Hello. Good evening. Happy holidays, everybody. My name is Carl Richardson. I live in Brighton, and I identify as a member of the deaf blind community. Thank you.

Paul? Hi. My name is Paul Karen. I live in the West End Of Boston. I serve on the executive committee of the board, which I'm thankful for the opportunity and work at the city of Boston planning department.

Juan Carlos?

Hello, everyone. Happy holidays as well. My name is Jorge Los Tamela Scuttafia. I'm a lenders. I'm a VP of South End, and I'm a person in the.

Okay. Tara?

Hi, everyone. I'm Tara Suthard, and I'm also on the executive board for the commission. And I represent Roxbury.

Alright. Wesley?

Hi there, everybody. My name is Wes, and I am using sign language interpreters throughout the course this meeting. They are two female sign language interpreters, so you will hear will hear female voices, but I myself am a white male. I am, wearing a navy blue hoodie, and, I am a member of this board. And I live in the North End. Happy holidays as well to all of you.

Okay. Andrea, can you make Paulette co chair?

Yes. Apologies. I had not done that. Paulette can now unmute herself if you'd like to call on her. My apologies.

Exactly. I would love to call on Paulette.

Paulette Durette. I live in the matter of hand section of the city. I'm an older black woman with black glasses and a gray T shirt on, and I'm a member of the commission, and I'm retired.

Awesome. Okay. I am Olivia Richard. I'm the vice chair of the advisory board, and I am a white female wearing glasses, closed cropped hair, headphones, and a black T shirt, and I come from Brighton.

Olivia Zari has joined as well. I don't know if

you saw.

Oh, yes. Let's let's make her a co chair too or a co host. Done. Okay. Zari? Hi, everyone, and

happy holidays. My name is Zari. I'm in Hussaini, and I live in South Austin. I'm a white female with short brown hair, wearing gray sweater, and happy to be a member of this board. Thank you, Lily.

Great. Alright. Is there anyone else who's joined? No? I don't not seeing anyone in the list. So I can jump in, Louie. Oh, yes. Oh my god. I forgot to introduce you. That's fine. No worries. Commissioner would you like to introduce yourself?

Sure. Hi, everybody. I'm Krista Makosh. I'm the disability commissioner and ADA title two coordinator for the city. I am a woman with blonde hair and glasses. There's an image of city hall with my background, and I am a wheelchair user myself.

So welcome, everybody. Nice to see you. Awesome. Okay. So we've done that. We have a quorum. So would anyone like to make a motion to approve the minutes?

That's a call. I make a motion to accept the minute, October minute.

Paul, second. Paul, I second.

Awesome. Two seconds. That's great. Any discussion? All right. Hearing none, we'll take a vote. All in favor, aye.

Aye. Any

opposed? Any abstaining? Nope. Alright. It passes. We accept the minutes. Okay. So we're having a presentation on autonomous vehicles from doctor Michael Everett. Doctor Everett, are you ready?

I'm ready to go.

Okay. Let's let's take it off.

All right. I've just shared my screen. Everyone that is that coming through?

Yes.

Great. Yes.

Okay. So let me just give a quick introduction about myself. So I'm Michael Everett. I'm an assistant professor at Northeastern. I've been here for about three years, but I've been living in the Greater Boston area for much longer than that.

I I moved here in about 2011 for school, and then I've enjoyed it so much I haven't left. So I lived in Back Bay for a while. I lived in the South End for a few years and then moved to the suburbs recently. The the goal today was to for me to give a little presentation about the current state of autonomous vehicle technology. I'll share a little bit from my perspective as a researcher thinking about autonomous robot navigation and give my perspective on how these vehicles work, kind of sensors, decision making, and then some of the limitations and safety considerations that I think are really important for us as citizens to be aware of.

So I'll give the presentation, and I would encourage you all to chime in at any moment, ask me questions. I'll give the presentation kind of assuming trying to assume as little background knowledge about the topic as possible. But if you are an autonomous vehicle expert or if this is the first time you're hearing or learning about these, I'm happy to take any of your questions. So I'll just move on to the my next slide. So the the first question I want to to pose is why are we talking about this today?

So over on the left of the slide, I just have a picture from channel five news of a Waymo self driving vehicle that that was starting to do testing in Boston earlier this fall. And I think that recent commercial interest in thinking about these robo taxi services around Boston is really exciting for a lot of people. You think about the level of access that you can get get around town in new ways that was not possible previously. I think that's very exciting. But at the same time, it's hard to separate the hype that the media is portraying and some of the companies are portraying versus the reality of what these systems can really do today.

So that that's one of the goals of this conversation is to try and share some of what what's really going on. So on this slide, I've got a timeline of some of the big events that have happened, some milestones in the the history of autonomous vehicle technology. So over on the left, I've I've noted in about 1989, there is research at Carnegie Mellon University that was thinking about autonomous driving. And it's pretty amazing when you look back at their work, the technology is almost has a lot of parallels to what's going on today. They were using these ideas of neural networks that would take in an image of the road and make a decision of what steering angle to put on the steering wheel and how much throttle and brake to use.

So that's going back, that's what, thirty five years ago or so right now. As we go along on our timeline of the history of this technology, in the February, there was a major effort by the US government to invest in this technology and in the form of these big DARPA challenges where the government would get together a bunch of teams from universities and industry to pair together and really have a competition to see. In some cases, it was drive across the desert and have a race to see who get to the end of the the mission as long as as quickly as possible. And then as those challenges evolved and the technology got better, it started to be more urban settings and having multiple cars trying to navigate these really controlled city streets that are just on a test track that are perfectly designed for these scenarios. So that in big investment by the government led to a whole bunch of research and new ideas and people that were trained to think about these problems.

And that led to this huge era of growth in the 20 tens of almost every car company you can think of or name and even a bunch of car companies and manufacturers you've never heard of we're all saying, we're working on autonomous vehicles. This is the future and tons of investment. Billions and millions of dollars went into this. In about 2012, one of my milestones on here is that the Google self driving car passed the human administered driver's test. And that's a pretty important milestone, I think.

You know, there's some caveats with that statement of exactly what test they passed. But the fact that even about thirteen, fourteen years ago, we had a car that could navigate the same test almost that a 16 or 15 year old person may be driving depending on what state they're in. I think that's pretty remarkable that that that was possible at that time. Fast forward to closer to today. So I I consider the twenty twenties is this era now in the space of commercialization, trying to understand is any of this crazy research that's been happening actually gonna lead to a product that companies can sell and make money off of?

Or is it a lot of money that was spent to come up with something that's still a little bit out of reach? So that's the era that we're in right now. Almost all the companies have either merged or changed focus, and there's really just a few key players now that are still investing heavily in what we'd call these robotaxis, which would be a service that can drive you around. A lot of other companies have focused now on just advanced driver assist of lane keeping or advanced cruise control where you as the the driver are still in control at all times, but maybe can pass off under your decision making. The last statistical I'll mention on this timeline just to kind of ground the conversation with where we are today.

So is some estimate out there by one of these analyst firms that says, Waymo is now giving out 450,000 paid rides autonomously per week. And I think that number is pretty staggering with relative to where we were a few years ago. The rate of progress of these aren't just experimental rides in the sense that their employees are are taking rides in the cars because they know how they work. These are, you know, almost half a million paid rides by customers every single week. So the technology is out there in lots of cities.

It's something that you can download an app and take an autonomous vehicle ride if you're in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, a few other cities. So I just wanna kind of make sure everybody is sort of aware that this is something that is out there and there's questions of of whether it makes sense for that to be happening in Boston. So I'll talk a little bit about how these systems work. The the two big ideas that I wanna convey are that autonomous vehicles use sensors to see and they use computers to make decisions. So I'll walk through a couple of types of sensors that are used to make to to to understand what the world looks like from the car's perspective.

And then I'll mention at the end a little bit about the decision making that these cars are capable of. So it's not that different from ways that people drive. The you know, we use different ways to observe the the scene around us. In the the slide that I have right here, I've got a three d LIDAR sensor visualization of what that type of data looks like. Over on the left is if you just looked at a single measurement at a single time step.

And you can see all these rings that are effectively just sending out a pulse of light, seeing how long it takes for that pulse of light to come back. We know the speed of light, so you can calculate how far away that that object was. And if you do that in about a million times a second, you can build up what we call these point clouds or these all these dots that represent coordinates of objects around you. So that's a really important sensor that's being used by a vast majority of the autonomous vehicles that are out there, this LiDAR sensor. Over on the right, I've got a nice graphic that's actually coming out of my research group.

If you've driven down Columbus Ave in the South End across Northeastern's campus, you may recognize one of these parking garages that we made by putting a bunch of three d LiDAR scans together. But that's kind of the big idea here in terms of three d LiDAR is one of the most important sensors for autonomous driving. One of the other big technologies that gets used is cameras that might make be very intuitive to give you the visual idea of what the scene looks like. And it kind of complements the information that's available from the LiDAR sensor that I showed on the last slide. So a lot of times these cameras are being used to identify pedestrians, bicyclists, other road users, cars, trucks, and make distinctions between these different types of road users or agents in the environment as well as it can be really helpful to identify lanes, traffic signs, and other components of the road that help you understand where your vehicle is relative to where it's supposed to be.

There's a couple other sensors that get used in autonomous driving a lot. Radar is very common. It gives you a much coarser understanding of objects. So sensor might say, oh, there's this there is an object in front of you. It may the radar wouldn't necessarily be able to distinguish that as several people walking together, whereas a camera and the LIDAR might help fill in some of that information at a much finer level of resolution.

The picture over on the right, I've got just a diagram from one of the autonomous vehicle research groups that's been focused on this area. And you can see the number of LIDAR sensors, cameras, radars. They're just positioned all around the vehicle at very strategic locations to get the best view of what's going on around the vehicle and not have any blind spots as much as possible. So I think that's one of the real potential upsides of this technology is as human drivers, we may not be able to see everything at every moment. We can use our mirrors as well as possible, but there's still gonna be blind spots.

You have to turn your head and still you may not see something oncoming. Whereas there's an opportunity with the self driving car to position sensors in a way that you really don't have blind spots and you can anticipate things further ahead than what a human would be capable of. In terms of decision making, that's one of the next questions that that is important to think about. So once you've your vehicle has used its sensors to see what's going on around it and know where it is in its lane and kind of know where it is on what road, on what street, on what time, it needs to make a decision of where to drive next or what commands to send to the vehicle. So should you press the throttle, should you press the brake, how hard, and how much you should turn the steering wheel.

Those are the the control inputs, we call them, for the vehicle. And so the way these systems work is the car will estimate where it is, where it wants to go, and then it will design a path or a trajectory that considers all the other objects or other agents as well as the rules of the road to make sure it comes to it. Decides a path that is collision free. It's not gonna bump into anybody. It's not gonna get too close to anyone else, And it's gonna respect the rules of the road.

Those are the main considerations that go into designing that path. There's some smaller effects that as you, as a company, start to think about delivering a service that people want to use, things like rider comfort, things like getting to the destination quickly, those become factors, but those are definitely secondary factors after all the safety considerations are taken care of. So there have definitely been questions as this technology has matured of sometimes these autonomous vehicles, people complain that they're almost too safe or too cautious and they're not willing to go into an intersection because, you know, they don't want to do anything that's potentially risky. And then, you know, if you're the passenger, you may rather have a human driver who's willing to take those risks. And that's a question that everybody has to think about a little bit differently.

So I'll with a couple statistics of of that I just grabbed from Waymo's website. And Waymo's just one representative example. A lot of people say that they're kind of the leaders in this space. I think between them and Tesla, those are probably the two most commonly talked about self driving robotaxi services that are are being deployed in various cities. There's definitely others, so I don't wanna, like, exclude anyone, but I feel like those are often top of people's mind.

Waymo is very I find them very transparent with their statistics. So you can go to their website which is listed down at the bottom of this slide. They they claim that they've got 96,000,000 miles of rider only miles driven. That's a pretty large number. Just a few years ago, it was a small fraction of that.

They've driven, for instance, about 30,000,000 miles in San Francisco, maybe 3,000,000 miles in Austin, that's a newer service. And so they're thinking about expanding that list. There's just four cities listed on that slide that I grabbed from their website. In terms of making the safety case, is this a technology that as a society we think is is useful. I think they're starting to be pretty compelling evidence.

There's always caveats with these safety claims when it comes from the company that is also trying to push a product. So you have to have a read these things with a close eye. But, you know, you start to look at some of their numbers like eighty percent fewer injury causing crashes as as compared to a human driver over those same distances. I think some of those numbers are starting to be pretty compelling in terms of the upside of what this technology could offer, which had been talked about for a long time and now it's starting to actually happen. I don't wanna sort of overly convey that this technology is totally perfect.

So there's definitely limitations, and I've listed some of some of them on the next slide. So some of the current limitations out there that I wanted to highlight are in the upper left, I've got an image of the communication with other drivers. Very difficult to do with an autonomous vehicle. You know, as as humans, we may use sort of nonverbal communication when driving, little hand waves, eye contact. You also do this potentially with pedestrians and cyclists as you wave them along or or make eye contact, get a sense of what they're gonna do.

That's almost not possible when it comes to an autonomous vehicle, and we have to think about new ways of having these communications either between autonomous vehicles and people or even other autonomous vehicles that are created and produced by different companies. So that's a big open area. Another one that's super relevant to us here in Boston is dealing with snow. So you you may have noticed on the list of cities that these companies are deploying their vehicles in. They're strategically chosen to have wonderful weather year round.

Boston, we don't quite have that luxury. So snow is a big issue for a lot of these sensing modalities that I mentioned before. So snow can occlude the sensors. It can occlude what you can see in terms of lines on the road. And so it could be that on snowy days, it makes sense that these companies just can't provide the service yet. And that might be a totally valid safe answer. But it's definitely not there yet in terms of being

able

to deal with fog and snow and other types of weather considerations other than sunny California weather. In terms of a couple other picture I have on the slide for current limitations. So rare events. When you talk to people that work in this space, they're often talking about what they call the long tail which is all of these rare events. If you remember back in school, the the bell curve. The bell curve of of in statistics, it goes on forever. Right? There's really extreme events that almost never happen. There's some very small probability that it happened. So I've got a picture here of a car driving in the with a whole bunch of sheep that have swarmed it.

So in Boston, it's probably really unlikely. In other parts of the country, maybe that could happen. But until you've seen or dealt with a scenario like that, maybe as humans, we've got a reasoning ability to to make a decision of how to handle that. Maybe the answer is just slow down and stop and wait for everything to calm down. But that's been a challenge for a lot of these self driving cars.

And a lot of the news stories that you see where things go wrong, it's because something really rare that's never happened to an autonomous vehicle happened and it didn't make the right decision. And then I think the last thing on the bottom left I've got is just a picture of there's been a whole bunch of incidents with autonomous vehicles over the lifespan in the past ten years or so as these have been deployed more and more. And consumer trust is just a huge question of should we trust these vehicles yet? And should we trust the companies that are putting out these vehicles? I think those are both questions that people have to make on their own as well as in groups and having conversations like this.

So that's my the end of my slides. My last slide just asks about questions. I'm happy to take any from from anyone on the call and and share any thoughts.

Okay. Anybody on the advisory board have questions or comments for the presenter? This is Carl. Go ahead, Carl. With you over here. First

of all, I wanna Oh, I'm sorry. Was somebody else

speaking? No. Go ahead.

Alright. I wanna thank you, doctor, for doing this neutral presentation and presenting both sides. I'm the one that requested that we have a presentation on autonomous vehicles because of the city council looking at potentially banning autonomous vehicles. And I, as a person with a disability, think that I have potential opportunity because many communities outside of the MBTA Boston footprint do not fund regional transit enough that people with disabilities have access to employment, affordable housing, health care, education, and more. So I think that I agree that we still need to do some work, but I also think the upside is huge.

People co op doing co op rides, sharing cars, towns, and senior centers may be affording a a autonomous vehicle. But I I just wanna thank you for giving the presentation so that we can all learn together and make an informed decision along the way.

Great. Thank you for sharing that. And I think you raised some really important issues. And there really is a cool upside that can have an impact on a lot of people's lives. And so I'm definitely I'm actively working on some of these challenging limitations of how to make these systems better in my research group. And I'm excited about where this is going.

Did you see the New York Times piece on Sunday by the neurologist saying this is a high health care matter?

I haven't seen that. No.

I'll send I'll send that to I'll send that to Andrea, and she can share it with you.

Great. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you, Carl. Anybody else?

This is Andrea, if you don't mind me taking a moment.

Yeah. Go ahead, Andrea.

First, doctor, I'm not sure if you wanna pull your screen down just Sure. Just the questions, I think. You know, obviously, we're talking about robotaxis here and I'm just curious if there is anyone thinking about trying to sell these as personal vehicles at this time? I know that ten years ago that was a question, is it going to become a robotaxi or an individual vehicle? Do those exist on the road fully autonomous personal vehicles?

You can't go and buy a fully self driving well, okay. What I would call a fully self driving level four, level five car that will completely you can take your hands off the wheel and you don't have to be engaged at all. It will do everything. That doesn't exist yet in terms of something you can buy. So I think that a lot of the companies have taken the position that these are still pretty specialized piece of equipment, so they will manage them and they'll have a fleet and then they will not that dissimilar from a rideshare service driven by humans.

You can request a ride from them and they can provide that service. Do I see that happening in the next five years being able to buy a car that has this like robotaxi capability. I don't see it. I don't know how much weight you wanna put into my, you know, prediction, but I think there are definitely more and more advanced driver assistive services. And so we usually call those like the level two or level three in terms of the kind of classification of how autonomous it is, how much it can help you.

And so those you can definitely buy. And I think the cars you can buy today versus a couple of years ago are are quite a bit more capable when you switch them over into those modes. But a lot of them will have things like eye tracking to make sure that you're still paying attention to what's going on and they won't let you switch into that mode permanently.

Thank you.

I think at the same time, you know, when I say fully self driving, they're like, Tesla will advertise a product called full self driving, which to me is not a accurate description of what it is. So I think it's important to to be very clear on what the what the technology is actually capable of today.

Okay. Am I missing any hands?

Yes. I think

Paul has

a hand. Paul?

Go ahead,

Yes. I'm just curious on the safety of the vehicles. Is there, like, a time limit to exit the vehicles? Like, say, myself and a passenger or a second person? Just can you just get out and leave, or do you have to press certain buttons? How does that work?

Yeah. That that's gonna be different than any company's vehicle about how you can say, like, I I need to get out. I don't I don't know that I can give a a good answer across the whole spectrum of the options you have.

Thank you.

And we do have one question in the chat, Olivia, from a member of the public. Oh, I see commissioner first.

Well, it's interesting. I was gonna talk about that same issue. So I thought it was really interesting that you mentioned the nonverbal communication because as a wheelchair user, I almost never cross the street until I make eye contact with the drivers, especially if it's a big truck because we're down so low. So is there any way you can think, like, to overcome that challenge? I I feel like that's a big safety challenge.

And I know people with disabilities, wheelchair users in general, are really nervous about that. A friend of mine used to work in this field as well, and he said that he as soon as autonomous vehicles were on the road, he wasn't gonna leave the house unless he had it on a T shirt that had a stop sign on it. So when everyone was crossing the street, the cops would stop. So I don't mean to make light of it because it is a serious issue. But just any more thoughts on that, like taking that human element out of it and how that would impact safety?

Yeah. Absolutely. I'm glad you brought that up. I I think there are definitely ways we can have communication between autonomous vehicles and people, And it just hasn't necessarily been the focus so far because they've try they're trying to solve the problem without having to explicitly have communication. But we already have some methods.

I mean, there's you can have your turn signals on. That's one level of nonverbal communication. You could imagine the self driving cars even being required to give an indication of which direction they're gonna go or what they're planning to do over the next few seconds. And actually, if you ride in one of these, if you look as a passenger, there's usually a display that says, you know, here, you can see what the car thinks is going on. Like, you can see the other cars on the road that it's sensed.

You can see where it thinks it is in the lane as well as its future planned path. So it'd be great to be thinking about ways that that information can be conveyed to people that aren't in the car. And you're not gonna be able to have like a TV screen that everyone can immediately look at and understand, but almost like, I'm about to drive. I'm about to move, and at least give that level of indication.

And the question in the chat also says, does the car honk the horn? Like, if it's does it have that capability?

Yeah. They can. And actually, there's a sort of wild news story a few months back you may have seen of a bunch of Waymo's all in a parking lot, all honking their horns at each other. So, yes, they they have the ability to use their horn. And I agree that could be another modality at which you can start to communicate. I think as Boston gyros, you probably use that too much. But I think that could be a way. It's just very it's very much like an on or off, and it's pretty jarring. So you don't wanna use it too much. But I think maybe there's other ways you could have some sort of you could even imagine some sort of car that's that's talking to pedestrians. I'm about to go. And that could be really nice if if done in a a clean way.

And then just two real quick questions. I I hope I'm representing questions that people with disabilities have. So that's what I'm taking all your time. But so you mentioned the LiDAR and all the sensors on the car. Have they been and you said it's almost like no space that's not affected by a sensor. So they all study different heights and different, like, sizes because I know we have children. Like I said, we're lower to the ground than a standard pedestrian would be. So is that all considered, and is there anything studied on people with disabilities specifically, like if they're walking slower, somebody's older? Because I agree with Carl. This technology could be very revolutionary for people who can't drive, but at the same time, we're we are concerned about these safety issues.

Yeah. So, yeah, the all of the companies working on this have entire teams of people thinking about exactly, like, what position and what angle, what orientation to plates all of these different sensors to get the best understanding of what's around them. I don't know of specific research or or examples of of teams working on making sure that they can see people of a certain height, for instance. So I need to maybe I could maybe look more at that if that would be helpful. But I do think that there are a lot of test cases that these companies will go through of untest tracks.

They'll have objects of different sizes come in front of the vehicle and confirm they can detect them as well as a stop or swerve if something needs to happen.

That's great. Thank you so much. Olivia

West does have a question in the chat as well. I'm happy to read it.

Yeah. I saw that. Go ahead.

So member West Ireland asks, I know you mentioned the issue of autonomous vehicles not being able to communicate with other drivers, but are they able to communicate with passengers? And if no if so, what are some of the ways?

Yeah. With with communicating between the vehicles and the passengers, there are oftentimes, are TV screens in the car that will display the what the car currently thinks in terms of here are other cars on the road at these positions. Here's the plan of the path that the vehicle is about to take as well as maybe stop signs that it has detected and different traffic signs. So there's that way to to show visually to passengers. That that would be the main modality that had I've seen so far.

Can I jump in here with a blind person, tell you how the car can communicate with a blind person? Because I know many blind people who have been involved. It would talk to your phone. For instance, if you use the Waymo One app, it'll tell you where you're located, where you're going, what intersection you're crossing. You can even control the temperature of the car, pick the music, do the environmental controls. If it dropped you off because it can't drop you off safely in front of the destination you're going to and dropped you off a block away, it'll then activate your GPS, so it'll tell you how to walk to where you're going. So it does at least from a blindness perspective, it does quite a bit of communicating with the passenger.

Through the app. Right, Carl? Through the app that you have?

Through the way more app that connected with way more. I don't know about Tesla or emotional or some of the other companies, but I knew I know based on what and I'm and I don't really care which company does. I'm just mentioning way more because that's the one I'm familiar with. But I I just want autonomous vehicles. But the potential is there through the app to talk through the car and communicate back and forth.

And I know for sighted people, there's a display in the back seat that gives all the information that I and all the controls that I just mentioned. And you can even set a set on, like, if you're disabled, say, please don't pick me up too far away from where I'm standing, that sort of thing. There are you can even tell that you can't walk too far, that sort of thing.

Okay. Closing out, I actually had a really quick question. How do the car's LIDAR respond to reflective taping such as on white canes and and other devices?

Yeah. Really great question. So the LiDAR sensors actually are great at detecting the the reflective pane on the road for being able to jump out and really clearly identify here are the lane lines. So it's actually great for that because you get a whole a very high level of reflectivity. And these sensors can actually distinguish between the intensity of the light coming back to them.

So they can almost see color in the sense that they can tell how strongly light was reflected back and then you can get kind of lightness versus darkness. So I haven't seen any examples actually myself of of how well these LiDARs would sense a cane in particular with the reflective paint. But I would imagine that the fact that it's reflective is actually a really positive thing for the sensor's ability to pick it up. There is another question though for small objects. As you get further away from the sensor, their resolution gets worse and worse. So the as you're far away, it may or may not pick up something that thin. So that would be a question that that would be worth thinking more about.

Okay. Not seeing any other hands or questions.

Doctor, if we wanted to learn more about the work that you're doing and the North Eastern is doing, how would we look that up?

Yeah. So my research group at North Eastern is called the Autonomy and Intelligence Lab. And if you look us up on Google, you'll you'd find my website. And we've got a bunch of a description in text on the main page of of what we're doing as well as a lot of our research papers, if you're interested in that, are found on the publications tab of the website. And then all the people involved, all the PhD students and and postdocs and undergraduates, for instance, they're all listed on the website as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you, everybody.

All right. Moving on to our next, item on our agenda. It is the executive committee elections procedure overview.

I'm happy to take this one, Olivia. Please do. Great. So, just a quick note for, I think everyone's been through this at least once, but a reminder that our executive committee positions are one year terms within your three year term as a board member. So we do do elections every year.

We have four positions, chair. The chair's responsibilities are to set the agenda and chair the meeting, create subcommittees. The vice chair's role is to be on the committee and and help the chair with that. And as Olivia is doing today, actually running the meeting should the need arise. We also have a secretary and a treasurer, which are some wonderful positions because you take care of your money, which you don't have.

Yeah. That's why Carl used to joke he loved that position. And to make the meeting minutes, which again, you all are lucky. Colleen Flanagan in our office does that and does a great job at it. But really what they do is they help the executive committee, again, set the agenda, set the priorities of the board, and at times lend an extra effort for things like the letters that you all write and send to legislators.

So those are the four positions. We take nominations in January and a vote in February. Any member can nominate any other member or themselves should you wish to nominate yourselves. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, understood. You can always contact commissioner Makash.

She is, technically a member, it's a long story, but she can do that nomination for you because I know can be uncomfortable to put yourself for that position. But we will be taking those nominations at the January meeting, which during commissioner's report we'll get into. I don't have a date for you yet. But just a reminder to be thinking about that over the holiday season and let us know if you're interested in leadership on the executive committee. I don't think I missed anything, but, commissioner, let me know if I did or if any current members of the executive committee wanna say anything, obviously, please do.

There's a half an hour meeting over Zoom once a month. That is plus if there's any email back and forth over signing a letter or language that needs to be brought to the full board, they usually run it by the executive committee before it's brought up as an agenda item. So that's those are some of the the commitments we have as executive committee members. Alright. Let's move on to the chair's report.

Did Jerry submit a written report?

Yes. He did. So you get to hear from me a little bit longer. Jerry is on. Hi, Jerry. But not in a position to come off mute. So no worries. I will be a voice today. So a message from the chair, gratitude and future leadership. I'm sorry not to be able to chair this last meeting of the year, but I'm just getting home from some medical treatment and I'm a bit under the weather.

Thank you Olivia for leading tonight's meeting and I will participate as much as I can while listening in. It is my continued honor to work with and help lead such a strong group of advocates on the Disability Commission Advisory Board. Thank you for all your dedication and hard work this past year. As we look ahead to the new year, elections for the new board leadership are approaching. I want to encourage everyone to seriously consider stepping up into a leadership role.

We will discuss this more thoroughly at our January meeting. In the meantime, if anyone would like to discuss what the roles of chair, vice chair, treasurer or secretary entail, please free feel free to reach out to myself, any current member of the executive committee or Andrea. Second, in memoriam, honoring champions of disability rights. We pause this evening to acknowledge the profound losses our community has recently experienced with the passing of two giants in the disability rights movement, national disability rights advocate, Alice Wong, and beloved local advocate and former chair of this advisory board, John Kelly. Alice was a visionary advocate, writer, and founder of the Disability Visibility Project, an essential platform for elevating disabled voices and culture.

Her work including her edited anthology, Disability Visibility, and her memoir, Year of the Tiger has profoundly shifted how disability is discussed and perceived nationwide. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to hear Alice speak at the Boston Center for Independent Living's Marie Felton award ceremony a few years ago and her passion was truly inspiring. John Kelly was a passionate advocate whose local leadership, including his time as chair of this advisory board, made a tangible difference in the lives of Bostonians with disabilities. Nationally, John was a vocal and effective leader in the movement against assisted suicide, championing the rights of disabled people to receive fully funded home and community based services as the true path to self determination. I'm sure our commissioner Cannon will speak further to John's impactful legacy advocacy during his tenure as chair of this advisory board.

In closing, we honor their legacies by reaffirming our dedication to the ongoing fight for equity and justice. Third and finally in Jerry's report, upholding the fundamental right to vote, immediate action required. The exercise of our right to vote is the most fundamental of civic responsibilities and a crucial way in which all citizens make their voices heard. As chair, I must report to the board on the unacceptable barriers encountered by several of our members, including myself and Olivia during the recent general election. We faced significant challenges at polling places due to lack of training.

Poll workers appeared uneducated and uninformed regarding proper procedures for assisting voters with disabilities in using the AutoMark voting machine. Systemic failure. Election department staff when contacted failed to properly problem solve the issues resulting in frustration and disenfranchisement for voters. Andrea and the commissioner have held discussions with the elections commissioner and staff, and this issue was a major point of conversation at our recent executive committee meeting. I have also raised this issue directly with city councilors Enrique Pepin and Sharon Durkin and with the mayor.

The challenges we face are compounded by the fact that the automark machines represent outdated technology that no longer meets modern standards for accessibility and ease of use. Our path forward. I implore this board to make voting accessibility our most urgent priority going forward. We must work collaboratively with the elections department to achieve two essential goals. First, immediate training improvement.

Implement mandatory, rigorous, and practical training for all poll workers on assisting voters with disabilities and ensuring the correct use of the Automark machine. Two, technological modernization. Advocate strongly with the Secretary of State's office to allow the city of Boston to pilot or adopt modern, accessible voting technology that moves beyond the limitations of the automark machine. In a climate where some are actively trying to silence the voices of marginalized communities, we must fight back by ensuring that people with disabilities can freely and easily exercise our right to vote on every election day. Thank you, and I wish all of you a happy and healthy holiday season.

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

Thank you, Olivia. It's actually good timing because to begin my report, we have a guest with us this evening, commissioner Paul Chong, who's commissioner of city records, and he's also the city registrar. Welcome, commissioner, and we thank you very much for attending. You heard the report, and we've also had many discussions about this topic. So I would love to turn it over to you to give the board some information about the general processes that we're working on to improve voting and then maybe some specific thoughts on what happened and a path forward.

Okay. Hello. Thank you, Commissioner Makosh. My name is Paul Chung. I wanna thank the board chair and the board members for your continued advocacy.

As the city looks to celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth year of of founding of our country, I think that there is no better time to talk about how critical access to voting is. So I'd like to start by providing a little context ahead of this year's elections and what the city has been doing, and then I'd like to talk about some of the issues with the automark machine in particular, and then discuss ways that we can collaborate to make sure that everyone has the kind of access to the polls that they deserve. So as you are aware, in November 2024, there was a shortage of ballots, and the secretary of state in February 2025 issued an order. I'm gonna

share my

screen. Andrea and commissioner Kosh, I can work with you to distribute these materials, but I will try to read the relevant portions as I share my screen here. So give me one second. Alright. Here we go.

So this is the order from the secretary of state. The order is something that is legally binding to the city. We were ordered to deliver to each polling location the appropriate number of ballots. We were ordered to develop a communication plan and have redundant modes of communication. We had to provide details about how we would contact the polling locations throughout the day.

We would have to revamp our training program entirely and provide a comprehensive plan for election day administration. The secretary then appointed a designee to assist the election department. And post the November election, there was in this order that says after the twenty twenty six election, a review will be conducted regarding election practices of the city to determine whether this agreement and order shall be extended. So we haven't heard an update from the secretary of state, but we'll continue to engage with and work together to make elections successful. So that is the the background of how I started my tenure working with the elections department.

That's in February. So beginning in February and really the March, we revamped our training programs for the approximately 1,800 to 2,000 poll workers that we hire for each preliminary and general election. We developed new systems. We implemented, for example, a call center environment within the city election department that tracked the number of phone calls we received, where they were received from. We also developed a database or a ticket system where people, poll workers, and staff could report issues, and we could track how we resolved them.

We had a plan for how to distribute ballots, and all these things were in addition to rolling out the use of electronic pull pads. Now these poll pads help make our check-in process more a little more efficient. They also helped us track information like how many ballots we had on hand, how many voters had checked in. Now this is all context for some of the issues that we did encounter on election day. So I'm going to share some data with you about what election day looked like for us in review.

Now we haven't finished analyzing all this data. These a lot of these things, almost all of the things I mentioned, are are new to the city. So the fact that we had to change our procedures for 2,000 poll workers in a period of a few months with new equipment was a significant challenge, and that is something that we are going to work in the long term to make sure that we can continuously train and update our poll workers. But as you'll see, we did collect feedback, and I will share some data with you here. Let's get into here.

So I will these are some of the improvements we just talked about. One of the things that we implemented this election cycle were quick reference guides for poll workers on a number of topics. So what to do if they're they if you have an equipment failure, for example. Now that will factor in later as we talk about the issues with the AutoMark machine, but this gives you a sense of the systems that we modernized, the ways that we tried to empower our staff. We redid our our training and how we're trying to use that data and feedback from really key stakeholders and voters to make elections better.

We use 274 new poll pads, and anytime you roll out new technology, one of the issues for example, if you've ever battled with the Wi Fi on your iPad or your laptop, you know, connectivity can be a real issue. We're really proud to work with our IT department and ensure that there were no connectivity issues between the election department and any of our polling locations. Our calls were quickly answered both from poll workers and the general public. Our poll workers and volunteers felt well trained. They appreciated the resources, and we're collecting information and gathering feedback now because, obviously, there's always room to improve, and that's why we're here.

So this is some of the feedback that we've received. We got positive feedback. We have opportunity areas. We're collating this data, and we're really going to spend the next in the run up to our congressional midterms next year. The goal is to take the feedback and turn it into operations and and change.

So I want folks on this call to know that I deeply appreciate the issues that you've raised because we want to address them. So two examples that I have of some of the feedback that we tried to incorporate between even the September and November elections were there was a polling location, the Saint Joseph's Church in ward it was Precinct 3 Ward 9, and the elevator there had been out commission since 2022 when it first became a polling location. It wasn't accessible. The poll workers had raised this as a concern, and we we were able to move the polling location to the West End Community Center, which is much more accessible. We also heard a request for more quick reference guides for poll workers, such as what to do when we need to issue a provisional ballot or when we need a voter to confirm their residency.

So we're planning to make more of those and certainly would appreciate partnering with this board and commissioner Mikosh and her team to work on those materials. So I won't go through this too much. There was always training for poll workers, but the poll workers are paid a stipend. And the training regimen is has been remote partially because of COVID, but also because it can be a challenge for poll workers to take time off or to travel to attend trainings. This year, we did mandate in person training for poll workers, and we also sent staff into neighborhood locations to try and make it easier for pool workers to attend trainings.

So one of the things that we have to be mindful of are these are everyday people, some of whom don't have paid time off, who work for a modest fee. So the training is something that we really have to be efficient about, but that's something that we'll continue to look at and and adjust. So poll workers felt like they had their questions answered. So in September, 84% of poll workers felt like they had the questions that they had answered. And then in November, 92% responded that they felt like they had their questions answered.

We have a breakdown. We received about 800 calls on election day in November, and I'll show you that the hold time for folks was very low. So what we did is we had a system where poll workers could call to senior staff in the election department to report issues, for example, if an automark machine went down. Now the average time for someone to connect with a senior member of the election department was a minute in November, less than a minute. It's fifty eight seconds.

And then for calls that didn't have to be escalated to a senior member of the staff, it was seven seconds. So we were able to connect poll workers to staff in the election department very quickly. Now that doesn't mean that we always resolved every issue quickly or perfectly, but the first step for us was to make sure that folks were being connected. So we depended a lot on city hall volunteers to take calls. The election department is a very small full time staff, about 30 people.

And so if you think about in November 2024 in a presidential election, we handled something like 16,000 phone calls. And so to have 30 full time staff administering elections and taking phone calls is challenging. We recruited almost a 100 call takers because we had 25 call takers available at any given time during election day. So that was this past year. We made a lot of change in a very short period of time, but we really anticipate doing that again.

And we can't do that without your support. So to talk about the Automarc machines and some of the issues that board chair and others experience, how we treat one person and how any person experiences voting is how we treat everyone, and it's a reflection of our democracy and our city and our values. So we're really committed to making sure that those issues don't arise again. Now we're the commissioner has asked us to review the data and to study the kinds of reports that have come in, and we're working on that now. But I think what we can commit to is changing our training.

So we have two training sessions for each for our poll workers, whether they're a clerk or a warden or just a regardless of their role, we will certainly make sure that we spend time developing new training material, additional training material, and we'll really lean on the expertise of commissioner Mikosh and her team and certainly with your input. And so I'm committed to providing this body regular updates on the progress of that and soliciting your feedback. So I know that we had issues with the Automark machines. And, unfortunately, the machines were first introduced in 2003, and so we are now hiring staff that are younger than the Automark machines. The majority of the issues that we've identified so far that are recorded, that we've seen in our data have to do with the machines malfunctioning, but there certainly is a training element.

And so, you know, we are going to do both. We're gonna work on the machines. We'll certainly have discussions with the secretary of state's office, but we'll also work on the training to make sure that whether you're a poll worker or an election department staff, you understand the right ways to help every type of voter. So I don't know if there's a whole lot more detail I can give to you, but I'm happy to answer questions. So, commissioner Makash, I'll turn it back over to you.

You wanna pull down your screen, Paul?

Great. Thank you so much, commissioner. Andrea, if you wanna share my report, I can just give a few bullet points. I only have a very few bullet points to make, and then we'll turn it over to the board for questions for commissioner Chung. So the commissioner talked about the issues that were reported to us, mainly the automark, how it's old technology, the equipment often malfunctions.

And we we have seen that there's a need for co worker training in that sense. So I just had a quick question as far as process, commissioner. Is it possible to put some instructions in writing and have them available at every poll location? Because, you know, just for the, like, the easy fixes for the watermark. And I know it's not gonna fix everything, but I wonder, like, what the training consists of for the watermark. If that's something we can make, like, an FAQ, like, really quick sheet.

A 100%.

Okay. And then the other concern that we heard was when issues were elevated to the situation room, residents were giving were given information about accommodations that, first of all, didn't suit their disability, and second of all, didn't resolve the problem. So some residents actually wondered whether their vote was even recorded, which is, like, a worst case scenario. So was there any training for situation room staff? I know you said there were city hall volunteers. What what kind of training did they get?

So the situation room staff sit through the same trainings that coworkers are given, But we are certainly open to doing additional training. And, again, really look forward to working with you on that.

Okay. Yeah. I know when I first was appointed in my role, I did a training with the elections department. I think they may still use my video, but I've talked with Commissioner Tavares about updating that, not only because it's over ten years old, but talking about newer know, systems and processes that we have. So Olivia might actually be able to train it with me. I think we did it together. Yeah. I will talk to Olivia too. Okay. That will do.

So we will definitely pick this up after the first of the year just to let you know about our commitment to it. But one of the the drawbacks, like the commissioner mentioned, is that the state law actually requires use of the automark as the technology. So we plan to also advocate at the state level with the commissioner to get a different sort of technology, if any exists, to improve this process. So that's really all I had to say. I'll turn it back to Olivia or Andrea if you have anything else to add.

I have a question of the commissioner, if you don't mind. Of course. So I've actually played with the auto the next generation of the Automark. Is that something the city of Boston looked at, or is it dependent on whether the secretary of state recommends that and purchase that equipment?

So the state so the answer to that is no. The state law requires that the secretary of state certify election equipment that's used. So until we have the certification, we can't use it.

Okay. Because we're But looking at

certainly I

work for the state. That's why I stand down.

I

I worked at A and F and

A and F is the secretary I work in. So

Is that is that right? Yeah. Well, that I was the finance director in the budget office for a few years, and I worked at the state inspector general's office. So but we do view the state as partners. And, hopefully, with more advocacy, we can make some

I so I use the Automark every time in my district. And I will say not only is the equipment getting old and you can tell, but even the pollers I mean, even the people that run the poll stations, you can tell I'm the only person that walks in that uses it because they freak out every time I walk in. But it's simple little things like they'll put the headphone jack Mhmm. And the wrong jack because there's two point there's two jacks that look similar. And, you know, I know enough because I've used the machine.

I can read the braille on the machine. I've educated myself on the operation. But what concerns me is that the blind voter or the voter with the disability doesn't know how to tell the attendee at the poll station, no. You did this wrong. You put it in the wrong jack. Or no. You need to you need to power it down and reboot it or whatever. I you know, I know what to do, actually. But what concerns me here are the people that don't, and then they may miss out on the opportunity to vote. So I think commissioner Mikoshi's idea on maybe a a one page lift is a great idea.

Carl, can I ask how did you find the Automark, like, next gen? Was it working well?

Yeah. It it it more of a

I I tried it out at the American Council of the Blind Convention in where were we? Where were oh, Dallas, Texas last summer. It it looks more like an iPad, and it's wireless, and I think it talks to the printer. I don't know if the commissioner has seen it at all, but that's my recollection of it. And I think it would work fine. So it's more up to date, and it uses more up to date technology. But there are other devices out there and other companies competing. I'm just saying I've seen the next generation of the AutoMux machine. They're out there, and they're

fortunate. Andrea and I do a call every month with disability commissioners from across the country, and there are 10 to 12 big cities on the call with us. And we did put a call out to other cities at our meeting last week to see what kind of technology they use for accessible learning. So we got some input, and we're in the process of doing research on that. So I will bring all these ideas to commissioner Chong after the beginning of the year. So if any board members or members of the public know of anything that works well elsewhere, please send us an email. And you can always reach us at disability@Boston.gov.

And I believe Bridget Murphy is the person that would handle the accessibility of voting machines at the secretary of state's office.

Wonderful. Commissioner Prakash, I I will defer to you on how I can best stay in touch with the board members and provide updates, but I do really want for the department to be accountable and to provide regular updates and communicate with all the members of our community, and that includes this group. That would be great.

And what's our time frame? When's the next election? Is it not until September that we know of?

Yes. It's not until September, but the calendar is very full. And so in January, for example, we'll start to mail out our census to every household in Boston that confirms your voter registration status. Candidates will submit their candidacy papers. Right now, for example, we are certifying signatures for ballot questions.

We have to mail out ballot vote by mail ballot applications. So there's always something happening. And any changes that we do make to our training or operations, At this point, we have a conversation with the secretary of state about. So that also factors into our time frame for making operational improvements.

Great. So I think we have a plan, board members, that we will meet with commissioner Chong and the elections department in the New Year. We'll start to, you know, bring our research together around technology, and we'll make a plan for training. I know commissioner Tavares, runs the elections department, is also very committed to this. So we can do all that, and then we can provide an update to the board maybe, like, late spring. So I hope you have a happy holiday, commissioner, and we will touch base with you after the new year.

Thank you, commissioner, and thank you to the board members. Thank you so much.

Okay. I can give the rest of my report. Let's go back to my slides. So I believe the other big report that I have from City of Boston updates is Mayor Rule's inauguration in 2026. So

I could chime in really quickly. We've mentioned the CODA. I don't know if you got to this, we've mentioned CODA to this group a lot. So this is the group of other appointed volunteers like yourselves. They are also interested in learning more about this AutoMark process and and maybe whatever. So if anyone from the board wants to join the next CODA meeting, email me, and I will send you the link.

Yes. I know I've mentioned CODA many times on this call, like, encouraging you to join. So we would love it for anybody who's interested in joining. And then if you do have thoughts after this call or questions about elections or any anything else you'd like to have us look at, please always send us an email.

Commissioner, if it's if it's okay, I'd love to attend that that meeting, the CODA meeting. Okay. We can follow-up with

you about that as well.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Sure.

So the next update, like I said, Mayor Wu's inauguration will be Monday, January 5 at 10AM at Boston Symphony Hall. And board members will all be invited, and your invitations will be arriving soon. Andrea is working on language and communication access and as well as wheelchair access. We got some input from board members on, like, the best seating locations, which we really appreciate. So hopefully, everybody will get their invitation.

And those who are able to attend will have no access issues. And we'll go to the next slide. So for our department updates, the big one that we have is our outreach tour at the Boston Public Library. Colleen's been working on this for almost a year. So I'm gonna turn it over to her to give this update.

Thank you, commissioner. I'm very happy to report about the disability outreach tour at Boston Public Library branches. We started this in February 2025, and we will finish within a year. So we're gonna finish this up in February 2026. So far, we visited 16 branches.

We did have to skip a couple because they're under construction, and the remaining branches are all scheduled below. So you'll see well, I'll be in the North End tomorrow from three to five. On January 6, I'll be at the Horn and Alston branch library. The following Tuesday, January 13, I'll be at the South Boston Public Library. The next Tuesday, January 20, I'll be at the Parker Hill branch.

January 27, I'll be at the Roxbury shop branch, and then in West Roxbury on February 3, and Hyde Park, February 10. All the tour dates will be three to 5PM except for Parker Hill, which closes a little early, and that's why you'll see on the slide it says from three to four p PM. And I just wanna share that this tour has really been about meeting residents where they're at. And I've met parents of youth with disabilities. I've met staff members working at various different places in Boston with disabilities who didn't even know that this office existed. And I hear every time that they're really appreciative of all the work that everybody does to make Boston accessible.

Thanks, Colleen. And like Colleen said, her main purpose is really to interact and engage residents. But when she's been at every branch, she's also been taking notes on any access barriers that she comes across, which is really great because I don't think I myself have been I know I haven't been at every neighborhood library branch. So it's great to just have eyes on the ground to see what we can improve. My staff and I meet monthly with staff from the Boston Public Library to talk about physical and communication barriers that we can improve or eliminate.

So this has been a great tour for colleges to get that information that we can share. My staff and I do those monthly calls with a bunch of different departments with H Strong, public works, Boston Public Libraries, like we said. So it's just one of the ways that we work with other departments to improve access systemically. So thanks, Colleen. And we'll go to the next slide.

So some updates on the advisory board. As Jerry mentioned in his board report, we did hear the sad news that John Kelly passed away in November. John was the chair of the board, the first chair appointed by mayor Mannino in 2009. And he stayed until 2012. And when he left, I remember saying to him, I feel like my high school boyfriend just broke up with me because I leaned on him for doing so much when he was the champress.

And John was a great advocate other than his work on the board as well. He started the NAG group, neighborhood access group. And then he worked so diligently on not dead yet's chapter of second thoughts in Boston. I am currently putting together a list of all the things that John did when he was on the board because I was going through some old records, and he did a lot of work with the governor, like writing letters, requested meetings. He worked with the general manager of the tea.

He got the he got up to commit to shoveling bus stops in Boston at one meeting. I don't know if anybody remembers that, but he was he was a great leader, and he will be missed. Never replaced, but certainly missed and and honored. On that note, I I did just wanna share that John was really responsible for getting the first access path on City Hall Plaza. And another board member was also working very closely on that.

That was John Witsky. We lost John several years ago. So John Kelly and John Winsky deserve a lot of credit for the access that we have in City Hall today, and they will always be remembered for that. So moving on to current members, most of our members right now are on holdover status. I think only one or two are active.

And we do have three open seats, as you know. We've nominated six applicants who are currently in the process of interviews with the mayor staff, and the mayor makes the final decision. We don't do anything other than recommend the six people that we thought would be the best fit. And the decision will hopefully be made in time for the January meeting, and we will hopefully have the new appointments for every meeting next year. And, also, over the past two weeks, I've been calling board members.

I think I've spoken to everybody except Juan Carlos. I'm sorry, Juan Carlos. We had a mix up with your phone number, but I will try to speak to you this week. But I just wanted to get your insight on how you thought the last year went and what you're interested in seeing for the upcoming year. So one thing I heard from everybody is that everybody really liked the idea that board members would pick one or two areas to focus their advocacy on.

Like, I'm looking at Olivia on screen. I know Olivia is interested in housing and, like, transportation. And then when I talk to Zari, she's interested in, like, health care and, of course, like, you know, a few other And Tara wants to do food justice and, like, PCAs and and other types of things. So everybody mentioned at least one thing, if not two. So I'd love to have you think about, for next year, continuing the one that you mentioned.

Because luckily for us, everybody really picked, like, a different topic. So we had a lot of representation. And then think of a second thing that you'd be interested in collaborating with another board member on. And maybe we can do some some cross collaboration among board members to really improve the impact of the the commission's work. And then as Andrew mentioned earlier, the executive committee elections will be held in March.

We will call for nominations at the February meeting, and a vote will take place in March. And I do think that the current executive committee has really gelled, and they're working very well together. So like Gabby said, if anybody wants to nominate someone else or themselves, please feel free to do that. And if not, we can always maintain the current structure that we have for the next year. And that would hopefully, you know, give other people time to train up to be leadership holders themselves.

I will say that when I spoke to all the board members, no one expressed a great desire to join that commission the executive committee. So if people don't have time or interest, that's absolutely fine. But we can always maintain things the way they are. But if you are interested, please consider that. And then I think I spoke with most of you about our plan to hold an in person event in January with the mayor.

We hope to do this either January 14 or twenty first, although we haven't confirmed a date yet. But I will stay in touch over the holiday season as soon as we get a date to give people plenty of notice. What the plan would be, it would be a press event, and we have all the board members who are holders or new members be sworn in at the same time with a big congratulations from the mayor And, hopefully, some members of press so we can talk about what we do. And then we'd probably have just a brief meeting because everyone will be in person. And then we will go back to remote meetings.

But we can always think about bringing back the person, in person meetings in the New Year. Next slide. And I believe my last slide is the dates that we've confirmed for cable and the use of the room in city hall. So January, we have two options, the fourteenth or the twenty eighth, February 18, March 18, April 22, May 13, June 17, July 15, August 19, September 23, October 21, and December 9. Most they'll all be on a Wednesday, and most of them are, like, pretty much the third Wednesday.

We don't have a 100% availability on the third Wednesday just because of cable and other commitments. But like you know, they're all on Zoom still. But like Andrew said, anyone's welcome to attend in person. If they'd like to just come in and, you know, see us again in person, we always welcome that. And we always do the combined date in December.

But I know last year, was some discussion about picking another month to skip. I believe our charter requires that we have 10 meetings a year. So we do have another option to skip a summer meeting if people are interested in that. I feel like we thought it was more of an issue when we had to come in in person. So summer was tough because people might have been away, and winter was tough because of the challenges with the tea and transportation and weather.

But now that it's remote, it doesn't seem as burdensome or as many barriers for people to attend, but certainly open to that discussion if you'd like to have it. And on that note, I'll turn it back to Olivia for next steps on that or anything else. And any questions anyone has, I'm happy to answer.

Okay. Does anybody have any questions for the commissioner? Not seeing any. Am I missing anyone?

This is Andrea. I'm not seeing any hands or comments in the chat, so I don't think you're missing anything.

Okay. Cool. In that case then, thank you, commissioner. Let's move on to announcements. Does anybody have any announcements?

Anything they wanna share or anything going on?

I believe I forgot to mention that the memorial for John Kelly will be on January 17 at Spaulding Rehab in Charleston. Okay. I'll send her an email closer to the date as well.

Thank you.

Paul, do you have something?

Yes. I just wanna say from mental health advocacy for the last year, I want to thank Mayor Wu for accountability and accessibility to help us at the local level and state and national. And looking forward to moving forward 2026 in mental health advocacy. Thank you.

I actually have something I would like to bring to the attention, and that is thanking Oh my god. I forgot his last name. Ed. The

Counselor?

Yes. The counselor. Ed Flynn. Ed Flynn. How many how many did I forget that?

Would like to thank Ed Flynn for his advocacy and bringing in the press and really putting BHA's feet to the fire on the Ruth Barkley elevators going down on Thanksgiving. That's, like, the worst timing ever. But, hopefully, we can use some of this press and media to shake loose at the Fed level some dollar dollar bills y'all for BHA seeing as this is a civil rights issue at the federal level.

Olivia, can I ask, do you know if any BHA tenants or others have done any advocacy to congress about this? Just curious.

I don't know. The resident advisory board hasn't done anything.

Yeah.

I know that, which is the BHA appointed committee.

No problem.

I know that CHAPA has done some mentioning to their people at the Fed level that this is a situation that needs to be dealt with. But other than that, I don't know of anyone who's who's really taking it on other than the residents of Ruth Barkley, Barkley, Ed Flynn, and the people of Boston. So that's what I've got. Anybody else got anything? Okay.

Seeing none, hearing none. Let's move on to old business. There is yes, Wes? Go ahead.

Hi there. Yep. This is Wes. I do have one item of old business. Mhmm. Bear with me one second. In particular for Dan Rosengard, who is the director of Boston Public Schools Transportation. He had come to a meeting with us last month. And I was hoping we might be able to invite him back at the end of the school year or maybe in early summer. And at that point, we would be looking for him to share two things. That would be performance metrics on the door to door services that we talked about as well as the results and data from this school year.

Oh, agreed.

Yep. We can definitely put that on our list for an update. We can circle back on transportation and on voting. We'll schedule that end of the new year. Thanks, Wes.

Great. Alright. Any other old business? Okay. Any new business?

I did have one thing I wanted to propose to the board just for consideration. Absolutely. Thank you. So one pet project that I've wanted to work on for years and did a little bit, but then really didn't do much more is on establishing a disability history trail in Boston or a disability memorial in Boston. And it just occurred to me recently that maybe the board would want to do some work on this.

If so, we could put that on agenda or potentially do committee on it. Nobody has to respond now. I'm just throwing it out for for you you all to think about because I I think maybe you make more progress on it than I have. So we have such a rich history in Boston. And this actually came up in a couple of conversations with my with the board members when I checked in with you all. So I'd be happy to sort of lead slash, you know, organize it for board members if anyone's interested.

This would be a great project to loop in the arts department too.

Yeah. They actually had some some grant funding available. I was on a meeting with them a couple weeks ago. And I do think there's a link that we can make to the the commission, so I will definitely follow-up on that.

Alright. Anybody have any comments about that idea?

I just wanna say quickly that I love the idea, and I would love to partner with you, Kristen. The other question I guess I had is I'm assuming this is a history trail of disability movement. I just don't wanna make any assumptions.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's open for, like, input. The reason why it sparked my interest was I I got an old map of South Boston where I grew up. And just on this one map, I saw a lunatic asylum, a home for feeble minded youth, and the Perkins School for the Blind. And I thought, oh, if there are all these things just in my neighborhood in the eighteen hundreds, like, what else is there? We know we had the state hospital in Mattapan, and then we know that we had a lot of disability advocates in Boston. So it could be anything that, you know, people wanna do. So whatever, you know, priority you wanna make it, I help to shape it and just contribute. And I I'd love to work with you on that, Zari.

Yeah. I mean, even the history of the independent living movement and that kinda who came first, you know, kind of looking into that. Where did they start? How did they start? That would be kind of awesome. Yeah.

Yeah. We're already getting a lot of ideas just from that one suggestion. West put McJaffat Horace Mann has been moved in several Boston neighborhoods. And Andrea says that the commemoration commission working on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Boston in 2030 could be a good link. And, yeah, Andrea has mentioned putting up flax. We see flax all over the city. So let's get some up for our disabled trailblazers.

Love the idea. Do we wanna make this a subcommittee potentially?

This is Andrea. I'm seeing a few smiles. It's not it's not an official vote needed because the chair can just make subcommittees. But if people would be interested and maybe wanna put in a a thumbs up emoji or something in the chat, maybe give them an informal sense of who might wanna join a committee.

We have a comment. Can anyone join?

So a subcommittee would be a subcommittee of the advisory board, so it would only be members of the advisory board. But if you wanna email disability at boston dot gov, we can one, there's probably public meetings potentially. I have to check open meeting law, but also I don't see any reason why they'd need to be private. And I can send you some links to the commemoration commission and arts and culture if you wanna, you know, join their meeting to talk about disability history. So I don't think we could get you on the committee, but would wanna do this work in the public for sure.

And, also, depending on what comes with the committee, if it does move to a more public process or a bigger process, people could always get involved at that point too.

Great. Any other new business? Now it's time to move to public comments. Great. Public participation.

This is Andrea. If you're a member of the public with a comment or a question, we ask that you please use the Zoom raise hand function, come off camera and raise your hand on camera so I see you, or put a note in the chat. You will have to be wait to be recognized by the chair at which point I will send you a request to unmute. You will have two minutes to, make your comment and or question. Olivia?

Alright. Let's look at the chat.

I do see a raised hand if you'd like to call on Reshma.

Yes. Reshma.

Go ahead. Hi, Olivia. Thank you. Okay. Hi. Hello, everyone. I hope all of you are doing well. I want to thank commissioner McCrosh for inviting me to be a part of this meeting. My name is, and I live in. I use hearing aids to hear and talk, and I don't use sign language.

So from my experience, I would like to share the details of an issue with public transportation. When I travel by bus, I look at the display board to see to see which destination is coming up. It is really helpful because I don't want to keep my phone in my hand to keep keep checking Google Maps. However, sometimes when a passenger presses the stop button at the same time that my destination is approaching, that print display of my destination is interrupted, and it is not displayed again. So I may miss my stop.

My potential solution is to continue to display the name of the destination so that the passenger can read it well before they reach their destination. That is all from myself. Thank you for listening to me.

Thank you. I think you can contact the MBTA as well. They have system wide accessibility. It's a fantastic office. I don't have this SWA's email, But that

I this is Andrea. I have Reshma's email, so I'll find it and get it to her. Okay. And we can also note it for future meetings that we have with SWA, and I know we have some RTAG members, on this call who may be able to mention it at a future RTAG meeting. Thanks, Roshima.

Yeah. Especially since RTAG has now taken over for the settlement.

We have two other hands raised from members of the public, Olivia. In the order that I saw them were Bridget and then Ross, if you'd like to recognize either.

Go ahead, Bridget.

Alright. Thank you. My name is Bridget. I'm 17. I'm a junior at Boston Latin School, and I'm on the mayor's youth council, which is a group of 20, high schoolers all serving the mayor's office and working on initiatives.

For the last about year and a half now, I've been working on an initiative to bring, more public safety and more crosswalks and disability ramps to the city of Boston. And we've definitely faced some challenges and faced a lot of setbacks, but we're definitely seeing our project progress nicely. And so we recently connected with somebody in the Disabilities Commission office. I believe her name was Patricia. It was great to learn more about what the Disabilities Commission does, and it was really great to be on this meeting.

I listened very intently to all of the different issues that the commission's handling. It's very good to see so many people interested in the same topic that Ross and I have been working on for a good amount of time. So, yeah, we're super excited to see all this hard work, and we would love to maybe talk more and maybe pursue some kind of partnership with our sources at the my the Mayor's Youth Council is under the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement. It's generally pursuing some kind of partnership and getting this work done and just making the city more accessible would be great. I'll pass it over to Ross who's also on the mayor's youth council.

Yeah. Go ahead.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Bridget. Yeah. I mean, just reiterating what she just said. We're marriage youth council.

We've been working on trying to get crosswalks in Charlestown and in Mission Hill. We were able to help build an NDA ramp over in South End last year, and we've been trying to build on that work. And we know that the Disabilities Commission is very involved with making sure that the ramps are accessible, making sure that being able to, you know, cross Street is accessible for everybody. So we just wanna connect with you guys and make sure that we're including everyone's voices in this process. And, yeah, I mean, if we our email is I'll put it in the chat as well, but it's myc@Boston.gov.

So if anyone wants to connect, we're and welcome to hosting anybody from around the city. And, yeah, we'd love to connect more with this commission so we can learn more for our project. Thanks so much.

Ross or Bridget, do you have guest speakers at your meetings? Would you be is that the kind of thing that might make sense for this board to help you out with?

Yeah. We could meeting? Yeah. We would we would love to have. There's 18 other members on our council, and we definitely love to learn about all different departments in the city. So we would love to hear from any member of the disability commission. And one of our coordinators is Lina is on the call right now. So, definitely, I just put the email in the chat, contact them, and I'm sure they'll find a time to set up for a time that's convenient for everyone. And we would love to get to hear more about the work you do, and I'm sure all my fellow counselors would also be excited for that opportunity. Yep.

Great. Well, I know you've already met with some of our full time staff. I know there's others of us you haven't met with yet, but certainly members of the board if you wanna reach out. Appointees to appointees, get you all connected in your inter board relations.

Hi, everyone. My name is Selena, and I am a mayor's youth council program coordinator. Sorry. My cameras were acting up today, so you guys are just gonna to hear my voice. But, yeah, we would totally love to have you guys come and speak to the council. I'll drop my email address as well as the mayor's youth council email address, and we can set something up sometime soon, possibly after Christmas break.

Great. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

One thing you guys might like to know about is there is a cross a curb cut person in transportation, I think it is, that oversees a consent decree. Is it a consent decree or is it an agreement?

It's a consent decree, I believe.

Okay. On curb cuts in the city. Yes. The ADA manager of the public works department.

And, Olivia, I think Lina has a question about that if you'd like me to send her an unmute request.

Yes. Please do.

Or maybe her hand was just still up. That's possible too.

Okay.

Alright.

Seeing no other participation, it's time to make a motion to adjourn.

See Wes has a hand.

Is this is Go ahead, please. Hi.

I, make the motion to adjourn the meeting.

Any seconds?

I see Paulette's hand. Paulette?

Awlett Sackins, I think. Yep. Okay. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any

And this is Jerry. I just wanted to come on really quickly. Olivia did a fantastic job, and I just wanted to say in person to the advisory board members. Great job this year, and we look forward to working together in 2026. Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Jerry.

Happy

holidays. Your leadership. Bye, everybody. Bye bye.

Bye now. Bye.