Okay, so it's uh 6 42 uh meeting for uh meeting for the commission for persons with disabilities, city of Danbury.

Um today's date is January 13th, 2026.

Oh my happy new year, everyone happy new year.

Um we uh we just mentioned the minutes.

I'd like to uh entertain a motion to accept the minutes.

Uh Ember meeting John John made a motion and do I hear a second?

I'll second it.

All in favor?

Aye.

Okay.

Um I haven't heard from Jeff other than he moved.

Well, we know he said he was moving, he moved back to Ridgefield.

Oh wow.

Um it's apparently he didn't live too distance wise, it's not that far from where he lived in Danbury to uh Bridgefield.

So but um I still have him listed as uh a member and I'll leave him on until uh further notice.

Okay, I'll keep sending him the minutes and sending him information.

Uh he just wanted us to be vigilant on issues pertaining to transportation, and I said we would.

So and of course the handicap issue, which is an ongoing issue.

Yes, um meetings the meetings will continue to be um hybrids in order to uh see what that wheels are there.

See that true uh in order to get as many people to join as you know, join the the meeting as possible.

I'm gonna give I'm gonna give Isabel a call just to see if yeah, she may be having an issue.

See the camera did move.

Thank you.

Hi, are you able to get in?

No, I just said no.

Try you know, resetting it and getting in again.

So uh try if you know if you try to back out and go back in again, you know.

Okay.

All righty.

We'll see you in a few minutes.

I hear I hear you.

Okay.

I did see the camera move.

I thought it was you, John, that you were moving your um computer screen.

No, no, it would for some reason I I don't know, like I John and I were talking about setting him up.

He hit the controls over there at the control panel.

Um I said I want to know if we can get like where he's sitting on that side of the table into the screen here.

And apparently that would be right.

Yeah.

This should be picking me up.

Well, yeah, but you're not up on the screen.

That's on my own last thing.

But should should you be able to be up on that screen?

Yeah.

So is that one?

Oh yeah, but uh but you should you should if if you're if they're synced, the cameras and the TV and the computer, everything is synced, you should be on that screen.

Hi guys.

Hi, Isabel.

She does.

Isabel, the only thing you really missed was um we had a conversation about the minutes, the format changed.

I don't know if you noticed it with the minutes, but there it's all AI minutes now.

Okay.

I looked at the agenda.

I didn't get to look at the minutes.

I had trouble opening documents.

But it's it's all AI minutes now.

So the minutes are AI generated.

Wow.

Okay.

Which is a m to me is amazing.

So okay, so now uh uh as we also mentioned, Jeff is no longer uh on the commission, but I do continue to keep him on as a member until like here otherwise.

Uh maybe he'll be on the commission over there.

They have a commission.

Yeah.

Well, they did.

I know they did.

Uh we are continue to seek members.

Uh we have open seats.

Now we have four.

Uh four regular seats and three alternates.

Uh social media is status quo, handicap parking.

Of course, we continue to be vigilant, keep our eyes open, making sure that everybody's able to get a spot.

Uh except at Costco.

Costco don't have enough parking handicapped people anyway.

Yeah.

And sometimes they have something set up there, a merchant or something, and he occupies the handicap spots.

There was a guy that made keys set up in the parking lot a couple of months ago.

What do you mean the the vendor?

Yep.

Yeah, they're not supposed to.

But you can call a cop on it.

Yeah.

On demand transportation kept as an open item.

Uh new business.

Uh we had uh um why can't I think of his name?

From Hart.

Um Robert uh Hart.

Um, who was the acting uh CEO for Hart.

We discussed that adding additional huts and bus on the bus stop routes.

Uh the state is gonna put I think seven additional huts in the uh heart region, five are coming to Danbury.

Um they did work something out with the city about who's gonna maintain them, meaning sure that you can access the hut when it snows, making sure it's clean clean of debris, etc.

etc.

So uh that apparently that's been worked out.

Uh open discussion.

I'll start safe streets in Danbury.

I'm not on another committee.

Uh it's called Safe Streets Danbury, and it talks about um I missed the first meeting, but I was you know, one through the agenda and the minutes and the handouts, and um as I was telling John before uh well when you get just information about a meeting that you didn't attend and you read through it, it's kind of flat, especially the first meeting.

Um but I we had a meeting last night, and now it's uh you know a little bit more in tune to what's going on with the whole thing, and it's a trying to address the Danbury area.

Quentin's here.

Hi, Quentin.

Hi, John.

How are you?

Happy New Year.

Thanks, you two.

We have um myself, Rosemary, John Newmill is here, Fran and Isabel.

We're uh talking about a new committee that I'm on that discusses safe streets in Danbury, which talks about keeping the C city streets safe when it pertains to um accidents.

Commercial vehicle accidents.

Um, you know, uh we talked about uh enforcement as a key.

We talked about education as a key, educate eddy educating drivers and educating pedestrians about crosswalks, crosswalks in the middle of the street, and in the mid not at an intersection, but in the middle of a street.

We do have a number of them in Danbury.

And they do seem to pose a problem.

That's where the education piece for the pedestrian comes in.

In other words, don't think just because you're in a crosswalk and you could just step into it, and then cars are just gonna automatically stop for you.

Make sure the car stops first, then step into it.

Right.

You gotta be careful.

But but uh Yeah, I have a this was the second meeting we had.

And um what I'm gonna do is there's a website.

I think you should all go on.

I'm gonna send you the link for the website.

Okay.

Um you should all go on.

I think you should go through it, and you'll get an idea where they're focusing their attention uh and where the congestion lies, and you can put some input in there.

You can actually input, like in other words, I know this intersection here in Danbury is a is a problem intersection.

And this is what I think should you should do to oh good, I know one.

Uh so you can do that on the on the website.

Okay.

Um but you you have to go, you know, you have to look at the website.

Uh do they have a map or something?

Because the problem the problem intersection I have is on that rotary.

Yes, um, you know, near Walmart, you know, with all the traffic blending and breaking apart and everything, there's a yield sign in front of the gas stations.

Uh nobody nobody obeys it.

We get cut off every day when we're on there.

That's that's your up near the you're talking about near the border of Danbury and yeah, it's Danbury Bethel.

I don't know if it's Danbury or Bethel.

Yeah, it's it in the rotary system.

Well, listen, that that's that's considered a problem in a lot of the areas where um I-84 exits and enters on the roads.

Um there's a lot of issues there because of congestion.

There's a lot of issues pertaining to um when 84 gets backed up, everybody you know pulls out into the streets.

This is this is just people not obeying the yield sign at all.

You yield to the right.

We're in the right-hand lane, entering the intersection, and they just fly right through.

Yeah, well, that's that's that is all part and parcel to the entire education piece.

But you know, I just wonder what I just wonder what they do today.

That uh the scrutiny they use to give people a license.

I I remember when I was a teenager, chopping at the bit to get my driver's license.

You had to get a permit first, you had to take the test.

You had a study for the test.

There was 20 questions on the test.

If you didn't pass that test, you couldn't go and do your driver education piece driving a car.

But you had to have so many so much time behind the wheel before you can actually drive uh take the driver's tests.

So the scrutiny about it was that you were able to handle the vehicle, and now I'm a little guy.

I weighed 115 pounds sitting behind the wheel of an 88 Oldsmobile.

Oh god, yeah, we have my father's car.

So of course, right away the guy thinks what the hell is this kid?

He can't even see over the stairways.

So I failed three times.

Oh god.

I passed on the fourth time.

Oh my part.

I I I pardon my today today.

Today I I asked my nephew once, my my nephew now who's uh 40 years old, but uh when he was getting his license, he said they only had to answer five questions on the test.

No, my that was in New York.

My mother used to say that all these people got a letter from the Pope.

It said that they could do, you know, they could blow red lights and they could turn left on red, and you know, all those wonderful things that are the new rules of the road.

He said they got a letter from the Pope to do it.

Yeah, you don't have to pass a test.

I I don't know how the education piece that they're talking about is gonna work out, but um again, we have to educate not only the drivers, but we have to educate pedestrians and cyclists, uh, you know, to about you know where and how to operate on the roadway.

But drive also there's also the condition of the roads.

We you know the roads, Danbury are not that great.

I do see that they're making some improvements, some other improvement would be more street lights because there are parts that are really dark at night and lighting exactly, Quentin.

Lighting is another big issue they're talking about.

Um lighting in uh for both pedestrians and uh drivers.

Uh another big big thing they're talking about.

Yeah, some drivers headlights are really bright.

Yeah.

Well, you they the other thing you got also these new cars have automatic dimmers.

Yes, so people ride around with their head the high beams on and think that thing works.

I have my new car has that.

So I when I first got it, the high beams were on.

So I'm driving and I notice people flashing at me.

I thought why are they flashing at me?

Because it's supposed to be an automatic dimmer.

But if you're going around a curve, the car doesn't pick up the car coming at you because of the curve, so the bright lights are on.

It's like it's so I just turned it off.

Yeah, I turn it off.

I I don't want to be bothered with that.

But yeah, you're right, Quentin.

The lighting, the headlights.

So but I'm gonna send out the website.

If everybody gets a chance to look at it, some feedback into it, even if you want to feed back to me.

They're gonna have a virtual uh like a town hall meeting in February.

Uh so everybody can attend.

So once you get in and I and you put your email in there, I'm sure we'll notify you.

If they don't notify you, I will notify you.

About the virtual meeting, it's supposed to be sometime in February.

You're supposed to do something about interviews and over gonna actually interview people.

Oh, they are they said they are I guess I'm not sure they're not gonna interview everybody because I went in and looked.

I think there's 300 people have already chimed in about this thing.

Wow.

So very good.

Um but I mean it's not that three they're gonna have 300 people.

They're not gonna interview 300 people, I guess.

But I mean, I'm sure all 300 people if they put their email in will get the invite to the virtual meeting.

Will they uh all show up?

Right.

But uh I I hope we were able to.

This is a grant.

The city got a grant to do this.

It's a federal grant through this through the state.

Albaki.

Um traffic uh engineer is on the committee.

Um we got the police department sergeant.

I'm trying to think of his name.

Walk walker.

What I'm wondering if he's the what's the name?

Rocco.

Remember Rocco, the Rory.

Yeah.

I wonder if he's the new Rory.

Yeah, so we have him on there.

We had the two uh there were two uh well three uh people from the uh organization that they contract with to do this study, and then there's a few other citizens who I don't know.

Uh Jennifer's on there for the city.

I guess she's running the project.

Well, the mayor's office or for the city.

So like I said, I'll send you the link for the website.

There is a map, Isabel.

You can blow it up.

You just faded out.

I've been hearing everything, so I last sentence.

There's a there's a map, as you mentioned.

There is a map on there that you could blow blow the map up and sectionalize it.

What section you want to look at?

Okay.

It's like a Google map, shows you the streets and intersections.

It highlights uh highlights uh commercial um yeah, you know, stores and what have you.

So and let me know if you have a problem because that that could be an issue that I I as a commissioner that the city has to be compliant for people with disabilities.

So if you if you can't navigate it, then we have a problem.

It's very hard for me to go on websites if they get complicated and if they get fancy autistic.

This one's not that complicated.

Oh, okay.

It it was kind of easy to navigate through it.

Good.

Okay, I'm gonna try.

Yeah, and then you can let me you could let me know how how you made out with it, and if you're having a problem with it, uh I'll address it with uh Jennifer.

Yeah, that would be that would be interesting.

Okay.

Um yeah, okay.

Anyone else have any thing they'd like to discuss?

Any i do besides Isabel Isabel, you go last.

Okay, reminding him about it.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

John's gonna speak.

Okay.

I'm still vigilant with the police department on handicap parking, reminding them of uh people who are illegally parking, handicap parking.

So they are aware of that, so we're trying to be as vigilant as we can, but as you can imagine, they have their hands full with other issues going on in around the city right now.

Yeah, I I understand.

But we're trying our best.

Is the best way I can describe it.

I forgot to take a picture, but we actually came across a guy with a handicapped placard that was overlapping.

He was taking up two spots.

Okay.

I mean, I forgot I didn't even occur to me to take a picture.

Maybe next time I will.

Uh sometimes you gotta be careful that if you're taking up the handicap parking spot and the unloading zone, that could be a for unloading for a this was no, this was not the hash next to the handicapped.

Oh, it was this was two handicapped spots.

Okay, yeah, so you didn't park right.

That's what they call handicap parking.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes, maybe you could see just like me.

Yes, exactly.

Exactly.

There are people driving around whose vision is as poor as mine.

But they continue to drive.

Right, yeah, they do.

I see it all the time.

I'm good, I'm good.

Turn it back to Roy John.

Okay, uh anybody else.

Oh sit back.

You you'll find until just now.

Can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you now.

Brandon.

I was gonna say they the only thing I'd like to mention.

Um just as a reminder, uh, we've got the Xfinity Comcast, and we got um New Year's Eve.

My cable box went out.

Okay, and eventually it's because of the old technology.

So I was forced to um just switch out the boxes, and luckily um there was a minor problem, and it required uh Xfinity to send out uh service tech.

And he was the one that mentioned about the uh getting a remote control with uh with um that's ever so slightly bigger, but it's a little easier filled to deal with.

Uh and it's not so much as that he's got um uh vision, he does have some visual issues, but uh that's not the the main factor.

It was just that it was just hard to try to learn it for for him to learn the the new system.

uh getting a remote control with uh with um that's ever so slightly bigger but it's a little easier bill to deal with uh and it's not so much as that he's got um uh vision he does have some visual issues but uh that's not the the main factor it was just that it was just hard to try to learn it for for him to learn the the new system so um i'm grateful that the service tech came out just to mention it because i never really thought about trying to upgrade and getting the um uh getting the remote and the other thing about this already isabel but if you know for exfinity that they have us set up now that if i call up for some assistance they will ask me i haven't tried it yet but they'll ask me if i need um accessibility yes so yeah it's working now for a while when they changed over to the new system you couldn't get through on the accessibility but it's uh it's all fixed and i have i have the black and white remote yes we just got it today and it was actually very easy to talk to it you don't have to use the controls you can try you can speak to it oh yes that's what we're learning now so thank you and I just thought I'd put it out there for other people to be aware of yeah I can't see the other remotes at all uh the one I that comes with my TV for instance is black on black yeah no texture or anything I I just I can't use it which is frustrating because I would like to switch around to some things that are available via the web that aren't you know that aren't on the cable like uh PBS passport you can't get that on the TV on cable you have John we can't hear you John oh how did we how did we live without remote controls I don't know because I I remember um when when we got one at home when I was little and my father had one and um we had one that was uh it worked off a sound in other words it only had like an on and off and uh and it would just change the channel you couldn't go to a specific channel it would just change up change the channel up or down right if you whistled if you whistled you could turn the TV off we had a word for that certain pitch turn the TV off yeah we had we had a word for it it was it was called the Schmidtnik well then of course you had kids and you say my father'd say to me put on channel 13 yeah yeah turn turn the channel seven make the make the volume that's too loud lower good old days and then the TV went off at night they asked him and it would go to the window turn it to the left okay is that was it as what do you got isabel okay okay i well i got a couple one is good news i think i called with a complaint to um uh oh golly um uh oh golly eight the uh americans with disabilities i called them and they made an appointment they're gonna talk to me next week about two complaints that i have you know yeah one is with isabel i think you should you should list all the complaints yeah they only gave me room for two but i i'm gonna give them a generic one but the other thing is i have with um the town clerk in vanbury i called just before election day because i filled out the absencee ballot and the absencee ballot is not prepared for somebody who can't see it's the tiny letters and that little circle that you have to hit so I'm working with a magnifier and a sharpie and then I flip it over and discover that the Sharpie bled through to the other side and I called and asked if they would still use my ballot or if the machine wouldn't take it can they process it by hand they I never got an answer I have no idea if I voted or not I they it they I have an absentee ballot because I can't vote in person but the the ballot is the same and I still can't see it what did you say you spoke to the town clerk I left a message I never got any call back well I'll try and give her a call yeah I called I well I called uh before election day so she was probably quite busy but I I never did get a call back and unfortunately I haven't had regular aids and I haven't had time to go down to town hall to talk to her directly but I have no idea if my ballot was counted

What did you say you spoke to the town clerk?

I met that I left a message.

I never got any call back.

I'll try and give her a call.

Yeah, I called.

I well, I called uh before election day, so she was probably quite busy, but I I never did get a call back, and unfortunately, I haven't had regular aids, and I haven't had time to go down to town hall to talk to her directly, but I have no idea if my ballot was counted.

Well, at least you should be called that.

Yeah.

I'll give her a call to either to uh tomorrow or Thursday.

I'd appreciate it.

Thank you.

And I'll let you know.

Okay.

Okay.

Anything else?

Anyone.

Oh, I do I have another one, actually.

I got I gotta be quicker.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

I spent several hours on the phone today with Eversource.

I was given a um uh you know a small grant for uh heating assistance, and I was notified that I got it in September, and it wasn't in December, it still wasn't on the bill, so I called and they told me well they just got it and it'll be on January's.

Well, it isn't on January, so they tell me maybe it'll be on February's.

I are they keeping it in the bank and earning interest.

What do they do?

Should be it should be.

Don't worry about it.

Don't worry about it.

You'll have it in June when it's nice and warm.

Right, right.

When it's nice and warm and it takes I have I have a the largest heating bill I have ever had.

I actually think I have a phone number for somebody who's still in doing the billing.

Um I I have to see if I can find it, Isabel.

But if I do I'll send me an email, I'll relay it to you and John at the same time.

Okay, okay, thank you.

Because I talked to them today.

I talked to I was on the phone on hold for over an hour each time.

Yeah, no, this is this is directly to the person who's doing the billing because um when good to do they were doing public hearings.

Um I got uh talking with several people from Eversource.

I I don't have their names quickly.

I have to look them up.

Yeah, I I I mean I I'll wait another month, but then I'll call Pure.

That's what I thought I would do.

Let me let me try and find them find the at uh the contact person.

Okay, thank you.

Sure.

Okay, and it's more I had a whole day of this, but that's enough.

Okay, John.

Okay.

Uh I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

I'll second it.

John made a motion.

All in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

So it's 716.

Commission for persons with disabilities adjourned.

Um next meeting is it's not January 13th.

No, no.

Our next meeting is February.

Date would that be?

Okay.

Hang on.

I'm gonna go look it up.

Next meeting is February 10th.

Okay.

Oh no, that oh, yes, the a Tuesday.

Yes.

I'll see you guys all then.

Yeah, I already have to do it.

Thank you, John.

Thank you guys for setting this up.

Thank you, everybody.

See you.