body,date,page,text,path
CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities,2017-12-13,1,"ITEM 2-A
COMMISSION ON DISABILITY
MEETING MINUTES OF
Wednesday, December 12, 2017 6:30 p.m.
LOCATION:
City Hall, 2263 Santa Clara Avenue, Third Floor, Council Chambers
Alameda, CA 94501
1.
ROLL CALL
Beth Kenny: Alright, I'd like to call to order the Commission on Disability meeting for December
13, 2017. We're starting a little bit late tonight, at about approximately 6:45 [due to recording
difficulties].
Laurie Kozisek: Okay. I'll do the roll call. Beth Kenny.
Beth Kenny: Present.
Laurie Kozisek: Anto Aghapekian.
Anto Aghapekian: Present.
Laurie Kozisek: Lisa Hall.
Lisa Hall: Present.
Laurie Kozisek: Jenny Linton.
Jenny Linton: Present.
Laurie Kozisek: Jenn Barrett.
Jenn Barrett: Present.
Laurie Kozisek: Arnold Brillinger.
Arnold Brillinger: Ho ho ho.
[laughter]
Laurie Kozisek: Present. Okay. Tom Mills, is not here. Tony Lewis, not here. And Susan Deutsch
said that she was sick and could not make it.
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities,2017-12-13,2,"2.
MINUTES
2-A Approval of Minutes for the October 11, 2017 Meeting
Beth Kenny: Thank you. Agenda item number two. The minutes, does anybody have any changes
they would like to make from the minutes from our October 11th, 2017, meeting?
Arnold Brillinger: I make a motion that we accept the minutes.
Beth Kenny: I'll second that motion. All in favor?
Arnold Brillinger: Aye.
Beth Kenny: Any opposed? Minutes approved.
3.
ORAL COMMUNICATIONS/NON-AGANDA (PUBLIC COMMENT)
Beth Kenny: Do we have any non-agenda public comment? Any speaker slips?
Laurie Kozisek: No.
4.
NEW BUSINESS
4-A Retreat Planning
Beth Kenny: Okay. New business, first thing is we need to select a date for the retreat. Jenn, you
haven't experienced this before. Because the City is dark in August, we don't get to meet then, so we
make up that meeting in the winter time having a retreat where we just talk about goals for the
commission and go over some sunshine ordinance and Brown Acts, stuff like that. It takes place on
a Saturday at Mastick. Laurie has spoken to Jackie Krause from Mastick, and she said she could do
a Saturday in February, but that January is a bad month for them. Does anyone have a Saturday in
February they need to rule out?
Laurie Kozisek: Madam Chairman, may I also mention that you have a meeting, a regular meeting
in February on the 14th.
Beth Kenny: Okay.
Arnold Brillinger: Is it possible to do it in March?
Beth Kenny: I don't believe that we checked with Jackie about that. I imagine that it would be, I
think that my thought was that we try and plan for the year. And so it might be good to have it
before our first meeting of the year.
Arnold Brillinger: Okay. Makes sense.
Beth Kenny: Could we do the first Saturday in February?
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities,2017-12-13,3,"Arnold Brillinger: What day is that?
Jenny Linton: February 3.
Laurie Kozisek: Last year it was in March.
Beth Kenny: Okay.
Laurie Kozisek: The retreat was in March 11th, of last year.
Beth Kenny: Alright, so what Is it the second?
Anto Aghapekian: The third.
Beth Kenny: I'm going to suggest February 3rd. Does anyone have any objections to that? Alright,
all in favor?
Arnold Brillinger: Aye.
Beth Kenny: Great. The retreat will be February 3rd. I expect it'll start around 10:00, end by around
1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon. The other thing about the retreat that I wanted to let people know is
that I will be sending out, with the agenda for the retreat, some questions that I want you guys to
think about and come prepared to talk about at the retreat. Basically, for those of you who were
there last year, the ones that I put up on the board to spark conversation about the commission
goals.
4-B Commission involvement in requests for exemptions to the Universal Design Ordinance
Beth Kenny: Let's move on to item 4B. I don't know if everyone here is aware, but the Universal
Design Ordinance passed City Council and is now in effect as a law in ordinance in the City of
Alameda.
Arnold Brillinger: Is it that it starts in January or it's in effect right now?
Beth Kenny: It's in effect right now. Next Tuesday night the Encinal terminals will be presenting
their development to City Council, and they've reached out to make sure it will be in line with the
Universal Design Ordinance. They're aware it's the first big development to be under the Universal
Design Ordinance. Part of the Universal Design Ordinance is that there is a waiver people can
submit, and they can apply for this waiver at the design review process, which goes before the
Planning Board. However, we've asked that the Planning Board let us know when anybody asks for
a waiver of Universal Design elements. And the waivers can be something where it's financially
impossible, or the physical location doesn't make it feasible. We've asked to be notified when those
waiver requests come in. What we'd like to do tonight is to have three people authorized to speak on
behalf of the Commission at these Planning Board meetings when these exemptions, waiver
requests come up.
Arnold Brillinger: And we would know ahead of time that it's going to happen.
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities,2017-12-13,4,"requests regarding Universal Design. Do I have a second?
Arnold Brillinger: Second.
Beth Kenny: All in favor?
All: Aye.
Beth Kenny: Any opposed? Alright, carries unanimously. That was a mouthful.
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities,2017-12-13,5,"5.
OLD BUSINESS
5-A. Commission and Board Liaison Reports
Beth Kenny: Now we move on to old business. Section 5-A: Commission and Board Liaison
Reports. I would like to start this off with Vice Chair Brillinger. I was fortunate enough to attend a
thing in which I got to see his board liaison work.
Arnold Brillinger: Well, okay. I've been to a number of meetings that deal with transportation in
Alameda. And the first one that I went to was right after our last meeting. It was the ILC [City of
Alameda and AC Transit Interagency Liaison Committee], and the highlights I'd like to tell you
about that. It was on the 16th of October at 10:00 in the morning. It was in this room right next to us
here. The ILC is basically people from AC Transit, some of the people from the board of directors,
and also several people from Alameda; the mayor, the vice mayor, whoever, councilmen. They
meet, and they talk about the different transportation, things that happen in Alameda. One of the
things that they do have, and I've been to these meetings before, but I never really looked at some of
these handouts that they have. And just like for the 51A, for the bus line, they've got all kinds of
ridership and customer trends on what's happening. They have lists of our charts that talk about
conduct and courtesy of the drivers, the amount of complaints they get on pass-ups, or hazardous
driving, or routes and schedule problems, or no shows, or lates, or if there are problems at the bus
stop. Maybe there's a lot of garbage or something like that at the bus stop. Those are all things that
they keep track of, and for each individual bus route. Not just the 51A, but the 21 and the 20 and the
96. Boy sounds like I know them all.
Arnold Brillinger: That was interesting. And of course it's not like they've got 86 complaints about
signage. They've only got one or two complaints on this item or that. But still, it's interesting and
then you can compare them month to month or actually quarter to quarter, because they meet four
times a year. Now one of the things that I knew they were going to discuss was service to the Main
Street Ferry Terminal. And they had three different options that they were interested in, and it turns
out that none of them are going to be considered right now. AC Transit can't make it. They want it to
pay for itself, but there are a lot of problems down there with the parking. I've seen it myself along
Main Street, it's quite horrendous what people have to do. We need to get them interested in taking
the bus, but there is no bus going there. That is a problem. And then the line 21, which goes out to
the Harbor Bay area, there have been some problems with that because parents need to drop off
their kids and then run over there to hop onto the ferry, but then there's no parking for their cars.
Arnold Brillinger: And if they take the bus it just adds on time between get the kids in the school
and this kind of stuff but, they're working on it, and they're trying to make sure that the buses get
there in time so people can get onto the ferry. And they asked, ""Well can we just say ""We're right
around the corner of the ferry.""? They say, ""Well that really doesn't work for us because we are on
time, the ferry is on time, they need to keep their schedules."" Those are some things that they
discussed, but they're going to try and work them out because we need to have a lot of people taking
the buses to the ferry. And the fourth thing that they discussed was a Trans-Bay Terminal. That's a
whole project that AC Transit has on getting the commuters to San Francisco. It's really interesting.
They're going to buy some double-decker buses to get people to San Francisco, but they're not
going to use them in Alameda.
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities,2017-12-13,6,"Arnold Brillinger: They're going to buy 12 to 15 buses to begin with, and use them on the routes
where they really have so many people wanting to get into San Francisco, mostly in Emeryville and
Berkeley. Those were the things that were discussed there. The Salesforce Tower, you see that now
sticking up, and that's the center of the Trans-Bay, the whole terminal thing. Where the Muni will
match in with AC Transit and Contra Costa, their commuters and all kinds of things and trains, and
who knows what. It's going to be really a fantastic thing when they get it all together. Because it's
going to be the tallest building in San Francisco for a while and the second tallest building in the
state. That's pretty much it for the ILC meeting.
Arnold Brillinger: And then the Transportation Commission had a meeting on the 15th of
November at 7:00 PM and they approved the AC Transit's Trans-Bay Tomorrow proposal because
they got the presentation too. Except, it didn't want to reduce some of the OX frequency, and that's
what AC transit was saying, ""Let's do it this way."" And the Transportation Commission said, ""Ah,
that's the part we don't want to happen."" And then, there was a status report on a plan for access to
the Harbor Bay Ferry terminal. That again is, ""Do we charge for parking? Do we do this? Can we
get the buses to be there on time?"", and so forth. They had some discussion on that.
Arnold Brillinger: And then, the last thing, and this was really exciting to me, I heard a suggestion,
and this was during the public comments. And the person who gave the presentation was suggesting
that Alameda and, well in the East Bay, that they have a tramway, gondolas, big ones, going from
the west end, somewhere there, across the water and I would have thought connect with Jack
London Square or Jack London area. No, they said, ""Let's go to the West Oakland terminal, the
BART terminal,"" which would make a lot of sense.
Arnold Brillinger: Like I said, that was just a suggestion. They didn't discuss that, but I thought,
""Whoa, this sounds really neat. And at least somebody is thinking about trying to work it out, the
transportation issues here.""
Arnold Brillinger: There is one more thing that I need to talk about, and that's that right after
Halloween the Alameda Shuttle started going around. Have you seen it yet? I'm sorry. Excuse me.
But, the Alameda Shuttle, they've got two buses, they're brand new buses. And like the old bus, you
just kind of look at it and say, ""I wonder what that is."" This one says, ""Alameda Loop Shuttle, free
for all."" I was on that committee to get the bus wrap and stuff like that, and I really pushed for that
""free for all"", and it says that on either side, also in the back and in the front, because we want to get
as many people on this. It's going to be making the round. People ought to get on it, save some of
their gas and emissions. And it works on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and it used to take an
hour. Well, it still takes an hour to take the whole trip around. But now, with two buses, every half
hour, a bus is going by the different places. It makes it easier and you don't have to wait so long.
Arnold Brillinger: The Tuesday loop goes the central part of Alameda, the library, the cinema, the
Kaiser Permanente, those things right here in the center, and also Mastick, and goes out to Alameda
Landing, around Target, those stores out there. Also, that's where the Center for Independent Living,
CIL, is out there too. Their office is not really that close to the street, but there is a place to get off
and get on there.
Speaker 1: They're in the loop now?
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities,2017-12-13,7,"Arnold Brillinger: They're in the loop, yes. And Wednesdays is when it goes down to the east end
out to Harbor Bay Isle, and it goes through some of the housing, the HOAs and stuff like that, to
pick up people. And again, comes through the same part in the middle of town to run them through
and also South Shore Center. And then, on Thursdays, it's a central loop, it goes through the middle
again, and Mastick and South Shore, but also goes out this way to Brookside, which is where Nob
Hill is, and also the Park Street Landing, which is where the Dollar store is, or the Dollar Tree is.
Arnold Brillinger: It's worthwhile to get on and to go and I suggest I've even been going around
to nursing homes and saying, ""Hey, you see this bus that's coming around? Take your loved one,""
and I'm telling this to responsible people, ""Take your loved ones just on a ride for an hour. They will
see something different than the four walls of their nursing home. Or take them out, go to South
Shore and push them around for a while. Go through the grocery store and stuff. Just make their
lives a little bit more interesting."" And the neat thing about this is that it has lifts for wheelchairs
and even in my wheelchair, I can be in the back of it and I could do a 360. There is some room back
there. But they also have bike racks in the front of it. I made up a sign that says, ""Take your bike for
a ride."" And then when you get to a certain place, you can take it off, ride around for a while. When
you come back, there's another shuttle.
Beth Kenny: Thank you very much for all your hard work, Vice-Chair Brillinger. You're really
doing a lot in the transportation department so thank you.
Arnold Brillinger: Yes. Also, I wanted to say that I do travel around to other disability
commissions and councils. And I have reported to the Oakland one and also the San Francisco one
that the City Council passed the Universal Design Ordinance. I've had some people say, ""Oh, can
we get copies of it?"" I said, ""Sure. Here it is online. Download it."" Because we can't just sit on it.
We need to also blow our own horn, as it were, and say, ""Hey, look what we've got going in
Alameda. You guys get on the bandwagon."" Whatever. It's not just for Alameda. It's for the East
Bay, for the state, for the country. We just keep on going bigger and bigger.
Beth Kenny: Thank you. Does anyone else have anything they'd like to report from their
commission or board that they're a liaison for?
Anto Aghapekian: For the transportation. For the transportation, I see them. The shuttle buses. I
see them at Mastick's and they're mostly empty.
Arnold Brillinger: You're right.
Anto Aghapekian: I talked with the drivers and they say that people don't know about the program.
Arnold Brillinger: That's true.
Anto Aghapekian: If you have an opportunity to talk with the commissioners or the directors to
advertise in the paper, let people know and let people know the routes, which bus to take to go
where, to let people know and then they'd start using it because they're going around empty right
now.
Arnold Brillinger: They are. That's true. It went around empty before also, but nobody knew what
it was.
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities,2017-12-13,8,"Anto Aghapekian: Right.
Arnold Brillinger: And I once went to one of the meetings and I say, ""This used to be Alameda's
best kept secret, the fact that it has a shuttle that's free for everyone and no one knows that it's
happening."" I've also told the person who deals with the different para-transit issues here in
Alameda. Her name is Victoria Williams and her office is at Mastick and I told her, ""One day I'm
just going to take a handful of schedules and sit outside wherever, either at the library or at South
Shore or whatever and say, 'Hey! Take a trip! Take a tour!"" Kind of like Gilligan's tour. They had a
three-hour tour. Well, this is just a one-hour tour. Take the tour and see where it goes on Tuesdays.
Arnold Brillinger: Then Wednesday take another tour. And I'm just going to have them and just sit
there and say, ""Hey, here comes a bus now. You want to go? Get on. It's free."" And they also have
things that we're going to put in the movie theater, like It won't be a video, necessarily, but it'll be
an advertising slide. Also, and just tell people about it. Just tell people about it. Thank you.
Beth Kenny: Thank you. If nobody has any other commission or board reports
Anto Aghapekian: I went to the Planning Board meeting, it was in September. And the main topic
that they discussed was auxiliary units on your property. There was a lot of participation and
opposition because the size of the addition they were talking about it, 1,000 square feet. And where
1,000 square feet is going to fit on the 100 lots that we have in Alameda is beyond me. But they're
talking about it, and no resolutions were made. And at present, I don't know where it stands. But
they were talking about it. We may get part of the zoning, to increase the number of available units,
mostly rented. But that's what their planning.
Beth Kenny: Thank you, Commissioner Aghapekian. Commissioner Hall?
Lisa Hall: Hi. Yeah. I'd just like to say a little word about reaching out to the community for the
Thanksgiving, Christ Church had its annual Thanksgiving dinner. And I'm very happy to see more
disabled people and wheelchairs accessible. That was one way of reaching out to the whole
community, but especially with our disabled people and our seniors. Also, Meals on Wheels served
over 150 delivered meals on Thanksgiving Day to all those people that were shut-in or disabled or
senior or whatever. It was with the meals there and the deliveries, they served almost 900 meals for
our little Alameda community. That was a good thing. Good day.
6. STAFF COMMUNICATIONS
Beth Kenny: Great, thank you. Alright, so I am going to move on to staff communications. Agenda
item number six.
Laurie Kozisek: Okay. I want to remind everyone that the next meeting will be February 3rd, the
retreat. If you have any dietary needs, let me know. Otherwise, you're probably going to get
something like Subway. And then February 14th is a regular meeting, and if you have suggestions
for agenda items, let me know or let Beth know. Just send it to me and I'll talk with Beth so that we
have agenda items. Or if you think of any speakers, let us know. That's all I have.
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities,2017-12-13,9,"Beth Kenny: Thank you very much. I just wanted to add, one thing that I had talked about having
beyond the planning of our next year, is talking a little bit more about emergency preparedness. And
Commissioner Lewis and I have yet to meet, and it's my fault because I had to cancel. But I have
spoken with Captain Oliver and with Jackie Krause from Mastick. Captain Oliver, obviously, is
interested, but Jackie Krause would like to work with us along this issue, too, and has worked with,
when the City did other efforts, to create a way to know who are the people who are going to need a
little bit of extra help in the event of an emergency. I think that would be really great to be able to
work with Mastick and Jackie Krause.
Jenn Barrett: I went to the opening of the new fire station, and I saw you there. That was great.
And it's just so great to hear about how seriously they're taking the emergency preparedness, and so
I think it's a great time, now that they've just had that new ceremony with the new chief, to reach
out to them and work together. That's awesome.
Beth Kenny: Wonderful. And I'm glad you guys went to that.
Laurie Kozisek: I had one more item. As of January 1st, you will be the Commission on Disability.
[applause]
Laurie Kozisek: Just wanted to prepare you for that.
7. ANNOUNCEMENTS
Beth Kenny: Agenda item number seven. Does anyone have any announcements they'd like to
make?
Lisa Hall: More of a question. Going back to the calendar. Generally, we have six meetings a year.
Is that correct?
Beth Kenny: We're supposed to have six meetings a year.
Lisa Hall: But because August is closed, we have to put that meeting in some other month. The
usual months that we would have it is, am I right then? It's February, April, June, October,
December.
Beth Kenny: Yes
Lisa Hall: Okay. But then we always have to put a special meeting in for retreat because August is
closed.
Beth Kenny: That's correct. And I know that previously, I've inquired about us moving so that we
were on January, March, that schedule, but apparently there is a conflicts with another commission
that meets in this room at that time. Maybe that's something we can look a little bit more into too. If
we maybe did the third Wednesday instead of the second Wednesday. That's something we can look
into and definitely talk more about at the retreat. Alright any other announcements? Great than
I
would like to move that we adjourn tonight's meeting. Alright. All in favor?
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities,2017-12-13,10,"All: Aye.
8. ADJOURNMENT
Beth Kenny: We're adjourned. Happy holidays everybody.
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