{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 1, "text": "COMMISSION ON DISABILITY ISSUES\nMEETING MINUTES OF\nWednesday, December 14, 2016 6:30 p.m.\n1. ROLL CALL\nElizabeth Kenny: Call to order, the meeting of this Commission on Disability Issues for December\n14th, 2016.\nKerry Parker: Roll call. Chair Kenny?\nElizabeth Kenny: Here.\nKerry Parker: Vice-Chair Brillinger?\nArnold Brillinger: Here.\nKerry Parker: Commissioner Aghapekian? Commissioner Deutsch?\nSusan Deutsch: Here.\nKerry Parker: Commissioner Franco? Commissioner Hall?\nLisa Hall: Here.\nKerry Parker: Commissioner Lewis? Commissioner Linton?\nJennifer Linton: Here.\nKerry Parker: And Commissioner Tsztoo?\nMichaela Tsztoo: Here.\nKerry Parker: We have six present. We have a quorum.\n2. MINUTES\nElizabeth Kenny: So the first item on our agenda is approval of the minutes from October 12th, 2016\nmeeting. Did anyone have any corrections they wanted to make? I looked through it and, again, I'm\nhappy with the service. I think we should keep using it.\nKerry Parker: Excellent. Public Works is very happy to hear that.\nElizabeth Kenny: Alright, so can we vote to approve the minutes from October 12th, 2016?\nArnold Brillinger: I so move.\nSusan Deutsch: I second.\nElizabeth Kenny: Alright. All in favor?", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 2, "text": "All: Aye.\nElizabeth Kenny: All opposed? Great. Six to zero. Now we have oral communication on non-agenda\nitems for public comment.\n3.\nORAL COMMUNICATIONS/NON-AGENDA (PUBLIC COMMENT)\nKerry Parker: We don't have any speaker slips for this. Oh, and I would like everyone to know there\nare speaker slips if you want to speak on any of these items. So we can move on to new business.\n4.\nNEW BUSINESS\nElizabeth Kenny: First up, we're going to have Captain Sharon Oliver discuss the Alameda Fire\nDepartment's Disaster Response Planning. Welcome. Thank you for coming.\nSharon Oliver: My name's Captain Sharon Oliver. I'm with the Alameda Fire Department here in\ntown. I have been with the city for 22-plus years. I am currently assigned as the city's Disaster\nPreparedness Coordinator and Emergency Manager for the city. So what that means is I do planning\nfor the city. I coordinate the planning; I train city staff; I manage the Community Emergency Response\nTeam training, and the broader group that volunteers with us. I work with partner agencies such as\nyourselves, and I do a lot of sundry things throughout our department that pop up; I seem to get\nwhatever rolls downhill.\nSharon Oliver: We're going to talk about preparation planning and resiliency. What we look at in the\ncity as a whole community resiliency. I put up a definition of what resilience means because it actually\nkind of embodies what we're trying to do here. So I'll just read it aloud. \"Resiliency is a noun, the\npower or ability to return to original form position, etcetera, after being bent, compressed, or\nstretched. Elasticity, the ability to recover readily from adversity, or the like. And buoyancy.\"\nSharon Oliver: That's the point when we look at being prepared for disaster or anything that comes\nour way, is that's something unusual, it's not part of our daily activities but we are able to spring back\nup. The city wants to be able to spring back up. We want to just stand right back up and get back to\nour normal business operation as soon as we can. That means you can go shopping, and the streets\nare drivable, and the water flows, and the toilets flush, and everything works. And Public Works\nhandles an awful lot of that. When we say a whole community, having a community that's resilient in\nthe whole community, it means each and every part of our city, not only our infrastructure but our\npeople., so everybody's able to get back to the business of living daily life. We do expect that some\nbuildings may be damaged, but we want to get people back into their homes. We want people to be\nable to stay in town and be okay.\nSharon Oliver: So I'm just going to talk to you a little bit about our planning effort. This coming\nyear in 2017, we're going to be refreshing our Emergency Operation Plan and that's probably going\nto take the better part of a year. The Emergency Operation Plan is what we work from. It's a document\nthat was adopted by the City Council, and when we go through our revision of this plan, there's a lot\nto add. Laws have changed and things have changed. For example, we know we have the risk of\ntsunami inundation now. It's not a very big risk but it's there, so we have to address risks that we've\nidentified.\nSharon Oliver: Over 2016, we put together a Hazard Mitigation Plan which is a required document,\nand we just looked at all our hazards. We looked at our population, we looked at our infrastructure,\nwe looked at diversity, we've looked at many, many things. You might remember having a\npresentation from Erin Smith from Public Works about that mitigation plan, and SO we have that in", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 3, "text": "place. When we look at planning, we look at a few things. We look at our plan in the city which helps\nus operate in a disaster, gives us guidance or what we're going to do and how we going to handle a\ndisaster. We also look for continuity of operation within the city. That's making sure all our staff\ncomes back to work and we're able to continue to conduct business as a city. Then we looked at shelter\nplanning for disasters, and this is really a key component. As you probably know, there's a lot of laws\nand rules around functional needs individuals and it's really important.\nSharon Oliver: We have learned throughout the United States that we need to be inclusive. That\nmeans everybody, no matter what language you speak, what color you are, what kind of need do you\nhave, we need to provide for that. That and our pets, so we also include our pets, it's like our whole\ncommunity. When we look at shelter planning, the functional needs community is a diverse group all\nin itself, because you can't say functional needs as you know and one size will fit all. It does not. First\nof all, we hope that we don't even have to move you from your home, but if we do, we have to have\na place where your needs are met. Access for wheelchairs, cots that you can sleep on, we just talked\nabout braille as I was walking in so that we can sign properly SO that you can get in and get out without\nheartaches. That's part of our planning processes as well.\nSharon Oliver: And then once we get these plans in place, and I mentioned sheltering because\nsheltering is a big deal for us. We have old infrastructure and old buildings, they're not all entirely\naccessible. We work towards accessibility, we have policies in place for accessibility, but older\nbuildings don't always come up to code because they haven't need re-building or remodeling yet. If\nyou do a remodel, you have to bring things up to code. If you build a new building, you have to build\nto code, but we're an old city. When we plan, we have to look at what are all our options for sheltering,\nand what would we need to do even right there in the moment to bring something close enough so\nthat everybody could use the shelter.\nSharon Oliver: And then we work with the public to have the public prepared. We're a small city\nstaff in the big scheme of things. So for example we have 24 firefighters on duty each day, we have\n78,000 residents. You can see the numbers outnumber us by a great deal, so training our citizens,\ntraining you, the public, to have a preparedness plan so that you are as self-sufficient as possible helps\nus all because there are people who will never plan and we're going to have to help them. So the more\npeople we have trained and have a plan, the better off we are.\nSharon Oliver: We also plan for pets. In this community there's probably a lot of service animals,\nand they have a special place in sheltering and others. But it doesn't really matter, we love our pets,\nregardless whether your pet is a service animal or not, that pet's important to us and we plan for that.\nWe affiliate volunteers, I mentioned before the Alameda CERT teams, Community Emergency\nResponse Teams, so we have close to 300 active members and they are engaged every day. We just\nhad a walking search for a child from one of the schools here. She turned up safe and sound, she had\ngone to a friend's house but she wasn't in school. The police rallied our CERT teams and they did a\nwalking search for her. So, that group is very engaged and affiliated with us. Then we also want to\nlook at our business districts and encourage them to have continuity of operation plans. That means\nthat if they get knocked off out of their business, that they are able to re-bound and re-open. We know\nif businesses don't have a continuity of operation plan, they often don't reopen, and that's a direct\nimpact on our citizens' ability to shop and do business.\nSharon Oliver: Okay, so, planning for the functional needs community. So we're encouraging all\ncitizens to prepare. Preparedness might look different to different people. In fact it does, there's really\nno one size fits all regardless. Having a plan, having your community connected and networking,\nhaving a system of welfare checks. I will tell you in the past, at least three times we attempted to\nregister folks who had some sort of special needs so we could, in a disaster, do welfare checks. What\nwe discovered and it may have changed, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, the functional need", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 4, "text": "community wasn't interested in giving out information like that. It was a scary thought to give\ninformation even to the city to do welfare checks because there was a trust issue, I believe. We never\nconquered that hurdle.\nSharon Oliver: But it's very important to be able to network in a way that the community feels safe,\nyour community feels safe and there's somebody to check on folks that need to be checked on. Welfare\nchecks are important, having a plan for moving if you can't stay in your location, and that can mean\na lot of different things. That might actually require paired transit or some other vehicle that's\nspecialized and relocating. Having a plan to be able to stay in your home as best you can, having a\nwelfare check, having some supplies of food, water, medicine, anything you need to keep you going,\nand then having a back-up plan where you might go if you cannot stay in your home.\nSharon Oliver: What can you guys do? Well, you can be partners with the city in our planning effort.\nSo you can attend trainings to learn personal preparedness, that would be great. You can make plans\nahead, whatever that looks like for you. You can assemble a kit that you have in your home or your\ncar. Water's super important. We can go a long time without food, but water's essential, SO having\nsome in your vehicle, at your home, whatever you can keep, even a little is better than none. And then\nhaving your contact phone numbers at hand so that you can network. Networking, we encourage it in\nthe general community and this community in particular. We know that if you have a mobility issue,\nyou could get stuck in a room just because some books fell off the shelf. You're fine, you're not hurt,\nbut you can't get out of that room and if you don't have a phone or something, you could literally be\nstuck in your own house for days and days. Some of these things, taking some preparedness efforts\nto make sure you're safe, and then having a network that says, \"Hey, are you okay?\" Call each other\neach day. Especially after a big event like an earthquake, then, it's simple to pick up books in a book\nshelf. We can get people to do that. But to have you stuck in one room because a few books fell off\nthe shelf and jammed the door would be a horrible thing if nobody knew you were there.\nSharon Oliver: So when I talk about assisting with a planning effort, we are going to be developing\nor refreshing our Emergency Operation Plan, and it would be great to have a task force for this\ncommunity to help us address some of our challenges, for example having older buildings. We\nidentify shelters that are already up to code, but we can't be 100% guaranteed that they withstand in\na large disaster, so we may have to look at others. We have some equipment we're going to need, and\nsome signage. We just identified needing something that can print braille signs. Somebody who could\nactually tell us if they're printed properly, because most of us cannot read it. That partnership from\nyour group would be really amazing. We will ask you to participate and we hope that you do.\nSharon Oliver: Helping us identify who are needy citizens. If we can't actually keep a database,\nwhich has proven to be challenging at least three times over the past, close to 20 years, we've tried\nseveral times. We recently tried, just about three-and-a-half years ago, we tried again, and again it\ndidn't fly. Your suggestions on how we know who we need to check on in a disaster would be very\nhelpful. And then education and outreach into your community. We have a great resource in Eaton\nInformation and Referral Center, it's the 211 system. Are you familiar with 211? Yes? You've heard\nof it? We have a person that's been hired there and they used to work for CARD which was\nCollaborating Agencies Responding to Disasters, and they're no longer there. But this gentleman is\navailable to give presentations. They've done a lot of presentations for various functional needs group,\nand they're phenomenal. Their motto is, \"Fear-free disaster planning.'\nSharon Oliver: It's just very creative, it's fun and they really make it nice. We would love to host a\ngathering with that individual. And I already asked him before I came, I said I'm going to speak with\nthe commission and I hope that they'll set up a time to do that. It's kind of hard to read but all you\nneed to remember is www.ready.gov and that's a FEMA site, and it has information. Tonight I printed\na few copies, and we're going to upload this all for you, I was a little late in getting it and I apologize", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 5, "text": "for that. I printed quite a nice handout from FEMA and it's particularly helpful for your community.\nWe can make more copies and get them from the website. This is specifically for the functional needs\ncommunity, it's a little bit of a list. It's got some other tips and the one thing that was really quite\ninteresting to me as I read through on the second page towards the bottom is the thing on managing\nfinances if you're getting social security checks or anything else to make it really easy SO that you\ndon't lose your income if we have a disaster and you can't get to the bank or do your regular banking.\nIt's got some really informative tips. It does mention a registry program that I mentioned that has not\ntaken flight in Alameda. But we're open. If you have ideas or suggestions, we're open.\nSharon Oliver: I think that what we're really encouraging though is your partnership in planning and\ngetting some training to the community that meets your needs. You're, of course, all welcome to come\nto our CERT training regardless of whether you think that you're ready to go out in your\nneighborhood. I think you would get a lot out of it. And we tailor it to anybody in the class. It's open\nto everyone, so you're welcome to come to that. We have not set up our schedule for 2017 yet, but we\nteach a 21-hour course four times during the year, so there's a lot of opportunity to take it. And it's\nfree, and we love free. And that's paid for through grant funding that we get regularly every year.\nElizabeth Kenny: Sharon, will you state again what CERT stands for?\nSharon Oliver: Community Emergency Response Team. That's a FEMA program, so it's nationwide.\nYou're welcome to come, and I would welcome you into the class. That's pretty much it for me. I'm\nopen for questions, comments, whatever you'd like.\nElizabeth Kenny: I'm going to start with the commission questions, and then we'll go to the public\nquestions. Thank you for being here tonight. I've seen the efforts before of trying to create the registry,\nand we do have to come up with something different. Is there any centralized point, say, where people\nwith disabilities, if an emergency happens, could come and receive assistance? If I have medicine\nthat needs to be refrigerated and I've lost power, or something along those lines, where I could come\nand get services from the city?\nSharon Oliver: We don't have an exact location cause sometimes depending on the incident, the\nplanned place winds up not working for us, and we'll have to move it. But usually with the\nrefrigeration issue, we try to get ice coming in as soon as possible SO that you can keep medicines\ncool. If you have something that requires power, we do have some portable generators in the fire\ndepartment. And if you had to leave your home because we couldn't manage that, you would be a\nhigh priority to move to another facility. We do have a robust amount of assisted living and care\nfacilities within Alameda and the Alameda Health Care System, which is Alameda Hospital and a\nfew others, they're in a whole network, and they have a very robust plan for taking in surge or having\nto move people, not to the hospital, but to someplace where care can be provided. I believe a good\nnumber of those locations have back-up generators, so refrigeration and power and things like that is\nthere.\nSharon Oliver: The biggest thing is letting us know that there's an issue, and that's why we tried to\ndo the registry so that we could have a way to check. In fact we were going to use our CERT volunteers\nwith background checks to partner with people who needed welfare checks. We thought that was a\ngood option, but it just didn't fly. But yes, it's definitely a high priority, anybody who has a need like\nthat.\nElizabeth Kenny: The other question I had was again medication focused. I understand that Alameda\nhas to be prepared to be cut off for a while because we're an island, and I get my medication from\nOakland. Are there programs in place where I would be able to get my medication in Alameda during\nthat time?", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 6, "text": "Sharon Oliver: There's not an actual plan in place for that, not that there couldn't be. But we do\nrecommend that you keep a - I say this, and I understand because I've been in classes where I say it's\nnice to have a little extra medication, and then people say, \"But my insurance won't do that. They\nwon't let me have an extra month.\" But if you can swing it in some fashion, if it won't go bad, it's nice\nto have the next month's supply and rotate it so that if something happens, you're not, \"I have to fill\nit every week.\" Unless you have to fill it every week, and that's just the way it is. But it's nice to have\nextra on hand. And when we talk about preparedness, there's a lot of reasons why just to have extra\non hand makes sense day-to-day. It's very stormy, or you don't feel good and you don't make the trip.\nThere's other reasons to have some supplies on hand that's a little above and beyond just a few days\nso that you can be resilient all the time, not just when we have a big disaster. That's what we\nencourage.\nElizabeth Kenny: I have one more question. Is there going to be mental health services available?\nBecause, I imagine, people will be feeling strained during an emergency.\nSharon Oliver: Yes, there are. We use Eaton Information and Referral. And I will tell you the East\nBay has more services than any other county in the Bay Area. It's really fabulous. They're networked,\nand they're there for us, and we're going to be working with them very closely. In fact, we will feed\nthem information, and they'll feed you information, and we'll go back and forth. We have a very strong\npartnership. But I just want to back up to the medication thing. So when we're talking about planning,\nif that's something important to your group, that's a place where we can plan. We can put agreements\nin place with the local pharmacies to say, \"Hey, in a disaster, we would like you to service our\npopulation. If we have some folks who are really critical, we're going to ask you to service them and\nwe're just going to get it done.\"\nSharon Oliver: So when we talk about planning, the reason everybody has to contribute is because\nI might not think of it in the way you think of it, and that's the importance of the partnership and the\nteam building to have a plan that works for our city that's not just a nice book on the shelf that gets\ndusty, but actually has some meat on the bones that gets looked at every year and say, \"Is it still fresh?\nDoes it still work for us?\" Because when we wrote our plan literally, and I'm just going to stop there,\nwe have the word 'VCR' in the plan, nobody's using a VCR - Well, I shouldn't say no one, most people\nare not using VCRs. [chuckle] Technology moves, this is a living document that needs to be looked\nat and refreshed. So that's why I'm encouraging you to put together a task force that can work with\nthe city in understanding what needs to be in our plan, that actually has meat on the bones that we\ncan have agreements with our businesses over. So I just wanted to go back on that.\nElizabeth Kenny: Yes, I think that's a great idea about the task force or forming a work group\nspecifically for emergency preparedness and to work with the functional limitation planning.\nSharon Oliver: Absolutely.\nElizabeth Kenny: Any other Commissioners have any questions or comments?\nArnold Brillinger: I do. Captain?\nSharon Oliver: Yes.\nArnold Brillinger: I realize that you're talking about city preparedness\nSharon Oliver: I'm talking about the whole community.", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 7, "text": "Arnold Brillinger: It boils down to each individual making sure that they have it for their family or\nfor their neighbors or whatever. I was just going to ask the question, because they change this number\nall the time. In Alameda, how long do you think that it could possibly be that a person could be\nwaiting to see first responders?\nSharon Oliver: We do a thing called 'triage' when we have a big disaster. Day to day when you call\n911, they dispatch somebody right away. If every one of our units is out in Alameda, they send\nsomebody from Oakland or Piedmont or Berkeley. They just keep reaching out, and it takes more\ntime to drive, but they're dispatching somebody immediately from throughout Alameda County, and\nbeyond if they need to. In a regional disaster when every city around us is impacted as well, that's\nwhen we run into trouble. So then we have to go to a situation where we're looking at the calls as they\ncome in, and we're having to sort of make a choice about what's the worst call and where can we go\nnext? It's sort of in the queue. So it could take a while, it really could! That's why we really encourage\ncitizens to have a plan on their own, have a network, be able to help one another so that our resources\ncan go to the most critical situations. The most critically injured, the fires.\nSharon Oliver: If you look at our city, some of our houses are built inches apart, so we don't want a\nfire to burn all the way across town, so for us fire could be very, very important because it could burn\nright across town, which would then take away from some of our abilities to get right to a medical\ncall. If we have a big regional disaster, it's going to be a big challenge for us, but if we plan\nappropriately and we have our network set up, there's other avenues, there's other folks who could\nhelp and get you to the hospital. Not to lie, it could really be a wait, and that's why we want to plan\nahead.\nArnold Brillinger: I was thinking in the regional disaster.\nSharon Oliver: That's the one that's going to hurt us, yes.\nArnold Brillinger: Yes, because there are certain people that are going to get the response right away,\nbut they usually tell you to have enough food and water for how many days, what's the minimum?\nSharon Oliver: We look at a minimum of three days, because we believe we can start getting food\nand water into the city. We should be able to get some bottled water from our stores and things, and\nwater coming in within, we hope, 24 hours, but it takes a while. When everybody is asking, it's a lot.\nIt's not like it's not coming, but it doesn't come really quickly, and we are at the end of the line for the\nwater supply, so if the water breaks up stream, then it's going to not be here. They have a great plan,\nbut if they have a lot of breaks, it's going to just physically take some time to bridge those gaps. Water\nis very, very important to store, and we will be looking at bringing water in just as quickly as we can,\nand food.\nSharon Oliver: When we do that, we set up what are called commodity PODS', points of distribution,\nand they're often a drive-thru so you come with your car, you tell how many people, they put flats of\nwater and ice in your vehicle and whatever food we have, and then you drive on. If you can't get\nthere, or if you can't get a friend or something, those are going to be the kind of things where you're\ngoing to have to reach out as best we can, and that's part of the planning. That's why we tried to set\nup the registry, how does somebody with a functional need say, \"No, I'm not just anybody, I'm really\nin distress here, and please get to us.\" That's one of the things we need to look at in our planning.\nSusan Deutsch: I also have a question, because you talked about somebody getting stuck in a room,\nwhere the buildings are very old, and I'm thinking what the plan would be for somebody in a\nwheelchair who gets stuck in an apartment that might be on the second floor, and the elevator could\nbe out. In a small disaster, the fire department could probably come in and help that person out.", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 8, "text": "Sharon Oliver: Yes.\nSusan Deutsch: In a big disaster the response could take a while. I worked in a school district that\nhad evacuation chairs on the walls of the school so that when there was a disaster, people who worked\nin the school could actually get the students on to evacuation, take them down the stairs, because you\ncouldn't use the elevator. So just thinking along those lines, doing this CERT training, people in the\ncommunity, maybe they could learn how to assist people if they are in a wheelchair and that could be\nof help.\nSharon Oliver: Yes. I would say that anybody can be trained, but some folks are heavy, and it takes\na certain skill to understand how to effectively move somebody without hurting them. And then some\npeople have issues that even takes more skill in moving them from wherever they are into one of\nthose chairs. But that's not a bad idea. In fact, I see those chairs showing up places all over. Evacuation\nchairs hanging in a hallway, a few things like that. But moving people, I would say in our fire\ndepartment, the things that hurts people in our department the most, is moving people. Somebody's\nfallen down in a precarious spot, and there's no room to lift properly. I wouldn't say that the average\nperson couldn't do it, but it takes several people. It does pay to have a little bit of training, or you can\nactually hurt the person you're trying to rescue.\nSusan Deutsch: And hurt yourself!\nSharon Oliver: And hurt yourself. So I would say we don't necessarily want you to leave your\nresidence, if you have what you need, food, water and somebody to pick your books up off the floor.\nBut honestly, you should have your bookcase secured to the wall so it doesn't tip. Those are some of\nthe things you can do ahead to make your environment safer. Then we hope you can stay there. It's\npretty disconcerting to leave your home, and shelters are not fun. They're important, we want them\nfor people, we don't want anyone on the street, but it's not fun to be in an auditorium with a whole\nbunch of other people, sleeping on a cot. Our best case is to try and keep you in your home, if your\nhome is safe enough, and you have food and water and your medicine, then maybe you don't need to\nleave. And you have blankets, so if it's chilly, your bundled. That, and you have somebody to check\non you regularly, and a battery-powered radio so you can get some information, then you're going to\nbe a lot more comfortable, I would guess. I know I would be in my home, even though my home\ndoesn't have power, I would be more comfortable there, you have all your equipment and stuff. That's\nour goal, is to keep you in your familiar environment if we can, if it's safe.\nElizabeth Kenny: I think that's the commission's questions. We do have a question from the public.\nDoyle Saylor?\nDoyle Saylor: Hello. It's more of a comment about one thing I heard. I'm with Renewed Hope, and I\nheard you talking about signage, and so first a comment about signage. Sometimes there's an illusion\nthat if you put some braille up on the wall, that it'll help people who are visually impaired, but how\nis a visually impaired person going to find the braille? Braille often times is just what you hand out\nto people for information, but in my old job, we talked a lot about this sort of thing too, and what we\nlooked at was smart tags.\nDoyle Saylor: And these are just tags that you put around that carry information about the location,\nand it's a rather big disability-related issue. It's been 10 years since I've looked at that very much, but\nwhat I would say about that is, Smith's Kettlewell in the city, which is San Francisco, does research\non visually impaired issues, and they're leading experts in the world about signage for people with\ndisabilities. One of their professionals, Josh Mealy, could be asked to come over to the city and talk\nto various city departments about signage for people with disabilities. I'm just putting out an idea for", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 9, "text": "you guys to think about, that signage really is a big disability issue. It's relatively cheap to do, and it\ncould have a big impact on everybody's lives here. Thank you.\nElizabeth Kenny: Thank you very much. If you could just state your name into the mic when you\ntalk. Thank you.\nJoanAnn Radu-Sinaiko: Hi, my name is JoanAnn Radu-Sinaiko, and I am a member of this\ncommunity of disability people, and you brought up an amazing point that I had not really processed\nthrough. My disability is muscle spasms, and when I get really stressed, or the weather is cold, heat\nand ice are paramount to my quality of life and it never occurred to me that if the energy went out,\nwhere would I go? I would just panic at home. But going to the police department, fire department,\nthe hospital to have that bit of information. I've been plagued with this for 20 years and it's just really\nvital to have that and so I appreciate that you provided that. And the other concern I have, when that\ninformation came out about providing information, being a person with a disability and wanting to\nhave somebody know that I need help. Maybe some objectives on why are people afraid about\nproviding that information. People pay for services that seniors and people that live by themselves\nthat they pop a button and emergency, your calls are checked in.\nJoanAnn Radu-Sinaiko: There's creative energy and there's got to be a way to overcome that\nobstacle, because yes, I was intimidated and even in my complex I've talked to you a few minutes\nago. Ilive at the Willows, 201 units. There was a point where the office asked us to submit information\nabout \"In the time of an emergency, provide us with what you needed.\" And I didn't trust our\nmanagement, so I did not submit my information. And there were some valid issues about why I\ndidn't trust them, but as a society and a community, that bridge has to be made, because I need to\nknow where I go. At that time, my husband worked the graveyard shift, so I was home by myself at\nnight, he was sleeping, if anything ever happened during that time. There were a couple times when\nI had to call the police and it was really scary, because I was like, \"Well, I can't get to the door because\nI'm immobile and so how are we going to make this happen?'\nJoanAnn Radu-Sinaiko: And everybody has issues and there's got to be a way to invite people. It's\na small group and there's got to be a way to just bridge that gap. Somehow to do it through the\nnewspaper. Next Door is really good. Is that a bell telling me I'm done? Okay, but Next Door is really\nhelpful to communicate with my neighbors about challenges that come up. It's really important to\novercome that just because they say no, don't shut it down. Think outside of the box.\nSharon Oliver: So, we literally only had about four people register, and then a year or two passed,\nthen we went, \"Are they still out there?\" And then we couldn't reach them. Then it was like, \"Well,\nthen the list is old.\" If we had hundreds of numbers, it would have been a different thing. We know\nwe have got to update this list but we couldn't even get a hold of the four.\nJoanAnn Radu-Sinaiko: I know, that's true.\nSharon Oliver: Yes, so we were like, \"This doesn't have enough buoyancy to move forward.\"\nJoanAnn Radu-Sinaiko: Well, how about at the Senior Center? It just occurred to me, I'm dealing\nwith some issues that our community, and inside the condo perhaps could reach out to the Senior\nCenter and to get help. There was a point in our community in our society that the Gray Panthers\nwere alive and well. And it's like what happened to that community of people? Does everybody know\nwho the Gray Panthers were?\nBeth Kenny: Are.", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 10, "text": "JoanAnn Radu-Sinaiko: Are. I'm here. I'm in between places. So I'm not going to be a good\nadvocate. I was excited I got an email from Kerry reminding me about this tonight, that's why I'm\neven here because I totally forgot about it. It's great to see everybody and it's really important because\nthere's a lot of people that don't feel that they're disabled and that they need the help because they're,\n\"I can do it. I'm strong enough. I can figure this out.\" But when panic comes in, your brain just goes\nto water. It just melts and you don't know that until it happens, and then you don't know what to do.\nI've been there SO I understand that. I tried to anticipate but I never did ask a question further, \"Where\ndo I go?\" So, thank you.\nElizabeth Kenny: Thank you. Do we have any more comments or questions? Commissioner\nBrillinger?\nArnold Brillinger: Yes, the Paratransit put together a booklet. Beth, if you could hold yours up. It\nhas in it all kinds of things that you need to compile, so that when the big thing happens, the big\ndisaster happens, you know first of all some of your information. You don't have to go hunting all\nover the place for it. It shows you what you need to put together so that you've got some supplies for\nyourself and maybe even that you would use this kind of a thing with your neighbors. I was\nwondering, does the fire department or does Alameda have anything like this?\nSharon Oliver: There's a lot of people making lists, I brought some tips from FEMA. We have\nanother list that we hand out at fairs, it's a real short list. But I can tell you, one size does not fit all\nwith lists. You need water, you need food, and after that what else do you need to make your life\nresilient? I'm a coffee drinker, I have a little extra coffee on hand, toilet paper's nice, and there are\nsome things like that. I don't know your living situation, so if you say one gallon of water per person\nper day just for drinking, you might want another gallon for washing. If you have a family of five and\nyou start doing the math, that's a lot of water, but some water's better than no water. So it's like where\ndo you stand now? How does it work for you? What's your living situation? What else do you need?\nMedications, refrigeration? If you really want to be a preparedness nut like some of our folks are,\nthey love it, maybe you can install or have on hand a generator if you have a need to keep a small\nrefrigerator going. It has a cost, but if it's that important to you and your well-being, maybe that's\nsomething you save for or decide to do. There's a lot of ways to handle it.\nElizabeth Kenny: Thank you very much.\nSharon Oliver: You're welcome.\nElizabeth Kenny: Sorry. We have one more public comment. Can you say your name into the\nmicrophone first? Thank you.\nAustin Tam: My name is Austin Tam and I do lots of social justice work in Alameda especially when\nit comes to disabilities and affordable housing. I came in late, but I was the one doing most of all\nbecause I had a conversation with my friend Doyle this morning and I was just thinking about people\nwho are hearing impaired, especially in a disaster or something like that, right? For instance, when\nyou have to call somebody, is there a simple way for those who are hearing impaired?\nElizabeth Kenny: Yes I think I understand what you're saying, like the TTY programs, are those\ngoing to be still available in an emergency?\nSharon Oliver: The phone lines could be down, so there are some challenges. Let's get a task force\ntogether to talk about so many different issues. Signage, braille, how does somebody who can't see\nget to the braille sign? It's a requirement for us to put braille signs next to bathrooms and things like\nthat, but if you can't even find the bathroom, then how can you read the braille signs? These are the", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 11, "text": "things, like you said, you have to overcome. So getting input from the group and the diversity in your\ngroup alone, not to mention the diversity all throughout Alameda. We speak 41 different languages\nin Alameda, so there's a lot of diversity here to work with, and that's the point about pulling in the\ncommunity to say, what does it look like for Alameda? What does it look like for your group? What\nkind of disabilities are we facing? How can we plan and prepare so that we are able to serve the\ncommunity and work together in answering some of your questions?\nSharon Oliver: We are a small city so we don't have enough staff to meet everyone's needs, it's\nimperative to engage the community to help us come up with solutions and be part of the solution in\nthe planning effort and figuring out what will really work. And then once we make that plan, we have\nto test it. We really need to set up a shelter and have you folks come and say, \"Well that was great,\"\nor \"That didn't work at all.\" And then we'll go, \"Okay, we thought it was going to work and it didn't.\"\nSo that's the circle and the way you have to go to make it work. I know you have more and a long\npresentation coming, so if there's no more questions, I will let you get on with business.\nElizabeth Kenny: Yes, I would just like to make the motion that we create a work group that will be\npart of the task force on functional limitations for emergency preparedness and I would like to\nvolunteer for that group.\nSharon Oliver: Yes, thank you. I volunteered the whole audience, I don't know if you noticed.\n[laughter] You don't want the group to be too big, but you definitely want to have people on it who\nare interested most importantly, and that understand the diverse group that we have.\nKerry Parker: And I hear you have fun meetings.\nSharon Oliver: We have fun meetings. I know it's Disaster, but we're a fun group. [laughter] It doesn't\nhave to be all doom and gloom to have a great plan. I encourage it. Will you work with Kerry to get\na group and once you feel you have a group ready to go, we'll plan a kick-off meeting in 2017?\nProbably more like February than January.\nKerry Parker: We can make sure this gets out to the group if there's a task force that's building, we\ncan send it out to the listeners so that everybody knows.\nSharon Oliver: Yes if they want to be a part of it.\nSharon Oliver: How long can you keep water? I don't have the definitive answer, but if you talk to\nEast Bay MUD, they say they never wanted to stop moving. I keep water in a large 55 gallon drum\nthat I dump and refill every 6 months. And I keep some bleach on hand SO if I have to purify it further\nand I have some little purifying straws. I have a variety of ways, but our water is awesome so I water\nmy plants and refill. I don't buy flats of water because of my ecological bent.\nSharon Oliver: You just want to rotate everything. You want to have it in your normal daily business\nto rotate, so if you buy water. Whatever you do, use it. Eat it, drink it, rotate it, buy some new, put a\ndate on it because I can tell you, \"do this,\" and you think, \"I got it,\" and then you look and you go,\n\"Oh, 10 years has passed.\" And I'm not even kidding, and there's cobwebs and it's horrible. We did it\nin the police station. We had some bottled water and we went to look and they were all deformed and\nweird, and it was in a cool dark place and it was deformed from age. You just have to put it in your\ndaily practice of checking. You put soup cans in, you eat it, you get some new, you rotate it or you\ndonate it to the food bank, and you rotate more in. You're making a paradigm shift in the way you\nhandle life.\nElizabeth Kenny: Thank you very much.", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 12, "text": "Sharon Oliver: Thank you for having me and starting the conversation. It's actually perfect timing.\n5.\nOLD BUSINESS\nElizabeth Kenny: So next up on the agenda is old business and we're going to have Gail Payne talk\nto us about the citywide Transportation Demand Management Plan. Welcome, Gail.\nGail Payne: Good evening, Chair Kenny and Commissioners. My name is Gail Payne. I'm the city's\ntransportation coordinator and I'm here because the city is experiencing unprecedented congestion\nbecause with the regional growth that's been going on. We have a great economy, and so we see this\nis a real urgent need to resolve. And I thought this was really urgent, but then Sharon's presentation\non disasters makes me feel like, \"Oh, that's probably even more urgent,\" and makes me want to go\nhome and get my water situation organized a little better.\nGail Payne: I'll just go over the background of why we're doing this, existing conditions, and then\nwe can get into some draft strategies and projects that I'd like to show you for the first time. Last time\nwe were here, or I was here in earlier 2016 to go over the existing conditions. So, I'll just give you a\nlittle reminder and some reminder ideas on it. And then, now, it's the draft strategies, and we're about\nhalfway through this 18-month process. We hired a consultant earlier this year and now they've come\nup with some draft strategies and projects, and so we'd like to get your input on those today. And then\nwe'll come back in later about spring of next year to go over the draft plan with you. And then we're\nhoping City Council will adopt it in summer of next year.\nGail Payne: So just stepping back, why are we doing this? Like I said, we're having unprecedented\ngrowth. And I've been living in the Bay Area now for many years, we used to be at five million\npeople, now we're at seven million. We have a great economy and it's tough to get around. And this\nphoto here is of my stepmom, and the reason why I have it here is, is it's not only about the transit\noperations or the infrastructure and how we can improve it as a city, but it's also changing our mindset\nand our thinking, just like Sharon was saying is how we live our lives a little bit, and really looking\nat trying to make the existing transportation system more efficient, and the least efficient way of\ntraveling is driving alone. And so, how can we provide better options for people to make it more\nattractive to use these more efficient options like buses and ferries and walking and bicycling? And\nso we're looking at all modes and we're looking at it from near term to the long term.\nGail Payne: We have two main goals, one is to reduce those least efficient ways of traveling, that's\ndriving alone. Especially we're having problems at the estuary crossings, getting on and off the island,\nbecause we're a bedroom community so getting off the island in the morning, returning in the\nafternoon, evening, and then also getting around Alameda as well. Objectives that are important to us\nlike equity and safety and greenhouse gas reductions, and we put together a draft project list which is\nExhibit 1 in your packet.\nGail Payne: So just real quick before we get into those draft strategies, some reminders about existing\nconditions. This one chart shows that the Bay Area congestion is at all time high since 1998, and that\nbecause of that, there's so much congestion people are actually getting out of their cars for their\ncommutes. And so this other chart shows reduction in auto commuters in the Bay Area. Another chart\nhere shows increasing transit use. Keep in mind that in the City of Alameda, we also are expected to\ngrow. We really actually are finally back to the population and housing units that we were after the\nbase closure. We're starting to have the growth. We have had a substantial growth in jobs, but a lot of\nthe congestion we're seeing is actually due to the regional issues and backing up because of the\nfreeways.", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 13, "text": "Gail Payne: And this chart shows that some of the low-hanging fruit is actually, a lot of drive alone\ntrips happen for commuters going to Oakland in the inner East Bay. And that's a pie chart showing\nthat 78% of people drive alone to work from Alameda to the inner East Bay. But then, the opposite is\ntrue for San Francisco, 78% commute via transit to San Francisco. What's really working is transit to\nSan Francisco and how can we get more people taking transit to inner East Bay? The strategies when\nwe look at these geographic issues, we have four strategies here. How can we improve access to and\nfrom Oakland? We see that as a low-hanging fruit because a lot of people are driving alone right now.\nAnd how can we improve also access to and from San Francisco? And some people say, \"Why are\nyou even focusing on that? It's obviously working.\" Well, people are actually attracted here because\nof our proximity to San Francisco and it's causing the Transbay buses to be super packed, tight.\nBART's hard to access. Super packed tight, crowded BART trains, and then ferries are hard to access\nnow. They sometimes have to turn away people, can't take everyone. So, we have to keep up with this\ndemand.\nGail Payne: And the third strategy is access within Alameda. Some people, they don't have cars, they\ncan't drive, and so how can we make that better for them? We hear a lot from youth and wanting it to\nbe better for youth as well. Fourth strategy is just really internal, how can we as staff do a better job\nof managing and monitoring our efforts? First, I'll go over the four strategies real quick. This is the\none to and from Oakland that we see as a low-hanging fruit because so much of the trips are happening\nare drive alone. And then second strategy, access to and from San Francisco. How can we keep up\nwith the demand? Multimodal access within Alameda is the third strategy. And the fourth one is\neffectively managing and monitoring the transportation efforts.\nGail Payne: I just want to go over some of the in-progress projects and actions with you here. There's\na lot here, but some of the ones that I think you'd be more interested in, and then I'll go over some of\nthe near-term projects, mid-term and long-term, pick out a few. One of the ones that's happening in\nMarch is Line 31 in the West End is going to be changed SO that it actually goes directly to Target.\nRight now it doesn't quite get as close as it could, so they're rerouting that, so that'll be much better\nfor the West End and everyone can get to Target a little bit easier.\nGail Payne: The city based Paratransit program, because of measure BB, we have the ability for the\nshuttle to run every 30 minutes. Right now, it only runs the one-hour loops, so that's in the works. We\nalso have the ability to hire a part-time Paratransit coordinator. She will be working at Mastick Senior\nCenter and her name is Victoria Williams. She is a retired staff person, Paratransit coordinator from\nthe City of Hayward. We're really fortunate that she accepted the position, and she's a real specialist\nin Paratransit. When I come to you, I come to you every year on Paratransit so when we come in\nFebruary, hopefully that will work out and hopefully she can come and introduce herself to you.\nGail Payne: A couple other projects on December 18th, we're restoring Line 19 mainly along Buena\nVista Avenue. So that's exciting to get this restored bus line in town. And then out of the bike\npedestrian improvements, we have the construction of the Cross Alameda Trail in the West End along\nAppezzato and in Jean Sweeney Open Space Park. And that's about two miles, so that'll be a\nsignificant way that people can walk for recreation or commute by bike or whatever along that two-\nmile stretch. This map is in your packet.\nGail Payne: Now I just want to go through real quick some near-term, mid-term and long-term\nprojects that may interest you. For AC Transit policy changes - right now, it costs money to transfer,\nand so we've requested AC Transit to change that and to have free transfers like they used to. And\nthis is an equity issue and within Alameda, we do require transfers to get from one side of the island\nto another. It indirectly, or it directly impacts people who have the worst transit, bus service, so it's a\nlittle counter-intuitive why they would do that. That's what we're advocating there. Bus stop\nimprovements, why this is important is there aren't benches at all of our bus stops and there are", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 14, "text": "sometimes places where we could put benches, so that's one thing we're looking at. Actually, an intern\nis looking at that right now. Transportation awareness campaigns, what we've heard is, is a lot of\noptions, yet people just don't understand what's all out there. Just getting the word out better and in\nvarious languages in different ways and getting the word out about how you could change your travel\npatterns.\nGail Payne: There's this concept of vision zero and we plan on rolling that out and what that means\nis, it's a way of thinking and prioritizing projects that it really focuses on safety. Looking at where\nthere's some severe injuries and fatal collisions is really looking at how we could improve that\nintersection or that corridor so that those types of collisions don't happen anymore in our community.\nWe are lucky that we only have 25 miles per hour speed limit on most of our streets, and so we are a\ncommunity with fewer severe injuries and fatalities, yet we want to even reduce it to zero as this\npolicy states.\nGail Payne: And then for the mid-term projects. The ones that I thought would be most interesting\nare these: one idea is this bus queue jump lanes, and that's from a complaint that the bus is so slow.\nHow can we get the bus to be faster than people driving alone? Just have it jump the queue in various\nplaces when it can. We found a few places in town where it could do that. So focusing on making\nbuses faster. In general, we also heard that it would be great to have transit more frequent. That's true\nfor ferry service. That's true for Transbay buses, local buses, so that's a big push there.\nGail Payne: We also have heard a big interest in using our water more efficiently. The estuary, we're\nan island right off Oakland, so how could we maybe have a water shuttle system, better use of that\nwith the new developments along northern waterfront? I also think it's interesting too is we have this\nautonomous driverless vehicle policy and implementation and how we can work towards having those\ndriverless vehicles here in town, and what we need to do to change our infrastructure to make that\nhappen like traffic signals that communicate to the driverless vehicles. We really need to, as a\ncommunity, think ahead and when we upgrade our signals and signage, etcetera, so the driverless\nvehicles can understand our streets easier.\nGail Payne: And people are saying, \"This could even happen, driverless vehicles could be out and\nabout within five years.\" I think that sounds a little ambitious personally, but we need to really prepare\ncause for a local jurisdiction, five years is like yesterday. [chuckle] That makes me really nervous,\nand that's something that's definitely on our mind. But if you think about it in terms of disabilities,\nthat that is a real game changer. And so that could be a real exciting change once we gradually get to\nthat. It's just that, hopefully, it can all be done safely.\nGail Payne: And for the long-term projects, we realize this is very long-term thinking, yet BART is\nlooking at coming to Alameda, and it's part of this third larger, much larger third crossing project that\nwould go third crossing to San Francisco. It's part of a new route basically as another second Transbay\nTube that in case of a seismic event, as the Transbay Tube is over 40 years old, we have some type of\nredundancy in the Transbay routes. That's just something that we're tracking and I was actually at a\nmeeting about it last night. It is something that takes some staff time even though it's not expected to\ncome, for say, 30 years or SO. But it is something we need to monitor as a community and what types\nof impacts that could have on our community.\nGail Payne: And then the last one, is we heard a lot of the frustrations of using the tubes and the\ncongestion in the West End because on the East End we have several ways getting in and out, whereas\non the West End we just have the tubes. So when the tubes go down for whatever reason, collision or\nwhat have you, it really does cause havoc and it's tough for bicycles, it's tough for people walking,\nand how can we make that better? So that's something we really delving into. Again, if there's a\nseismic event, we're very sensitive about that. We don't know if it would function after a major seismic", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 15, "text": "event. And so do we look at replacing it before a seismic event, make it a stronger structure? That's\nthe idea here, is that tube's redesign and if we redesigned it, it would have a dedicated bus lane, we'd\nconsider that, a dedicated bike way, a dedicated walkway that's all best practices.\nGail Payne: Unfortunately, the bike pedestrian bridge, there are constraints because of the US Coast\nGuard, they have requirements. They don't even want to see a drawbridge. And if it were by\ndrawbridge, it would cost about $1.5 million to operate, because it needs to be staffed. So that's a little\nbit of cost prohibitive, in my eyes, being that here we have the tubes that might need to be redesigned\nand replaced, because they're not seismically fit. So we just need to prioritize as a community, and\nthat's where we're at. I think that's it. We have discussions. What we're looking for is, what do you\nthink about the projects? I know I went over them real quick and not all of them. What do you think\nabout the projects? Are there other ones that you'd like to see? Are there some that you'd like us to\nprioritize? That's what we'd love to hear from you tonight about. We'll be going to the City Council\nto seek their comments as well on January 17th. Thank you.\nElizabeth Kenny: Thank you very much. I have a few questions or comments. Under the near-term\nprojects, one of them is transit signal priority and adaptive traffic sign control. Can you talk a little\nbit about that? Is that adaptive signs or it just the traffic sign itself?\nGail Payne: It's just the traffic signal. What that is, is extending the green time for when a bus is\napproaching an intersection, and say it's yellow, they can press a button and get to the intersection.\nOr it's green, so it just allows them to reduce their delays a little bit and prioritize their operation. And\nthen the adaptive traffic signals do a better job of understanding real time dynamics of what's going\non in a street. I think we've all been frustrated waiting at an intersection and the traffic signal is not\npicking up quickly enough that we're there and nobody else is there but we're still waiting. So there's\nmore efficient ways that we could use technology to make the whole system more efficient.\nElizabeth Kenny: Yes. That item above it, bus stop improvements. Is that something I've seen in San\nFrancisco where you can press a button and it'll tell you when the next bus is coming? I know we're\nnot working on operating on a San Francisco level, but something along those lines would be greatly\nappreciated.\nGail Payne: Yes, and I know that AC Transit is doing a lot of work on trying to get their real time\nmechanisms in place with the next bus so you can track the buses. I'd actually just discovered the\nNext Bus app on my phone and I put it on my phone actually just yesterday. That really is the worst\npart of a bus ride, is the wait. If you know when the bus is coming, then you don't have to run, you\ndon't have to wait as long, you can manage your life a little better. Yes, that's great to have.\nElizabeth Kenny: My other comment is that the Commission would definitely love to be a part of\nany driverless vehicle policy. Like you said, it can be a game changer for the disabled community and\njust so you know, there are some driverless cars. Uber is happening in San Francisco right now. They\nstarted today.\nGail Payne: Oh, today. Okay.\nElizabeth Kenny: Yes.\nGail Payne: Wow.\nElizabeth Kenny: Yes. [chuckle] Also it's coming quicker than we realized.\nGail Payne: Yes.", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 16, "text": "Elizabeth Kenny: Alright. Do any other Commissioners have questions or comments?\nMichaela Tsztoo: I do.\nElizabeth Kenny: Commissioner Tsztoo. Go ahead, Michaela.\nMichaela Tsztoo: Okay, I'm totally blind, and I hate to compare, but I kind of have to. I notice when\nI'm in San Francisco, their talking signal lights are much louder in the volume than ours in Alameda.\nI don't know if it's because of budget cuts or money, but I can hear a lot better. Like when they say,\n\"Cross\", you know, \"Fourth street,\" and it's much louder and sounds easier to hear and understand,\nwhereas ours because of the traffic flow, I had to lean over to hear the button or push it again and\npound it because I'm so frustrated, because I'm trying to listen to see when it's safe for me to cross\nwith my guide dog or with my cane. And I kind of wish that Alameda can use San Francisco as an\nexample and use some of the things that they have. They're very technology savvy it seems like.\nGail Payne: What would be most helpful is if you could tell us the exact intersections where you're\nhaving problems. It doesn't have to be now, but if you could give me that email or call me or\nsomething, because our challenge as a community is we are such a heavy on residential units that\nmost intersections are near a resident. I haven't heard the complaint you've said before, but the more\nfrequent complaints we have is they're too loud, because the ambient noise, because it carries to the\nadjacent homes, which is understandable. What we try to do is to have balance the needs of everyone.\nWhat would be most helpful is to know the ones where you're having problems. We can do it on a\ncase-by case-basis and work with the adjacent community members.\nMichaela Tsztoo: Robert Davey Jr. Drive, that one in Park Street. And there's probably a lot of other\nones, but I don't go out a lot across the different streets. I just notice by just hearing.\nGail Payne: Robert Davey Jr. Drive and what's the\nMichaela Tsztoo: That's the Bay Farm Island.\nGail Payne: But what's the intersection?\nMichaela Tsztoo: Island Drive.\nGail Payne: Okay.\nMichaela Tsztoo: Or Packet Landing.\nGail Payne: So those two?\nMichaela Tsztoo: Yes. There's probably other ones around the city, just because our city's so noisy,\nthere's trucks, there's cars, there's ambulances, and there's things that drown out sound of the talking\nsignal light.\nGail Payne: Although we shouldn't be noisier than San Francisco. [laughter] So that shouldn't be an\nexcuse.\nMichaela Tsztoo: But I don't know, the volume under traffic signals all over are louder than ours. I\njust notice that.", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 17, "text": "Gail Payne: Okay, that's great to know. Thank you.\nMichaela Tsztoo: And all of you guys should put them in all over the city, not just some spots.\nGail Payne: Great. That's our plan. It's in our pedestrian plan.\nMichaela Tsztoo: Because if I don't have assistance then I depend on that heavily.\nGail Payne: It's in our pedestrian plan just so you know, for all the signals to have accessible\npedestrian signals. It would be helpful to know where you're most needing them because what we\nhave trouble with sometimes is where to prioritize them with our limited time and money. We recently\nput some in near bus stops. I don't know if you saw that. There's nine around, more than there used\nto be, like Grand and Otis because it's next to a bus stop. I think Central and Oak has one now because\nof that, near buses. So let us know what's not working and it's easier for us to prioritize.\nElizabeth Kenny: Thank you. I did have one other question. What is the plan for addressing the\ndevelopment that's going to be going on out at the Point, and how that will impact the transit plan?\nYou've mentioned about the ferry terminals and stuff. I believe I heard something about the new\ndevelopments coming with transportation passes.\nGail Payne: The one that you're describing, Alameda Point. There's different developments, so each\nnew development that's been approved has transportation requirements. They are required to pay the\nresidents who move in an annual fee, that's a transportation mitigation fee and that pays for more\ntransportation services. Like they all will obtain these easy passes, these bus passes that allows them\nto get on easily and use buses or transit. In Alameda Point it's actually not only buses, but ferries. So\neveryone who moves in will automatically get them. It's free, so they might as well use it, gives them\nincentive not to drive. That's just an example, but there's of requirements, transportation requirements\non these new developments. That's just one of them. And so we are working in collaboration with the\nnew developments to implement those requirements.\nElizabeth Kenny: Go ahead, Commissioner Brillinger.\nArnold Brillinger: You said there was a ferry transit consultant coming onboard?\nGail Payne: She's actually going to be a staff person, a part-time staff person. Yes, and she's a\nspecialist in Paratransit.\nArnold Brillinger: All right. And she's located at Mastick?\nGail Payne: She will be there, three days a week.\nArnold Brillinger: But she isn't yet?\nGail Payne: She'll start on January 17th.\nArnold Brillinger: Okay, because there are a lot of things about our shuttle, not to get it mixed up\nwith East Bay Paratransit. But with our shuttle, that needs to be looked at and because it's got some\nreal possibilities, I think maybe sometimes it's not operating during the correct time of day. Sometimes\nit's not going to the right places. I heard you say that you're going to increase the frequency, but if it's\nstill going to the same old places and not going to places like BART or the ferry, then we lose a lot of\nthings that are good reasons for it to be there because it spends a lot of its time zooming around with\njust a couple of people on it. When they do the math, does it provide enough service for the demand?", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 18, "text": "Where do we get our BB and measure B monies from?\nGail Payne: The Alameda County Transportation Commission.\nArnold Brillinger: Through those guys because I've been to some of their meetings and they say,\n\"Well, yes. Alameda's going to meet the quota,\" and all that kind of stuff. But we could really, if we\nhad it going at the right times, the right places, really make it efficient. I've been on some of the other\nones. I've been on the Emery Go-Round. I've been on the Lynx in St. Andrew. I've got a lot of time to\ngo and investigate all these things. Some of these give me some ideas of things that we can do here.\nGail Payne: Okay. So you've already given great ideas, which is why we actually switched our routes\nbecause of your ideas. So once she gets on board, I think you two should discuss and she'll have more\ntime to really delve into it than here.\nArnold Brillinger: Sure.\nGail Payne: She'll be working three days a week there. Yes.\nElizabeth Kenny: Great. Thank you very much, Gail.\nGail Payne: Thank you.\nElizabeth Kenny: Great information to get. I don't believe we have any public comment. Oh, we do.\nAlright, we do have one public comment. Doyle Saylor, please.\nDoyle Saylor: Hi, I hope everybody can hear me. It's Doyle Saylor with Renewed Hope, which is a\nnon-profit organized around affordable housing. So three things. One is the Commissioner was\nmentioning the audible signals. That's signage. Signage covers a lot of things and it can be a very\nimportant issue in terms of accessibility for people with disabilities. Uber has been barred in some\ncities because their robot cars go through red lights. But the big issue for people with disabilities is\nParatransit. You use Paratransit. It's very slow, it's unreliable. Many people are made to wait hours to\nget their Paratransit. If the city is serious about doing multi-model transportation, it should really\naddress the poor quality of Paratransit which is what people with disabilities use. I just think the\nCommissioner is really right to bring that up. There's a lot of work to be done with that, but this is the\nplace to advocate for it. Thank you.\nElizabeth Kenny: Thank you.\nArnold Brillinger: I have one more question.\nGail Payne: Sure, I could also respond to that comment in that we are looking at how to improve the\ncity's Paratransit program, which is also for seniors. It's not only Paratransit, but the monies we get\nthrough Measured B & BB and one of these shifts is happening is this, the Uber or Lyft, and now they\nhave the car pool equivalent of the Uber and Lyfts. It's Lyft-line and Uber Pool. It does provide in the\nfuture a potential opportunity for the city to expand its taxi program, and so it would allow for the\nwaits that are happening. Instead of the waits, it would just provide more on-demand services. That\ndoes open up a little bit for us. We're not in a position though to use Uber or Lyft because they're so\nmuch in flux and that we know it might happen in the future.\nGail Payne: But right now, that's one reason why you don't see it up here is that we're waiting for the\nAlameda CTC to give us the green light to be able to use those services. But it would be a little bit\nagain of a game changer because it would make it, I think, easier for people to, instead of having to", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 19, "text": "book a trip a day ahead of time, that they more easily would be able to call and get a ride in 10 minutes\nor something. I think that's maybe where we're headed but we're just not there yet. One of the reasons\nwhy we're not there yet is they're working on, especially Lyft, on how to have wheelchair accessible\nvehicles and they do have some partnerships that they're experimenting with, yet it's not totally\nresolved at this point. We're just waiting and listening and monitoring.\nDoyle Saylor: I had a question about the AC Transit buses and their accessibility. I haven't gone out\non a bus in a long time, but I know in the past, a lot of people have complained that the AC Transit\nbuses that have the lifts on the buses break down and then the bus cannot take wheelchairs. So I'm\njust wondering if that is still the case and is this something that we need to work with AC Transit on?\nGail Payne: I really don't know about that, but I have not heard that complaint a lot.\nDoyle Saylor: Oh, okay.\nGail Payne: But that might not be because\nElizabeth Kenny: Okay. I'm sorry, can we just Let one person talk at a time and Ms. Payne has the\nfloor right now.\nGail Payne: Thank you. It might be because those complaints go directly to AC Transit, and so that's\nwhy it's really great for me to come here, because then I can better understand from a community\nmember perspective. I can just ask them about the wheelchair lifts and complaints received and see\nif we need to resolve something. I know they're actively working on purchasing some newer buses,\nand so hopefully that will resolve as they do a better job of replacing their buses.\nArnold Brillinger: Could I talk about AC Transit for just a moment? I just recently, in the last four\nto six months, started using AC Transit here from Alameda to the other side of Richmond to\ndowntown Fremont and all kinds of places. First of all, they have got ramps now that flap out, and\nthen you drive your wheelchair up. Second, I want to give kudos to AC Transit because of what I call\n\"AC Transit culture\". You could be in Oakland or somewhere around the street and there's people\nyelling profanities and wanting to fight and all that kind of stuff. You get on the bus, it's a totally\ndifferent atmosphere. It's, \"Thank you, driver.\" it's, \"You're welcome.\" I've got a big wheelchair and\nfor a long time I didn't even go because I had some problems with it originally. But now the buses,\nthe drivers and everybody, they say, \"We hope to see you again.\" What kind of thing is that? To say,\n\"Hey, come back again.\" Part of it is that I'm a better driver now, but it's also the culture on the bus\nthat is better. Go ahead and use it again, is what I'm saying.\nGail Payne: That's good to hear. I just want to follow up on AC Transit, because I do feel like the\ndrivers are the unsung heroes of humanity. Bus drivers in general have got a tough job.\nArnold Brillinger: Yes. They do a very good job, and the atmosphere on there is very good, it makes\nyou want to come back and use it again.\nGail Payne: That's great.\nElizabeth Kenny: Thank you. We have one more public comment, Carol Gottstein.\nCarol Gottstein: Hi. I just wanted to speak up after I heard this gentleman from Renewed Hope\ntalking about Paratransit. I stopped using Paratransit around 2006, because it was so bad. The waits\nare hours long, you never get picked up from your doctor's appointment. If you have to go San\nFrancisco or Stanford, just forget it. To hear that it still sounds like it's about as bad as it was when I", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 20, "text": "went back to driving my car, it means that this has been going on for 10 years. If our transportation\ncoordinators were spending half as much time as they are on bike lanes and streamlining those kinds\nof modes of transportation to just getting Paratransit to working the way it supposed to work, that\nwould be great, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of outreach. Measure BB is my property taxes,\nI\nbelieve, I'm paying for this, it's not coming out of the sky. I would really like somebody to work on\nthe Paratransit better.\nElizabeth Kenny: Thank you.\nGail Payne: And just to respond to that, you're speaking of the East Bay Paratransit, so that's a\nseparate entity than the city, and that's why I'm not spending my time on it.\nBeth Kenny: I'd like to thank you again, Gail, for another informative presentation and I think that\nconcludes our old business. Up next, we have Staff Communication.\n6.\nSTAFF COMMUNICATIONS\nKerry Parker: So, yesterday I updated the website for the Commission on Disability Issues meeting\nfor 2017, given the formula that we have of on the even months, we meet on the second Wednesdays\nat 6:30 PM, except August because Counsel Chambers is dark in August. So, the meetings for this\nnext year is slated for these dates: February 8th, April 12th, June 14th, October 11th and December\n13th. I just posted all of those today. What is not yet scheduled is our extra meeting, our retreat, and\nthat's something that we're probably going to look at, at our next meeting, because we'll put it on the\nagenda. It's not on the agenda for today, so we can't really make any decisions about it.\nKerry Parker: Also for that February meeting, we already have a couple of items on the agenda.\nGail mentioned one of them, the Paratransit program will be giving their annual update, and I expect\nwe'll meet the new staff person at that meeting, very exciting. At the February meeting, we're going\nto vote for the Chair and the Vice Chair, because we do that annually. Be thinking about that. If the\nincumbents want to go again, if there's anybody else who would like the role of assisting and running\nthe meetings and deciding on agendas, it's an interesting job to contemplate. Be thinking about that\nfor the February meeting. And then possibly for February, we might be talking about the universal\ndesign ordinance. I don't know what the status of that is. I know the sub-committee has gone through\nsome various iterations of that, so that could very possibly be something we're discussing in February.\n7.\nANNOUNCEMENTS\nElizabeth Kenny: Great. Thank you, Kerry. To follow up on the universal design ordinance, yes, we\nare going to try and have a meeting in February. However, the timetable for this has changed quite\noften, but at some point in the very near future, we will have a universal design ordinance that the\nCommunity Development Department has asked if the Commission on Disability Issues would\nrecommend it. That will be coming up at one of our future meetings. If it's not at our February\nmeeting, we may have a joint meeting with the planning board where it would be the first item, and\nwhere we could either recommend it or not recommend the universal design ordinance at that time.\nSo keep that in mind, and I'm very excited about how it's going. The other announcement, I think Lisa\nHall. Commissioner Hall?\nLisa Hall: On October 22nd, I had the pleasure of attending the Making of the Invisible Visible\nSummit 2016, held at Will C. Wood School. This event was sponsored by the AANHP, the Asian-\nAmerican Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Disability Awareness Project. The program started with\na\nwarm welcome from Reverend Michael Yoshii of the Buena Vista UMC Church, whose church also\nhave a disability ministry. It was very informative. A strong disability advocate also spoke, Mr. Austin", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 21, "text": "Tam, on making the invisible visible. There was also a wonderful performance by the Dream\nAchievers. They're a trio of autistic young adult performers who engaged the audience to sing and\ndance. They were unbelievably wonderful.\nLisa Hall: The panel discussion and workshop groups were informative and touching. The multitude\nof disabilities and challenges faced by many were vast, whether they were physical or mental. This\nwas a learning experience and brought awareness of all the different programs out there, and different\nideas that we all pool together. This was put together by a lot of hardworking group of volunteers,\nand it was attended by approximately 80 to 100 people, and it was wonderful. I was very graciously\nhappy to be there and represent our city.\nElizabeth Kenny: Thank you Commissioner Hall. Are there other announcements that you would\nlike to make?\nArnold Brillinger: Someone, when I asked if CIL was putting an office over in Alameda, somebody\nsaid yes. Could you tell us where?\nElizabeth Kenny: I welcome you to contact the Center For Independent Living to get more\ninformation if you'd like. I believe they did come here about a year and a half ago and give us a brief\npresentation, so they're familiar with the Commission on Disability Issues. The final announcement\nthat I have is for any Commissioners or members of the public who would like to join me on the task\nforce for emergency preparedness for people with functional limitations, please contact Kerry before\nthe end of the year.\nKerry Parker: That'd be great. If we could just get a list together. Go ahead and email me, if I sent\nyou an email about this meeting, it means you know how to contact me. Otherwise, it's fairly easy to\nfind me on the website, I also have my business card here.\nElizabeth Kenny: Great. Thank you.\nKerry Parker: You're welcome.\nElizabeth Kenny: No other announcements. I move that we adjourn for the night.\nLisa Hall: I second.\nArnold Brillinger: I'll say \"aye\", but I wanted to say, and this is like Michaela was talking, the way\nthat Gail and various city places will know that certain things are not functioning well. It is for us to\nsay, \"Okay. Here's a button over here that needs something louder\" or \"Here's a button that needs to\ndo this.\" Or, \"There's no way in the world I'm going to get it sitting in my chair,\" and I found some\nof those over in the new section over in the area of Target, and there's a possibility that I could sit\nthere for the rest of my life because the cars are going to keep on going; they've got a green light. My\npoint is until we tell someone, they're not going to get fixed. So I'm just saying, everyone, when you\nnotice something that doesn't work for you, just call, and if you don't know who to call, call Kerry.\nShe's got an idea of who can look at it.\nKerry Parker: I could reach them for you.\nArnold Brillinger: Me, I'm mobility impaired. There's a lot of things that don't work for me. For\npersons that have problems hearing, they also need to speak up when they find that there's something\nthat needs to be fixed, or seeing or whatever the impairment is. So I just want everyone to speak up.", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}
{"body": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities", "date": "2016-12-14", "page": 22, "text": "8.\nADJOURNMENT\nElizabeth Kenny: Thank you, Commissioner Brillinger. I'm going to again move for adjournment.\nLisa Hall: I second.\nElizabeth Kenny: All in favor.\nAll: Aye.\nElizabeth Kenny: Thank you for a great meeting.\nThe meeting adjourned at 8:17 p.m.\nRespectfully submitted,\nKerry Parker\nCity Staff Liaison\nCommission on Disability Issues", "path": "CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-12-14.pdf"}