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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2011 0118 AGENDA_FinalPost MACFEA Mayor's Advisory Committee for Equal Access TUESDAY, January 18, 2011 12:00 pm MO'IKEHA MEETING ROOM 2A&B 4444 Rice Street, Lihue, Hawaii 96766 MACFEA'S MISSION IS TO ASSIST THE COUNTY OF KAUAI IN ITS COMPLIANCE WITH THE FEDERAL, STATE AND COUNTY LAWS MANDATING EQUAL ACCESS MEETING AGENDA • Roll Call, Introductions • Approval of Agenda • Approval of November 16, 2010 Minutes • Business • Discussion with the Kaua'i Transportation Agency regarding transportation initiatives • Goals and Objectives for 2011112 Fiscal Year • Reminder: Applications for appointment to the MACFEA are due to the Office of Boards and Commissions Reports • County of Kauai ADA Coordinator's report • DCAB report for January 2011 — Dr. Lucy o Members' reports Announcements Next MACFEA meeting: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 Adjournment Cc: Marc Guyot, Deputy County Attorney Anyone needing assistance,auxiliary aides or alternate format of materials, please contact Christina at 241-6203{V/M) five(5)working days before the meeting date posted above. Meeting Minutes - DRAFT Mayor's Advisory Committee For Equal Access (MACFEA) Tuesday, November 16, 2010 Mo'ikeha Meeting Room 2A & 213 4444 Rice Street, Uhue, HI 96766 Members present: Rita Manriquez - State Traumatic Brain Injury Advisory Board (STBIAB); Dr. Lucy Miller - DCAB (Disability and Communication Access Board) Board member; Dawn Cummings - Family Advocate; Betty Bell - Kauai Federation for the Blind; Linda Nuland-Ames - Director RSVP, Elderly Affairs, El Doi - Kauai Developmental Disabilities Council (DDC)-, Rhoda Rojas - Hawai'i Center for Independent Living-Kauai (HCIL); Roberta Eiben - Consumer; Sharry Glass - Advocate, Teacher/Trainer. Guests: Ana Valdez - Consumer (proposed new member); Laura Burman, Director Hawaii Red Cross. Staff members also present: Christiana Pilkington - ADA Coordinator; Barbara Davis - Staff Secretary, Captioner: Karen Yates, Caption First. Members absent or excused: Kathy English - Hawaii Disability Rights Center; Elena Costales - Consumer, KCIL Volunteer; Marc Guyot - Staff Attorney Call to Order The meeting was called to order by Chair El Doi at 12:02 pm in the Mo'ikeha Building, Meeting Room 2A & 2B at 4444 Rice Street in Uhu'e with 8 members present and the 9th member joining the meeting prior to the approval of the minutes. Approval of Agenda Ms. Bell moved to approve the agenda as circulated. Ms. Glass seconded the motion. Motion carried 8:0 Approval of September 21, 2010 Minutes Ms. Rojas moved to approve the minutes but asked to clarify her report from last month to reflect that Ms. Nakamine spoke to the HCIL self advocacy group regarding private hires rather than personal assistants and aides. Ms. Bell seconded the motion. Motion carried 9:0 Business ,- Review and discussion of the Mayor's Complete Streets project Ms. Pilkington explained that Mayor Carvalho signed a complete streets resolution but there are still some changes that will have to be developed before there can be an ordinance. Ms. Pilkington said she would send information out to the committee members in case anyone was interested in being on one of the various state or county committees that will be working on complete streets. Complete streets are more MACFEA Page 1 pedestrian-friendly, wider and are primarily focused at built environments, children walking to school, streets being friendly to different types of transportation and multimodal transportation. o Bus Transportation and the cost of bus passes for people with limited allowances Ms. Pilkington said another item that was brought up at a recent transportation forum was that transportation is costly and people with developmental disabilities right now are getting a stipend of $50 a month of which $20 of that amount goes to a bus pass which leaves $30 a month to cover personal hygiene, entertainment and food. One way to alleviate that problem would be for the County to waive the bus fee for people with disabilities but other than that there isn't too much the County can do as this is a legislative matter, Ms. Glass noted that our population is aging which will increase the demand for paratransit and asked if there are plans to accommodate this larger senior citizen population? Ms. Nuland-Ames said this had been addressed in the five year plan which has to go before Council for review. It did include responding to the increased numbers of what used to be called baby boomers but are now called the Sputnik generation because it is more exciting, more scientifically oriented. Dr. Lucy added that there are also a lot more veterans returning with disabilities. In responding to a comment regarding people who are 65 not being eligible for paratransit transportation, Ms. Pilkington said age is not the criteria for paratransit, people are eligible for paratransit if they have a qualifying disability— regardless of their age. However there are transportation programs specific to seniors on Kaua'i through the Office of Elderly Affairs. Ms. Nuland-Ames said they were looking at reorganizing some of the programs based on where the needs are but it was not considered a cut- back. Ms. Glass said age was not a criteria; it was based on a person's physical ability to walk and how far they lived from an existing bus stop. Ms. Rojas said she attended a meeting about the original long range land transportation plan for the island of Kaua'i and the discussion was about the long range plan for the state highways to be for multimodal transportation but she would report more on this later. Chair Doi asked the Committee if they would like someone from Transportation to come to a future meeting to answer questions regarding paratransit. ACTION: Ms. Bell made a motion to request that someone from paratransit be scheduled to speak to MACFEA on items such as scheduling, frequency of busses and late afternoon and evening service. Ms. Glass said paratransit is only required to offer equal opportunity for transportation that is offered by the regular bus and presently the regular bus does not run evenings or weekends either. It is all equal access; paratransit can't provide things that the Kauai Bus doesn't provide. Ms. Pilkington said inviting Transportation to a future meeting would be the time to bring up experiences that could offer improvements or ask what type of training the bus drivers get with regard to working with people with disabilities but it would not be a time to discuss problems or specific issues with specific bus drivers. MACFEA Page 2 ACTION: Ms. Glass reiterated Ms. Bell's motion to invite someone from Transportation to speak to MACFEA to answer any questions the members may have regarding Transportation. Ms. Rojas seconded the motion. Ms. Pilkington asked the members to email her with questions they would like Transportation to address such as how to read the bus schedule, bus routes, positive feedback on experiences with bus drivers, what the future looks like for extended hours on weekends and evenings, and what are the plans for expanding bus shelters and bus pads? Ms. Pilkington further advised that complaints or concerns should be filed on a complaint form with the Transportation Department. If the complaint is regarding discrimination, or someone does not feel comfortable filing a complaint with the Transportation Department, then they should be sure to file a complaint with the ADA Office. Ms. Glass said she would also like to ask why a person with a permanent disability and permanent residence is required to complete a new form every year. Motion carried 9:0 o Public notification of ADA accessibility of public and county events such as the Disaster Drill coordinated through the Civil Defense Ms. Rojas said that the disaster drill a couple of months ago did not have the notification information on how to request an auxiliary aid for anyone who may have wanted to participate in the drill. Ms. Bauman, who is the new Director for the Red Cross, said that being on the MACFEA committee and working with Randy from The Garden Island newspaper who sits on her advisory board for the Red Cross, could work together with Mark Marshall at the Civil Defense to get the appropriate information to the public prior to an event. Living in a diverse community we need to work to support victims, be they victims with disabilities or victims without disabilities. The MACFEA members agreed that important information should be disseminated in the newspaper, on radio and television as well as by E-mail. Ms. Manriquez said the Department of Health has been trying to put together a list of people who need special help but one of the difficulties they are running into is that people don't want to share the confidential information that is asked and secondly, the information cannot be transferred to other departments. The crawl line across the bottom of the TV seems to be very effective for communication access regarding emergencies because many people have their TVs on constantly. Ms. Pilkington said whatever information goes out to people needs to go out in an accessible format so everybody can receive it. o MACFEA membership and review of attendance and members responsibility MACFEA membership is coterminous with the Mayors term; over the next thirty to sixty days letters will be going out from the Mayor's Office reappointing members to the various boards, commissions and committees. MACFEA Page 3 o January training on new access guidelines Ms. Pilkington invited the MACFEA membership to attend the ADA Design and Construction Standards training for the new 2010 access guidelines on January 20 but noted that not all members would be interested in learning the specification changes such as how wide a sidewalk has to be or what the grade has to be. The training will mostly pertain to architects and county engineers although the members of the Contractors Association will also be invited to attend the sessions. Reports: o DCAB's report for August and September, 2010 — Dr. Lucy Ms. Pilkington explained to the new MACFEA members that DCAB, a State agency under the Department of Health, is the acronym for Disability and Communication Access Board. DCAB has several divisions of which one handles accessible parking, another section helps with education for parents of children with special needs (SPIN — Special Parent Information Network) and the communication access division handles all the testing for the Hawaii certified interpreters. And under HRS 103-50, the facility access reviews all State and County design plans to make sure they comply with federal ADA access guidelines. Dr. Lucy urged everyone to put the website www,ada.qov into their favorite's folder pointing out it is a very user friendly website. They list about five new rules that were passed; there is also advanced notice of upcoming legislation on another four rules for which they are seeking public comments. Dr. Lucy also said that the deadline for all theatres to show captioned films is 2012 which will be a struggle for the smaller local theatres. Congratulations were given to Dr. Lucy for her service animal passing the public access test; the goal is now to have Muffin certified by the end of the year. o Members' reports Betty Bell: The State conference for the National Federation of the Blind, which met on Kaua'i on October 17 and 18, was very successful. The hotel was great and all the service animals were treated very well. Roberta Eiben: Debbie Remejio and I will be going to Oahu on December 4t" for the Special Olympics State Bowling Tournament. Rhoda Rojas- HCIL Kaua'i will be starting the low impact seated physical fitness program this Thursday and anyone interested in joining in should call 245-4034; you will need to have signed permission from your Doctor before you can join the program. Rita Manriquez: Dr. Ross on Oahu has been conducting a study of athletes who have had concussions, which he feels are a form of mild traumatic brain injury, so he started a webinar for coaches and parents regarding concussion awareness. Also the President of the Brain Injury Association of Hawaii has been training the Honolulu Police Department to recognize brain injuries because many people with traumatic brain MACFEA Page 4 injury do not know how to react when they are asked questions quickly by the Police; the Police in turn automatically think the person is drunk or on drugs which is usually not the case. Once the training in Honolulu is completed the program will be taken to the outer islands. El Doi: The Disabilities Council held several meetings recently and the topics that kept coming up were transportation, education and the $30 stipend; these areas are of big importance and the people want the State to address the issues. Next MACIFEA meeting: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 Adjournment: The meeting ended at 1:26 pm without a quorum present. Respectfully submitted by: Barbara Davis, Staff Support Approved as is Approved with amendments. MACFEA Page 5 MACFEA M Mayor's Advisory Committee For Equal Access January 18, 2011- 12:00 pm Mo'ikeha Meeting Room A/B Questions for the Transportation Agency 1. Has there been any discussion regarding free bus passes for adults who have disabilities and who are on a fixed income? For example a person with developmental disabilities receives only $50. /month allowance and a bus pass is $20. /month. It is hard to afford hygiene products, food and entertainment on $30. /month. Would the Transportation Office consider lowering or waiving the bus pass fee for riders on fixed incomes? 2. As the baby boomers (the Sputnik generation) get older paratransit ridership will undoubtedly increase — is Transportaion preparing for an increase in paratransit ridership? Are there special programs for the seniors now? What programs are there for seniors and how do they work? 3. What are the eligibility criteria for paratransit? 4. Why is the cost of a paratransit bus so much more expensive to run than the cost of a fixed route run? 5. We hear about the need for bus shelters often and we know they must be on an accessible route and comply with the ADA so they can be used by everyone in the public. What is the plan for bus shelters on Kaua'i —are there priority locations for new accessible bus stops? 6. What is the plan for existing bus stops to come into compliance with accessible bus pads and connecting routes so they can be usable by everyone? 7. Why do paratransit riders with permanent qualifying disabilities have to reapply for paratransit services? If you have a permanent disability why can't you have permanent paratransit status? 8. Do you think an increase in bus shelters could assist in a decrease for paratransit ridership when people have a place to sit/rest and are protected from the sun or rain while they wait? 9. Scheduling seems to be more challenging for people with disabilities because they are required to call 24 hours in advance and it's not always easy to live your life 24 hours in advance. Mix ups occur. Often people have to leave meetings or appointments earlier than they should —to catch a paratransit bus. How do you think the dispatch could make it easier for paratransit riders with scheduling? 10.For some people it is hard to understand the bus schedule —who can a person go to if they are intellectually disabled —to better understand how to interpret bus schedules and are the schedules available in large print or braille? Are the schedules accessible on the website? 11.Do the drivers and dispatchers receive training on how to interact with people who have disabilities? How often do they receive training? What is the training? Who does the training? When was the last training they received? 12.Are there plans for the current bus schedule to increase in frequency on some routes? When? Which routes? 13.Is the county planning for the busses to run later into the evening? When? How late? 14.1s the county planning for the busses to run on Sundays and Holidays? When? What Holidays? 15.Sometimes we hear about a bad experience with a bus driver but more often we hear about how great the bus drivers are and how lucky we are to have such a wonderful bus system — is there a way for riders to report on good experiences? Can a rider share a bad experience without filing a formal complaint? 16. Does Transportation have a suggestion box so people can make suggestions anonymously? DISABILITY AND COMMUNICATION ACCESS BOARD 919 Ala Moana Boulevard,Room 101 -Honolulu,Hawaii 96814 Ph. (808)586-8121 (V/TDD) -Fax(808)586-8129 January 2011 Report from the Disability and Communication Access Board for City and County of Honolulu, Maui, Kauai, and Big Island Mayors Committees Maui, Kauai, and Big Island Developmental Disabilities Committees Disability Rights Hawaii Big Island Submitted by Francine Wai, Executive Director We hope everyone had a great holiday and are ready to start off the New Year with a bang. 1. DCAB Legislation: DCAB is introducing two (2) bills this session to help us become more financially self-sufficient and stable. One bill will allow DCAB to charge and keep a fee for our blueprint reviews under Hawaii Revised Statutes §103-50. This will make our Facility Access Unit self-sufficient and ensure the ongoing document reviews for accessibility of state and county buildings, facilities, and sites continues. The second bill will increase the motor vehicle registration fee by $1 to go into a special fund to pay for the parking program for persons with disabilities. This will enable our entire program to be relieved of general funds. It would allow us to modernize the program and would also permit us to improve enforcement efforts at the county level. For more information, contact Francine Wai at francine.wai@doh.hawaii.gov. DCAB is also introducing a third bill that will conform Hawaii's statute with the new federal U.S. Department of Justice regulations for service animals. For more information, contact Debbie Jackson at debbra.iackson @doh.hawaii.gov. 2. DCAB Adopts New 2004 ADAAG and New 2010 DOJ Standards: As of January 1, 2011, DCAB's Facility Access Unit will be reviewing all plans for state and county construction projects to the "new ADAAG" unless a Department or County specifically states that its project will be designed and constructed prior to March 15, 2012 and wishes to have the review conducted to the "old ADAAG." As a result of the change, DCAB also issued twenty (20) new Interpretive Opinions on January 3, 2011 relating to the new ADAAG to assist in the review process. If you have any questions about the new reviews, contact Curtis Motoyama at curtis.motoyama@doh.hawaii.go . To help the architectural, engineering, and project management community understand the new ADAAG, DCAB is conducting thirteen (13) workshops in January for the design community. We also plan to sponsor a more comprehensive training in March with the U.S. Access Board staff. Stay tuned for more details. 3. DCAB Comments on State Hunting Rules: The Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) is amending their administrative rules (Title 13, Chapters 122 and 123) relating to hunting permits. Among the changes are provisions which provide modifications of policy to allow individuals with disabilities to use a crossbow and to shoot from a vehicle. DCAB provided comments to the rules providing recommended changes in language to more appropriately reflect ADA language. For more information, contact Francine Wai at francine.wai@doh.haway.g2v. 4. DCAB Comments on Proposed DOJ Rules: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued Advanced Notices of Proposed Rulemaking for several new areas under the ADA. DCAB reviewed the four(4) subject matter areas and provided limited comment. If you would like to receive a copy of DCAB's analysis and final testimony (to be discussed at the DCAB January 20, 2011 Board meeting), contact the following people below: • Accessible Equipment and Furniture — curtis.motoyama(a-),doh.hawaii.gov • Movie Captioning and Video Description — kristine.r)aciano(a-)doh.hawaii.gov • Next Generation 9-1-1 — kristine.paganoadoh.hawaii.go • Accessibility of Web Information — debbra.iackson@dohhawaii.go 5. Communication Access Conference: DCAB, the Pacific ADA Center, and Sprint Relay Hawaii are co-sponsors of a conference titled The Power and Influence of Accessible Communication scheduled for March 16, 2011 at the Japanese Cultural Center. We anticipate registration for the conference to begin this month. The agenda will offer three (3) strands of workshops for consumers with disabilities, public and private entities who are providers of services, and sign language interpreters. The workshops will focus on tools for empowerment to improve communication access and cooperative advocacy. Continuing Education Units will be available for sign language interpreters. Exhibits on the latest communication technology will be available throughout the conference day. For more information, contact Kristine Pagano at kristine.pagano@doh.hawaii.gov. 6. Special Parent Information Network (SPIN) Update: SPIN recently helped set-up two (2) public input sessions for parents, self advocates, and providers to comment on Hawaii's renewal of its Medicaid Waiver for persons with developmental disabilities and helped to develop an electronic survey for statewide distribution to obtain additional community input. The SPIN sisters, Susan Rocco and Jan Tateishi are busy in the last stretch of planning their 25th annual conference, Red, White & Blue: SPIN's Tribute to You, scheduled for April 16, 2011 at the University of Hawaii's Campus Center. For more conference information, contact Susan Rocco at susan.rocco&doh.hgAgjjgpy or Jan Tateishi at ian.tateishi(a)doh.hawaH.qov. 7. Disabled Parking Program Update: Just a reminder to everyone who has a disabled person parking permit, whether a placard or a license plate... you should be receiving your notice to renew by mail from DCAB approximately sixty (60) days prior to the expiration of your permit. You will also receive an application form and an envelope to mail in your completed application form at no cost. Please don't wait until the last minutes as you cannot go to the county offices anymore to renew your blue placard. For more information, contact Bill Nakamatsu at william.nakamatsu�doh.hawaii.ciov. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't forget to sign up for DCABs three (3) E-bulletins For the Emergency Preparedness for People with Disabilities E-News, contact doh.hawaii.gov. For the Facility Access E-Bulletin, contact laurie.palenske(idoh.hawaii.gov. For the Communication Access E-Bulletin, contact kr hawaii. ov i�st,ine. qgano�doh���.