Disability Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

do your you're going to do you're going to is that going to be the upcoming events that you're going to um I will do under additional item discuss oh is that something else is that a different item what is that additional item discussion that I'll do it under that I need feedback you were either you were either upcoming events or additional items I'll do I'll do additional I mean I can do both. But the thing that I need help on, I'll talk about them. Okay. I'll let you talk on the upcoming events just to tell us the upcoming events. Oh gosh, I better pull up a calendar. Well, I mean, I got mine. I'm Well, before we start, I know that Easter is the 20th. Okay, that's okay. What What What is between now and Easter? Easter's not till April. This is the health fair. April 20th. Oh, the health fair. Yeah, I should know that because I'm going to do that. Like, I knew there was a health fair. Yeah, that is the 17th of February. 17th and I should have knew that because I'm supposed to be there. We'll just cover those because surely y'all will meet again before February 17th. That's important. Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out before we got started to suggest for a meeting one meeting but somewhere between March and April so that we're not going like that's fine. That is that is 1 to 4 for the Charlestown Health Fair. Correct. Because I have 12:00 p.m. because I know I've got to be there. And um I want you guys to have a meeting before April, before Easter because Carrie wants she wasn't able to be here tonight. Okay. She wants to come and get some feedback for Easter. So then you could have one in March by So what's the March date you think we should stick to since you got the calendar? Um it's always easy to have them that second Monday. Um I won't be here for that one, but Carrie carries. Um so that would be March 10th. Um, okay. Because you always have to plan commission at 6:30. So, this 5:30 time frame is a really good spot. Okay. For that, if you can do it, does everybody seem like that's time open for them? Good. I'll be at Church Hill that day. Oh, Is the season. Well, hopefully Christina

can at least be. Yeah. I got to be there at 6 p.m. Okay, y'all go ahead and start the meeting because you can have all that. Start us off. Start us off, sir. Are we live? Okay. Uh, welcome everybody to the Trust Disability Advisory Committee. Today is February 10th, 2025, 5:32 p.m. Um, we could do a call to order. Uh, my name is Amy Benabitas. I'm the president. Ashley Tone, secretary. Elizabeth Hardy, uh, Cindy Perkins. All right, let's do the pledge of allegiance, folks. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All righty. We are being live streamed today by production multimedia. All right. So, let's get this thing started. our standing business. Do we have approval or correction of the prior meeting's minutes? Anybody got any uh corrections that needed made for that meeting? Anything, Ashley? Everything went good. Did you get a chance? Senator R. All right. Be sure to have your vote. A motion to approve. Anybody want to second that? I second. All right. All right. Okay.

Old business. Do we have anything we need to discuss for the old business? I think uh see our last meeting was on December the 16th, so that was before anything with Christmas. Uh did everybody go to the live reindeer event? Any uh seem like was there any issues with that? I know we had quite a bit of parking uh set up for the handicap areas for uh vans. We used the H&R block so that you could get in there um if you had any wheelchairs or you needed extra space. Um I haven't had anybody reach out to me directly heard anything. I haven't seen anything on social media about it. Everything I think that event worked went really well. It was pretty pretty busy night. All right, so we'll move on to new business if anybody doesn't have anything to add. Uh, first thing we're going to do is the election of our 2025 officers. Um, I want to nominate Liz to be our secretary. Ashley has asked to step down this year and just be a committee member uh for 2025. So, um, I want to give a motion for that. Does anybody want to second the motion? I second it. And then All right. And then we just need to take a vote for that. And all in favor say I. I. I. I. No need for names. Liz, you are now the secretary. Well, maybe after this meeting, we'll let Ashley finish it up just one last time. We'll let um all right. What about vice president? Does anybody have a motion for vice president? Actually, you got a motion for vice

president. If nobody wants it, I'll nominate myself. Do you want to be the Oh, okay. Well, all right. That sounds good to me. I'll second that motion. She's stepping up, folks. Yeah. I just don't want to do the paperwork. Okay. All right. Then all we have left is president. Anybody want to battle me for president? Nobody's here about June 3rd because I know Cindy don't want it. I noticed Ashley nominated herself before strategic. I I I motion for you to remain remain. All right. Anybody want to second that? I'll second it. All right. Okay. Well, we have it there, folks. All right. So, the next thing is our meeting. We have been requested to have a meeting in March so that we can discuss the um upcoming events with um the parks director Carrie um of everything that's coming up um in the next few months. So um if everybody is okay with it, I know Cindy's got something else going on that day, but March 10th at 5:30. Does that sound like a good date for you, Liz, or Ashley? Yes. Okay. Hopefully Christina will be able to round us up. Zoom. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, let's go on and put it on books for um March the 10th. I don't think we need we don't need a motion for that. I think we're good. Um All right. And so, kind of as a combo, we got some upcoming events that and some additional item things that Mayor Treva wants to bring to our attention. So, we're going to let her take the floor.

Good evening everyone. Uh, okay. So, a couple of meeting or a couple of things that are coming up. One before your next meeting. So, our preparing a health fair on February 17th from 1 to 4. We maxed out on our vendors for that. We have 30, I think it's 31 vendors that'll be at the arts and enrichment center. Um so then we have it there so it's an accessible event spaces easy to get into variety of health services everything from chiropractic care lifespring lifespan um fullness is available but and the blood mobile will also be here so the red cross will be doing blood um drive on the cafeteria side and then the health fair will be on the sanctuary side so that's our big event coming up um for February I don't have the calendar in front of me for March, but I don't think there's really anything to be in March. Um, I think the Easter egg hunt is April 20th. I know that Carrie wants to talk to you specifically about that. Um, we are still planning to have it again this year at the Family Activities Park. We thought that as an accessible standpoint that went much better especially with the fenced in area in the depot um to help from children alop from from their caregivers. I think Car's biggest question just to kind of preview we are actually requiring registration for that event this year because the crowd was so large in the past it's gotten to the point where it's almost unmanageable. So, we checked in with some of our sister communities around the area and they all require registration. Still a free event, but just must register in advance because that helps us put a cap on the number of people for for safety and for less chaos. But I think she was looking at capping the accessible hour at 50 just based on previous numbers that we've had. So, she's going to want

your feedback on that. And then also feedback on the eggs. We usually try to get larger eggs as well as smaller. But I know that one of the issues that she's probably going to want your feedback on is what to do with siblings who are ablebodied and not experiencing any form of disability who want to hunt with their sibling who is who require special needs. We had a situation in the past where um a sibling was helping their sibling who had special needs but they were helping in such a way that it put the other kids who have special needs at a disadvantage if that makes sense. And we want to be fair to all the children. We want to practice inclusion but at the same time we want to have spaces where these children who might not have the ability to collect as many eggs in the full out melee that happens with the older age groups. We want to make sure that they have that ability. So, we're going to need some feedback on how best to manage that situation. So, if you just kind of want to think about that, um Carrie will come back to you in March and get your feedback on that. So, um those are some events that we have coming up and then um I had some updates for you on some things from feedback that you've given us and that we've received from the community that we are working to enact this year. The first is the renovation of the arts and enrichment center. Right now the space is relatively accessible. Um it's the you know the parking lot has accessible spaces. It's easily wheeled into using chairs or devices. One of the challenges has been the bathroom situation. So the two regular restrooms that are there are not ADA or they're not compliant. The doors are narrow. It's very hard to navigate in there. We do have a third bathroom that is an has been labeled an accessible bathroom for a long time. However, it's really not. And so, we are renovating that bathroom. We renovated the other two bathrooms. They're putting new flooring throughout the building. We're

painting. We're doing some big things in the building to dress it up. But, as a part of this renovation, we are also installing a new door. So, the bathroom that has been the accessible bathroom, you had to go into a storage room off of the hallway. And then the bathroom is right there in that storage room. They are moving the door to that bathroom to the exterior hall to the main hallway. and closing off it, closing it off from the storage room so that it's truly a dedicated bathroom. They are also repositioning the sink because what they realized when they were in there getting ready to lay the floor is that the sink was literally positioned right in front of the toilet. So, there was no way to really navigate and they putting a proper ADA height toilet in there and some grab bars. So, that was the feedback that we had received from your various reviews of the property. And so they're taking action on that and that'll be ready probably within the next couple weeks. So um the uh there are some changes happening at the square that you should be aware of. At Christmas we blocked off things differently for safety. Um we are always quick to admit when we do something wrong and we're quick to pivot when needed. Um, we had an issue because it was getting the popularity of the light show on the square has resulted in very large crowds and with the blinking lights it and the train coming through it can get really chaotic and year before last someone hit the train. They backed into the train. And while no one was hurt, it was scary. And so what we did, we did as a way to try to protect protect pedestrians, protect the train. What we found was that there were a lot more people than we realized who wanted to pull up and watch the show from your vehicle. Even though it was available some nights of the week to do that, um, on Short Street, when the train was running, it was not. And so we ended up

midway through going ahead and removing the picket tables that had blocked off Maine and and Main Cross. We left Short Street blocked off on the nights the train ran. And I've talked to my we had our first Christmas season meeting already this year um this week, last week. And I talked to the train drivers and they said that as long as the parking opposite the actual square on Short Street is clear, that gives them enough room to pull the train around. So the parking spaces that touch the square itself will still be open this year. So we've readapted that in a way that we hope will still help provide safety from the train, but still provide full accessibility for people to be able to watch the show from different angles um from their vehicles. So um I don't know if you've been seeing in the news or on our Facebook page, but there are two other big things happening on the square. One's pretty obvious because the building's gone. Um we are moving forward with the parklet idea that was presented and a part of that is redesigning the curb there for accessibility so that there will be no curb. Instead there will be um large uh planters and items that are designed to block traffic from coming up. But as far you'll walk right up into the parklet area. Um, the other thing that we're doing is we've torn down the old, it depends on how old you are, what you call it, whether it was the old YMCA or OB's pool hall, but whichever one you remember it as, it's gone. Um, the building was in pretty bad shape and um, we are moving forward with turning that into an event lawn with a permanent stage. And I think one of the things that's a testament to this group and what you're doing is raising our awareness to making sure that that is a fully accessible space. So not only will people be able to access that event long from the square itself, but we're going to part of that project calls for parallel parking to be installed on water street there below the hill and for there to be a switch back ramp that comes up that will be dedicated handicap

parking with a switch back ramp that comes up to the top of the hill. So there'll be multiple points of access for that space. So, um, the rebuilding commission is taking action on both of those items at their meeting tomorrow night. Um, we also tomorrow night are taking the next step in removing the H&R Block building. They have a lease that goes through tax season this year, but when that is done and they are out, we will continue, we will move forward with the demolition of that building and making that into um an accessible parking space dedicated for specifically for um parking for people using wheeled devices and walking. But there will be some more parking spaces dedicated for with the ramp space for to unload um ramp devices. So that's the easiest point of access right now to get to our um playground. So we're all moving forward with those. Um we are also moving forward with a master plan for the next phase of the family activities park. We were awarded, just today it was announced, we were awarded a $250,000 grant to pay down some bond debt we have on the family activity park so that we can move forward into the next stage of development for that park. When we do that, the group that will be managing that will want to meet with you as a stakeholder group. Um, and we'll probably call on other parents in the community to have a true stakeholder group. So, that will not necessarily be a public meeting of yours. You'll just be invited as stakeholders to to that to that session. Um so um just to inform that master plan of what needs to happen out there. There's some challenges. There's some good things about that park. Um there are things we've made better about that park, but there are some things that we still have we can do. So whether it's um looking at the the putt putt for the senior citizens and the fact that you know we we have the senior games there every year and there's a gentleman who uses a wheelchair and has a difficult time getting up to actually put. I don't know if there can be some redesign of that or the playground itself although it's an ADA compliant playground and is not a fully accessible playground and

it's getting to be kind kind of worn out so there may be an opportunity there to upgrade playground I don't know but we'll want your feedback on on these things when we get as they work on that master plan and then the other thing the my biggest task here tonight um when we installed the the fully accessible playground in Greenway the bathrooms immediately became an issue we put them on a timer and we would open the doors during daylight hours and the amount of vandalism that we experienced has just been unmanageable. And it's not that we don't have cameras. It's not that we don't identify the people who are doing the vandalism. It's just that it just doesn't stop. And the weird part is that we didn't have this problem before we put those bathrooms on a timer. When they were just locked with a deadbolt, we had really no issues. Um, as soon as we put them on a timer, that's when we started having issues. And two of the biggest issues have been twice they ripped the doors. They broke the doors to get in and they run a timer. And those are very $700 every time we have to replace a door. So what do we do? What do we do? We get, you know, calls all the time from parents that are using the playground about needing to use the bathrooms and how a portaot doesn't work for them, even an AV8 port, that kind of stuff. So we made the decision to try again, but this time we are changing the bathrooms. Instead of a male and female bathroom, we are just putting them both as family bathrooms. We are pulling everything out and putting in ADA compliant, one ADA compliant toilet, removing the excess toilets, putting in a stainless steel sink, hoping that it will last in both of them. And in one of them we will have a standard changing table for an infant baby. In the other one we want to put an adult changing table. And we will label it. We'll label that mark family bathroom adult size changing table. This is where we need your help in looking at

these adultsiz changing tables. This is a financial breaker. Um they have some that we can purchase for $3,000 that just mount to the wall and hold up to 400 pounds. And our concern is that that's not going to be stable and sturdy enough. They don't they just don't look very stable and sturdy. And it's $3,000. The option for the standard that you see elsewhere where there is a um a bracket and then the table sits on the bracket, those run anywhere from $7,000 to $12,000. So, we have looked at some and so one of our staff members has been to the zoo, the local zoo, and he noted that it's not a fold out table. It's just worked into the structure of the cabinet that it is the right height. It's obviously you can put an adult-sized person on it. It's stable enough. So, my question to you is, will that be okay? Um because we can build a sturdy table. We have enough room in there to build a sturdy table. We've looked up the dimensions. Has to be at least 12 in off the ground, which would make it higher than that. Um, there's an inch range for how high it needs to be. We know that it needs to be easily cleanable material. We can do that. Like, there are things that we can do, but it would be customuilt by us to be essentially a standalone table that would not fold up and fold down. If we go with that kind that spacing where it folds up and folds down, it just it's I don't know where we would get the money to pay for that. That's a very big expense considering that we're doing all these other changes. Um, we just don't have that in our budget to do that. So, that's where I'm think I I have a child that, you know, is not potty trained and she's seven and and and probably will never be potty trained. I have everything with me. Like, I have like, you know, I have

disposable pads. We always have a blanket even in the summertime just for those reasons. If I have to lay something on the floor or if I have to lay something out in the grass or something. So, and I think the majority of people that I'm around, I feel like they probably have those things too just for that reason. If they have an older child that, you know, has to be changed or or if they're obviously with an adult that has to be changed, they probably have those supplies as well because there's very few places you go that has an adult changing station. So, you do have to figure out every way to change them. Normally, you see them in the back of their vehicles or, you know, so that that's not uncommon. So, I mean, and we're trying to have Yeah. We're trying to we're trying to give privacy and we're trying to give dignity where we're not laying children on the floor. Yes. Where people's feet have tried or or adults on the floor where people's feet have tried. And so, um, we're committed to to putting a a station in one of those bathrooms and we have the space to do it by taking out all the toilets and making it a family, you know, single-use bathroom. Um, I guess the biggest question is, have you encountered those kinds of stations that are not those fold down tables? You know, have you encountered the ones that are stationary? Cracker barrel. That's why that's what that's what made me start carrying things is because Cracker Barrel and there's a few steakouses that are like that. Okay. They're they're like that. We found some pictures of some in airports. Um we like I said our staff found the dimensions of what they need to be and everything. I just wanted to make sure that that was going to be something that um water parks I mean if a water park has a changing station for a child, it's one of those stationary. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um because we want to make sure that we're providing that because I mean that's all part of Cro Park down there, you know, and we know that as children

age and they still may have that need. Yeah. I just want to make sure we're so and we also realize that not every caregiver can also get down on the floor with someone to change. So there's that as well. So Okay. Well, I will tell them um that you know, you know, take the dimensions that they have found and that as long as they can custo customize one that will be easily cleanable and meet all those criteria that they should be good to go on that then. Yeah. All right. Those are my those are the items I needed to cover with you. So, okay. All right. And anybody else have any additional items they wanted to discuss? Anything? Are we still hoping to get another member? Oh, do you have seven? Yes. Um I'm still open to suggestions. Um I would like to have seven because I don't want to reduce it to a five member board since we do have six members. Um there was there is a member that may not be able to continue but has expressed that there could be someone easily to fill that that space. So I'm still looking for that seventh member. Um so I'm still willing to take suggestions on that as well. Um we lost we lost a person who was on the board representative who had a disability. So, I think that's that was the biggest thing is I wanted to make sure that we were replacing I still want the majority of the support to be people who live with a disability, not just those who not that there's nothing not that there's anything in theory about caregivers or service providers. It's just that a board like this in my opinion should be led predominantly by those who live with disabilities. So, um, but I'm also not asking everybody to ask themselves if there's disability either because Yeah. So, I am still

looking and hope hopefully I'll have somebody before March meeting. Okay. All right. Anything else? All right. And I would like to call for a motion to adjurnn. Motion to to adjurnn. All right. You want to second it? I get it. All right. 556 we will