Disability Commission - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon everyone. We'll get the meeting started. Today is Friday, March 14th, and it is uh [Music] 12:01 and this is the Disabilities Commission meeting and we are recording and in progress. How's everybody doing? Good. Good. Um turn my volume up a little bit so I can hear a little bit better. Um so pretty short meeting today. I have just a couple of updates and if you have anything that you would like like to update. The first and foremost is about uh the town van uh dispatch vendor. I had invited um both uh Amy and Liz to join the meeting. Uh neither one of them are available um because they um have meetings today. And so Liz did send me an email. Um, I had asked her if there have been any other complaints and to see if anyone from EHS had reached out to dispatch and talked with them with regards to the concerns and if there had been any changes that had been made based on the complaints. And her comments were that uh there have been no other complaints that they did talk with management and relay all the concerns and they management have addressed it uh with the dispatchers and they also noted that they do they are doing regular trainings customer service and disability awareness and that they are looking into updating their feedback

form on the website. And so um that is all that they have for right now with regard to their dispatch. Um if there is anything further um they you know they would like to hear from us. Um you in particular Eric because you are the one that actually um had brought the uh complaint regarding dispatch and wanted to know if there was anything further if there were any more concerns from you because she would like to um bring that forward to them. um and know that how you feel. Um has anything improved? Has anything gone better, worse, or is everything staying the same? Sure. No, that's fair. And I think I mentioned, you know, I had I had such a poor taste in my mouth from the bad experiences that I had stopped using the service. So, in fairness, I I can't say if anything, you know, from my perspective as a user has changed. Um you know, I had been using the Mark Connect service, which is, you know, discounted rates on like a ride share, you know, like an Uber or Lift type service, uh, which is a great service and very polite and courteous when you call there. Uh but yeah, I mean in order to give it a fair shake, you know, I should try and book the town van, but I should I I think I should also, you know, the others, you know, the and it's not a huge number, but the few others in town that have shared uh you know, the concerns that I expressed with the dispatch service, um you know, they should be logging their concerns as well and kind of an official way. So I should also recommend to people if I hear from others that uh that they follow that kind of that course as well. So no I think that's fair and that sounds good for right now. Okay. All right. So I will relay that information to Liz so

that she knows that and that um if you have the opportunity you might try and use it again to see if your um experience is any better or if it's still the same. um for my next appointment. Okay. All right. Sounds great. We have we have an insider that can uh give us another information. Right. Exactly. And you know and it's important that you know we stay on top of it and not just let it slide because if they you know we can get lip service and say oh yeah we're doing all this and if it's not really happening that that's also important to know, right? And we used to control dispatch. I mean, we didn't before we had a contract, you know, it was a position in in town that actually was our our dispatch. So, if we're paying for a service, we would expect it to be equal to or better than what we were providing. That's right. So, exactly. I mean, I loved it when I first moved to town because it was like you were talking to someone that you knew. Like every every time I called, it was like the person who was driving the van that answered the phone. I mean, and I know that that's not practical, but it was like, you know, it had that very homey feel to it, you know, so it was neat. But uh the second item is update on the meeting with the select board. Uh so I did go to the meeting on Monday with the three items that um we had approved the at the last meeting. So, the first two were the um items on the um non-disclosure and our policy for the ADA and the select board very graciously uh approved both of them. They will be going up on the website um probably Monday or Tuesday of next week. But I was very grateful uh that the select board did approve them very readily and they also um approved uh going forward with um asking basically approving the

removal of Luigi due to the fact that he's unable to um attend our meeting. So we do now have the vacancy. So there's only, you know, the four of us on the board and we do have the vacancy and um in talking with you, Eric, through email um you know, I can send out that letter if you would like to the two members that um you had mentioned and invite them to, you know, apply and and see if they would like to join us. Yeah, I would I would like it if we could. And you know, I'm I'm like I'm I know that they were gung-ho, you know, when I first started talking about them as candidates and you know, I don't know if they're waffling now, but like you know, but I I think it's worth sending a letter to each one of them and um you know, I can follow up and kind of just you know, make sure that they're still engaged and interested and see if you know, either of them uh um you know, is still on board. Hopefully they're both still on board. But um yeah, I think that would be good, which yeah, and it's it's a relatively easy process, too. You know, you takes like all of three minutes to go online and just send out the application and the select board are pretty easy to um have someone join us. Um and they don't even have to go to the meeting, right? Yeah. We're really just looking for um you know people that might have an issue with a person as opposed to you know it helps when someone speaks for themselves if they're there. If we've never heard of the person but if um that's the only time that you would maybe want to see the person but the select board in general is not going to say no to a volunteer especially um if this board is also you know backing them or any board for that matter. Right. Yeah. We definitely would have done that. I mean, I won't name names, but one candidate in

my in my mind uh would be um you know, obviously like they're both, you know, if they're both interested in volunteering and contributing to, you know, the town discussion about disability, I think that's great. But like out of the two candidates, one of them is a little more fiery and a little more opinionated and the other one is, you know, I think a little more democratic. So like um I'm kind of quietly hoping that uh you know like I I feel like um it would be great to have the advisory support of of one of them if not directly kind of coming to these meetings and you know do you understand what I'm saying Diane? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because I I feel like our meetings could get off track and on grievances and things like that and I don't want that. So, I'm kind of rooting silently for one of them, but you know, G Eric was uh if I recall correctly, it was the lady that was the gun hole, wasn't it? She was, but she's having a lot of like I mean I mean one week it was technology issues, the second week it was scheduling issues. I'm like, "Okay, now don't don't get inconsistent or unreliable now, you know?" Like, right? But yeah, I mean I can I can have the one-on-one with each of them and kind of follow up and see where their mind is at currently, you know. Yeah, that would that would be helpful, I think. Yeah. Um so in all reality I mean those are the only two issues that um we had to talk about today and the only thing now is just you know action items as to what our next steps going forward are. You know basically you know sending a letter to both of the members you know both of the residents that are interested in becoming members.

um sending the information that we had approved at the select board meeting on Monday night um uh to James um Dugen um you know because now we're getting a little bit closer to that May deadline um getting his approval you know for the all the steps that we've taken you know as far as getting Eric Derber the ADA getting his information out on the website now getting the non-disclosure um information out there, getting our policy out there, you know, making all those steps forward, you know, what what else is, you know, is he looking for? Is there something that that else that we're missing? So, I think if we get all those things to him now, I think we'll be in good shape as far as, you know, the grant is concerned for May. Um let's see what else he thinks we're missing, if we're missing anything. So Eric is our ADA coordinator. Is that right? Yes. Eric Derba. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because I saw the uh the mod newsletter today. They're like, you know, make sure you're working with your ADA coordinator. I'm like I was like, okay, this um so yeah, this sounds good. like uh like is there anything we need to be doing to like cle like like to prepare to submit or like everything is kind of falling? Well, everything's kind of together. It's just these were some things that he said that we needed. So, um, I want to get those things back to him to make sure they, you know, pass the muster type thing and to be sure that he thinks, you know, he he basically said that you don't have to re recreate the wheel, you know, um, look at the state, see what they have, you know, use use your resources and, um,

you know, and basically what we did was we just looked at what the state had and kind of changed changed the names you know, and put us in there and um went from there. And so I don't know why it wouldn't wouldn't work because it works for the state, so why would it work for the town, you know? So um I think the other thing that we should uh ask Jeff is uh upon submission of this um and it get accepted what can we do next? I'm not quite clear whether or not that we can go in and ask for grant on something. Um, I'm sort of kind of under the impression May is the is the month that you can go in and ask for grant for something. So, I'm not sure once they accept that, what can we uh do in terms of asking for money from that point? I think it's that you have to wait till the following year to submit the next application for grant or whatever the case is. I think that if he can uh clarify that for us with regards once this is submitted and is accepted and approved by them, what can we do next in terms of grant? Okay. Yeah. We want to stay ahead of it and that Yeah. we can hit the ground running, I guess, in May. Make sure we're right. Yeah. I think part of it is are we looking to do a transition plan or what is it that we're actually

looking looking for the money for? And I think that's that's the biggest thing. Is that what we're looking for to do a train? Well, I thought that uh I thought that um we needed to uh get a consultant to uh go through the town of Littleton and tell us uh what's on target and what's not on target, which is a transition plan. Okay. That's what it's called. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we will be looking for. Okay. All right. Does anybody have anything else that they would like to I just sent a calendar invite for a placeholder for the April 11th Friday because second Friday of the month. April 11th. Yeah. Okay. Okay. It works for me. Me, too. Yep. It's good. George, does that work for you? Yeah. Usually, uh, I try to make anything work. Okay. Go. If I got something, I'll I'll definitely bring it ahead. Okay. Well, well, I know that I know that uh that uh we need to uh touch bases with uh with the building commission there and uh see when they can u get us to go and look at the the

senior center and also 36. Yeah. Are you available next Tuesday, George? because I have to um set up something for Lucy to go over there. Are you available Tuesday? Yeah, Tuesday should be okay. So, I got a meeting with uh Jim Serial on Monday. So, yeah, Tuesday is open. Okay. All right. I'll send you a email as soon as I get that set up. Okay. All right. If there's nothing else, I'll ask for a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. All right. Moved and seconded. All those in favor? Eric George? I Gary. All right. Well, thank you so much everyone and have a great weekend and you too. Hopefully it's nice. Yeah. I'll talk to talk to you all soon. Happy St. Pat's Day. Yeah. Happy day. Take care. Bye.