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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010 0921 Minutes Open_APPROVED Meeting Minutes — Approved as circulated 11/16/10 Mayor's Advisory Committee For Equal Access (MACFEA) Tuesday, September 21, 2010 Mo'ikeha Meeting Room 2A & 2B 4444 Rice Street, Uhu'e, 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; Kathy English — Hawai'i Disability Rights Center; Betty Bell — Kaua'i Federation for the Blind; Linda Nuland-Ames — Director RSVP, Elderly Affairs; Rev. Richard Chun, Senior Representative; El Doi — Kaua'i Developmental Disabilities Council (DDC); Rhoda Rojas — Hawai'i Center for Independent Living-Kaua'i (HCIL); Elena Costales — Consumer, KCIL Volunteer; Roberta Eiben - Consumer . Staff members also present: Christiana Pilkington — ADA Coordinator; Barbara Davis — Staff Secretary. Captioner: Darlene Pickard, Caption First. Members absent or excused: Sharry Glass — Advocate, Teacher/Trainer Call to Order The meeting was called to order by Chair El Doi at 12:04 pm in the Mo'ikeha Building, Meeting Room 2A & 2B at 4444 Rice Street in LThu'e with 11 members present. Approval of Agenda Dr. Lucy moved to approve the agenda as circulated. Ms. Bell seconded the motion. Motion carried 11 :0 Approval of July 20, 2010 Minutes Ms. Bell moved to approve the minutes as circulated. Rev. Chun seconded the motion. Motion carried 11 :0 Business o Recap of the Mayors Proclamation and Together We Can Show Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the ADA — Ms. Rojas/ Dr. Lucy Miller/Ms. Glass Ms. Rojas reported that the proclamation for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was held on July 26th in the rotunda of the Civic Center following the Together We can Show in the Mayor's office. The guests talked with Mayor Carvalho about how ADA has helped people with disabilities and described some of the changes and accomplishments achieved through the Act. Dr. Lucy announced she had a video MACFEA Page 1 cassette of the program she would be glad to lend to anyone had not seen the Together We Can show providing they had a VCR to play it on. Dr. Lucy thought the program went very well and that the Mayor asked the right questions. She felt the Mayor was very comfortable with the speakers and the whole situation. Ms. Pilkington agreed that the taping of the show went very well and that the Mayor's questions were appropriate, giving the program participants an opportunity to talk about how far they have come. Because the Mayor had another proclamation scheduled he was not able to ask the audience the questions the committee had prepared for the rotunda presentation but it was still a nice celebration with a good turnout. o Outline of changes to the ADA Regulations regarding access guidelines and service animal definitions - Ms. Pilkington Ms. Pilkington reported the Design for All conference hosted by the Disability and Communication Board was particularly exciting because John Wodatch of the U.S. Department of Justice presented some of the trainings. There have been big changes to the ADA Access Guidelines and as of March, 2012, counties and local governments will be required to use the ADA/ABA Access Guidelines. Ms. Pilkington said that the DCAB will be scheduling trainings in March and rather than sending some of our county engineers to O'ahu for training, she would rather spend the money to bring the trainers to Kaua'i for a combined training with county and state engineers as well as people from the private sector. The conference also provided training on service animals. Species of service animals have been d redefined to include dogs and miniature ponies only. Miniature ponies have been identified as service animals because they live longer than dogs, they are small and they are very smart. Mr. Wodatch made it clear those owners of service animals in training need to request permission of a business or place of public accommodation before taking their service animal in training. Businesses have the right to not allow a service animal in training into their premises. Ms. Pilkington explained that you can still ask a person what task or service the animal provides for them but you still should not ask an individual anything about their disability or make any judgment regarding a person's disability regarding their service animal. Any time a service animal is disruptive, the handler can be asked to remove the animal but you cannot tell them they can't return; the individual can return without the disruptive animal. Ms. Pilkington added that comfort animals are not recognized as service animals under the ADA. Under the Fair Housing Act people are allowed to have comfort animals if they have a note from their physician indicating that the animal has some kind of medical or therapeutic value for that owner with a disability. The Air Carriers Act allows animals into the cabin of an airplane and requires another type of verification and certification. The support and/or service animal has to have passed a public access test which is quite rigorous. MACFEA Page 2 o Review of the September 16th DD Council Legislative Forum Ms. Doi reported that there was a pretty good turnout of various agencies for this event and thanked Ms. Rojas and Ms. Pilkington for attending and representing their agencies and for being on the committee which planned the forum. This year's event was held at the Kaua'i War Memorial Convention Hall and there were over 100 people in attendance. Ms. Doi noted there was a new agency participating in the forum called Caperneum Camp which is for youths with developmental disabilities who can partner with a friend from the community and participate in all types of activities. Kore Kaua'i, The Friendship House and Hawai'i Center for Independent Living were just some of the 20 agencies represented this year. Kaua'i Community Federal Credit Union (KCFCU) participated this year because of the success they had at a seminar last year where they offered a simplified version of how to open a savings and checking account. There was good support from our Mayor, COK Administrators, legislators, Council members and county council candidates. There is hope it will be as supported next year even though it will not be an election year. It seems our leaders truly want to help people in the community with developmental disabilities. Ron Kouchi shared that he has a nephew who has Down's syndrome and autism and their family moved to the mainland to get the best services and medical attention for the child; from a family perspective it is frustrating because their extended family here is not able to provide support. Mr. Kouchi is empathetic to a lot of the situations on the neighbor islands and we are hoping to see legislation for medical insurance this year in regard to airfare for people who need to seek medical attention on O'ahu. The Committee started a discussion about Complete Streets and they were informed it was not an agenda item. The Chair requested it be placed on the November meeting agenda. Reports: DCAB's report for August and September, 2010 In addition to the reports for August and September, Dr. Lucy reported that the DCAB met the previous week where there was a lot of discussion regarding transportation issues; in particular the light rail system planned for Honolulu where they have really looked at rules, regulations and stipulations to make it accessible to everyone. Dr. Lucy also mentioned that there is a lot of progress being made by our Federal government to make it easier for people with vision difficulties to identify the U.S. currency they are holding, similar to the different sized bills many foreign currencies use. Dr. Lucy said that while movies are currently being made with captioning, some of the theatres are not technically capable of showing films with captioning but there is a 2012 deadline for theatres to become compliant. Dr. Lucy noted that an item that will be on the DCAB's agenda next year is to create more detailed guidelines for service animals which can be standardized across the State. Federal regulations have refined the guidelines but the details will be left up to local and state governments. MACFEA Page 3 Dr. Lucy reported on a recent incident involving the TSA Security on O'ahu and her service animal which demonstrated many inconsistencies within the system regarding how places of public accommodation handle both service animals and their handlers. Members' reports Linda Nuland-Ames: Ms. Nuland-Ames recently accepted the position of Director of the RSVP (Retired and Senior Volunteer Program), Agency of Elderly Affairs for the County of Kaua'i. In expanding the agency's focus, we are moving to recruit volunteers who have a lifetime of experience and can support some of the unmet needs in the community. The agency wants to encourage people who have a disability to volunteer and secondly the agency wants to provide more services to the community such as phone calls for people who are living independently but want the extra comfort of regular contact. Rhoda Rojas: With a grant from Kaua'i United Way, next month the Hawai'i Center for Independent Living will conduct a low-impact, seated exercise program once a month for anybody who has a disability and would like to participate in the program. Also next week on September 28th, Charlyn Nakamine from the County's Office of Elderly Affairs will be speaking to the self advocacy group from the Center for Independent Living about personal assistants and aides. Betty Bell: Ms. Bell contacted Janine Rapozo of the Transportation Agency regarding the placement of a bench at the back access to the State Building and Ms. Rapozo offered to make some calls to see if anyone is pursuing it. The State conference for the National Federation of the Blind will meet on Kaua'i October 17 and 18 which will mean a lot more service animals around. The Lions Clubs will be assisting by picking up the attendees and getting them to the hotel. Ms. Manriquez: The advisory board for Traumatic Brain Injury is meeting on Thursday, September 23. Ms. Manriquez did not participate in the recent disaster drill for Kaua'i and therefore had no first-hand knowledge of how the drill went. Ms. Manriquez advised the Committee that Julia Hall has resigned from the Red Cross of Hawai'i and that the agency will be looking for a new Red Cross coordinator for the island of Kaua'i. El Doi: The next DD (Developmental Disabilities) Council will be on Tuesday, October 5th from 12:30 to 2:30 and the committee will be evaluating the recent legislative forum and planning for the next one. Christina Pilkington: noted many concerns affecting people with disabilities were brought up at the legislative forum and can be put on the (November) MACFEA agenda for discussion Two subjects mentioned which involve county government were Complete Streets and the cost of bus passes for public transportation by people with DD who live on small allowances. MACFEA Page 4 Linda Nuland-Ames: Reminded the Committee that Thursday, September 23rd, the first phase of the patient's Bill of Rights under the new affordable healthcare act will be going into effect with the next series of changes going into effect in December. Anyone wanting more information on how this may impact them specifically, their clients or members of their family can go to www.healthcare.gov which is very easy to navigate. Dr. Lucy: Dr. Lucy asked if the sponsors of events such as political candidate forums and mayoral candidate debates are subject to being accessible. Ms. Pilkington said she would bring this to the attention of the County in areas where they are involved but most forums and debates are sponsored by organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, the newspaper or other non-governmental groups. It was noted that there was limited pre-publicity for the recent disaster drill so anyone who required an auxiliary aid or who had a disability and wanted to participate were not able to do so. The Department of Health put the drill on with Civil Defense's help so one of the agencies should have put out auxiliary aid notification prior to the event. Ms. Manriquez said when she spoke with the Department of Health she was told they were not putting on the drill, it was the first responders, fire and police, which would be County. Next MACFEA meeting: Tuesday, November 16, 2010 Adjournment: Ms. Eiben moved to adjourn the meeting at 1 :24 pm. Ms. Nuland-Ames seconded the motion. Motion carried 10:0 Respectfully submitted by: Barbara Davis, Staff Support ( ) Approved as is ( ) Approved with amendments. MACFEA Page 5