Watertown Commission on Disability

March 17, 2010

Watertown Commission on Disability
March 17, 2010

Attendees: George Donahue, Chair; Kim Charlson; Anne Doughty, Fred Isaacs; Alex Liazos; Carol Menton, Gayle Shattuck, Carol Wilson-Braun

Meeting called to order at 7:00 pm by Chair George Donahue.

Roll Call.

We welcomed our newest member, Carol Wilson-Braun. She received her appointment letter from the Town Manager at the end of February.

Members of the commission need to take the conflict of interest test. Please go to the town website and do so.

Carol Menton, Alex, and Gayle interviewed Judy Herzberg. It was a lengthy interview. She had a mobility disability so she qualifies as disabled under the ADA. She has previously addressed issues of sensibility to disabilities. She will be getting her PhD in human services soon. We will invite her to next month’s meeting.

George and Carol Menton met with Mr. Driscoll, the Town Manager. They will be getting their reappointment letters soon.

George will send a letter to the Town Manager asking that a Town Council member be appointed to the commission soon.

We agreed to refer to Carol Menton as CarolM and to refer to Carol Wilson-Braun as CarolWB.
It was moved, seconded, and passed unanimously to accept the minutes of the 15 January meeting when revised to include the statements about availability of the minutes and the treasurer’s report. Copies of the minutes may be requested at the Town Clerk’s Office.

Alex volunteered to try to go through our old minutes. They are very spotty before 2004.
Treasurers Report – Gayle Shattuck

It was moved, seconded, and passed unanimously to accept the treasurer’s report.
Copies of the Treasurer’s report may be requested of the Town’s ADA Coordinator in the Personnel Office.

Safety and Access – Kim Charlson

Kim has more information on the Orientation and Mobility Instructor to help people understand what the signals in Watertown Square mean. We could probably use 3 hours per month of Instructor time at $75.00 per hour. It would probably be appropriate to authorize the expenditure of up to $5000.00 per year for this.

The Commission for the Blind will send a mailing to all blind residents of Watertown informing them of this service. The deaf-blind will need to come to the course with interpreters. The instructor should give us a quarterly report. We should have him give us a tour of Watertown Square. We can also have him come and meet us at the April meeting. His name is Paul Doerr;

Closed Captioning – Carol Menton
We are still having captioning issues. We tested the encoder, a PCE 845. It is listed as supported in Stephanie’s BCS (Broadcast Captioning Software) brief list. However, it doesn’t work. The encoder seems to be picking up input. We talked to Link, the encoder manufacturer. Everything seems to be set up right but we need a Caseview cable. We have ordered that. We will try again.

Special Ed Report—Fred Isaacs
We will have Sarah Ward speaking on Executive Function Disorder at the Hosmer School auditorium on March 18, This was “snowed out” in February.
Our Annual Awards evening will be April 7 at the Mosesian Theater and will feature Charlie Applestein speaking on “The Glass Ain’t Half-Full; Heck, It’s Overflowing!”.

It was moved, seconded, and passed unanimously to appropriate up to $500.00 to provide CART and ASL interpreters for the SPEDPAC Annual Awards meeting.

Chair Report – George Donahue

George has 3 programs for his Cable Show done and “in the can”. They are:
1.An interview with Maggie Doben about her video documentary “Labeled Disabled”.
2.An interview with Jamie Lard, a deaf-blind spokesperson for the Perkins School
3.An interview with Robyn Powell from the Disability Policy Consortium.

George explained our tradition of having the previous chair serve if the current chair is unavailable. However, this does have some limitations. What if the previous chair has left the commission? Perhaps we should have a vice-chair.

The Disability Consortium is urging people to return their census forms and be counted. 250,000 people will get more detailed second-round forms.

July is the Twentieth anniversary of the ADA. There will be a big celebration in Boston. Perhaps we should do something at the Faire on the Square. We could do a pamphlet summarizing the ADA? Perhaps the state will do so.

The Massachusetts Office of Commissions on Disability puts out a newsletter.
It was moved, seconded, and passed unanimously to adjourn at 8:34 PM

These minutes are respectfully submitted by Fred P. Isaacs.