Diversity & Community Relations Committee - Regular Meeting

Up the recording off of the ceiling mics. So I will go ahead and start the recording. It is 01:04PM, Tuesday, April, starting the committee on citizens with disabilities. I'll begin with roll call. Committee member Pam Evans? Here. Committee member Billy Joe Adams? Committee member Kim Hudgens. Here. Committee member John Gemantis.

Here.

Committee member Gary Jones. Here. Committee member Veronica Pollard.

I absent.

Committee member Riley Spreadbury. Here. Committee member Sherry Voigt.

Absent.

Committee member Steven Voigt.

Absent.

Present. Chairman Anthony Ariano. Present. You. The approval of minutes didn't get a chance to make it on the agenda, so I apologize that we'll have to be pushed to next month to approve last month's minutes. And I'll be able to provide both the month of March and April for approval on the next agenda. First, we'll begin with citizens to be heard on agenda items. If there's any citizens that wanna speak on any agenda items today, you are welcome to do so. Seeing none, and we'll begin with new or old business discussion of transportation joined by Elizabeth Gonzalez with PACE.

Good afternoon, everyone. Hopefully, you guys can hear me

okay? Yes.

Okay. Good. I know most of you, but for those that I don't, my name is Beth Gonzales. I'm the community relations representative with PACE. I cover Will County. So I cover Joliet, but I also cover the rest of the county as well. I've got a list of a couple of things to go over with you guys that are important to this committee. For starters, PACE has a lot of services in our system that we offer. And it gets confusing with the services. So kind of on a higher level, the ADA paratransit service, we do the ADA paratransit service for the region.

That's six counties. We do the fixed bus routes for the suburbs. And then we do a dial a ride program, which is a partnership with different entities. In Will County, that would be the county, and different townships that we partner with to do service. Pam, I know you've got an ADA paratransit card, and I know you know that system really well.

It gets confusing because there are so many different services. ADA paratransit, that's public transit for people with disabilities to give them the same thing that the general public gets, not anything different, but the same. That means that the pickup location and the destination location have to be within three quarters of a mile of a fixed bus route. If the fixed bus routes run Monday through Saturday and there's no service on Sunday, Guess what? There's no service on Sundays in Will County, then there's no ADA paratransit service.

If it were to take us an hour and a half and a bus transfer to get from here to Yorktown Mall in Lombard using the regular bus system, it could take ADA paratransit, that same thing with the transfer. So it's to give the same as what the general public gets. And you do have to have a special card for that. That card is the RTA does that card. They do the application process for that card.

It is a federally mandated program. So the program, it runs on the rules that are federally mandated for it. There that's one bus pass. And that bus pass, in case you don't know this, Pam, and hopefully you do, that starting last year, PACE is now offering free rides with the ADA paratransit card on the fixed bus routes. So if you show that bus pass to the driver, you don't have to pay.

It is also a reduced fare card for CTA and Metro. Automatically, if you have an ADA paratransit card, you get half off. There are two other cards that are available. One of them is going to be the reduced fare card. And what that is is the 50% off for people that are 65 and older or people with disabilities where they can have 50% off their fare with the PACE Metro and CTA fixed bus route and train system. That card, it's an online application. The only qualifications are that you are 65 and older or somebody with a disability or both. The application is then I'm sorry.

What is that call card called again?

It's called the RTA reduced fare card.

Oh, cool.

Thank you. Do have a brochure on it. So if you did want that, I do have it. Thanks. The application is a real simple application to do online.

But if it's something that you want assistance with, senior services on Center Street can help you with that application as well. And then there's a third application, and that is a free ride pass. That pass has the same qualifications, so 65 and older or somebody with a disability. And there's an additional caveat as far as income threshold. That free ride card, you have to be below a certain income threshold, household income threshold, and the proof of that would be the Illinois Benefit Access Program.

So anybody that wants the free ride pass that's eligible for it would have to apply for the Illinois Benefit Access Program first and then apply for the free ride pass. It is the same thing as the RTA reduced fare card. It's an online application. Senior services on Center Street can help with that application as well. Either way, depending on what the person wants.

RTA also does come out if there's organizations that have several people that wanna sign up for those cards. The RTA can go out to the facility as well. And as a matter of fact, I've got another appointment with them after this to go, and they're gonna be signing up some people at a senior housing facility. So that's an option too. So there's a lot of ways to get that card.

The schedules, the schedules, they might they have them posted up at the Joliet Transit Center on the wall. So you can see them there. A lot of times, the libraries will have them, but the paper schedules are not as distributed as they used to be. So you can always call PACE customer service, and they can get you schedules, and they'll send them straight to your house. You can find the schedulespacebus.com.

There's also two different apps that you can use. The first one is gonna be the Ventra app, which is that bus pass card, and you can use the Ventra app to look and see when your bus is coming. The other one is gonna be the transit app, and that works the same way as the Ventra app as far as seeing when the next buses and trains are coming. It doesn't have the Ventra payment attached to it, but that's the one that I my preference. It's kinda dummy proof.

You you open up the app, and if I were to open it up, it would automatically tell me all the buses in the area and when the next one is coming. So for me, it's dummy proof. I don't have to go hunting anything. But those two apps are also great tools to use. If you are using a bus route on a regular basis, a fixed bus route, you can go on to our website and have an alert set up so that if there's a passenger notice on that route, you get alerted to any changes or anything that goes on with that. But if you want that hard copy of the schedules, call customer service, and we will send them directly to you. A lot of times, people are hesitant or intimidated about using the fixed bus routes.

You did that one more time.

It is intimidating no matter who you are using something that you don't know how to use. So the RTA has a program called travel training. And that program, they will help people one on one learn how to take the bus and train. They won't go over the dial ride program, but they will go over the bus and train. So if you've got somebody that's trying to get to work, it's a new job, they don't know how to do it, they can actually schedule ahead of time with the RTA to do a travel training session, and the RTA will show them how to pull up the schedule online, how to plan their trip, and they will take the trip with them.

That service is free, and it is to try and take some of that stress out of learning the system in a safe environment where somebody is there to help you.

Is that service available to anyone or just specifically people with disabilities?

It is available for seniors and people with disabilities both.

But if you're taking it and you're taking it with somebody else that's helping you on the bus, like me with her, I have to pay. She don't.

Right. I was talking about the training program she's talking about.

Yeah. Yeah. The travel training program is an incredible program. So it's it's a good way to get people familiar with how to use public transit, the mainline system, and take that stressor away from it. I do a lot of work with a lot of groups where they do field trips with groups together because when you're learning something, it's it's hard to learn it.

It's stressful. And if you're doing it with a bunch of people, it takes some of that stress and kinda gives it to everybody instead of one person bearing the front of it. I do work with a lot of groups doing things like that as well. The bus drivers on our buses are they are knowledgeable. They are friendly, and they are your friends, and they will answer questions. They help me out because I do it wrong sometimes too. When I started at PACE, I didn't know how to pay a bus fare. And it took me, like, five times they had to show me. I know how now, but the drivers had to help me, and I was wearing a PACE shirt. It was kind of embarrassing, but I got it now.

Drivers are your friend, though. They will help you with your stop location. If you're questioning where you're getting off, if you're questioning what bus you're transferring to, they will help you with that. They're there as a a resource for people. There are areas, and Joliet's been really good about trying to upgrade their infrastructure.

Pedestrian infrastructure is extremely important when it comes to public transit. Because if there are people in mobility devices and the stop location is not ADA accessible, then that becomes a challenge. That ADA paratransit service, that works. But for the mainline system, the one location that comes up a lot that I hear a lot about is gonna be Inwood, where the from Infantry to Inwood, there's no sidewalk. Alright.

That is also a location that is the stop location for the Disability Resource Center, and that is the Will County Disability one of the Disability Resource areas. So that stop location gets people with disabilities that go there a lot. It comes up a lot. PACE does not put sidewalks in communities. Transit. So I'm letting you know because I know several of you have made some comments about that facility as well. We can't put a shelter in it, Inwood, because there's no sidewalk. And we can't put a sidewalk in, and we can't put a shelter in unless it's ADA accessible. But there's other areas. Downtown Joliet, there's a lot of improvements going on on the sidewalk.

So hopefully, the water main project is done, it will be fabulous as far as sidewalks go. I'm looking forward to it, and I know a lot of other people are.

Can I ask a quick question? The city has a program that you take a picture of it and send it to the city and say we have a problem here, and the city will act on it. Has anybody complained about that section not having a sidewalk?

So I don't get those directly. They usually go to, like, the utilities department or other areas. But they would But I can look into that, and they would accept them. The only challenge that we find is some intersections are controlled by IDOT and fall under IDOT jurisdiction. So we may be receiving complaints forwarding them to IDOT. Okay.

So there's a route to get it to where it's

supposed to go. Okay.

Yeah. I think 52 might be an iDOT road. Mhmm. I'm fairly certain it is. Yeah.

Question here about the travel trainer program. Why is it there limits on how many times use them?

They they work with you more than once. So they'll I don't know if there's a restriction. The RTA does that program, so I don't know if there's a restriction on how many times you can sign up for the travel training program.

But it must be. Because every time I've called, you know, every time I've tried to get them, you know, I'm told that, you know, nothing available and blah blah blah. You know?

There may be a wait list on it. It should not be a very long wait list. During COVID, when we were coming out of COVID, the wait list was huge because they lost travel trainers, and they didn't have enough travel trainers to meet the demand. So if it may be that you have to call and go on a wait list, but then when Mhmm. The next travel trainer is available, they will do the trips with you and work with you on it.

Mhmm. But you don't know what specifically the restrictions are and how many times you can use it?

I don't. It's been a long time.

I've used more of I know I've used three if that that's limited. But, you know, surely, there's gotta be there's been a couple of times I wanted to plan a trip ahead of time. You know? But then they I was told no.

That's a good question. I'm not sure. I'll find out from my counterpart, Daphne. I'll ask her what if there's a limit on it, and I'll let you know on that one. Thanks. That's a good question. I I just don't know.

I have a question, which, honestly, you probably don't know the answer to because I know ADA paratransit is a federally, mandated program. But I was just wondering if you knew of any, like, push to get, paratransit to be, I know, like, right now, for instance, as you were saying, like, if the fixed route system isn't working on Sunday, neither is paratransit. But I do think there's, like, an inherent issue in that which is that, a lot of times people with disabilities cannot get rides from other people. Like for instance, if you're using a power chair, you can't get a power chair into like a car that doesn't have a ramp. So, you if the fixed route bus system is off on Sundays, yes, it is inconvenient for someone who is not disabled, but they might still be able to walk there.

But there are sidewalks that just end as we know. I was just curious if you knew of

any

sort

of federal push toward that. Not that I've heard

of

federally. There is cases looking at our system as a whole right now and looking at how we can restructure the system. So there will be a plan coming out, a draft plan coming out towards the end of summer or beginning of fall. And in that draft plan, I've seen some of the ticklers for it, and some of the ticklers are for Sunday service. So fingers crossed.

Yeah. Yeah.

A lot of that is gonna be dependent on the state funding because right now, the state the ARPA funds that we're keeping public transit afloat run out in 2026. And there's been a lot of discussions in Springfield about that, but I have not heard if if we're when funding will happen. So it's still up in the air. They're in session right now. So, hopefully, they can come to some kind of agreement with that.

But I haven't heard that there has been anything that's so our draft plan could be a draft plan to improve and increase service, or it could end up being a cut in service depending on how our funding

grows. Yeah.

Thank you. Sunday service, though, is a big one.

Yeah. I'm sure. I I the one I also often come across is someone who, like, lives, like, a mile away from a stop, and they're looking for paratransit services. And, like, I don't know what to tell them. I'm like, if you're able to maybe get a ride for a quarter mile to get to a certain area but I mean it's tricky because then I'm like I don't know it's a super common issue and obviously I know funding is such a big part of it but if only paratransit could expand that to maybe a mile or two miles even that would be great.

So the dial a ride program that's going to be the third one that confuses people. That one is gonna be where we partnered with different entities. And Will County, as of right now today, there are five dial a ride programs in Will County. The funding partners create all the parameters and the rules for the service, and then PACE operates the service based on the rules they gave us. Will County has a vision that they want one program for the county as a whole because right now, since there are five of them, they all have different service areas, and they don't travel all not all of them travel all over the county. Most of them do not.

Is that different than on demand?

On demand is part of our fixed bus route system, so that one's open to the public. The dial a ride is gonna be a service area. It started with township partners, but now Will County has the biggest dial a ride in in Will County right now.

Dial a ride comes to your residence or wherever you're at. Yes. And will Yes. Right there to pick you up.

Correct. Now the access will program is gonna be the one that is going to hopefully one day be a countywide program. And the people that are in the Access Will area, which includes the entire East Side Of Will County, last year, they incorporated Wilmington and Braidwood area. May 1, they will be incorporating Plainfield Township. Woo hoo hoo hoo. Nice. Nice. Manhattan and Shanahan Township. So they're strategically doing this and placing it in the areas that don't have public transit for people with disabilities and seniors right now. So Plainfield Township, that's a huge one because that's a dead zone for a lot of people.

But as of May 1, all they'll have to do if they're a resident of Plainfield Township is go to their township office to register or call Collin at the Will County Okay. The Will County mobility manager, and he can register them. That service will take people anywhere within the county and a mile buffer outside the county. Awesome. Thank you

so much.

There are steps being made. It's a process, but it is it is moving with more transit for people.

Okay. Awesome. So then you're saying by May 1 for people in Plainfield?

May 1, Plainfield Township. So Plainfield the Yeah. Bulk of Plainfield is Plainfield Township. The north end is Wheatland Township. Okay. So the bulk of them

will And just to register through the township? Correct. And then dial a ride is for 65 and older people with disabilities. That's the Correct. Okay. Awesome. Thank you.

Excuse

me? I always get so much information from you, Beth. It's confusing. And then one layer on that confusion part of the whole thing is that the call center that takes the reservations for the dial a ride and the ADA paratransit service is the same call center. It is the same phone number you call to make a reservation for both.

So if you have an ADA paratransit card, you could be an ADA paratransit rider and a dial a ride rider. And the call center has turnover, so they have to train the call center on all of the dial a ride programs, the ADA paratransit, and they make mistakes. So the people that are calling in, it's important for them to know what the services are that they are eligible for, and they can help if that happens to get the the call center back in line with that's not the one I'm calling about, this one. That makes sense. Yeah.

And the vehicles are the same too. So you could have a vehicle that is has an ADA paratransit rider and a dial a ride rider in it. Oh. It gets confusing. Confusing. Interesting. Yes. Okay.

Well, transportation goes hand in hand with employment.

Yes.

And it's so necessary to get people out to where they work, to education, like over at JJC, to the doctors. It's so very, very important. The more we get updated on it, the better it is. So thank you very much.

You're welcome. Does anybody have any other questions? I know I threw a mouth load at you.

I wrote so many notes down, so thank you.

You know where to

find me if you need me,

though. Yes. That is true.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Just wanna put on the record that we have been joined by Billy Joe Adams, Sherry Voigt, and Steven Voigt. We could move on to the next agenda item, the federal changes to ADA compliance measures and guidance.

Okay. I send everybody a message on what some of these changes are. There's more than this. But the thing that I want to emphasize is that during the Reagan administration, they did not change the laws. They just chose to ignore them.

And this is more or less the start of this administration looking at things that they can ignore. And hopefully, not too many people will complain. Well, if we know about them, we're definitely going to complain. These are not actual laws themselves, but guidance on how to do things. And I'll give you some examples.

Two pieces of hotel lodging guidance were pulled back. One detailed how hotel workers should be informed and attentive of things that affect disabled customers as well as making sure objects in the rooms like remote controls, adjustable shower heads are placed appropriately. Other guidance includes means of getting feedback from customers like providing services in braille or electronic formats or having real time captions on focus groups. These, you don't have to. It's also on getting help in self propelled pumps I mean, self pumping areas that you can call somebody to get help.

They're they're not providing that guidance anymore. It's it's not going to be pleasant in the long run for people with disabilities to get help. These 11 pieces of guidance have been pulled back. The action takes in response to presidential memorandum aimed at streaming ADA compliance resources for business. For a long time, business has been complaining about this cost too much.

City administrations have been claiming this takes a lot of money, especially smaller cities. So these were set into law, and essentially, the law has not been changed. Just the compliance factor is being changed where you don't have to do it if you don't want to. So it's something we should all be aware of, and it's up to various agencies and individuals to voice their their complaints to their city, to their legislators that this is something we don't want cut back on. Because I spent, like I said, twenty three years in Springfield working with politicians.

The very first things that they cut, when anything starts going bad, we have a recession or anything, is the rights and things that you have to do for people with disabilities. So you always have to be on guard. Do do you have any more on that?

No. You did a pretty good outline. They basically removed anything related to COVID nineteen guidance that applied to Americans with disabilities. They also removed guidance regarding gathering input marketing and basically having lived experience be promoted within businesses for the guidance. You touched base on the hotel and lodging as well as the assistance with the self serve gas stations.

And there are five step guidance to all new lodging facilities having to comply with ADA. So that guidance is no longer available, like if there's new lodging facilities being constructed during this time.

Where did that guidance previously come from? Like if somebody was opening a new hotel or something?

So that's a federal mandate or it was a federal guidance and mandate through the Department of Justice. Okay. Thank you. Okay. If there's no further discussion on that or did you wanna add? Anybody

else? Like I said, it's something we need to be aware of because it's to me, it's just the tip of the iceberg. You're you're gonna have to look closely at what is coming down. And if you're on the computer, just ask what changes are being made to the ADA, and it'll give you all everything that's changing.

Are there any state mandates that can kind

of take over since the federal ones are not existing anymore? So there is through the attorney general's office. The state of Illinois does have advocacy through, I believe, General Attorney Raul, if I'm not mistaken. There is state guidance, but any businesses that cite federal guidance over that may technically

Right.

Win

Okay.

In the argument.

There was laws in Illinois that in my little bears act, the Illinois Human Rights Act. I I I understand that whatever law is is the one that Yeah. Upon us. Mhmm. Just FYI. Yeah. Mhmm.

Okay. Information.

If there's no further discussion on that topic, we can move to the disability hiring employment advocacy within local agencies.

One of the objectives of the mayor's committee is to promote hiring of people with disabilities. And it has a lot of factors to it. One, I know that the word inclusivity is not in favor anymore. But people need to be included in things, and employment is one of them. Just picture yourself as all the other kids are invited to a birthday party, and you're not.

You're excluded. Employment should be open to everybody. And right now, there's kind of a myth that people with disabilities are not quite as qualified as anybody else. The very first thing that you learn about disability employment is you can't get hired unless you're qualified for that job. It's primary thing that the ADA emphasized.

So the fact that we're asking people to evaluate each person not on their disabilities, but their abilities to accomplish things. This is a stereotype that we're trying to overcome. And it's beyond an environmental barrier. It's a mental barrier that has to be overcome. And it's up to all the different agencies that we participate with to get that message across.

I know at Cornerstone they have a big hiring and employment operation going. Kim, if you'll tell us a little bit about that.

Well, we work with vision of rehabilitation services, and we Cool. Provide placement and job coaching services for people with disabilities. So as of this year, we've placed 68 people in competitive employment around the area. Workshop type programs are being phased out in the state. So those piece rate type workshops in the next four years will be non existent in Illinois, which is a good move towards competitive community employment for people with disabilities.

Really, Will County and Joliet, we have a lot of good strong partners who do want to promote employment for people with disabilities, like workforce development. The Joliet Chamber has been very active as well, so we do have a good foothold to continue on with this project to get people with disabilities employed competitively within the city.

Yeah, There's a base there where a lot of people are working together to get people with disabilities employment. And one of the things that the committee has been working on is to get the city to do more hiring, to take a leadership role. And to be an example really for other cities in the area that people with disabilities can do the job. So that's the bottom line. We're promoting employment because one, it makes them part of the community.

Two, they are not on programs anymore that the state has to give them money or pay their rent or these are things that people should be capable of doing themselves, at least if not all of it, but part of it, and to get their own life as normal as possible. And that all involves transportation and employment. So like I said, they go together. They're intertwined. We need to get them both working on behalf of the city of Joliet so that it'll be a better community.

Anybody else have anything on employment? And I know this is an awful big topic. And I know your center has some employment aspects to it.

Can you

can you tell us about those?

Yeah. I mean, one of our main, like, services is transition services from basically students with disabilities in high school and transition programs to move on to either college or gainful employment and so we help out with that. We also just generally help with independent living skills which often time employment goes hand in hand with that. So we have people coming in and working on resumes. We have people coming in and you know submitting applications and finding jobs in like the local area.

Sometimes we are helping them just find transportation so that they will be able to get certain forms of employment. And then we also do, like, workplace sort of, like, training. So for example, like, we have a cash register in our office, and we kinda have them practice that. Like, you know, just different things that, like, you might need to practice for employment, like taking calls, like secretarial work. We've tried that kind of thing as well. But, yeah, I mean, that it's a huge part of our program is is employment services.

I I know when I was teaching, I I would take my students to various places and show them what these people do, how they do their job, what time they have to be there, show them the responsibilities of working. Students that come from special education, fifty percent of them wind up in trouble with the law. Fully forty percent of them wind up in prison. So it's it's something that, is so important to get them thinking employment, a future. So that's one of the reasons that we're trying to get the idea across that, we're all in this together and that employment is such a necessary thing for people with disabilities.

You can't say enough about how important it is. So if we have no further questions, one of the things that we wanna cover when we have our disability fair is employment. So, we're gonna talk a little bit about our disability fair. I hope I'm not jumping the gun there. But that that should be the next subject.

It is. It's the next discussion topic, the July disability fair updates.

Okay. We're we're gonna ask Riley to report on the meeting that we had last month at Cornerstone.

Yeah. So a few of us met up to discuss the Disability Pride Fair taking place July 26. That's a Saturday at Bicentennial Park in Joliet, and it it will be commemorating the thirty fifth anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And so I think our, like, kind of main goal for this fair is to get as many, like, community, like, service providers and and peep different organizations that serve people with disabilities either directly or sort of adjacently to to be at the, the fair to kind of show the services that, that they provide and then people with disabilities can attend the fair and kind of be connected with different organizations. But in addition, we're, hoping to also make it like a fun kind of a a place that people wanna stop.

We're hoping to have some sort of music of some sort. I'm kinda I'm working on getting a DJ, and maybe some activities for for kids to attend. But the general plan is, you know, make it look like some an interesting place to stop, and people can look and kind of see all these organizations and and services that we provide. So this past, like, I think two weeks ago, Pam sent out an invitation to I always forget what it's called, the CSC. What is it again?

Okay. Community Service Council. Yeah. So Community Service Council. So it has a ton of different, like, organizations kind of, like, in the Will County area. Right? And so so Pam sent out an invitation for that. You got one reply so far. Right? Right.

Then Tony also wrote out sort of an invitation that we can send out to any other organizations. Am I missing anything, you guys?

One of the things we want to do is make it as wide amount of services as possible. We have room for 30 stations out there. I got that from the Bicentennial Park. And if we needed, we could get more spaces available. But I think 30 should be fine. One of the things that we should do, so long as we have a lot of people that are concerned about people with disabilities, is some sort of short survey that they can feed back to us, telling us, what aren't we covering? What are you concerned about?

Like at the fair, you say?

At the fair. Okay.

Yeah. So, the more feedback that we get from the city, the better job we'll be able to do to concentrate on the things that are really of concern to them. So the the affair is going to be from 11:00 in the morning to 04:00 in the afternoon, and it'll be set up times beginning at 9AM and takedown time till 05:00. It shouldn't take that long. It takes a lot longer to set up than to takedown.

So we hope we'll get a lot of response, And we we need to to advertise quite a bit to get people aware, not only in Joliet, but in the surrounding communities as well. So the more people that attend, the better.

Do we have any plan for, like, flyers and stuff, or are we waiting until we get more community service providers

to respond?

We're waiting to see what what the size of the providers are gonna be.

Okay. Okay.

Hope Kate Lindber, were you gonna help us on on the flyer? I

don't think we made a date for one. Okay.

Well, the the next meeting, we'll discuss it further. Okay. Appreciate that. Thank you.

To that effect to also tie in not just the disability fair, but the anniversary celebration of the ADA. There is I was able to get the proclamation on schedule for the July 1 council date, where the committee will be presented with a proclamation to acknowledge both the ADA as well as the disability fair at the end of the month. So it would be a great opportunity for any of the committee members to attend. And you'll get a moment to have a few minutes to speak as well.

Okay. I urge everybody to attend a meeting on the July 1. And you'll be you'll have a chance to get on television and say a few words if you want. But we need to be there and and show that our support for it. So if you can, make arrangements ahead of time to be there. It's at what time? 06:30?

That'll be at 06:30PM here

in And usually, they put us first on the agenda.

The yes. The proclamations usually occur first.

Okay. It it's a a short session, and you can leave afterwards if you want to stay for the whole meeting, but it's important. Just wanna emphasize that. 06:30. Wrote a country.

Okay.

If there's no further discussion on the disability fair updates, next is the communications department pamphlets. So the communications department did provide a draft of the brochure that was initially submitted. They added some photos, some more information. If there's anything that the committee would like added in terms of their accomplishments, more description of, like, the role of the committee members, the QR code on the back of it does lead to an application for anybody interested in, filling out an application to be part of the committee when the terms are, set for this specific term. If there was any other information or any other site that you would like to link it to instead, we're happy to do that.

I I thank you for this. It it's something very welcome. We would like the chance to with our next meeting for the fair to go over this and see if there's anything that we can recommend. But the basis is it's here, and we're we're happy with it. I'm speaking for myself.

No. I I really like it. I think it looks good from what I I looked at so far.

I did just provide a black and white copy because I wasn't sure how many revisions would be re needed needed. So I didn't want to print off too many. But, again, if there's any other additional input, we're happy to continue adding to the accomplishment data or any other information on the brochure.

Yeah. For the next meeting, I did ask that we, because of the weather situations that are happening all across the nation of more severe weather and kind of you're taken by surprise an awful lot of times. How is the city or the county going to respond to people with disabilities? Do we still have the number we can call into and get somebody put as a high priority person that needs help because of their disability? Any just the gist of it is to get emergency help in a storm situation or a anything that's cataclysmic that people would need transportation.

Sure. I think there's a few different routes that we could take for the next agenda to add that on to for May. One, I believe the fire department, when he was here speaking last time, Chief Chaplain, he spoke on the different areas of the fire department that may be able to assist with that. And we also have our emergency management director, John Lukansic, who formed an emergency response team.

That's a county wide thing.

That's specific to City Of Joliet.

Oh, it is?

Yes. So maybe that's something that we can bring him in to discuss as well.

Is it possible to involve the the county as well?

I can absolutely reach out and find out.

Okay. Because on on the edges of the city, there's that's unincorporated. I don't know if we would respond to something like that.

Sure. I can absolutely find out.

Okay. Okay. Anything from the police department? No? How how are we doing at disability parking? Are we still passing out a lot of tickets? I believe so. Yeah. Great. I can look into specific numbers for next meeting.

If you would. Because I I know, I I take a daily walk, and I'm just seeing an an awful lot of people that I don't see their disability permit. What did he say? And they're still parked in in a parking area that's not for them. Okay.

Just some oh, sorry.

I I I just wanted to ask, know, there's a lot of information about tickets issued, but is there any information about the court cases in the follow-up from those tickets? How many are No.

That could come from the account. The company does

Okay.

Thank you.

Just some other old business that wasn't on the agenda, but I just wanted to touch base on because they were left as, like, outstanding questions. I know Gary brought up the comments regarding the crosswalks and the that it was turned off at night. I was able to reach out to so the intersections that that you're speaking of downtown, those are iDot jurisdiction, and they do have it in night mode where at night, the volume is minimized to a very low volume. So that would be something if you wanted to advocate for it to be You turned

can't hear. Right. When I put my ear to it, I can't hear.

Really?

Yeah. I That's something I may be able to find a contact at iDOT to see if there's any advocating that we can do on that end. And then secondly, so I know Krista Desiderio, when she was joined us last month, she mentioned that the city has changed its process in accepting agendas. They do they are requesting them two weeks out now. Unfortunately, anything under that is kind of cutting it too close, we can't go through via full approval process that we've been needing. So the next agenda time frame would be due on May 6 in time for the May 20 meeting.

Yeah. I I got the email just before I left, and it said two weeks notice. So I will we'll make sure that takes place.

Thank you.

And, again, a reminder to the entire committee, if you have something you wanna see on the agenda, say so. There's just a vast array of things that we can talk about. And one of those that I do want to talk more about is housing, because this is something that's a statewide problem. But it's an expensive problem. So I do see a lot of cutbacks coming.

And I don't want to see a whole lot of people with disabilities out on the street. What we don't realize is that so many people that are homeless have a disability. They just aren't able to hold down a job. They may have mental problems. These are all disabilities.

And we need to do something for them. Because like I said, I take my morning walk, and I see so many people sleeping in the bus stops that are enclosed. They're sleeping under something that has an eave. If you look at Joliet and ask the computer, how many homeless are there in Joliet, they'll give you a number. And it's around 800 people.

And that's an awful lot of people. So it's a number that, if we have any kind of recession, is going to increase. Because two things are getting out of balance. One, the rent, and two, the employment possibilities for people that have a disability. So we we need to talk a little bit about housing as well.

When we add something to the agenda, I guess, like, the one concern that I have is that if we don't have any, like, kind of action item, like, about it. Like, if we're just bringing up housing, like, I feel like, you know, we all know that housing is an issue. We all know that transportation is an issue. All of these things, I think we can all be in full agreement. But I feel like when we add something to the agenda, I don't necessarily think it should just be to, like, talk about. Like, we should have, like, some sort of action plan associated with it. And if we don't, at that point, I feel like it might be something that we should wait on.

On the other side, you can't start working on something that you're not aware of, that you're not talking about. You need to get people aware of the problem to get somebody to start doing something about it. And our lack of we're an advisory council. Our job is to advise the mayor on problems that we see, and ask them to do something about it.

Well, maybe we should start making a formal recommendation to the mayor.

Yeah.

That's that's exactly what I would like to see. And I I have made formal recommendations to the mayor. And it's always been a problem of expense.

Right.

But yes, that's our job, is to make recommendations. Yeah.

They get the last agenda item should be making a recommendation to the mayor and the city council.

Yeah. Yeah. Just something so it kinda feels like we're doing more than just, like, commiserating.

Okay.

But, yeah, I like the idea of maybe adding something at the end or something to, like, talk about, like, a a plan or what we can recommend or or something like that.

Yeah. That that's one of the reasons I want wanted somebody from housing to come in and and talk to us that we can get what their future plans are and explain to them these are the needs. And I'm sure they're well aware of the needs. It's just the matter of getting them into the plans for the future.

So just to clarify, the city itself doesn't provide housing. There is the housing authority of Joliet, but they are their own body, jurisdiction. They do have resident advisory boards available, and they are involved with several future projects that are just now coming into a drafting period. So there's always going to be room for public comment and advocacy for the needs of the citizens with disabilities within those drafting periods. I'll be sure to continue updating you on any further discussions that are going on with that.

But as of right now, the city of Joliet doesn't provide housing, and they don't oversee anybody that does. So it would be hard to advocate on a city level for the needs. Those would have to be advocating you know, the the levels for the people that are responsible for those housing decisions.

Yeah. And that's exactly the people that that we would like to talk to.

Mhmm.

Okay. Anybody else have anything? Alright. Make a motion to adjourn. Anybody?

Actually, if we could just do, just for the record, open for public comment. If anybody wants to comment, now is the time to make any comment on or off the agenda items. And if not, then if there's a motion to adjourn.

I'd like to add in a if we can get that sidewalk along Jefferson, between Infantry and Heart and as well as, you know

advocate with the state to get that in there. I know.

Yes. And good luck. I'm sure the funding, blah blah.

Yeah. And we do have an agreement going to council at the May, I believe, an agreement that they're entering with PACE to provide shelters at certain intersections. That agreement is currently being drafted, and it'll be reviewed at council at the beginning of the month. But once I do have the intersections that will be given ADA access to shelter, then I'll be sure to communicate those.

Oh, great. Will Raynor and Jefferson be on that?

I'll have to double check. I was only given a preliminary list. I don't have, like, the final list yet, but I'll be sure to have those for you.

Thanks.

Alright. Is there a motion to adjourn?

We're gonna adjourn. Tony, you have the honors.

I want I want to hear a

good loud one.

Motion. Thank you.

All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries.

Alright. Thank you all.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you. Not loud enough.

And

we gotta make any