Meeting Information

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Mayor’s Disability Council
Minutes of its regular meeting held on Monday, 21 December 1998 Civic Auditorium 99 Grove Street, Rm. 313

Willie L. Brown, Jr.
Mayor

Steven D. Nelson
ADA Coordinator
and Council Secretary

 

Members present:

Walter Park (Chair) Sergio Alunan, Vincent Behan, Edward Evans,
Michael Kwok, Viola Jackson, Frank Marone, Damien Pickering

Members excused: Grace Regan (Co-chair), Susan Mizner

Absent: August Longo

Staff:

Steve Nelson, Council Secretary and Director, Department of Administrative Services Richard Skaff, DPW Disability Access Coordinator

Paul Imperiale, Citywide Disability Coordinator

Jose Caedo, Deputy Citywide Disability Coordinator

Kofo Domingo, Administrative Services

 

Guest Speakers:

Harlan L. Kelly, Jr., Deputy Director, Department of Public Works, and City Engineer

Bernard LaFleur QUAD Media, Inc.

Joseph F. Taggart, Jr., Election Systems and Software

 

The meeting was called to order at 1:18 p.m. by the Chair, Walter Park. With apologies to those who received an incorrect, early draft, a revised meeting agenda was distributed and adopted. Minutes of the 16 November 1998, meeting were approved as submitted.

 

Castro Street DPW Information Kiosk:

 

Harlan Kelly, Deputy Director of the Department of Public Works, and City Engineer, updated the Council on the issue of the Castro Street electronic information kiosk. His department agreed that it is essential that all city information kiosks be made accessible by December 1998. Through recent correspondence with ObjectSoft it was evident that the company would not be able to comply and meet the City’s requirement on the project.

 

Bernard La Fleur, President of QuadMedia, presented their accessible information kiosk, or "ITM" (Information Transfer Machine). He stated that the cost of making the equipment accessible was negligible, only about two percent of the total production cost. He described the variety of human engineering factors that ultimately led to accessible design features. The information kiosk unit has a tactile keyboard not required by the ADA, but will be very helpful to blind persons and those who use bite sticks. It also has a telephone handset for privacy when in speech mode, hearing aid compatibility, and ports for attaching headphones and Braille output devices such as the Braille Lite. Infra-red devices may be attached to assist the mobility impaired or deaf-blind user.

The kiosk demonstrated was designed for use as a voting machine, and had two operation modes. The first mode was speech for the visually impaired, and the second mode was touch screen mode, which could be used by persons with various types of disabilities

 

Council Member Damien Pickering was asked to try out the kiosk. He was guided through the process. Richard Skaff believed the device would be helpful to persons with dyslexia, who would have difficulty in reading the information on screen. Bernard La Fleur said that the ITM could be programmed to provide speech output in other languages such as Spanish. He added that it would be very easy to change the hardware speech synthesizer, to provide better sounding speech output. This kiosk is portable, and is capable of interacting with various application software that makes it a multi-use kiosk. The retail price of the kiosk is around $10,000. Council members’ responses, including blind members and attendees, was very positive.

 

Presentation by Frances Gracechild:

 

Frances Gracechild, Executive Director of Resources for Independent Living in Sacramento, spoke on rehabilitation services in the State of California, and what should be expected from the new governing administration. Ms. Gracechild has been involved in the independent living movement in Sacramento for the last 18 years. Ms. Gracechild observed that technology has had a great impact on the workforce. Ms. Gracechild also spoke about the necessary changes in the infrastructure, so that disabled persons, who work, will receive appropriate wages and necessary health care coverage. Finally, Ms. Gracechild asked for some input from the audience on issues related to the Department of Rehabilitation. In response, there were questions and comments from various council members related to home health care workers, attitudinal changes toward inclusion of people with disabilities, the roles and attitudes of rehabilitation counselors, career changes of working persons toward more project oriented or entrepreneurial goals, and the growing trend toward self-employment in the disability community, and how the Department could respond to this trend.

Ms. Gracechild shared her thoughts and ideas in reaction to these comments, including her support for the study and increase of resources in the Department of Rehabilitation for disabled persons to become self-employed. She agreed with Council Chair Walter Park that there was a critical need for universal health care, or adequate health care coverage for disabled persons who may risk losing their Medi-Cal once they become employees or start their own business. A member of the audience asked for more funding toward technology and computers that will assist persons with disabilities getting into in the workplace.

 

PUC Sunol Water Temple Project:

 

Richard Skaff introduced this historic preservation project involving a structure in Sunol that was designed and built in 1910, to resemble an ancient Greek water temple. He introduced Lena Ch’en, from the PUC who is the project manager and the architect in charge of the design, of Carey and Associates. Several design drawings (including sets of tactile drawings for blind members) were presented to the council members for comments on the disability access issues. The council members were informed that the State Historic Building code applies to this project.

 

The program includes the spatial experience provided by entering the simple structure and reaching the upper level where one can view the confluence of two rivers. Additionally, the half-mile driveway approach to the structure, and the grounds surrounding the temple, were places where people could enjoy the scenery or use the picnic area. There was a proposed information center that would be constructed two hundred feet from the temple that would contain other features to help enhance the experience of the temple itself. This center will contain a scale model that will be accessible to people with visual impairments. The creation of a film documentary showing the history of the temple, and its construction is also under way.

The various problems in providing access to the upper viewing level were discussed. Council members Walter Park and Frank Marone had questions on how access could be provided to certain areas of the structure for wheelchair users. Ms. Chen opined that a sixty foot ramp would be a very large feature to be build next to a 35 foot wide structure. Council Chair Walter Park stated his strong preference for ramps over mechanical lifts and asked regarding other possibilities for placement of access ramps.

Council Chair Walter Park then suggested that the Architects come back to the next meeting with other options to address the access issues. He noted that while the question of ramp or lift seemed open, there was no evident support on the Council for an alternative `interpretative center’ with no physical access to the temple itself. Richard Skaff suggested that a small subcommittee of council members meet before the next regular council meeting to further discuss alternatives to barrier removal. The special meeting on this issue was to be scheduled by the concerned parties (January 12^th).

 

 

Mayor’s Office on Disability:

 

Steve Nelson, Council Secretary and Director of the Department of Administrative Services, described the expected functions of the Mayor’s Office on Disability program. Handouts were distributed to the Council Members. The vision for this program was to combine the functions of current Mayor’s Office on Disability issues with the functions currently performed by Mr. Skaff, which is addressing physical access issues. Director Nelson explained the complaint process. When a complaint is filed with the office, there would be a staff person acting as the point of public contact, this staff person will remain as the contact person throughout the course of resolution. An intake/complaint log will be kept and updated until resolution of the matter. Complaints received with be categorized as either physical access or programmatic access issues, and assigned to either the Disability Access Coordinator or the Disability Programs Coordinator for resolution. When necessary, the Department ADA Coordinator responsible for the facility, program, service, or activity where the incident occurred will also be involved. All employment and reasonable accommodation request issues with city and County of San Francisco employees will be handled by Director Nelson, who will be acting in a quasi-Ombudsperson’s capacity.

 

The ultimate jurisdiction on the subject matter of employment now lies within the purview of the Department of Human Resources and the City Attorney’s Office. The Mayor’s Office on Disability could act as another voice to address employment related issues and speak to the needs of reasonable accommodations for disabled employees.

Council Member Damien Pickering inquired about the tracking of information regarding complaints, and whether these are or would be compiled into periodic reports. Director Nelson replied that Mr. Caedo would be in charge of the complaint log and the program will work on formatting this information into statistics for regular reports. The report will include data such as response and resolution time.

Council Member Ed Evans inquired if there was a grievance review panel that would attend to issues that could not be addressed or resolved by the Mayors Office on Disability. Director Nelson responded that that on employment issues, the responsibility would lie with the union and their ability to file grievances. For all other issues, the possibility of setting up such a review process could be studied.

Finally, Director Nelson informed the council that he was recommending that the budget be increased to include a fourth staff person’s position. Council Chair Walter Park inquired whether the budget increase for this position would be in the supplemental budget request, the budget for Fiscal Year 1999-2000, or both. Director Nelson replied that the increase would be for both budgets so that the fourth staff person could be hired as soon as possible.

 

Council Member Frank Marone asked for further explanation about the program description that corrective actions will be made on an advisory basis. Director Nelson replied that there is a question whether the Mayor’s Office on Disability would act as an enforcement or advisory agency. He believed that it should function as an advisory agency to City Departments on disability issues. Council Member Frank Marone stated his concerns with the city departments taking this advice seriously. Director Nelson responded that advice can be given this way, but one cannot guarantee that any Department will apply it immediately or consistently throughout. Council Chair Walter Park disagreed and stated that there was some question of the ability of staff to provide accurate ADA advice, and this undermine their authority to enforce the advice or have the same accepted by City departments. He said that the authority to have this `advice’ accepted rested with the Mayor. He believed that inter-department agreements must be in place so that such advice would be heeded authoritatively.

 

Richard Skaff gave his experience as a Chief Building Inspector. He said that while his opinions and advice were often heeded, this was not accepted on a consistent basis. He added that his hope in joining the Mayor’s Office on Disability, is that there will be a positive way to encourage these Departments to respond to such advice.

 

Peter Margen inquired about what pro-active steps in terms of policy making were being envisioned, as opposed to the complaint-driven process described. Director Nelson stated that all new physical or programmatic projects be reviewed first by the Mayors Office on Disability. He cited the specific example of the Castro Street kiosk where much expense and problems could have been avoided if disability access review was implemented from the outset and not at the later stages.

 

 

Adjournment.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:10 p.m.

 

 

Submitted,

Steve Nelson,

Council Secretary

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