Everyone, hello.

Welcome to the recording in progress.

Oh, and I gotta let people in from the waiting room.

Apologies.

Welcome.

Uh the open meeting law requires that I notify the public that this meeting is being recorded.

Therefore, please be aware that an audio and visual recording of this meeting is being made by Boston City TV, a part of the City of Boston Office of Cable Communications, and is being broadcast on Axfinity Channel Twenty Six, RCN Channel 13, and FIOS Channel Nine Six Two, as well as live streamed on YouTube, where recording will remain um on the cable channel.

With that, I will turn it over to our board chair.

Sorry, take it away.

Good evening, everybody.

Happy that you can all join this evening.

Um, I want to start by uh introductions.

Um, and as a rule from uh this point forward, I'm gonna ask if we can might introduce ourselves.

If you can just give a little self-description of what you look like.

You don't have to be very detailed, just a general description.

So hi, my name is Larry.

I'm Eva Saini.

I'm the new chair of this group advisory board.

I have been a part of this group for over ten years now.

And I live in City of South Boston.

I'm a female, white, short brown hair.

And uh that's it.

And uh Olivia, do you want to go next?

Um, my name is Olivia Richard.

I am a resident of Brighton.

And I am a middle-aged white female with glasses, short hair, and uh wearing a hat.

Um, next call, do you want to go next?

My name is Paul Care.

I live in the West End of Boston.

I'm an advisory board member, proud to serve.

I'm a white male, currently wearing a white laborers union, local 151 pullover.

I worked as a supervisor in the City of Boston Planning Department and serve as a mental health advocate.

I'm proud to serve.

Thank you.

Hi everyone, I'm Tara Lynn Suther.

I am a female.

I am a little person using an electrical wheelchair remobility.

I am Caucasian, long blonde hair, um with glasses, and I am from the JP Rox Bay area.

Thank you, Tara.

Um Paul.

Yeah, hi.

My name is Carl Richardson.

I am a middle-aged white guy with fountain pepper uh hair.

Um, kind of look like Nathan Lang for those who are into theater.

Uh I'm wearing a light blue button down.

Uh and I identify as death blind and that I have a dual sensory law.

And if I remember the um note from Andrea, I also ask us to tell a little bit about what we do to introduce ourselves to the new members that are coming on board tonight, give us a little more background than we normally would get.

So I am the Massachusetts Day Health ADA coordinator.

Work my role to work with the executive and legislative branch to make sure that all the program services and activities that they stay up to accessible to people of all abilities.

I'm the president of the guide dog user group of Massachusetts and the co-chair of the audio description project for the American Council of Blind.

I don't normally do that at Sound Fucking Blackham, but I remember that Andrea asked us to um just give a little more description so people can get to know us.

Thank you.

And I'm excited about learning from all the new members joining tonight and working with all of you.

Thank you very much, Paul.

I'm sorry I missed uh at the introduction for those of you that introduce yourself asking you to give a little bit about what you do, but perhaps we can circle back next time.

Um there.

Thank you very much for clarifying uh how we're going to introduce ourselves maybe a little bit more in depth tonight.

Um so again, I am Wes.

I'm a white guy, I'm West Ireland, I'm a white guy.

Instead of saying uh my age, I prefer to use uh a generation.

I'm actually a millennial, so I'm a millennial, I'm deaf, and I have uh short and very closely shaved hair and a reddish-brown beard.

I'm gonna be uh I'm wearing a black shirt and I'm using American Sign Language throughout this meeting, and we have two female interpreters who will be going into English from my American Sign Language.

And I've been on the board since the summer of 2018.

So I've served here for quite a while.

I'm almost now this is almost my ninth year on the board.

So yeah, I think that's good enough.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You say me?

Yes.

Um hi, my name is Alan.

Um I'm wearing uh a reddish, maybe burgundy sweater.

Um I have braids, um, look a little bad right now, but um, I'm wearing a hat.

Um this is my first official meeting as uh um an actual member of the board, so I'm excited to be a part of um I'm African American, my skin tone is a little uh somewhat off from a KCAT.

So that's me.

Welcome, Alan.

Great to have you here.

Um let's see, Paulette.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Paulette Durette.

I live in Madapan.

This is I think is my second term on the commission.

I'm a black woman, older black woman with gray hair.

I'm wearing a black uh sweater, striped sweater.

So prior to being on the um this commission, I work for the Boston College for over 25 years as a disability services coordinator for people with physical medical and psychological disabilities.

Glad to be here this evening.

Sorry, I think you're muted, but it looked like you said Richard.

Oh, I apologize.

Rachel, yes.

Yeah, thank you, Sari.

I'm Richard Gloske, I live in Back Bay.

I am hearing impaired, significantly hearing repair.

Um one of the few lawyers in Boston.

Um but among uh my activities as a lawyer is representing a lot of civil rights work in my life, including representing individuals with disabilities.

Um I'm not gonna say either um you know what age or generation I'm from.

Uh but um I am wearing a blue shirt and sports jackets.

I hate to admit it that my hair is pretty gray.

And I'm happy to be here.

Welcome to the new members of the commission and uh to the public who's joining us as well.

Thank you so much, Richard.

Uh let's see.

Who am I missing?

John Mayor.

Hi, good evening.

I'm John Weil.

I'm uh I work at the planning department, uh colleague of Paul Karen.

I'm here this evening to give a quick presentation on our office to residential conversion program.

I'm uh male Caucasian uh with uh bald head and wearing a blue button-down shirt.

So thank you so much for having me here this evening.

I apologize.

I'm still getting familiarized with who's our advisor, and those are guests.

Welcome, welcome.

Thank you so much for having me.

Pleasure to be here.

Of course, of course.

Sam Pastor.

Yeah, hi everyone.

I'm Sam.

I work for Mass Avenue Standing Strong.

I live in Dorcaster, little wheelchair user, part of beer.

Thank you, Sam.

Am I missing anyone except the commissioner?

No.

No, I think you're good.

All right.

So last but not least, Commissioner.

Thank you, Zari.

You're doing a great job.

Uh my name's Crystal McCosh.

I'm the disability commissioner and ADA 102 coordinator for the city of Boston.

In this role, I lead the city's collective efforts toward accessibility and inclusion in all things from the built environment, including city buildings, large-scale developments, streets and sidewalks, to programs, policies, and services.

I am a white woman with blonde hair, sitting in front of an image of City Hall, and I'm also a wheelchair user.

Welcome, everybody.

Thank you very much, Commissioner.

So do I uh I want to see if we should um review and uh vote to approve the minutes for both February and March.

Anyone want to uh Carl, I I I move that we uh approve the minutes.

Paul, I second.

Thank you, everyone.

Does anyone maybe have any other comments?

Great.

So minutes are approved.

Thank you both, Paula.

Paul.

All right, so next we want to move to the presentation tonight.

Um presentation tonight is on autonomous vehicles in other municipalities.

Um presenters, Rachel, Casty Blond, Casty Gnolly, uh, who's a senior consultant, CEO of Austin Transportation, and public works will be presenting.

Welcome, Rachel, and thank you.

Thanks so much for having me.

Um my name is Rachel Castignoli.

I am a mid-40s white woman with frizzy brown hair, brown eyes, and I'm wearing a gray sweater.

Um I should be sharing the screen now.

Is that working for everyone?

Yes.

Great.

Like which is said, I work for the city of Austin, Texas.

We have autonomous vehicles here, and uh Andrea asked me to come and talk about our experience with them.

Um so just so you know, our typical way of getting autonomous vehicles in a city is they come in and they do mapping.

I believe uh Waymo's already done some mapping in Boston.

Then they do testing, which is typically maybe with a driver, it's someone in the driver's seat, maybe not, but they're practicing their um autonomous moving around the city there.

And then there's a full deployment where they're taking um kind of commercial paying passengers.

We have uh five companies in Austin operating Waymo, which is owned by Alphabet, which is the Google parent company, um, Zooks, which is owned by Amazon, Tesla, um, Volkswagen, and AV Ride.

And deploy it taking passengers right now are Waymo, Zooks, and Tesla.

And I would just note on this slide that the Zooks vehicle doesn't have a steering wheel, it doesn't have um human-operated brakes, it has no human-operated kind of tools in it.

It goes both ways, uh, up to 55 miles per hour, and it just has two benches that face each other.

So very different looking than uh like a typical vehicle.

We have had autonomous vehicles in Austin since June of 2023 when we had crews, which was GM's uh autonomous vehicle company, and oh, it's going.

There we go.

And what we found was the best way in Texas, we have no regulatory authority, um, so it's different than Massachusetts, so cities are completely preempted.

But what we found is the best way to work with the AV companies and to kind of um get some of the things we need was to form a working group.

Um, our working group in Austin is our first responders, our transit agency, which is Capitol Metro, um, our school district, our airport, um, and so these are all stakeholders who have a lot of um do a lot of work in the right-of-way, and we get together, we train and prepare for incidents involving AVs.

Our position is no first responder encounters an autonomous vehicle for the first time in the field.

We make sure all of them have had a chance to have some classroom work on it.

Um, we facilitate communication, and then we do collect data on autonomous vehicle incidents.

This is uh our dashboard.

It's probably updated through last week when Andrea asked me to get this to her.

Um, and just to describe it for y'all, it shows um a map of the city of Austin with a lot of dots on it.

The dots are color-coded to show what type of incident occurred where.

Um, and we've got a graph showing incidents over time starting in July of 2023, and then we have a donut chart um showing how many of each type of incident we have.

So we use this pretty extensively to review our infrastructure, which is to say if we have repeated incidents in one location, we go and we make sure that the striping is clear, the signage is clear, the signal timing is working, um, you know, we really make sure that our infrastructure is up to snuff since that's what autonomous vehicles are relying on in the right-of-way.

Um, but almost all of our incidents are related to hand signals or temporary traffic control, so kind of things that we have less control over.

In Texas, we cannot give a moving violation to an AV directly.

That is because in Texas, when you get pulled over, you sign the ticket, and there's no one to sign it.

There's no driver in this front seat.

Um, but we do give moving violations through kind of a roundabout legal process, um, and we also give parking violations.

And I will say that San Francisco, who we work with really extensively, also gives a lot of parking violations.

It's very hard to tell if uh electric car is on or not sometimes.

Is it parked?

Is it not parked?

Um, but we have been uh, you know, giving parking violations and some moving violations.

Our number one issue with autonomous vehicles is hand signals.

Um because it's a robot, it really struggles to interpret human actions and the context of it.

Um autonomous vehicles struggle.

So this means autonomous vehicles struggle at special events, which we have several in Austin, um, South by Southwest, University of Texas football, Austin City Limits, and we have an F1 race.

Um also at construction sites where you see a lot of hand signals during police escorts.

So these are locations where we know that there are issues.

And then what we found is that autonomous vehicles will typically um obey traffic signals instead of hand signals, which is not ideal.

Um I'm gonna show this really quick video.

And just to give you some context, it's a police officer who's mounted on a motorcycle, um, and he's trying to uh coordinate traffic through an intersection where the signals are still operating.

Um, so not ideal.

Um, and I'm not sure if the sound came across, but he was running his sirens during that.

So um, yeah, that's kind of our constant issue.

We have meetings every six weeks with Wimo where we bring up these and and other issues.

Um we have meetings frequently with Tesla and Zeux as well.

And then um a few other issues that we have are items that are close to the ground or sometimes hard for them to perceive, as well as um really thin items, so which is to say, like on the far right of this, a chain that's going across a parking lot, right?

The the AV didn't perceive that chain and went right through it, um, dragging the pole up.

Um water crossings or flooded intersections are hard.

And in fact, last this past weekend in San Diego, they had a Waymo that was um pulled, pulled into uh a flooded area because we're having floods here right now.

Um cones, you know, sometimes they back into cones.

Um, and then in in the picture on the far left, the Waymo is over an active fire hose at a fire scene.

Um, we do a lot of work making sure that Waymo Zooks Tesla, all our AV partners know when emergencies are happening.

We uh content, you know, we we automate uh communication to them directly out of our 911 system, but sometimes they still get into emergency scenes.

So um, and that usually it takes some effort of the FERCS responders to move them or to work around them.

So we're still that's something we've identified and are still working through with you know our partners as well as um San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and the other cities we know that have EVs.

So there's a lot we can do together, and I will say that Boston's been in a lot of these meetings and been a good partner on what we're we're asking for.

There it's not all bad.

Um, there's a lot of great things about having AVs, right?

Um we've heard especially from our disability community that you know they service animals are always allowed in the Waymo.

No one ever gives them any grief about having an animal in it, so we love that.

I've talked to many people who prefer them.

They feel it's safer to not have a driver.

Um they are collecting pothole data in Austin and giving it to us, which is a great from an equity perspective, right?

We're just not sure who's calling 311 and if if that's truly equitable across the city.

So it's kind of nice to have a robot collecting pothole data and sending it to us as well because it doesn't have the barriers some people might have with language.

And then not all AVs, but most AVs are programmed to obey speed limit, um, obey other traffic laws.

So we've been pretty impressed by by that.

They typically don't go through yellow lights, things like that.

We're pretty happy with.

So a lot of good things, um, some kind of difficult things, but since we've been doing this for three years, we really have seen improvements.

We haven't gotten a complaint about them not yielding to emergency vehicles in a long time.

So we're pretty happy with that.

Every year we have a petting zoo, which is just bringing all the autonomous vehicles in the city together into a parking lot, having people go through there.

They come and they are engaged in around the conversation.

It's really fun.

We work at our transit agency a lot, our schools and our universities, kind of making sure we're all on the same page about what's going on, how to stop a vehicle, how to contact the AV company, how to talk to them in advance about events.

And then we're always talking to Techstot uh and our Texas partners as well as the our national partners, like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Highway Administration.

And then we participate in a lot of pure city exchanges and SAE, which is the Society of Automotive Engineers.

And that's it from me.

If you want, you can scan this QR code and visit our website and our dashboard where we have that dashboard publicly available, and then I'll take any questions.

Thank you so much, Rachel.

This has been so informative, and I know a lot of our members are excited to perhaps having this in Boston.

And I think first question I have, and I'll open it up to everyone, is of course this is Boston.

We are dealing with cold weather, snow, things like that, which I'm sure places has not experienced yet.

So one of my concerns is the favorite band or have you heard of any places where they've tested these cars in different types of you know um climate.

Um so that at least we can, especially in the winter time, that's when difficulty it's difficult to get an order or another ride.

So this would be great to have.

So I just wonder if you know any other places that have tested this.

Yeah, a lot of autonomous vehicles are tested in Michigan, right?

Because that's where um the big three automotive uh companies are located.

So they have icy weather as well.

Here in Texas, we have pretty rare icy weather, but we did have icy weather this past winter, and all autonomous vehicle companies ceased operations during it.

So I think that they're not confident yet in it, but uh just because the car, I think the hardest thing to make a robot do is feel, right?

So in Texas we have a lot of um like pavement that uh like pavement markings that are raised or things like that, right?

Because we don't have plows.

Um, and I think that that's something that autonomous vehicles aren't great at yet.

So that's where they're working and improving, and I know that they have targeted a lot of colder cities for expansion, so they must be must be confident.

Thank you, Rachel.

Do you have a question?

Do you send me that in here?

Yeah, just ask if you had a question.

Yeah, I well, I do, obviously.

Um, first of all, my name is Call.

Thank you for your presentation.

I've written in both youth and remote uh in San Francisco.

Um I have a two-part question.

One, have you compared the thing because safety is also a concern of mine.

Have you compared the safety data compared to that of human livery drivers such as taxi cab, that sort of thing?

Uh Uber driver, click driver, that that's the first question.

And secondly, do you require, and I think I know the answer to this, but I'm asking, do you require the company that are providing autonomous vehicle service to be accessible in terms of digital acceptability and more importantly, even wheelchair accessibility yet to hear of an autonomous vehicle service that um provide a wheelchair accessible vehicles because they're all using electric vehicles, and that would be so digital accessible uh safety, digital accessibility and wheelchair accessibility.

Do you uh look at both areas?

Yeah, sure.

Um so we have done comparisons with autonomous vehicle incidents against um human-driven crashes or human-driven issues in the right of way, and having that map really helps us because it helps us determine where our infrastructure is making things unsafe for both drivers and autonomous vehicles.

There aren't, there's only about 450 maybe autonomous vehicles in Austin, which isn't enough to give us good numbers to do comparisons yet.

They do have collisions um, you know, on occasion, and and they do have issues that humans wouldn't have.

Um but yeah, so far we are liking the data.

We think that it's good.

We just don't think there's enough of it to say anything.

I know that that Waymo puts out its own data, um, but we don't have the raw data behind it to validate their methods.

So not entirely sure.

Um, but we're I you know we're hoping uh that they'll be safer, and they certainly never drive um, you know, drunk or they're never texting, so hopefully that that helps.

Um do we require companies to have digital accessibility or wheelchair accessibility?

No, the city of Austin can't make any requirements on autonomous vehicles because we're preempted by the state.

The state does require them to follow the same ADA accessibility guidelines as um taxi drivers.

Volkswagen, which uh it does have a vehicle that can uh I believe can accommodate wheelchairs, but I that they're not live yet, and they'll be uh launching in Los Angeles first.

Um as for digital accessibility, I know that a lot of the apps um have either have accessibility uh to them.

In Austin, Waymo is on the Uber app, so it is as accessible as the Uber app is.

Um, but of course, in San Francisco, like you said, in Los Angeles, uh Waymo has its own app.

So um that's how that works.

Sorry, I can't answer more.

I don't.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rachel.

We have a question on chat from Alan.

Alan asks, what mechanisms is the companies using for hand signals, especially for a place like Boston, where there's a frequent construction and it offices directing traffic.

Yeah, um the companies have asked us if we as infrastructure owner operators could standardize our hand signals more.

Um that's pretty hard given that um, you know, police and fire tend not to be formally trained on hand signals or their training is pretty short.

There doesn't seem to be a nationwide standard as to how hand signals are done.

However, um we have very much modified the way we do hand signals and we advise construction as well to face the vehicle um straight on to not try to do it on the side um and to do a very large motion for at least 30 seconds to give the computer some time to understand what's being asked of it.

Um I do think that with more vehicles every day, we are seeing the same amount of calls, so it's possible they're getting better.

Um, you know, we aren't sure of that, but we do report all the issues we have, and then the AV companies run the run it through a second simulation usually and show us simulated it would have been fixed this time because of the software update.

So they update the software.

We are hoping that it's getting better.

Um a real issue is hand signals from the back of a motorcycle, which is really common here.

Um, so we're working on on that, and we've made our first responders available, and some A B companies have come and done data collection with them, you know, doing hand signals on a closed course.

Sam, do you have a question?

Yeah, I think Zara assumed a car lines because I don't wheelchair either.

And did you say you haven't tested on a wheelchair or there's only one vehicle?

Sorry.

Um, so our the Volkswagen uh has is the ID buzz, it's a European model, and I my understanding is that it has room for wheelchairs, and they are trying to optimize it for that, but it's not deployed in Austin right now.

Great, thanks.

Is there any other questions?

If you got Captain Center pretty wild.

I have one last question, Rachel.

Um, have you collected any data measuring equity of service access?

We have not.

We don't have access to the pickup drop-off locations or the vehicle miles traveled by the AV companies.

So we can take what they give us, but we don't we don't have access to a ton of data.

We have asked them to use designated spots at the School for the Blind and Visually Impaired and the School for the Deaf who are really eager to have access to that technology.

So we've hooked them up with them, but um, you know, unclear, unclear how how it's working.

But yeah, when they're ready to share that data with me, I would love to see it, and we'd love to plug it into the other data the city of Austin uses because I think it'd be really interesting and a good way for us to modify our work so that we're you know bringing autonomous vehicles into our mobility system in a way that is equitable and sustainable.

Thank you very much, Rachel.

If there are no other questions, I see a question from Wesley in the chat.

Should I answer it?

Yes, please do.

Okay.

Um how would people be able to tell that AVs are approaching from a distance based on the models of the AVs?

Um so the Waymo and some of the other vehicles have a very obvious crown with the LIDAR and the radar on it, in that um they're regular uh standard vehicles that have that technology added to them.

For the Tesla, it is a regular Model Y Tesla.

So it's very hard for us to see if it's a robotaxi or someone's personally owned Model Y that's doing things.

Um the Zooks is uh pretty obvious if you can see it because it's just a box, uh right, doesn't have a front or back really, it doesn't have um it's a strange looking vehicle that like Carl said is is real trip.

Um but uh so yeah, as as they build these purpose built vehicles with the radar and the lidar incorporated into them more, it's harder and harder for us to see them.

But they all have uh badging on the side that says.

And if you're if you don't mind me jumping in, if you're blind and you're worried about telling the car apart from another car, like an Awamo app, you can make a player melody or honk a horn, even or even put your initials on top of the car as a polym.

I think boot allows you to hunk the horn as well, although that app is still under construction, not fully accessible.

Um there are a way to um notify um uh uh the deaf and how to hear and folk can see the initials on the top of the car, the blind can make it make no way to do.

On that note, Zari, if you don't mind me chiming in, this is Andrea with the commission.

Um Rachel, you said that you've worked closely with the School for the Deaf and the School for the Blind.

Um, in your experience, how um flexible have any of the companies been to modify their operations or their designs or their apps based on the feedback of those schools?

Yeah, absolutely.

Um they've been very flexible with um, especially accessing them.

They're both in older built-out parts of Austin, so they have like limited accessibility, um, especially the school for the deaf is right in downtown Austin.

Um it has some narrow one-way streets.

So we've really worked with all the AV companies on the expectations, you know, around there and on the campus.

Um, and they've been really great about that.

Um, the School for the Blind has been super welcoming and wanting to have Waymo's and uh Zeuxes and Teslas, and I think um all of those companies have have been engaged on making that uh a reality for the accessibility of all the folks up there.

So yeah, I think you know, we're always doing feedback about the vehicles and what we think would make it easier for us and for other people to access them and how we want more access to data and uh you know, depending.

Um sometimes you get you know someone who's a really great partner, sometimes you get someone who's a little like reticent to share, but um we just keep asking.

Um, and I think that's the most important part is you don't get what you don't ask for.

So we keep asking for those things.

And with Zeoks, we have gotten external communications, which is to say right now firefighters and police officers have to lean into some vehicles to talk to a remote assistance, but with Zooks, they can talk to it through um a speaker and a microphone on the door, which is the preferred way for first responders because they don't want to put their head in a vehicle that can move.

So we are slowly over time kind of coming together as infrastructure owner operators and autonomous vehicle companies to accommodate each other more.

Does anyone else have any questions before we move forward with the agenda?

And so many living.

Oh, Livia, there you go.

Olivia got it.

This is Olivia.

Um what has been kind of the response to the lack of wheelchair access?

Group courts.

Yeah.

Um I don't know that.

That's a good question, and I'm now interested in finding more out about it.

Um, we've heard we've heard heavily from people who have service animals strongly for AVs and more accommodations for AVs, like designated pickup drop-off.

But for wheelchair um users, I'm interested in finding that out more.

I know that there's a need, and that Volkswagen identified that need, and I think the Zooks also has talked about that need.

Um everyone, all the AV companies tell us they're they're working on it.

Um, but I would for sure like to see more progress there, and I'd like to kind of bring this back to my folks in Austin and figure that out.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh if no one else has any other questions, we're gonna move forward with uh my report.

Thank you so much, Rachel.

We really appreciate your time.

This was great.

All right, so moving on with uh my report for this month.

Um this uh April is autism acceptance month.

Um April is recognized as autism acceptance months to shift uh from awareness to a stronger focus on inclusion, belonging, and removing barriers.

Earlier this month, the city of Boston uh formally adopted a resolution recognizing autism, acceptance months, and reaffirming the need to address barriers in education, employment, housing, and civic life.

This month is an opportunity for Boston to continue promoting neurodiversity, affirming new spaces, accessible programming, sensory inclusive environment, and meaningful representation of autistic residents in policy making.

I also want to recognize that we on our board um should have a representation of uh people from neurodivergent community, autistic community.

So I would welcome uh anyone who's interested to reach out to um and myself, and um yeah, so just to make sure that people are aware that we are interested in seeking um support from that community as well.

Second, independent living uh education day is tomorrow, April there.

It's basically a day fabricated across Massachusetts.

They're going to gather in the state house.

Um, this is an annual event, which highlights the right of people with disabilities to live in the community with dignity autonomy and equal opportunity.

It also gives residents an opportunity to educate legislators on priorities, such as PCA services, wheelchair repair, accessible housing, as vacation, health care, and community support.

A major statewide development this month is that Massachusetts House representative restored protection of personal care attendant program in his proposed budget.

The governance proposal included significant cuts, but the house budget instead we established the working group with a majority of disability advocates that would need to approve any future adoption to PCA services.

This is an important reminder that applications works.

Community members who rallied, organized and contacted legislators, help make this their voices heard.

PCA services are essential to independent living and the community participation for many residents.

Amendment 803.

So we've reached an important moment in the wheelchair repair campaign, and this is where your voice can make an impact.

Amendment number 803 has officially been filed as an outside section to the House budget.

This means our wheelchair repair language is now being considered as part of the state budget process, giving a real opportunity to move forward more quickly.

Right now we are focused on building a strong legislative support to help ensure this amendment is adopted.

Wheelchair users across Massachusetts are currently facing long and dangerous delays for repairs, often waiting weeks or even months for equipment that is essential for their daily lives.

This amendment is a critical step forward in creating accountability and ensuring repairs happen in a timely fashion.

Through this election, you will contact your state representative and ask them to co-sponsor amendment number 803, wheelchair repair protection in the House budget, and send a letter of support for H4358 to the House Ways and Means and Nelkovitz.

This is fast moving moment and a strong outreach from constituents can make a real difference in whether this moves forward.

I will put in a link on the chat so that if you can just uh you know uh send a letter, or if you don't have time to write a letter, they have drafted one and you can just sign on it.

Um that would be great.

And this needs to be done by tomorrow if you have time.

Um let's see.

Community leadership.

I want to also recognize the continued work of community organizations across our region, and dependent living centers, health care access, and community inclusion every day.

This includes efforts of efforts to protect health care coverage for immigrant communities, support independent living services, and celebrate leadership through events such as Marie Felton Award ceremony, honoring disability advocacy and services.

Um we recognize the wheelchair athletes and runners with disabilities whose achievements continue to inspire and expand visibility for disability inclusion in sport and public life, while Samaritan legacy includes pioneers such as Bob Hall and leaders such as Sherry Bloatt, whose accomplishments have helped shape a more inclusive city.

And finally, um over the past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to meet individually with several commission members to learn more about their interests, priorities, and areas where they believe this commission can make a greatest impact.

These conversations have been incredibly valuable and reinforced the depth of expertise represented on this commission, across accessibility, housing, transportation, education, employment, and civic life.

My goal is to ensure our future work is informed by your perspectives and responsive to the needs of the Boston residents with disabilities.

With that said, I'll put the links of everything I mentioned, and if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me.

Next, we're going to does anybody have any questions or comments about anything I covered?

Great.

So next we're gonna review the architectural access report.

I uh I don't know if Patricia is here.

Patricia.

I found you, Patricia.

Thank you, Zerari.

Thank you, Andrea.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Patricia Mendez.

I'm the director of architectural access.

I have short dark hair and glasses.

And today for my architectural access report, I have a feature guest.

He gave you a sneak peat.

Before is John Whale.

And he's here to present about our program that is called the commercial to residential conversion program.

And John, if you're ready, you can take it away.

I am.

Thank you, Patricia.

Thank you for the introduction.

Pleasure to be here this evening.

As I said, my name is John Weill.

I'm the head of Office to Residential Conversion at the City of Boston Planning Department.

And let me just share my screen here because I've brought a brief presentation.

Let's see if this works.

See if it'll allow me to share my screen.

If not, I may need to ask for assistance.

Totally fine.

I'm happy to step in if you need me to.

Actually, could you share the screen?

It is giving me trouble, so I will and I will try to move quickly through the presentation just so we can get to questions, which are folks able to see that.

Yeah.

Yeah, wonderful.

So if we can go to the next slide, please.

So the Office to Residential Conversion Program is something that the City of Boston, with the help of the planning department, launched back in October of 2023.

And at its taking older, underutilized office buildings and finding new life for them as new rental housing in the city of Boston.

And it's something that the city identified early on before the pandemic when they took a look at Plan Downtown reenvisioning what the downtown of Boston might become to bring more vibrancy back to that neighborhood.

And if we go to the next slide, please.

And some of the lovelier buildings that we have in the city, the ones that admittedly have had less care taken to them and probably less updates, especially when it comes to accessibility done over time.

But with post-pandemic and folks working from home, there really has been a shift towards uh office workers wanting to be in newer class A glass towers as opposed to these older buildings.

And so there's definitely a need to find new life for them.

Next slide, please.

And this program, which was launched by Mayor Wu back in October of 2023, is a direct effort to try to address this issue.

And we view it really as a win-win from the City of Boston standpoint.

The first win really being taking these older buildings and finding them new life.

The second win is trying to take to create new housing downtown.

And as all of you know, new housing is something that's a perennial problem in Boston, especially when it comes to accessible housing, whether group two or group one units.

So next slide, please.

And so this program really was launched with the idea of providing the city providing a 29-year tax abatement to developers who want to take these older buildings, change the use of them from office and turn them into residential housing.

And as part of that process, when you go from being an office building to becoming housing, one of the things that's required, as Patricia knows well, is that you update the building to the current building code.

And so that reads everything from fire code to stretch code to green energy, but most importantly for this group here, it means bringing full compliance with ADA.

And that is something that has been front and center of this program since day one, and something that we uh the planning department have been very proud to partner with the Disabilities Commission here at the city, and it's something where I feel that disabilities truly has been one of our best partners with this program since day one.

They've been an active participant and one who's been incredibly creative in finding solutions to make these conversions work because as Patricia and Sarah Leon can definitely attest to, it's not an easy task taking an older building and converting it from office into residential, but it is one that we feel is worth doing, and that's why the city has been willing to offer this generous 75% tax abatement for 29 years.

As part of this, you know, we're making sure that these buildings also comply with the new inclusionary zoning rules so that there is an on-site affordable offering.

Because one of the things the city really believes deeply in is that we want to make sure that as we transform the downtown in particular, we're creating a mixed income, mixed use uh neighborhood that's accessible to all folks.

Next slide, please.

And so we're very pleased with the results we've been able to achieve today.

The program's been in existence for about two and a half years now, and it we've so far gotten 24 applications to convert 29 buildings.

The majority of them are downtown, but it also includes neighborhoods like the West End, like the South End, the North End.

We're looking forward to hopefully having our first uh conversion taking place in Charlestown sometime in the future.

But we were very pleased recently to get an application from Back Bay as well.

And so I think my personal goal is as this program continues to evolve and grow, is I'd like to see a conversion project take place in each of the neighborhoods across Boston so that we really are touching all of the communities within the city and providing this new form of housing.

And to date, in terms of numbers, we're looking at about one and a half million square feet of old Class B and Class C office space that's been taken vacant off the market and is being repurposed and creating 1,730 new units of housing.

And like I said, that includes uh affordable units on site, so we're gonna at this stage create 326 affordable units, and that's both the majority of that is for folks that are at 60% area media income, but it also includes 30 units for Section 8 voucher holders as well, and that's something we're particularly proud of at the planning department because in many cases there haven't been programs for Section 8 vouchers in a number of these neighborhoods where we're doing the projects.

And I mean, when it really comes down to it, you're talking about close to 3,500 new people living downtown in the city, and we feel that this is a great way to bring vibrancy back to the city in the downtown neighborhood in particular, where as I'm sure many of you are aware, it's felt a little bit darker, a little bit like less welcoming since the pandemic just due to the reduction in foot traffic and not having everybody in the office five days a week.

And I think one of the goals that we share, and the mayor fully supports, is looking to turn downtown Boston truly into a 24-hour community that's seven days a week.

Next slide, please.

And I think you know a lot of the success of this program is really due to all of the departments within the city.

So the planning department and myself, we spearhead this program, but without the Disabilities Commission, without inspectional services, without Boston Fire, without landmarks, none of this would have been possible.

And it really is that we have a shared sense of success, and it's through the absolute you know, commitment of both Patricia Mendez and Sarah Leong in terms of their time, in terms of their creativity and their passion that really has caused this all to become something that is, you know, we view as being a big success for the city of Boston and something that on a national level we're very proud to share with other cities.

And I think that in particular, when you look at these projects, you know, many of the challenges that we find with these older buildings are that as they come into the program, they have not been brought up to ADA standards before.

So they may have everything from challenges of a few stairs that go in through the main entrance, so that is not an accessible entrance.

They may equally as much have you know challenges around if there are two buildings that are joined on the interior, we've found that there are changes in elevation as you move from one building to another building.

And so a lot of the things that we have to work with the developers to solve are how do we make sure that we ensure through signage, through the use of lifts, through actually, in some cases, installing new entrances to these historic buildings, find a way to make these buildings accessible, not only for residents who want to live there, but also for guests who want to visit friends and family who may live within these buildings.

And it's something that we believe deeply in and something we've you know passionately committed to ensuring in these projects.

Next slide, please.

And so to that end, what we've tried to do is take the traditional planning department permitting and approval process, which really was sort of a sequential almost conga line of going from one department to the next to gain your approvals and flipped it on its head.

And what we've tried to do is really bring everybody in from day one, especially Patricia and Sarah.

And what we do is we bring these the proponents in one month after they apply to the program and sit them down in a virtual meeting similar to this, where all of the key permitting agencies are represented and can ask questions of the development team on day one and flag issues up front that may be challenges to turning these buildings into housing.

And that's really been our key to success where we're able to have disabilities at the you know the table from day one in conjunction with whether it's landmarks, whether it's the folks looking at uh concerns around um coastal flooding and climate change issues, and that way we can work together as a collaborative team to come up with very innovative solutions to making this housing truly accessible.

So next slide, please.

And it's something that is a very hands-on process where we have to track all of these 24 projects truly and map out their timelines of the you know the boards that they have to get approval from, whether it's AAB, whether it's uh the state for BBRS for you know building code relief, how we get them in for getting their CD drawings done to going into inspectional services rebuilding permit, and it is there's a lot of very diligent project management that goes on in the background with this to ensure that it's a success.

Next slide, please.

But at the end of the day, what we're most proud of is the fact that we're creating new housing.

And so, like I said, we're creating 1,730 new units of housing.

Um, the first building, which is at 281 Franklin Street downtown, uh those units were occupied as of this past September.

We have three more projects, one in the um one in the Bullfinch Triangle, one in Fort Point, and then another one down in the South End, which should be bringing their apartments to the to the market and taking tenants late summer, and so we're very proud of the fact that we're being able to do this in a really expedited fashion and get housing online and people into those beds, you know, now rather than five years in the future.

And so, next slide, please.

And just, you know, this is, I think, my favorite slide, and for those I can just give a description, which is this is a slide which contains thumbnails of all 24 buildings, and so it's pictures of each of the 24 buildings that are in the program.

And so it gives a real visual representation of what it really means to convert these buildings.

So we have everything from high-rise buildings to beautiful brick buildings downtown to more manufacturing style buildings in the south end, and it covers the gamut really of different styles of buildings, but what we're most proud of is that these are now becoming folks' homes.

And so, next slide, please.

And this is something where the city of Boston is very passionately committed to this program and to um creating a success, but we can't we recognize that we can't do it on our own.

And so we look both to the state level and so to Governor Healy, as well as the previous Secretary Augustus and now Juana Mateas, who are you know our key partners in providing various forms of not only you know uh support in terms of building code relief, but also financial support from the state as well through tax credits and other funding.

And we also look to Washington as well to be our partner and trying to find creative ways that we maybe can use whether it's federal historic tax credits or other forms of whether HUD loans and things like this to help make these projects uh more of them become a reality today.

And so, apologies, that's a lot of talking from me, but I really wanted to spend some time, like I said, because I viewed just the Disabilities Commission as being one of our key partners from day one and one of our favorite groups to work with.

And so I really wanted to spend some time introducing this to you all, but I'll turn it open to questions now, please.

Thank you, John.

This was so informative, and I'm so excited.

Yes, housing seems to be one of those topics that keeps popping up.

So I stopped at the first question, if I may.

And that's uh it sounds like you're already bringing people with disabilities, um, people who haven't hit the experiences into the conversation.

So that's great.

Um did Adam wondering about his uh the 326 buzzer um affordable units.

How many of them uh are uh affordable to people who are extremely low income residents and people living on SSI or SSDI?

So uh good questions.

So of the 326, as I mentioned, 30 of them are for Section 8 voucher holders.

So that gets to a certain level of affordability, and then the the rest of them are at 60% area median income.

So that is it's not the lowest level of affordability, but it's it's a a pretty accessible level of affordability compared to some projects that we've seen in the past.

And one of the things that we're most committed to is we're trying to strike a balance here is because these projects are hard to get to uh become profitable.

And so we're trying to strike a balance between wanting to to adhere to the 17% of affordable, but not dip down too far in the affordability to make it so that it's um so that these projects are not uh profitable for the developer.

So we're it's a tricky balancing act, but we're requiring the folks to have the apartments you know on site and not allowing them to do them off-site or to buy out of the requirement.

So we're doing our best to try to navigate this one, and we hope that between the Section 8 voucher holders and the 60% AMI, that will provide a good, you know, um outcome.

But I am pleased to say that one of our more recent projects, I just saw their proposal, and they are offering some units at 50% AMI as well.

So we continue to be, we continue to work with the developers and see where we can make inroads and provide more options.

Yeah.

This is Andrea.

If I could um one thing that I know Patricia has mentioned a bit, um, I don't know if you could talk about that.

Um of the developers are you know going above and beyond, even when we've talked to them about making things accessible.

So there's the adaptable units, and then there's the fully built-out wheelchair accessible units.

I understand we've had uh decent amount of success getting folks to do both, even if both aren't always required.

Yes, and that's something that I think I I know Patricia is particularly proud of.

I'm proud of as well, where what we've tried to do is um especially you know, approach all the developers.

There's definitely an education piece to all this, and we we push that hard, and we make sure that we ask whether it's possible.

So there's a uh requirement of doing the 5% of the units are group two units, and we ask developers whether, if possible, they can look at their other units and to the best of their ability either make them fully group one compliant or at least, if nothing more, put blocking in the walls in lieu of being able to put handrails in place so that folks are able to age in place, as well as if you have people who have uh mobility issues that they have that option to help them.

And so I think we're we've had very good receptivity from a lot of the developers, um, and we're very pleased that we've gotten some who are developers who've come through with multiple projects where at this point they're automatically offering up that they're gonna make um the rest of their units the group one, and then with others, it's definitely been a thing where we work at showing them that this is very little additional um effort on their part to provide a meaningful outcome to folks who could live there.

Awesome, thank you so much.

Yeah.

Wes has a great question in the chat.

Yep.

Yes, and I and Patricia probably knows the answer better than I do on this one, but absolutely there are sensory units uh being provided in these developments, yes.

I believe we try to also work closely and um see that we if we can have a lot of the group two units be our affordable units as well, because that's something I think we we feel passionately about is providing this type of accessibility to folks that um are looking for a more affordable housing option.

Um I believe, and Patricia, correct me if I'm wrong, uh, for the group two units West, five percent would be built out for accessibility uh for wheelchair accessibility, uh, and then an additional separate 2% are typically required to be um wired for deaf and hard of hearing units.

And I'm seeing Patricia nod, so I think I got it right.

I always have to defer to Patricia because she she is my go to on this.

So and I and I think that we feel that it's what we're I think most pleased about when it comes to this is the fact that we've been able to take these are older buildings, many of them are pursuing historic tax credit, so they need to keep the buildings as original as possible.

But Boston Landmarks has been a very good partner in coming up with some very creative solutions that allow us to not only have a fully accessible entrance, but where possible ensure that the main entrance is the accessible entrance, and therefore we're coming out with what I consider to be the best possible outcome, which is making sure that everybody can enter and exit their home, you know, with a sense of dignity, and I think that that's very important.

This is so exciting.

I think that this is a once in a generation conversation opportunity to become national leaders in um and inclusive housing.

So looking forward to all that's gonna happen, and thank you so much.

Oh, thank you for having me this evening.

I really appreciate being able to present to you.

One more thing.

Yes, thank John.

I would love to um to hear more about the existing elevators that these projects are um bringing.

So that's a good point.

Uh Patricia, I think that what we're looking we've been knock on wood lucky to date with in that the developers when they're trying to find buildings to convert, really are trying to find good candidates to convert.

And one of the things that they look for when they're picking a building and deciding to whether or not to purchase it to turn it into housing, is that they tell me all every single one of them, they tell me what they look for is finding buildings with good elevators, and that they're looking to preserve those elevators and make sure, in most cases, wanting to particularly look for buildings which have multiple elevators, and I think it's something that they feel it um creates a really good living environment, and I think it's something that we all feel from an accessibility standpoint is uh very important to maintain, and so I think it's something that everybody involved in this process has been pretty much laser focused on ensuring that we have good elevators that are more modern as opposed to the older ones, and also in as many cases multiples, and so I know for myself when I see a developer come in with a building that has three elevators.

The first thing I say to him is, and you're gonna keep all three, aren't you?

Because the last thing I want is for somebody to try to take a cost-cutting route and try to decommission elevators and buildings.

And um, you know, even as Patricia, you know, with Ford Liberty Square, that building had two elevators.

We had a few accessibility issues with the previous owner.

That building has now traded hands to a new owner.

And the first thing the owner said to me is yes, and we're committed to keeping both elevators in that building.

We are not decommissioning the second elevator.

And so these are the kind of small wins that I think we're all very proud of, which is trying to ensure that this type of um sort of forward thinking is going on, you know.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Thank you, John.

Yeah, happy to.

Thanks for having me, Patricia.

Thank you, Patricia, and thank you, John.

Uh great.

Does anybody have any questions, people?

Commissioners.

So Commissioner, if you figure out, yeah.

Thanks, Sarah.

And thanks, John.

Before you jump off, um, I know you really talked about how committed my staff is to this program, and we all are, but also really appreciate your collaboration and it's a great example of the work that we do.

Our office for the new board members, just so you know, our office's main task is to work on systemic inclusion of people with disabilities throughout the city of Boston programs, policies, and then built environment.

So, this is a perfect example of how we can get input to different uh departments to ensure that everything they do is inclusive of people with disabilities.

And I know I was in a meeting uh a few weeks ago where somebody at the state level said they heard about this program in the news and they wondered if any accessibility would be considered, and they were thrilled to hear how much work Boston's doing.

So definitely a leader, I think, in this space.

Like John said, a lot of cities are re envisioning what the future will be.

So this is something that we can be really proud of as a city.

So thank you so much, John.

You're very welcome.

Thank you, Commissioner.

And of course, kudos to my staff, my architectural access staff do a great job in all the work.

Okay, so Andrea, can you share my slides, please?

And I know board members, you've heard a lot of information tonight.

My report also has a lot of information, but don't feel like you have to take it all in because we will share the slide deck with you, and you can refer to it at another time.

So I will kick it off with some updates from the city of Boston.

As I've mentioned before, Boston is celebrating its 250.

We're celebrating America's 250th anniversary this summer.

We have a lot of events happening throughout the city, and the main theme is Boston residents who are revolutionaries, going from revolution to revolutionary.

So the city's working on social stories and historical markers.

One of the places they're considering for a marker is the Perkins School for the Blind, because that's a world-famous institution that does great work.

And it started in Boston.

But it certainly has a place in history.

So the city will be doing just a handful of historic historical markers through this project, but they will be doing many more in 2030 when Boston celebrates its 400th anniversary.

So many grants are available for the markers program through May 11th.

So this is something that we hope you will spread information on.

We can send you more information in email that you can forward to your networks.

And my report includes a lot of opportunities for the community to get involved, so we really hope we will spread the word.

And then we are working hard to ensure that disability history is represented in Boston 250 in all kinds of ways.

Our ADA day this year will honor disability advocates from the past, present, and future.

Looking at Boston Revolutionaries, we certainly know people with disabilities in Boston have really pleased to trail for other parts of the country, and they continue to do this work today, and we are hopeful and with seeing young advocates who are ready to take out the torch and lead us into the future.

So please let us know if you have any recommendations of revolutionary advocates we can have.

Another city Boston update I would like to give.

This is a program for residents age 65 and older and people with disabilities.

You can purchase coupon books for $5.

So that's a $10 book for $5, and the limit is two coupon books per month.

For a limited time, residents can purchase double the coupons.

So they can buy four coupon books a month for $20.

This gives them $40 worth of taxi lines.

So it's a great discount for people in these categories.

An ID is required just to approve residency, and they only take cash.

And you can also view a list of authorized taxi companies at the link on the slide.

Okay, I'd like to give some updates on my department.

So this year, one of our priorities is really increasing and standardizing ADA Title II training for city Boston departments.

As I've said a few times tonight, our core work is really making sure other departments know the requirements of the ADA and other federal and state codes for including people with disabilities in their work, whether it's ADA compliance or the architectural access board code or fair housing.

There are a lot of different laws and regulations that impact departments' work in regards to people with disabilities.

So far, we've completed and we have ongoing Title II training for staff in the Boston Public Library, Boston Center Speed and Family, and the Elections Department.

We're also implementing a learning management system.

And this is basically a platform.

Like if you haven't done a training online, like your ethics training, it's basically a platform that offers information and then it will give you a quiz.

It has graphics and audio available.

So it's an interactive way of taking a training.

So our training specialist, Sylvia, is working with the Office of Language Access and Communication to set up this new system so staff can take asynchronous trainings on their own time.

And this is going to be piloted with the Office of Neighborhood Services and the Office of the Parking Clerk.

So as you can see, all the departments that we've started with for ADA Title II training are the ones that do the most work with the public.

So we really want to get them up to speed on different ways that they can not only remain in compliance but also do more of it in compliance because we don't emphasize just meeting minimal requirements.

We really want to make sure departments are fully inclusive.

On that note, we've worked specifically with the elections department to address elections and voting access.

And I wanted to do a little bit of a deeper dive on this just via our information because we know that accessibility can be challenging at the polls.

So we've completed training of all department staff in the elections commission in City Hall.

So they've all been trained in ADA Title II compliance.

And the trainings were so successful that the staff actually asked for further training in communicating with people with disabilities and etiquette when working with people with disabilities.

So that will become in the future.

We've also reviewed and updated the elections department training materials on ADA compliance and accessibility.

So the ADA Title II training that Sylvie did focus just on general ADA compliance and all interactions and communication.

But then the elections department does a specific training on elections for the poll workers and things like that.

So we reviewed and updated all those materials.

We've also drafted a letter to the Secretary of State regarding new technology that we'd like to replace the AutoMark.

And I know that the board has a letter pending too.

So we are currently reviewing the letter with our internal departments, our cabinet chief, and intergovernmental relations.

So we will have more information on that and upcoming.

I want to pause for a minute.

Carl, I see your hand raised.

Is this something you want to ask me now?

Or did you want to wait?

Clark and more.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thanks.

And then another thing that we're working on, which is a little bit outside of our main task of ADA Title II compliance, but we do do some work on ADA Title III, and I wanted to update board members about that.

So ADA Title III covers places of public accommodation.

This is everything from restaurants to businesses to movie theaters, department stores, anything that's open to the public that's not overseen by the government.

So some of the work that we do is related to government because our licensing board provides licenses to restaurants and other businesses.

So we do have some ways that we can work on compliance.

So what we're doing right now is we're doing kind of a focus on restaurants.

Last year we started an accessibility training for restaurants where they could become certified as a disability-inclusive restaurant.

And right now we are working last year.

And this is everything from service dogs to accessible tables to ensuring that outdoor dining is accessible.

So we piloted it last year, and then we're also going to work with Meet Boston this year, wrapping up for their Dine Out Boston week, which is in August.

So one thing I want to mention on this, one focus that we're having this year is on accessible tables.

As I mentioned earlier, I use a wheelchair, and one thing that frustrates me is when I go into a restaurant and it's all high top tables.

So right out the current building code only requires 5% of tables to be accessible in restaurants.

So we're working with internal city departments and try to get some input from the businesses in Boston to see how they have thoughts on maybe increasing this percentage or even just doing it proactively.

So stay tuned for more information on that.

And we also think this is a great opportunity to re-up our outreach on the captions ordinance.

As you may remember, a captions ordinance was passed by the city in 2022, and this requires all TVs that are on in places of public accommodations to have captions turned on to let people with disabilities, certain disabilities, deaf who are have hearing, have access to the audio content if they are not able to hear it.

And this could really benefit everybody because as we know, restaurants are really loud.

If you're in a gym, sometimes they music on, so it's important to be sure that everybody can access the information on TV.

So we are going to be burning up our outreach on that, and that's one thing we're going to ask you to help us with as well.

And we'll go to the next slide.

Okay, so upcoming events in our department.

There are three that I'd like to highlight.

And again, I know this is a lot of information, so we don't have to take it on tonight.

But we spoke to you a few months ago that we started up a new program this year.

It's going to be partnering with the Disability Policy Consortium for a six-week civic engagement program called the AMO Lab.

And that stands for Accessible Boston Leadership and Department.

It's going to be starting on May 12th.

We're going to work with 20 Boston residents to train them on advocacy and empowerment for civic issues related to people with disabilities.

And we really wanted to target residents who we don't typically work with.

We know that you're all advocates and we plugged in with the advocacy community, but there are so many residents from underserved neighborhoods, communities of color who aren't always looped in as much as they should be.

So we really want to do some work to make sure that they use their voices to let the city know their needs and how we can work with them to improve access in their.

So we're really excited about the cohort starting, and we'll keep you updated as we move along.

Our annual disability community forum is on Tuesday, May 5th from 2 to 3 30 at Suffolk University Law School and on Zoom.

I will be producing the 2025 annual workboard and highlighting our accomplishments from this year.

Mayor Wu will be in attendance along with many other cabinet chiefs, department heads, and city staff who work with the public.

So I know that we all sit at the front every year, myself and the commission members, board members, so I'm looking forward to your participation this year.

I have a few thoughts on some roles for the board this year.

You always introduce yourself in your neighborhood and talk about your main priority for access advocacy.

So I would love it if you would do that again this year.

And for our new board members, just to let you know what that is.

We ask all of our board members to sort of pick an area of focus that they work on and pay attention to.

So for instance, Zari's healthcare because she works in a hospital, Carl works at the Statehouse, and we focuses on legislation.

So if you're interested in a particular topic, it would be great if you could let us know what that is, and then kind of keep tabs on it in the public, like attend meetings about those events in that area, things like that.

So I was wondering if board members may want to highlight or read some of the bullets from my annual report related to your priority areas.

And if you are interested, I can kind of break out some of these bullets and email them to you directly.

And if you're comfortable, you could uh read those aloud at the floor.

So I will get those up to you next week, and you can let me know about your interest.

And then our big signature event every year is ADA Day.

And this is going to be held on Wednesday, July 15th from noon to 2 p.m.

It's going to be at Cockley Square Park this year because, as you may have heard, uh FIFA is taking over the city for the month of July, and that is the Soccer International Competition.

I don't know a lot about it, but I do know that they'll be on City Hall Plaza Majority of the summer, so we're going to move to Coffee Square Park for this year, but we'll be back on the plaza next year.

This is our celebration in Resource Fair, where we connect hundreds of disabled residents with disability services and agencies.

We usually have over 30 agencies attend, and like I said, hundreds of residents.

So we are also going to be launching our updated ADA transition plan, and we will be celebrating the Boston Revolution.

And then my last two slides are some engagement opportunities that we want you to share with the public.

And you can literally just forward this report to people if you want, or you can copy and paste.

I won't make it really easy for you to share these opportunities.

But these are things that are happening outside of City Hall, but that are some social events and places to network with other disabled advocates and also places where you can have impact.

So the DPC is having a community social on May 6th in person.

You can see the details on this slide.

It is from 6 to 7:30 at the Lafayette Center in Boston.

There's an RSB, RSVP link on the slide also.

Another community event is Salsa by the Shell that is going to be ASL Salsa and Dance Celebration, bringing together disabled and non-disabled dancers for an outdoor event at the Hatch Grove by the Hatchell on the Esplanade.

So it's going to be an immersive event with a dance floor for people who are deaf, blind, deafblind, and wheelchair users.

It will have audio description, ASL, and pro tactile contributors.

It's a collaborative event run through Think Outside the Box, which I believe is the old VSA very special arts.

Oh, great.

Excellent.

So we want to report next month, Carl.

Great.

And there's also an RSVP link on the slide for that.

And then an advocacy opportunity that you can attend and pass on to your networks is Mass Health Public Hearing on Monday, May 4th at 9 a.m.

They're going to discuss upcoming changes to the PCA board.

And Zari mentioned this briefly in her report, but just to let you all know that I serve on the PCA workforce council for the state.

So I'm one of the um I believe it's nine member board.

Um I've been on the council for uh almost over 10 years.

And this year I'm also serving on the collective collective bargaining unit, um, working with PCA union and PCAs to come up with a three-year contract.

And I also serve on a work group that Zari mentioned to look at potential um cost um measures to make the program sustainable.

Um I'm on this uh work group with several of the advocates, also members of the union, um not members, I'm sorry, union representatives, SEIU, and also um people from um Boston's Senior Action Council, um the Massachusetts ARC, and um this one in the group.

But anyway, we look at ways to make sure the program will last into the future because the PCA program is growing exponentially, um, and we want to just make sure that we have enough you know um funding and resources to continue the program.

That being said, we're not recommending any um specific uh cuts except for three that are already been proposed, and they are gonna be discussed at the public hearing.

So you can give testimony um online.

There's a link where you can register to testify.

You can submit testimony by email or mail, and we encourage you to show up to testify and also spread this information.

The cuts that uh are recommended are basically um cutting down um mail preparation time, cutting down some time to do paperwork because all the um the timesheets are now done online, so it's much quicker than filling out timesheets in person, and then also limiting overtime to 60 hours.

Um, and the house debate is next week.

Okay, great.

And if you have information on that, Carl, you can send it out or I'll put it in the chat, but it was easy.

So I can I can um I'll I'll send it to Andrea tomorrow.

Okay, and then one final slide, again, I know it's a lot of information, but um uh another opportunity I talked about last month was the US Access Board Town Hall meeting in Rhode Island.

That is in two weeks on May 5th, the same day as our forum, but we wouldn't hold it against you if you want to attend this.

And if you can't attend, please pass it on to you at Networks.

Um the more people with disabilities we can get involved in all these events, the better off the community will be.

And then also happening um on May 12th is the semi-annual public forum on accessibility at the TE.

This is gonna talk about the next generation agreement between the MBTA and the Boston Center for people to live in.

As many of you know, there was a settlement in 2006 between BCIL, disability advocates, and the MBTA, which mandated accessibility upgrades and improvements, many of which have been uh completed.

We do a monthly meeting with the office at the T that works on um system-wide accessibility.

So we share a lot of information about short-term access improvements during shutdowns and diversions to long-term planning for stations and things like that.

So I know many of you are already involved involved with the um R tag and other um disability advocacy, but just wanted to share this meeting in case you hadn't heard of it yet.

That is everything on my end, and I'm happy to take questions or comments.

I have a quick question.

Going back to Title II.

On Monday, the department objectives released an interim final rule that extended Title II obligation for website for municipality with more than 50,000 residents by a year, meaning it it was next week you had to be fully compliant with WTAG standards.

Now they extended it that a year.

Is that changing the way that Boston is approaching it, or are you still trying to be fully compliant by next week?

That is a great question, Carl, and that's a great point.

I should have put that in my report, the update.

So just to reiterate what Carl said, um, there was a requirement that all municipalities be in compliance with this WCAG, which is the digital accessibility standards for people with any types of disabilities.

Municipalities had to update all of their digital content.

So we actually had a meeting scheduled for today anyway with our Department of Innovation and Technology, and we are continuing the work.

I think this reprieve for one year just saves us a little bit more time because really most cities were really able to fully meet compliance with this.

So I think that um the feds had a lot of feedback that people needed more time.

That being said, we certainly continue with the work.

Our meeting today outline priorities, and then we look for um improvements.

Andrea, I don't know if you want to give a real quick summary of the meeting, and then you know all the technical pieces of it.

Sure.

Yeah, so our strategy has not changed.

We uh have been working for a while.

Uh it's for a city of our size, as I'm sure you can imagine, we have a lot of digital tools, even if you just think about our websites.

We have Boston.gov, Boston Police, Boston Plans, Boston Public Library, Boston Public Schools, you know, let alone all of our apps like 311 and things like that.

So it's a big chunk of tools to examine.

And so what has already been done was an inventory of all the tools that would need to be updated, or but might need to be that are subject to this regulation.

Um quick checks of all of them to see which ones need the most work.

Uh we're now at a point where we are doing deeper audits of every single tool to identify the specific fixes that definitely need to occur.

So that audit is ongoing, and we will remediate what we find.

Um we're also beginning to put together uh some cross-departmental communications and tools for new things that are being created, new PDFs that get created, right?

New social media posts that get created.

Um we're gonna continue to work on rolling out that guidance as a requirement.

Um our plan is not to you know wait till next April to tell all of our social media managers that they should start using alt text.

Honestly, we were telling them already, um, but we're going to continue uh, you know, starting today or starting now with this work to talk about them as not just best practices but legal requirements.

Um so that that all work is still ongoing.

Yes, and Andrea, we received an ADA municipal grant for this work, and what was that piece going to cover?

So that is covering the deep audit of our websites.

Great.

And one of the important pieces that this requirement will also extend to contracts that we use.

So third party vendors who do different websites and platforms that the city uses will also be required to meet these also required to be compliant with this new regulation.

Yeah, okay.

Um thanks, Carol, for that reminder.

Well, any other questions.

Uh I actually have a question uh about the as actions are coming up.

Um I have a question about accessibility of the voting machines.

I don't know that that's gonna be part of our whole business today.

But my question is um, why can the city better support voters for sensory cognitive communication and mobility disabilities or meditation?

Yeah, um, so this is something that is really a priority for the city of Boston.

Um we made some changes already in the last few years because the state's been involved in working with the city.

So last year, I believe it was the first year that they had um a direct response system set up.

So it used to be that when people had complained or issue, they would just call the elections department or call, like they could call our office or call neighborhood services, and now there is a dedicated um place for them to go so that those issues get resolved in real time quickly.

And um, so we work with the staff who run that process.

It's called the situation room.

So the city already has that infrastructure set up.

Um last year was the first year, is it correct?

Correct.

Okay, yeah, so there's a dedicated email, dedicated phone number, dedicated system setup.

Um that being said, we can sort of improve the process, um, give the people who work in the situation room more information, more tools to answer questions when it comes to people with disabilities.

So again, that's part of the training that we did on ADA Title II compliance.

But Silvia also touched on things uh related to elections that people might not know.

So, for instance, um I use a wheelchair and I need assistance phone on a ballot, so I can bring help with me, whether it's my husband or a friend or PCA, and that is perfectly illegal.

So, someone who works at homes may not know that.

Maybe say, oh, well, you have to do it by yourself.

That's not the case.

Um another thing we remind people about is service dogs.

Um we know we all know very well that they're have to be admitted to every place that the handlers go, but everybody may not know that.

So those types of things um we do work on the training, and then also um things like the auto market.

We can um definitely look to improve training for poll workers on how to use the technology.

Um they already have a very, very robust system of making sure the machines work, setting them up before the elections, testing them.

Um it's just that as we all know, it's old over that isn't always black.

So that is the basis of my letter to the Secretary of State.

And I unfortunately I don't have anything better to propose.

We've done some research with other cities to see if they have anything that works better than the automatic, and we haven't really heard of like a magic bullet.

So we can leave that to more uh more people who are more capable of finding that out than I am, but we are really committed to uh to sending this letter, and the elections commissioner is also on board with us, so as soon as we get our permissions internally, we would like to move forward with that.

So, all is to say that the city is doing a ton of work uh to support people with disabilities and also just to improve elections in general because it's you know the main function of city government is elections.

So we want everybody's voice to be heard, we want everybody to get out and vote, and uh, this is one of our priorities of the keeper.

That's great.

Does anybody else have any questions?

One other question, Commissioner, and this has to do with the um open captioning ordinance.

It uh seems like we need to do a lot more in that area.

I wonder what can we improve awareness and enforcement of bosses open captioning ordinance for TVs in public areas.

I mean I'm happy to do whatever needs to happen.

I just wonder as as a buzzer book, but why can we support that effort?

Yes, that is a great point.

Um, so when the captions ordinance was first passed in 2022, uh it was December, I believe.

So the next year in 2023, we did a ton of outreach.

We worked with um Meet Boston, we worked with the Office of Economic Opportunity Inclusion in City Hall.

We worked with H Strong and a bunch of our internal partners, the licensing board to get the work out to small businesses.

Every business is licensed in Boston.

We've got an email from the licensing board.

Um Boston sent an email to all of their businesses involved, which is over 500, I believe.

So we did a lot of outreach.

We offered training in restaurant accessibility in general, and captions ordinance was included in that.

But I think that um after the first year or so, just because of capacity issues, we trailed off in doing the outreach, even though it's still on our website, we still talk about it when we do outreach, it's still in the uh restaurant training.

But I think we can really ramp it up more.

Um, for those of you who don't know, we offer business cards.

They're really like wallet-sized cards that give all the information on the captions ordinance.

So if you are in a restaurant, you can give this card to the manager.

You don't have to explain the whole thing.

You can just say, hey, did you know this is a requirement?

And for more information, you can check out this uh this card.

So I think we will uh we need to do that and really just wrap the buyer.

That's again, we'll work with Meek Boston again this year, and we will also reach out to our internal partners because I we haven't found that it's really like reluctance to do it.

I think in informal surveys and anecdotal stories we've heard, but certain restaurants just don't and we know that they've faced a lot of economic challenges and staff turnover, so I think we'll just uh do another ramp up of outreach.

So thank you for that.

Um I don't want to take too much time because I know that we have the business to get to, so I'll wrap it up there if that's okay.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks so much.

Oh, does anybody on the board have any thing that they want to have?

I don't see Andrew.

Do you see any answer that I might be missing?

I see Olivia.

Olivia.

Livia.

Yeah, um, this is Olivia.

Are we doing um our spotlight at this point?

Is this kind of where we talk about our special interests?

Yeah?

Okay.

Um I just wanted to highlight that requipment, the state's DME reuse program is under threat.

Right now, uh there's an amendment 548 that's been filed in order to restore uh 500,000 in funding and it's earmark.

It's the language is really important because if we lose that language, we lose the the program, basically.

Um requipment has provided me personally with pieces of equipment that I found are vital.

Um they've been there for hundreds of people in our community.

Um they've given I I don't even know how many pieces of equipment throughout the state.

Uh and they're a vital uh safety net for people when they need adaptive equipment and no one else will cover it.

Um yeah, amendment 548.

You can go to tinyurl.com slash R EQ in capitals, and then advocacy in lowercase for their advocacy tool that will send out uh support to um to the state to try to get this funding restored.

And I suggest that be done on the next day or two.

Could the hearing start on Monday?

Yes.

Olivia, could you put that in the chat so we can actually absolutely thank you so much?

Right.

Uh I see Paul and then Bessie.

I just want to give a shout out to Colleen Planigan and her gift of engaging others recently around City Hall and the City Hall campus.

Um she's been introducing different disability groups that she's been giving information and tours to.

It's been very informative, not just to me, but to other people in different departments of the city.

Carly has such a nice way of author, and uh her skill set on behalf of the disability commission has been really outstanding.

And uh I would really appreciate Olivia if you would put that address in the chat so we could all reach out for that also.

Thank you.

Lizzie.

Hi.

My turn first.

I have three shout-outs that I wanted to mention.

Last week, Boston University hosted a sign language times AI collaborative, and we came together from an individuals all over the world came together, and it's collaboration on the best practices at the intersection of sign language and AI.

And this is from around the world.

Second, the shout-out goes to Disney.

They're releasing songs that are performed in animation with characters who use sign language.

Awesome.

Plus, this project also was developed in conjunction with Deaf West Theater.

And there was no AI put into production of those.

It's important that they see that.

And the third, I just remembered last Saturday.

On Boylston Street, it was very busy last Saturday with the BAA and the Boston Marathon on Monday.

And I would just like to bring up that the fencing.

Access to the street, and it really did cause issues for us with the stroller and navigating that.

So it is something to be considered with issues next year, and hopefully the city of Boston will do a better job at dealing with those curb cuts and the fencing, even though they're temporary, it's important.

So thank you.

Yeah, definitely important to make sure we don't uh we don't uh limit our people who use strollers and village users.

So definitely gonna take that into consideration or conversation for sure.

Anyone else has any mid letter makes?

I also want to highlight one more thing.

That's happened on Boyle's Boyle Stone Street and Clarendon as well.

So I just want to highlight that.

Thank you.

Well, I think Paulette has our hand up.

I just wanted to add that I actually attended the hearing that uh folks would talk about the PCAs with uh um the union folks and Boston Central for independent living and mass senior action council.

There were about 200 folks that uh went to the governor's office and to um other various offices to deliver their concerns about that, and um we really have to keep that on our radar because some folks are being reduced down to one hour a day worth of service of people that started out with eight hours and being reduced down to one hour.

That's unconscious, but we have to be aware of that for the budget cuts so that the governor knows those budget cuts are not accept acceptable to us.

How about budget cut got restored in the health budget that came out last week?

Not all of them, but much of it came back.

They didn't agree with the governor's budget recommendation, though the advocacy has made a difference.

Thank you, Colin, for bringing that up.

I was there with you, and it was so exciting to be part of the advocacy movement, and you know, just to see that power and energy within our community.

So I appreciate you being there.

All right, anyone else has anything that they want to bring up.

All right.

Would you mind covering all of this?

Yes, thank you, Zari.

So we have a few things under old business.

Um in February, you all took three votes uh to draft three letters, um, advocacy letters.

The first is about voting machines, uh, similar to what commissioner was mentioning earlier.

Um it's a letter uh asking the Secretary of the Commonwealth to find other machines.

Umfortunately, municipalities can only use the machines that are approved by his office for use.

Uh so basically the letter says we need another option.

Uh please find one.

Um that one discussion happened in the March meeting uh to amend it and ask uh to add a um sort of a call to action, not just that he do something, but that he respond to you all uh and and talk to you all about what he's gonna do.

So the addition that I added based on that feedback was we, the board, would like to meet with you to discuss our experiences with these machines and what steps your office plans to take.

From a practical standpoint, I added a sentence saying, you know, you can come to one of our meetings or contact the disability commission to schedule a meeting with the board.

So that one is due for uh a vote to approve if people want to approve that language.

Um make a motion to approve the letter to send out to the Secretary of State's office.

Well I think we have to take a vote now.

Oh, this sorry, I think you cut out, but I think I heard you say all in favor.

Yeah.

Aye.

Anyone abstaining?

Oh the eyes have it.

Great.

Over center.

The other two letters, excuse me, um, that were you voted to draft uh and are up for a vote, or could be if someone makes a motion, um, are about two pieces of legislation that are at the State House, both related to service animals.

Um H2066 and S2714.

I'll start with uh which one is open on my computer first.

S2714, an act studying discrimination in public accommodation for individuals with service animals.

Carl, as the lead drafter of this letter, would you like to uh say anything about what's in it or the bill itself?

So I actually co-wrote this with Senator Joan Lovely.

Um we felt that there are changes to be made in the discrimination process with MCAD as the main mechanism to enforce service animal laws, but we need to, in order to convince the legislative body that we need to change the laws, we needed to study this more.

And this commission would have Master Office on Disability, ARC, DLC Disability Law Center, Disability Policy Consortium, and the two chairs of the children's families and persons with disabilities from the House and Senate on this commission along with some advocates from the community to study it and then make recommendations to the legislature on how to better enforce service animal laws.

It's currently in house ways and means.

But now would be a good time to send a letter out.

And um, I don't really have anything more to no, this is that's 2714, right?

It's currently in Senate ways and means, excuse me.

And um I think this one has a good shot of being passed, to be honest with you.

I'd like to make a motion to um approve this letter to support at 2714 and send us out through Senate Ways and Means I second the motion.

Oops, sorry, you're muted.

So if you're calling for a vote, we can't hear you.

Sorry about that.

Yeah, sorry about that.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Any nose?

Abstentions.

I haven't.

Thank you, Carl.

All right, and one final letter under old business 2066.

Carl.

You want me to talk about this one?

I believe this one was written by uh representative Christine Barber in conjunction with BCIL, Boston Center for Independent Living.

And this one would find shared transportation meaning Uber and Lyft driver for not picking up individuals with service animals.

This one I think will need a little more encouragement to get out of housewakening because there's some concern about finding drivers that they via don't make enough of a living.

But my point of view is that if they're not breaking the law and not violating civil rights, then they don't have anything to worry about.

This was based on a law in Australia where once they started finding the drivers, the refusal dropped precipitously.

So we have a track record to look at and a model to base off this off of.

Thank you, Olivia.

All those in favor?

Aye.

I believe we have approved any uh no's or abstentions.

Okay.

So if it has been voted, I've moved.

So are we all set with the that's everything under old business?

Um we don't have anything officially under new business.

I do know there are wheelchair repair bills that were mentioned tonight and that Jerry has mentioned.

Um I also know we're at time, but if anyone wanted to make new business motions for different letters, new business would be the time to do it.

I I think it wouldn't hurt for us if uh to send a letter to the legislature on the wheelchair bill.

It's gone further than it's ever gone before, but it it it it needs to get crossed over the finish line.

I think it would be um, I don't know who would draft the letter because I'm not an expert in terms of wheelchair uh usage and repair bills, but but I think it would be I think it's something that this commission's advisory board should support absolutely is that a motion, Carl, to draft a letter.

No, that was a long-winded way of saying let's write a letter.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yes.

I will work with Jerry and oppose the data, and we'll send it out for review.

Oh, do we have to vote on that?

I think so.

We typically have it.

Oh, can anyone make a motion?

I make a motion that we write a letter of support for the wheelchair repair bill.

This is Paul, I second.

Aye.

Any abstentions or no's great?

So we will submit.

We will write the letter and submit for review.

All right.

Any other business or any uh questions from the community?

This is Andrea, just a note from members of the public.

Uh, you may have noticed you are not able to unmute yourself.

Um, but if you have a question, uh you can put it in the chat.

You can raise your hand uh using the zoom raise hand function.

You can also turn on your camera and physically wave at the camera.

I'll scroll through to try and find you.

You will have two minutes to make your question or comment.

Um, and we'll go from there.

I don't see anything in the chat.

I am scrolling cameras to see if anyone's camera is on, physically waving at me.

I don't see any Zoom raised hands.

I'm not seeing any comments okay.

Do I get to make my favorite motion of the night?

Oh I'm sorry I didn't hear you Zowie.

I said yes go for it.

Uh I'd like to make a motion toward John.

Oh one second oh sorry Richard had uh I think left the meeting at some point and came back so I didn't re-give him ability to unmute himself but he is a member of the board so my apologies Richard I'm giving you that right now do you have anything you'd like to say thank you good meeting I second that great meeting I'm glad everybody's happy and everybody uh called me this motion does anyone want to second I second thank you Claudette so I bet everybody will approve that motion yeah I'm gonna go eat dinner I hope so all right everyone great meeting thank you everyone