pages: CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2019-03-13.pdf, 17
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities | 2019-03-13 | 17 | ITEM 3-A COMMISSION ON DISABILITY MEETING MINUTES Wednesday, March 13, 2019, 6:30 PM Leslie Morrison: So I think this is a larger issue. I love where you're going with this, Arnold. I have concerns about how accessible these meetings are, and I actually have questions about how accessible for example, the social media posts are, particularly for people who have hearing impairments or vision impairments who might use screen readers. And many websites are not accessible to the technology that people with disabilities who have vision impairments and hearing impairments use. So it's an excellent topic, and I think that that's the way we reach people. I don't know how many of you have ever watched one of our meetings. Leslie Morrison: I don't have a vision impairment or a hearing impairment, and it's a very difficult way to engage. And so I think you can't dial in, we can't take public comment if someone isn't sitting here in the room. And in this day and age, there are just so many other ways to engage people with disabilities who might not be able to be physically present, so I think it's an excellent question. I think it's cracking open a much larger issue that I've been wondering about myself. Sorry to put a damper on that. Jennifer Roloff: But I don't think we should stop the momentum that we do have. Leslie Morrison: Absolutely. Jennifer Roloff: Even though we're not capturing everybody. But, yeah, you bring up a good point. Leslie Morrison: Well, and it is for this commission to raise it, because it really raises the issue of how accessible all of the city meetings are and the technology that the city uses to engage people with disabilities to participate. Jenn Barrett: Right. And as you were talking, I was trying to flip through my notes, because I know that we do have an email address for this commission that Laurie reviews and if more people knew about that email address, I think that would be a huge help to get more voice, because even if they weren't able to attend the meeting they could write us an email and we could bring it up on the next agenda. So maybe we look into making sure that that email address is dispersed properly. Sorry, I don't have it right at my fingertips. Leslie Morrison: So I guess what I was thinking is that this is really another big project that the commission could take on just in terms of how accessible both the commission is and general information being pushed out from the city is to people with disabilities. It feels like it's that big of a topic to me. The firm I used to work with redid its website to make it completely disability compliant and there's quite a bit involved in doing that, and I'm fairly certain that the information on Alameda's website probably doesn't meet those high level of standards. If we want to make it a priority I think it's great, but it should be bigger than just, "Is our commission accessible?" It's really, "Is city council available? And can we have better technology so people can participate remotely?" And that isn't just about our commission, but it's about the technology that exists in this building. Anto Aghapekian: Every commission meetings are advertised in the newspaper, what date and 03/13/19 Page 17 of 28 | CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2019-03-13.pdf |