Welcome everybody. We'll begin very soon. Oh, all right. Okay. Um, welcome to the advisory board meeting of the disability commission. Um, this meeting is being recorded and it will be posted on YouTube. Closed
captioning is available. You can access it by clicking on the CC button at the bottom of the screen. And if you have trouble accessing it, please chat one of us from the Disabilities Commission staff for assistance. ASL interpretation is also available. If you would like to have the ability to multi-pin the
interpreters, please chat the disability staff for assistance. And remember to refrain from interrupting the ASL interpreters to allow time to let them finish translating before speaking. Per the agenda, public input is near the end of the meeting. Residents will be given
2 minutes for questions or comments. If you have a question or comment before that, please use the chat and if there's time, we may be able to answer it before the public input period. Please use the Zoom raise hand function if you wish to speak and wait to be recognized to begin. And please identify yourself
before speaking. This increases access for blind low vision attendees. And with that, I'm going to pass it to the Disabilities Commission Advisory Board Chair, Jerry Boyd. That's quite the mouthful, Colleen. Thank you so much much. Um, and welcome
to uh the June disability commission advisory board uh meeting. Um, and uh now it's time for introductions. I am I um am not always great about
recognizing um board members or seeing board members. So if I miss anybody, please uh please uh you know don't be shy. And as of this moment, I don't believe we have a quorum. So hopefully
uh some more folks will uh will join as they can. Um, I'm going to ask Olivia to uh introduce herself. Hi, my name's Olivia Richard. I am uh the vice chair for the disability
commission advisory board and I am from Brighton. Great. And I should say that my name is Jerry Boyd. I am the chair of the disability commission advisory board. As Colleen uh mentioned earlier, I am from
the neighborhood of West Roxbury. Uh and I am a white male uh with salt and pepper hair and a green um Jason Tatum
uh Celtics jersey. Um uh on um the next I would like to call on uh Paul uh to introduce himself. Hi, my name is Paul Karen. I live in the West End and I serve as of the executive
committee is the advisory board, excuse me, is a mental health advocate. U I am a Caucasian male with salt and pepper hair. Tonight I'm wearing a green shirt and thank you for the opportunity for
letting me serve. Thank you, Paul. Next, I'd like to hear from Tara, please. Hi, everyone. I'm Tara Southern. Um, I live on the JP Roxbury line. I am
a woman, Caucasian of short stature and I wear glasses. Great. Great. Um and um may I hear from uh Wes please?
Hi everybody. This is Wes signing. I am using sign language to communicate. I will do so throughout the mo uh throughout the meeting. I have two female voice interpreters, so you'll hear a female voice, but I myself am a Caucasian white male. I've got short
hair and I'm wearing a black shirt. Um and I live in the North End. Thank you very much. Great. And I think that's all the um the board members uh online currently. Correct me if I'm
wrong. Uh, Colleen, actually Pette Durret has joined. Oh, Pette. Okay, great. Pette, could you introduce yourself, please? Good evening, everybody. My name is Pette Durret and I live in the Matipan section of Boston
and I've been on the board for three years. Great. I'm an African-American female. Thank you. And Colleen, correct me if I'm wrong. I believe with Paul uh Pette joining that we do now have a quorum. Is
that correct? Correct. That brings you to seven. So you do. Great. Awesome. Great. Because um the reason one of the reasons that's important is that uh um the next thing on the agenda is the
approval of the May minutes. And in order to approve the minutes, we need a a quorum to vote on it. So do I have a motion? Uh do I have someone who could make a motion to approve the uh main minutes uh of the disability commission
advisory board? This is Paul. I make a motion to approve the May minutes. Any seconds? We need someone to second. Don't be shy. Huh? This is Olivia. A second. Great. Thank
you. [Music] Thanks, Olivia. And someone's not being being shy. I like that very much. Uh um um great. Thank you for second seconding that Olivia. All in favor? Um,
please say I or raise your hand. Wes saying I I Great. I I should have asked is there any discussion? Um, but I didn't anticipate any. Um, hearing none, we'll go with the eyes. And the motion
passes. So, moving right along uh on the agenda, we'll have a presentation from the Boston Housing Authority, Amy Tran and Dan Glitch. Is that correct? Forgive me if David glitch. I'm sorry. Glitch. Yes.
Thank you, Carrie. It's okay. Nobody's ever gotten that right the first time. So, great. So, feel free to uh feel free to uh start your presentation and thank you for joining our meeting tonight. My my pleasure. I'm going to go ahead and
share my screen uh which is I have some PowerPoint slides and assuming everybody can see that. Uh so, so my great. So, hi everybody. Uh my name is David Gly. I'm the Caucasian
male. Uh I have a baseball cap on, some glasses, and salt and pepper beard, some scruff. I haven't shaved in a few days. And uh so I'm here to talk about elevators at the Boston Housing
Authority. And my title at the Boston Housing Authority is deputy administrator of housing programs. Uh I've I've worked at the housing authority for oh since 2004 off and on but and I've
and I've overseeed many different programs. Um the and now I have oversight of the voucher programs. So where where people can have a take a voucher and rent it in the p use it to rent housing in the private market, but also the public
housing portfolio, the brickandmortar building that the BHA owns. I uh more recently uh came into oversight of the of the BHA's public housing portfolio and with it the elevators that function
at the Boston Housing Authority. So um obviously elevators are critical for people to access their apartments especially when those buildings are have many floors uh and it's difficult to climb you know 10
flights of stairs to get to your apartment especially if you have some kind of mobility uh disability but you know for anybody really to climb 10 flights of stairs it's a pretty steep burden to get to your apartment. So just I wanted to give
a little background on the VHA and who uh is housed at the housing authority. And so first and foremost, we administer federal and state subsidized public housing at the BHA. We have federal and state programs there. Um in our public
housing programs, we have a little over uh 9,000 households and that's about 16,000 total family members in that public housing portfolio. Uh, of those 5400 are family members with disabilities.
Another 4700 identify or are elderly. And then, you know, those that are elderly and disabled, there's about 3,000. So, it's a combination of those who are elderly and those who are uh have disabilities. So obviously for the
BHA uh because of the who we serve accessibility is a critical issue uh for the BHA and obviously when it comes to elevators our elevators are critical for accessibility. So I'm
moving on to the next slide uh which is really kind of a background of the of the elevators at the BHA. And so, um, just to give some context about how many elevators we in fact have, there's 104 elevators,
uh, within our within our buildings, uh, we have in our elderly disabled portfolio of elderly, disabled housing, and we have family uh, developments as well. There's 47 elevator cabs that are doubles or
triples. And so that means they're kind of side by side cabs. And so if one goes down, there's another one uh there that should be working. Uh we do have four cabs that are nonredundant or single cabs. And so we're currently working uh
there's a project right now, which I'll talk a little bit about to make those non-redundant elevators redundant. So putting in a an elevator right next to that cab. So if one goes down, there's another one there. And then in the family housing portfolio, we have uh 10
cabs that are redundant and all of those are at our Ruth Barkley uh housing development and then we have 37 other cabs that are singles. So again, if those one of those 37 cabs go down, especially if they're in a you know larger or higher building, it makes it
very difficult for residents to get up and down to their apartment. Uh and then and then we have some elevators in the administrative buildings which are not as critical because they're not surveying the residents, but we have some at Chanty Street location downtown
and um and and some other administrative locations throughout the authority. Um so and you know, one of the locations where we have the most trouble with elevators is our Ruth Barkley development. And you know, so Ruth Barkley is actually a family
development. It's not an elderly disabled development, but because um a lot of the residents at the BHA stay with us for quite a long time, we end up having a lot of elderly folks in family developments. Uh so people age in place,
which is great, and we'd love to we love to continue to have our residents. Uh but you know sometimes because of that folks get into uh elevator buildings where or or buildings maybe that are not necessarily appropriate u based on some
of the issues that um come with age or uh potentially disability. So, um, the we have some non-redundant elevators over at Roof Barkley and sometimes because of the age of those elevators,
uh, those elevators go down, which it can be extremely problematic for, uh, residents. So, the the idea behind my presentation tonight is to talk about, well, what do we what do how are we trying to improve things? What are we trying to do? What do we do when an elevator does go down? and how are we
trying to improve elevator service across uh the housing authority. Um so so first and foremost obviously if we had unlimited money we would not have any problems with our elevators but
elevators unfortunately it turns out are a very expensive thing to upgrade to modernize and to repair. And the Boston Housing Authority is an underfunded agency. And to provide some context to that issue, uh the BHA across its
portfolio has about $1.5 billion in capital needs. So those are things that need to be repaired in its buildings, but the federal government only gives us about $30 million a year to address those those needs. Um, and so
the BHA has to be very kind of we, you know, we rely heavily on that those federal allocation of dollars. Uh, we try to, you know, get money in other ways. And actually, the city of Boston has been extremely generous with funding some of the projects, uh, that I'm going
to talk about in more detail, but essentially the BHA spends money on elevators in three separate ways. Number one, we have capital projects, which are things that we, you know, we say, okay, we're going to spend that the 30 million of capitals that we received. We're
going to spend x amount on this particular elevator project. Uh we also spend money uh just like through ongoing maintenance. And then oftentimes we spend money to improve elevators through emergency work when something goes down,
but we don't have time to plan through the capital uh planning process. And so I'm going to give some more detailed examples of those. So, uh, first and foremost, uh, right now we are planning on spending, uh,
approximately $7 million at Ruth Barkley to update to, uh, modernize and upgrade the, uh, high-rise buildings, uh, which is a project currently in the design phase. So, we have a so we have
an engineer basically assessing the high-rise elevators, telling us what will need to be done, and that's coming to completion. And soon, uh there'll be some uh uh documents going out to bid to actually uh modernize those elevators at
the high-rise elevators at Ruth Barkley. One of the high-rise buildings is already undergoing uh an upgrade, and that's at 42 Harrison Archway. Uh there's two elevators there. So, it's a a high-rise building. Uh one
of the elevators has been completely upgraded and brought back into service. The other one is uh currently out of service, but being upgraded as we uh not as we speak, but you know, the the um the contractors there every day working
to bring that back into service. So, but there are three other high-rise uh uh uh buildings at Ruth Barkley that also require significant upgrades. So, that's a $7 million project plan there. We um
are undergoing a $6.9 million addition of two elevators uh at Commonwealth. And those elevators, again, I mentioned that some elevators are just single cabs and not not redundant. So, it's not a side by side situation. So, we're spending $6.9
million on our Brighton development Commonwealth to um uh make those elevators side by side so if one goes down, there's still access uh to the apartments in that building. And then we are doing a $5.4 million modernization
of two elevators at for a uh Unidad and that's the towers in the south end. And and again, same situation as the 42 Harrison Archway project at Ruth Barkley. One of those elevators has been fully modernized and the other one is out of service while it's being uh while
it's being modernized. Uh and then we also recently completed a $1.1 million modernization of elevators at Hassan. So you can see kind of we are there's a lot of planning at the BHA to improve the service of uh our aging elevators and
you can see the significant cost uh to actually that it takes to actually upgrade uh elevators. They are very expensive not only to maintain but also to repair and to upgrade. Um so so so those are some of the capital projects but we also have uh we also spend
dollars uh on elevators to improve them just through the regular maintenance contracts. So obviously uh or maybe not obviously but the BHA uh does not do any kind of elevator repairs or maintenance itself. We employ maintenance contractors. So uh right now
I think we have at least four separate contractors working on various buildings and you know you may see like for example one of them is Otis elevators another one is Schindler elevators. So these are kind of as you're as you're walking around the city, you may see these companies like working on
elevators or working on escalators or something like that, but they also do work for the VHA. And so one of the things that they would do like for routine maintenance, for example, at Ruth Barkley, uh we just signed a a proposal that they would clean all of
the hoistways and repair all of the door hardware. Uh and that was a proposal for 670,000. And they're going to start working on that to just make sure that the doors uh you know are opening properly, closing properly, uh and just
upgrade old hardware, but also you know um having the hoistways or the kind of the the the the tunnel where the elevator sits be clean is important to prevent any downtime in those elevators. And then we're also doing within the
maintenance contract improvements uh to some of the smaller six-story buildings where you have single cabs at Ruth Barkley. And we did some improvements to an address at 19 Mon Senior Reynolds uh uh already, but uh
there's similar elevators at 10 and 20 East Brooklyn and 29 Mon Senior Reynolds that are going to get the same improvements. Fortunately, the elevator at 19 Monzia Reynolds has been I think it's been uh three months since it's had any downtime. So, the improvements that
we did do to it have proved extremely effective. So, those capital projects, that's the kind of some examples of the maintenance contract spending. And then we have emergency repairs that we do sometimes. So, uh, and that just means when I say
emergency repairs, uh, unfortunately when you're really overhauling an elevator, it doesn't happen very quickly. But, um, sometimes we want to start a project uh, without going through a elongated public procurement
or public bidding process. So sometimes we do uh we get a waiver and we get bids from our contractor to repair uh an elevator so that it can happen as quickly as possible. And so that's the process that was used at 42 Harrison Archway again a Ruth Barkley elevator.
And again as I mentioned that's underway and one elevator repaired and United Elevator is working on the other elevator there. Um, so that's kind of some of the some of the just background on on on or just kind of a quick outline
on what the BHA is doing right now. And I wanted to talk more about what does the BHA do when an elevator does go down? Um, how do we, you know, mitigate the inaccessibility to people's homes
when uh the elevator or elevators are not working in their building? So uh of course access to your home is a critical issue for anybody right. So uh and we take it very seriously. So we understand
that if you cannot access your home as a BHA resident that we need to do something to help you. So, we we've worked on our what do we call our elevator down protocols uh several times over the past few years
um to make sure that um you know if you can't get to your apartment that or or if you have to take the stairs then we have uh and the elevators down for a substantial period of time that we have staff that can help
you bring uh groceries or whatever it is that you might need to your apartment or assist with deliveries or packages or what have you. or if there's uh you know a critical uh medical appointment that
you uh need to get out of your apartment and uh we need to we can do some things to get somebody to help in fact carry you down the stairs if need be to get you to that medical appointment uh with some you know unfortunately we do need
some advanced notes to do that but also if the elevator is going to be down for a substantial period of time like more than 48 hours We are we offer uh a transfer. It doesn't have to be a permanent transfer. It could be a temporary transfer to another apartment.
We also offer to put our residents up in hotels if the elevators uh are down for a significant period of time. And so, um, you know, I think we've done a lot of work internally to ensure that when
the elevators go down that we are following our protocols precisely and also providing notice to our residents what kind of options are available to them uh when when the elevator is out of service. And so to that end, we post a
summary of kind of what the important parts of the protocol are. um in each outside of each elevator cab, but also within the cab. Uh there's the number there to call, but also it's obviously the emergency elevator phone, but
there's a number there to call and it does say kind of what things are available to a resident, but also what they can expect um from the BHA um when the elevators go down. There's a BHA uses a kind of a when an elevator
does go down, BHA uses like a group uh texting function. It's called it's a the software called one call now. And so when an elevator goes down and it gets reported, a message goes out to every residents to tell them, hey,
unfortunately the elevator's down. And the same kind of message goes out as soon as the elevator is restored to service. Uh and then you know if the elevator's going to be down for a significant period of time that's when we start uh you know knocking on doors talking to residents letting them know
that we expect the elevator to be down for a significant period of time and that um these are the various options that are available uh to them. And so we have a full version of our elevator down protocols posted at uh bostonhousing.org
or uh elevators. If you accidentally leave off the S, you'll still get there. So um and um before I open it up for questions I just on the elevators I just wanted to
talk about some other areas of kind of maintenance and systems improvements that we are trying to make that I think also help with elevators but just kind of living uh conditions generally at our um developments. Number one is that um
often times with elevators sometimes um sometimes vandalism or unauthorized occupants can be an issue uh in terms of why the elevators get uh uh you know brought out of service. So to that end,
we are at all of our elderly developments. We are looking at uh upgraded door access systems that have like a video component and are tied to uh resident cell phones but also can be accessed with a landline and but
essentially it lets uh residents know who they're letting in. The existing systems are basically push button systems. you can you know kind of push any button and say hey let me in or just I see a lot of people when they go up to the existing systems just push a bunch
bunch of buttons until someone opens the door. So we have kind of these new video enabled systems that I think will much better control access to our buildings. We have them at a number of sites already and I think uh they've been uh
they've been wellreceived and so we're also looking to install them at a number of family sites as well and we should have the majority of that installation done by the end of of of this year. Uh we've also done a we've also changed a
lot of systems related to work orders and we I think we we've done a much better job in terms of just when somebody calls in a when I say work order just a regular maintenance issue associated with the apartment. We've done a a really good job in the past
year bringing those numbers down. Uh and in fact you know be when we came out of COVID we had a significant backlog of work to do in units. uh and you know we were uh around 17,000 work orders uh in
our portfolio and now we are down right around 1,300 work orders across our portfolio. So a dramatic reduction in work orders uh and I think that's done a lot to kind of uh you know gain some faith from our residents in our in our
ability to actually resolve uh problems uh as they arise. Uh the other thing that's been extremely helpful in terms of communication is that all of our maintenance staff now have cell phones. So they're much quicker to respond to issues and but also much easier to
dispatch. Uh another uh I think really improvement that's been helpful to residents is we uh no longer require residents to go to the office to complete their annual reertification. we we allow kind of
digital remote reertifications if that's um if that's something that our residents want to take advantage of. And lastly, we've really tried to kind of improve over the past couple years, improve our customer service
um systems. And so that means we've um put some new management in place of the work order center. And you can reach the work order center. That's anytime you have any kind of maintenance issue at our our public housing sites. You call 988-4357,
which is 988 help. Uh or you can call the general customer service number uh which is 9884000. And we've used a a software called Zenesk, which allows us to kind of ticket every customer service issue and really keep track of those
things. And so all those things have really helped the BHA with uh its communication. I know that's not directly related to elevators, but it it it is a little bit in the sense that uh you know just our communication with residents I think is is has been
improving and we continue to try to improve that uh moving forward. So that I think concludes yes my portion of the presentation. And so I think that's a good time to pause and ask folks if they had uh any
questions about elevators or about any of the stuff I talked about uh in the past 15 minutes or so. Any questions from the uh advisory board? That was a lot of information and
I appreciate the thoroughess of the uh of the present uh presentation, but are there any questions uh from members of the uh the advisory board? It's difficult for me to see. I can see that
Olivia has her hand up. Sorry to interrupt, Jerry. Okay. Yeah, thank you. Uh, thanks cuz it's difficult for me to see uh folks right now. Go ahead, Olivia. Thank you. This is Olivia. Um,
thank you for presenting this. This was a lot of information that was badly needed. Um, I don't think that bostonousing.org/elevators is well known.
Um because in some of the buildings like what I live in here at Pat White where we have three elevators but only two of them go all the way up.
Sometimes what happens is those two will be down and so people can only get up to the fifth floor. And I think if we distributed the information
to the tenants a little more directly. Um I think that's helpful. I I in terms of the in terms of the notifications like the phone calls that go out or just the general information.
The general information. Okay. Um, I think a lot of people receive have signed up for the text messaging because I've heard from other people when the building goes down, they're
getting texts, particularly water and elevator. Can I can I ask you are the are there are there notices posted outside of each elevator that provide information about what happens if the elevator goes down?
No, I will okay I will make sure those get posted very shortly. Okay. So that will give that that will provide the link that I talked about in this presentation but also some um kind of facts about what what should happen when the elevator goes down. So, thank you,
Olivia. Any other questions from Thank you, Olivia. Any other questions from the advisory board? I don't see any at the moment. Um, Commissioner Oh, actually, Commissioner Mac had a has her hand raised. Go ahead,
Commissioner. Thanks, Jerry. Hi, David. Thank you so much for putting together this presentation. It was extremely thorough and informative and we really appreciate it. So, um, we've been working with you for a long time on a lot of these issues and
I was wondering, um, I know you've been, uh, in various states of, um, compliance with the AB and there have been some complaints outstanding, but could you just give us, um, just like a really quick update on where you stand with the
AB and um, what your plans are as far as um, just the AE in general is concerned, just so that board members um, are up to date on that. Yeah, sure. So, I'm sorry, David. And could you explain AB mean AB stands for
Sorry. It's the architectural access board. Great. And so and so there and so the and you know I think I have this right but the architectural access board is ensuring that uh residents
uh with disabilities have access to their homes. And so obviously that's a obviously it's important issue to us but you know it's an important issue to architectural access board as well. And so because the elevators have been down so frequently at Ruth Barkley, uh we've
received a of complaints and the complaints come in address by address. So we have a number of open complaints at 19 months senior is one of them. 23 Mon Senior Reynolds is another one. I think 42 Harrison Archway is another. And there may be others which I can't
recall, but there's basically an open complaint on uh several different addresses at the Ruth Barkley development. And so um at this point, we're kind of meeting with the architectural access board
monthly on each address. and and uh what they really want to see is some kind is you know um obviously the elevator not being down for a significant period of time before they close that complaint. So we've done a
lot of work with our contract vendors to make sure that the elevators don't go down. For example, at 19 Monsenior Reynolds, which has an open complaint, I mentioned in the presentation that elevator has not gone out of service
for, I think, almost 3 months now, uh, hasn't had a day of downtime. And so, we did some upgrades, but we'll continue to meet with the architectural access board on that elevator until they're kind of satisfied that, you know, it's running well and it's not going to go out of service. And I think the language that
they use is that it really shouldn't go out of service more than one or two times a month for some, you know, maybe routine maintenance things or maybe there's some other issue. And I think we met that threshold at 19 months senior, but I think we have a few more months before maybe we can get out from under
that complaint. 42 Harrison Archway is another one where the upgraded elevator uh is performing wonderfully and has not so and this is a high-rise building where there's two elevators only one is
running now but the one that is running that's been upgraded is really performing beautifully we're just waiting for the second elevator to be upgraded which should take another couple months and I imagine the AB is going to want to continue to monitor performance at that address as well
until they're satisfied that hey, this elevator uh these these two elevators at 42 Harrison and Archway are are running well and and residents can consistently uh access their apartments. Uh 23mon
Senior Reynolds things are not going as well. Uh but we, you know, we have contractors on site that are performing maintenance right now. And so I so and actually we unfortunately because of the performance issues at 23mon senior
adults had to um put a number of households in hotels and offer transfers to folks. Uh but um the contractors telling us that that elevator should be restored uh by uh Monday at the latest. So, so we
still have our struggles uh at at Ruth Barkley, but we are in a better place than we were, I would say, even two or three months ago. Yeah, I really just wanted to point that out to let the board know that BHA has been a
very cooperative partner with us and with the AB and that we're all really working together to to look at these complex challenges because we know a lot of that housing stock at the BHA is very old. Um, a lot of it is, and not to make excuses, but I know a lot of it is
replacement parts are difficult to find. A lot of the buildings probably um have outlived their useful life and are looking to be rebuilt, but the elevators need to be working in the meantime. But it's a balance between how much money do you put into a old building versus
trying to budget for new buildings. So, it's a very complex situation, but we're really glad I appreciate that, Commissioner. And I and I would just say the other thing is that the the when that something happens to an elevator
um you know the repairs don't always they're not always quick uh fixes unfortunately uh you know and and that address I'm speaking about now the fire uh the fire department was in there over a couple
weekends ago and uh uh because there was an entrament but you In addition, the doors were really significantly damaged because of the fire department, the methods they used to to, you know, pry somebody out and then, you know, takes
days and again parts to replace. So, unfortunately, and and you know, uh, and we're at the we are at the mercy of the elevator contractor as well. If I could, I would go out there and fix the elevator myself. But um so what just one
final point to make on this is um to board members, if you can share this information with your communities, one thing that I would emphasize to share is that um like David said that people who are in these positions where an elevator will be down long term do have the option to be moved um to accessible
housing. And we know that's not it's never anyone's first choice to leave their home. It's not going to be convenient. But um the Mass Office on Disability has a really good resource which we'll send out after this meeting which talks about tenants rights when an elevator goes down. And I think um it
would be helpful if you can spread the information that people do have options that um unfortunately if elevators do break down long term and it's not a quick fix that um people can still have accessible housing. So really, um, we're all just trying to work together to make
it, uh, make the most successful house we can for Boston residents. So really appreciate your time, David and Amy. Uh, look forward to working closely with you as we move forward and uh, working with the A to wrap up all these issues so that we're all in good shape. Agreed.
Thank Thank you, Commissioner. So I can turn it over to Amy now or back to Jerry. I don't know. Um, are there more questions? I don't know. Sorry. I don't how much uh how long is Amy's portion of the presentation? Do
you know? I can try to keep it within 10 minutes. Great. That's great. Okay, go right ahead. All right. Good evening. My name is Amy Tran. I'm the deputy director of development um part
of the uh newly formed department of planning, construction, and development at the BHA. My department is involved with redevelopment and comprehensive renovation efforts at our BHA properties.
Um I'm a Asian female uh black hair, glasses, wearing a white shirt. Um thank you very much for having me um join the meeting this evening. Um I'm I'm here to give an update on uh our redevelopment efforts.
Uh but first um as David mentioned, the BHA has um 1.5 billion in capital needs and we just don't have the funding to pay for all that work. Um so because of this lack of funding, we had to think of
creative ways to pay for um to create ways to improve our housing communities. And in the past, we have turned to developer partners to help secure funding to pay for our large redevelopments such as Mission Main,
Orchard Gardens, Washington Beach. And our developer partners have the expertise uh to raise the funding to carry out these really complex transactions and they can get the buildings constructed on time and on
budget. Um, and we still continue to work with developers on a few of our redevelopments, but we're starting to take on our own redevelopment efforts. And I'll explain that more later. Um so this first slide here um is um our
development principles that help guide our work our development effort and we strive to further BHA's mission by providing stable accessible and affordable housing. So in our development efforts we
we maintain we typically enter into a long-term ground lease with the new owners. So we maintain control of the land and um and we build in these affordable require affordability requirements to keep the units of deeply
affordable in the long term. So even though BHA does not typically own the buildings in the new construction redevelopments, we still have control over the land and keep the units affordable in the long term. Um we also strive to do one for one
replacement of our units. So if we take down 100 units, we will have to rebuild uh 100 units. Um and when possible, we try to expand and build more affordable housing. Uh we have tenant protection in place
where we maintain um in our in our new redevelopments, residents will continue to pay 30% of their adjusted income towards their rent. Um, in developments where residents have to relocate, we provide relocation counseling services and help cover the move and residents
have the right to return to the redevelopment. And we try to maintain the same grievance procedures um that uh in in our public housing developments that we currently have in our public housing developments and when they and carry it
over to the new site. Um and then we also try to maintain high quality design. Um the new developments have are energy efficient and sustainable. Um they are accessible and adaptable and um modern amenities at the site.
So next slide. So, um, Old Colony is a development in the South Boston neighborhood. Um, back in 20 2009, over a decade ago, we secure funding to um for the first phase of the
redevelopment at Old Colony. Um, and about almost 15 years later, we've sec we've almost completed the redevelopment of the site. Um so originally old colony hadund and sorry 840 original public
housing units. Um we've slowly demolished the site over six phases. Um the six phase six the final phase is scheduled to complete the end of sorry the beginning of this um of 2026. Um and
and once phase 6 is complete, we will have replaced all original originally the original 840 public housing units and we've added a new we've added 47 new
units to the site and all units at Oak Colony are affordable um for households in between 50 and 60% area median income. So, this slide has an image of um an aerial view of the old colony site
and a few pictures of the new buildings um in phase three. And then we have photos of some of the town homes in phase one and mid-rise buildings in phase three and phase six. Next slide.
So, Bunker Hill is our largest public housing site in the Charles Town neighborhood. There are 1,100 units in 45 three-story walk up built um buildings. It was built in 1940. And as others
mentioned earlier, our our buildings are old and they're obsolete um in the living space and um and building systems. So, it it needs a lot of work. And so our plan for Bunker Hill is to
build a new mixed income community because Charles Town um Bunker Hill is in a very in the neighborhood with high rents. We feel that there's an opportunity to build mixed income housing. So we are working with
um our developer partners Joseph J. Corkran and Leget McCall Properties. Um they are leading the effort in redeveloping the entire site and the plan is to build 1,0 replacement units on site and add
1,689 new market rate units for a total of 26.99 units at the site. Um and we're also planning to build 100 replacement units within the Charles Town community.
So, this new Charles Town or Bunker Hill redevelopment will also have 50,000 um square feet of new retail and the plan is to build a new community center
and 2.7 acres of new um public open space. So, I've included a aerial view of Charles Town neighborhood with a rendering of one of the one one of the mid-rise buildings and a um rendering of
the site plan with a few of the new buildings. So, currently at Bunker Hill, uh we just completed the construction of the first building in the redevelopment. This first building has 102 all affordable units. Um it we've finished
we just finished leasing up the building back in April. Um so we're excited to have the families move back in and um then we're currently working on the uh financing for the second building at at Bunker Hill, which will be our first
mixed income building. Um hoping to secure funding and close on that next building later this year. Next, the Marielle McCormick is similar to Charles Town where um it's it's our our
oldest public housing, also one of our largest public housing site with 16 units. Um it was built in 1936 um and also in distress and in need of
of of improvement. And so Mary Allen McCormick is located in South Boston, another neighborhood with high rents where we feel like we could leverage um
uh the market and build new replace the existing units and build add new um market rate units to the site. And so for Mariela McCormick, we are partnering with Wind Communities. Um, and right now
we're focused on um redeveloping the first half of the site where we plan to replace 572 units and add 793 market rate units totaling 1,365
units. Um, this will also include 44,000 square ft of uh retail space and a new community center as well as 2.3 acres of open space. Um, for Mary McCormick, we just closed um on the financing for the
first building. Um, this first building is all affordable, 94 units, and um, it's scheduled to complete fall of 2026. Next slide.
So, um, Baniel Gardens is a state public housing site in the Brighton neighborhood. Um, also built in the 1940s. Um, the Baniel Gardens has currently has 258 units um in 10 buildings. Uh BHA is
partnering with the community builders um where we plan to demolish the site in 10 phases and to replace all 258 units and add new um incomerestricted units to
the site. Um so in total there will be 445 new units and the um new affordable units will be income restricted um between 30 to 120% um area median income. So right now the
community builders is trying to secure funding for the first phase of the redevelopment which will be 110 units. Uh so we're hoping to break ground for this first phase in
sometime in 2027. Next slide. So um Mildrid C Haley um it's a very interesting site. Um there's a lot of activities happening here uh where um
uh we um have portioned off um half of the site um where it's we're planning to redevelop um 253 units at the site. Um and then the
remaining half the 516 units um we're planning to keep the units within under the Boston Housing Authority and modernize the site. So for the redevelopment side um we are have partnered with the Center
Street Partners which is a um development team consisting of the community builders Jamaica plane neighborhood development corporation and urban edge. um they are leading the development effort to replace the 253
units at Mojit C Haley and also adding new incomerestricted units. Um and these income new units will be in will be between 30 to 120% AMI and the first two buildings of the redevelopment is
scheduled to complete later this summer um where we will bring back 91 replacement units um and add and new affordable units. Um and then the remaining half of the site BHA is
planning to modernize the site. we've uh secure or um the city of Boston has provided um $50 million to help fund this modernization work and we um just started the first phase of the
modernization and the upgrades will include new kitchens and bathroom, new appliances, new heating and cooling system, um new lighting, there will be an intercom door system, new windows and uh new interior
finishes. So, um this what the first building that's under construction is scheduled to complete in two months. Um and we'll slowly renovate one building at a time in the modernization
phase. So here we have a site plan um of the redevelopment portion of Haley uh showing the existing buildings at the site. Um and then a rendering of what the new buildings will look like after redevelopment.
And um in the middle here is a image of the two new buildings that will be built uh that will be ready later this summer. And then the image below on the bottom left is uh an aerial view of the two new
buildings coming online. And then um we also included a site plan showing the redevelopment area uh and then the modernization area that we will slowly renovate in phases.
Next slide. Okay. And then um so as I mentioned before, BHA um we're here at the BHA we're starting to take on our own redevelopment efforts where we take the lead in securing funding and carrying
out the managing the construction of our our developments. And so um we recently received $30 million from the city of Boston that will help us renovate our elderly and disabled
portfolio. This $30 million will help us leverage additional resources to pay for the renovation work and and and um currently we are about to close on the financing of for St. B to apartments
which is our um an elderly disabled site. Um and our plan is to upgrade the plumbing, heating, electrical systems at the site. um make our buildings more energy efficient to reduce utility costs. Uh we want to
improve accessibility for disabled residents and visitors. Uh the plans to renovate common areas um and renovate our kitchens and bathroom and new flooring for battered unit.
Um I think that's about it. Next slide. Um here I included um our contact information if you need to reach us. Um so I included David's email uh and um
and phone number and my number and phone number as well. Great. So thank you so much Amy for that u for that uh presentation. Again, both you and David provided us with a with a
lot of information that I think as Commissioner um uh said that we'll be able to take back to our communities and really, you know, share with our with our, you know, fellow uh neighborhood residents and family and friends who who
are in, you know, BHA or who are considering BHA for their uh for their housing needs. Uh so I really appreciate that. One question that I had is you know and I might have you know maybe
should have asked this earlier uh to date because you know David used the term that that you have you have different groups of housing. you have and you just mentioned toward the end of your presentation, you have the elderly
and and disabled, but but you know, when you were going over the redevelopment of the other um of the other sites, uh I assume that each one of those developments will have uh you know, certain percentage of of u accessible
units in them regardless of whether the the the development is considered elderly and disabled. Is that correct? That that is correct. Yes. So in our redevelopment 5% of the units um are accessible so to meet the section 504
requirements. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Um any questions from me other members of the U advisory board before we move on? I don't see any. Um, so I guess we will
thank you guys for your presentation. Thank you for leaving your contact info and uh I'm happy to hear from the commissioner that you do work with uh uh with her her and her staff closely and and if we have any further questions,
we'll certainly uh be in touch. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us and thanks for all your work with the board. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have a good evening. Thank you. Uh next on the agenda is my report and I
will keep that very very brief. Um very very brief so that we can move on with the agenda. I would just encourage everyone uh you know to attend uh the uh
the ADA uh the ADA35 event coming up on July 23rd 3rd. Um I'm sure Commissioner will talk a more about it during her her report. Uh but I would just encourage everyone uh if at all possible to attend
the event. have your family and friends attend the event. You know, people in your in your existing, you know, housing buildings if you do live in apartment buildings and whatnot because uh this event really is to just to highlight the
need for to protect the rights of of all persons with disabilities and and whatnot. And I think it's very very important that we get as large a turnout uh as possible. Uh the Boston Center for Independent Living is one of the one of
the big uh engines behind the event as well as as the commissioner and uh staff and they're really putting it together and I know it's going to be a great event. Hopefully it won't be too hot um you know as has been the LA uh last few
ADA celebrations, but you never know, especially with global warming. But but uh you know hopefully we'll have a great turnout. Please please do try to attend and get as many of your uh of your
friends and family uh and and um you know colleagues to to attend as well. Um with that I will uh turn it over to the commissioner for her report. Thanks Jerry.
Uh, good evening everybody. I am Kristen Mccos. I'm the disability commissioner and ADA title 2 coordinator for the city of Boston. I am a female um, middle-aged woman uh, with blonde hair and glasses
sitting in my office. So, uh, Colleen is going to share slides so I can give my report. And I also want to mention uh before I dive in that um I will be sharing my report as well as the slides from BHA after the meeting. Uh
unfortunately I wasn't able to get them out beforehand, but just so everybody will have a copy, we will send them out uh tomorrow. Okay, so we'll go to the next slide. Okay, so I'm going to start off with a few uh updates just from the city of
Boston. So, as Jerry mentioned, we know we're all in the middle of a heat emergency. It seems like they're beginning earlier and earlier every year. It's only June and already we've been over 100°. So, um it's really important that we get this information out to the general public that during
heat emergencies, the city of Boston opens cooling centers, pools, spray, and splash pads, and has a cooling resources map to keep all residents safe and cool. So again, one of your biggest roles is to share this information with your communities. So make sure that you uh
let people know that if they are too hot, if their apartments are too hot, especially during the day, that the city has options, they can find a place by looking at this map, a place close to home where they can go and cool off. Our office works with the Office of Emergency Management and the Boston Public Health Commission to create,
update, and push out extreme temperature information for people with disabilities. We have fact sheets um specifically for people with disabilities, those with chronic illnesses, and older adults um among others where they have specific tips to
that conform to each group to help them stay safe and healthy during these types of extreme weather events. Our safety tips are available in 12 languages, which includes ASL. So, we have ASL videos embedded right into the U
messaging online. So, please be sure that you spread this information so uh people who are deaf and use ASL know that they can get the information right in their primary language. Uh, another update I want to give is on Boston Open Streets 2025. The city does
this program every year and this year is no different. We will have open Newberry Street every week from July through September, actually through December, but um more streets, more um weekends will be done from July to September and then a few others through December. We
also have uh five neighborhood open streets in Roxberry, High Park, Dorchester, Madapan, and Jamaica Point. And our office will have a table at each of the open streets to give out information and resources uh for residents with disabilities. We work
very closely with other city Boston departments to ensure that the neighborhood is not impacted uh in accessibility during the open streets. Okay, next slide. Thank you, Colleen. Just some updates from our department I wanted to give everybody. So, as you
know, um the letter that you wrote to the Abilities Expo was successful and that the new owners uh responded right away and they're interested in setting up a meeting to talk about potentially coming back to Boston in 2027 or 2028. So, I just emailed the owners and we're
waiting to set up a meeting to talk about um different strategies and ways we can lure them back to Boston. So again, I just want to emphasize that this is a great use of your um collective power as a city board and I hope you will continue to use this as
example as a way to um move your agenda forward uh over the next year. Uh wrapping up our disability community forum from May. We always um take a list of questions that we didn't get to answer and put out um a Q&A document
just to um wrap up the event. So that document is finalized and we'll be posting it this week. Uh Colleen is still working on her library tour. She is visiting every library branch in the city uh throughout 2025 to uh meet
community residents where they are, give out information on our services and other things that are happening in the city as well as to do kind of an informal assessment of the accessibility of libraries because we do work closely with um the facilities department at BPL
to ensure that we um have as much access as possible in our branch libraries. So, we know Copley is pretty accessible and um we want to make sure that the branches are also accessible. And then we've mentioned several times about the mass protocols. I know a few of you asked for information last month. Uh we
hope you were able to join and we still want to push this out to encourage other board members to attend the monthly calls if they're available. Next slide. And then at the beginning of the year, I mentioned that I'd like to talk about
some opportunities for board members to get involved in different things um during my reports every month. So, a couple of timely things that I thought you might be interested in. Uh the first one is the article 80 modernization project. So, you may remember a few
months ago, I think it was February, that a staff member from the Boston Planning Department gave a presentation about um a program called Article 80 that the city uh oversees. And this is a project that um looks at all the impacts
of potential development, everything from traffic to shadows and noise and every way that this development will impact the city. So, one of the big pieces that we look at is accessibility. Will this project be fully accessible? Will it replace sidewalks? Will it um
you know have dining in the public right away or will it impinge on the sidewalks? Uh all things considered accessible are embedded in article 8 review process. So we would love to uh invite members of our board as well as
other people with disabilities to join a focus group. It's going to be for an hour and a half on Zoom on July 31st, the Thursday evening. And this focus group is just going to look at um different materials that um the planning
department is trying to put out to help um modernize the AA project. It can be really dense and um not friendly to people who are involved in building. So, we're really trying to open up the development process so more people can give input. Even if you're not an architect or an engineer, if you just
live in the neighborhood and you want to know what's happening with the development, you should be able to be able to understand it easily and give input easily. So, we encourage you to um attend if you're available and also push this out to your communities. Colleen is developing a flyer which will explain it
in much more detail. But really basically it's just an hour and a half to hear from you about um accessibility of the materials that we're looking um to do in this updated project. So it sounds a little dense but um hopefully it will be uh impactful if you are
interested in getting involved. Um another thing that we've talked about many times is the participatory budget. This is a group of a pile of money that is available for residents to decide how to use it in a budget. So we talked
about last year that you could vote on certain ideas. Uh so that cycle has wrapped up and now this year we are at the point where uh they're looking for new ideas. So we wanted to know if the board is interested in proposing some ways to spend $2 million of the city's
money. The ideas and action piece kicks off in July and runs through February. So, a lot more time to think about this, but just keep in mind that um you can try to figure out what you think $2.2 million would do uh to make some
accessibility improvements in the city. So, we'll send out more information uh o over the next coming months, but um click online and take a look at it and you know, just try to think outside the box like if we can uh designate this $2 million somewhere in the city, where
would it have a big impact on people with disabilities? I've already had a bunch of ideas I'm thinking about. So, I'll send out a separate email to see if anyone's interested in exploring this a little bit further. It's really exciting.
Next slide. Thanks, Colleen. So, finally, as Jerry mentioned, um the ADA35 event is 1 month from today, 4 weeks from today. It's going to be Wednesday, July 23rd from 12:00 noon to 2 p.m. The event is rain or shine. It's not going to be a hybrid
event. It's fully in person. And as we said before, it's not our usual ADA day celebration. We're not having a res resource fair or a tent or food, but it's really going to be a rally and a march. We want to uh spread the word. We want to be out there in full force, loud
and proud, uh proclaiming the need for disability rights and uh the need to protect the ADA because we know we're living in uncertain times um in a lot of ways. So, we want to make sure that we our voices are heard, that the ADA um must be maintained and strengthened, and
that accessibility is not on the table for any cuts. So, the event is going to happen at 12:00 noon on City Hall Plaza with our first ever disability flag raising. Um we're really excited about that. So, we hope everyone will come to the plaza. Uh
get there early because we'll have t-shirts. Uh we've done um a different design this year. So we want to make sure everyone gets t-shirts. Then um after the flag raising and comments from some city officials, um BCIL is going to queue people up to march along Trimmont
Street to the Boston Conference. We're going to gather at the uh we're going to gather for a rally at the Embrace Memorial and we'll have a microphone and a stage, but we're not going to have a formal speaking program of politicians. We really want to hear from advocates
like why the ADA is important to you and why we really need to fight for our rights to keep fighting for our rights so that we don't lose any. And on that note, we really want to get as many people as possible to come to the event. So with the ADA uh celebrations on the
big celebration years on the 20th, the 25th, and the 30th, we've done these collaborative events. And on the 25th anniversary, we had over 2,000 people come out to city uh to Boston Common. So, compare that to City Hall Plaza, we get about 2 to 300 people every year.
So, we would love it if we get 2 to 3,000 people to see what we get. But to do that, we really need your help. So, I'm going to turn it over to Colleen to talk about the outreach toolkit that she made, which is really incredible. It has a lot of resources that are easy to
share and promote. So, I'm going to ask Colleen to click on the link and take us through the toolkit to show how you can help spread the word. Can everyone see this toolkit? I hope you can cuz I have one screen.
So, this is a toolkit that you all have access to and we really encourage you to use. It includes a strong call to action that you can copy and paste and put in email um or your social media. include some background in case people ask you
questions about the events, um, why we're doing it or any logistics, you should be able to find it right in there. And then the actual outreach materials. These are tools that you can use, like I said, in emails, social media, anywhere that you seem fit. You're all
connected to many different organizations and disability movement groups. Please um, we encourage you to share it. Don't assume somebody else is sharing it. Repetition will help. So share, share, share. Those tools include
the web page, um, which is just boston.gov/835. We have a registration link. Registration is not required, but it is encouraged, especially if you know people who would like a reminder a week or so before the event. We have a social
media content template that we encourage you to use with the hashtag ADA35 Boston. This is a sign that you can print yourself and write your thoughts about the Americans with Disabilities Act. You can share what it means to you.
Um, and there's other prompts on that sign. We also have a social media flyer that you can that is sized so that you can post on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms. And we included alt text for you to just copy
and paste and include with your post. We also sized a image to be shared on your stories if you really prefer to share on stories in your Instagram and Facebook. You can click this link right here and it'll be
sized perfectly for your needs. Finally, well almost finally, we have outreach flyers that you can print and we have a bunch printed here in the commission. So, if your apartment building or local library or coffee shop, if you know of a
place that this printed flyer could be posted for the next few weeks until the event, uh, let us know or please take the initiative yourself and um, print out a flyer and have it posted in your building. Those flyers that you can print are also
available in languages other than English and you can click those right here. Um, finally, I said almost finally the last one. We have social media posts that we've already shared that you can just go on and share yourself.
We also have examples that you can copy and paste and put into your own social media. Oh, and there's more. A newsletter blur. If you guys have newsletters that you uh manage or write or collaborate on, you can copy and
paste this and include it in your newsletter. But don't feel that you have to just do what is copy and pasted here. You can write your own newsletter blurb um if you want. The 8835 logo is also available to be shared everywhere. We
have it in PNG format which is best on digital platforms. Please make sure you use alt text which is above in the toolkit. And we also have it in a vector format in case you wanted to print it on a banner, a t-shirt, a sign, a flag, something like that.
And Colleen, can you pull up the plard to show people? Uh, pull up that line. Say it one more time. The what? The plaque card that people can use to take a picture of. Oh, yes. It's Yes, I can do that.
So, um, are you seeing the ADA template PDF? No, we're, um, we just have an image of all the attendees on the screen. If you can't find it, it's all right. But just to explain it a little bit more, it's basically a template that
just says the ADA is important because or the what the ADA means to me. And we did this. Oh, here it is. Yeah. We did this during um ADA30 in 2020 because we couldn't do our planned marching rally
because of COVID. So, we actually just asked people to take a picture holding up this card filling in their own thoughts and then we made like a virtual march of everybody with the U picture. So, we streamed online and we had hundreds and hundreds of people doing it. So, the more people we can get
pictures up holding up this sign, it will be like a virtual march. And we'd love to get all this out before the rally. So, please encourage people to um fill this out, take a picture, and you can email it to disability@boston.gov
or there's an email address at bcil you can send it to um once you have time. Yes. And I realize that was a lot of information about how you can help outreach. I'm more than happy to talk to any of you one-on- one. Like I said, we have less than a month to get the word
out, so I hope to hear from you soon. Back to you, Christian. Yep. And that is the end of my report, so I will pass it back to Jerry. Um, unless anyone has any questions. Thank you, uh, Commissioner, and thank
you, uh, Colleen. definitely uh definitely a very very crucial way that that we all can help um support and make make the ADA35 event a success. So I encourage all of
us to use um whatever we feel comfortable with in uh you know in that toolkit to uh to spread the word for the um on the event. And again, uh, I know it's during the day, so for those of us
who work, you know, it may be difficult for us to us to, you know, take the time off. But I think this is so important and we live in such you know uncertain times you know for people with disabilities
and others that I think it's you know I would encourage all of us uh to make time to to attend the event and to have you know and spread the word in our communities. So, thank you u thank you u
commissioner and staff for for you know doing all this logistical work and and you know putting together the toolkit and making it easier for us to spread the word. I really appreciate that. Colleen, can you put a link to the toolkit in the chat? Yes, I can. Thanks.
Great. So, next on the agenda uh is the architectural access report with Patricia Mendes. Thank you, Jerry. Hello, everyone. My name is Patricia Mendes. I'm the director of architectural access for the
Disabilities Commission. Uh I am a female, short dark hair, and I'm wearing glasses. Um, Colleen, do you mind sharing the slides, please? Well, no, I don't mind. Um,
oops, sorry. No problem. Okay. Are we Are you seeing your slides? Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Okay, my my report is going to be brief and it has two parts. The first
part is to let you all know that we did a training with the facilities department, our Boston facilities department. Um, and we trained their new staff and also the existing staff as as
a refresher. And we had lunch and learn in person and we did uh a lot of discussion on our building code on uh our accessibility on our state code 521 CMR and al also we
touched on the the newer uh code proag and then um that happened just um this month and we also discussed how in the city of Boston we like to go above and beyond the minimum sets by code. We
would like to focus on ideal design and best practices. And we also discussed some um design challenges and how we problem solve and we can get to a point of maybe
not perfect accessibility but uh some accessibility which is better than better than Um, and just as a little bit of more background, the city of Boston facilities department is involved in
construction and planning and design of major renovation on city- owned buildings such as libraries, firehouses, police departments. Um, and I'm showing a picture of City Hall Plaza, one of our
proud uh projects that is recent and I think we're all familiar with that. Next slide, please. Um, okay. So, this was our first training um in recent years, but there was a lot of interest and a lot of
interesting questions. So, we're hoping to ha to meet uh a few times a year, maybe quarterly uh in order to have um space for questions and problem solving with the management team, the project
managers um and my team and we can we can uh find accessibility solutions for their tricky buildings. And by tricky buildings, I mean existing old facilities that are um
are not easy to just magically make make everything perfect accessible. So we we want to get more into um variances discussions and then try to improve accessibility in their existing
buildings. Next slide. Okay. So, the other part of my presentation uh which I'm also very proud to uh and announce is that our architectural access specialist Sarah
Leon Leon was at a national conference. Actually, it's international because it includes Canada. Um she was invited to present uh and to represent us um to
this um big conference with cities many many cities and representatives from um the national association of transportation officials designing cities. Uh this happened just last last
month in May. uh was short four days and it convened uh a thousand public sectors, design and policy professionals to advance the state of transportation in our cities. Um next slide please.
Okay, so this is a photo on on the right. This is a photo where we see our Sarah Leong uh presenting uh with a big screen and some some graphics. She was asked to be part of a panel
called one size doesn't fit all and they discussed design uh problems by thinking outside the box. Uh this panel included this city of Seattle, Boulder, Austin, and the city
of Alexandria. And what Sarah particularly presented on is accessibility solution um of a very common problem where we encounter trees in the sidewalk. And what Sarah
presented is balancing city of Boston goals for access accessible sidewalks, sustainability goals, and increasing citywide tree canopy. So the strategy that she was discussing is our close collaboration with the public works uh
departments and um design using port in place permeable materials that allow for storm water to penetrate the surface and
to um irrigate the tree roots. Uh other strategies include tree bumpouts and as always our inter agency collaboration. Okay. So this is the end of my report
and I'm happy to take um any questions. Thank you Patricia. And uh great job Sarah. Congratulations on the uh opportunity to to present to at an international conference. Uh that just
goes to show uh that that the good work of of uh of the architectural team at at the commission must get around if you're invited to to conferences like this. and and I hope it
was a great uh great experience. Is there any questions from the uh from the advisory board uh for Patricia uh regarding her report? Uh just a quick look I don't see any if
uh somebody can confirm that for me. Uh see any hands Jerry? Yeah great. So uh so we will move uh move on. Thanks a lot Patricia. I really appreciate it and again congratulations for on all the
great work and and being recognized. So you're welcome Gary. Thank you. Yeah. Great. Um so next on the agenda is open uh is actually the uh the board member engagement shoutouts. Um I I would this
is the time of the meeting where where folks uh on the commission uh advisory board can can highlight um either important work that they're doing or or have have done uh since the last meeting
like like interesting training you've went to or or interesting meeting that you've attended either a city meeting or or state meeting or or whatever. ever with stakeholders that that may be of interest to uh to uh to the disability
community here. So feel free to take and there's no pressure to to share anything. It's just the opportunity that we've built in every month for for folks to to highlight the important work that they're doing, you know, between our our
advisory board meetings. Does anyone have anything they'd like to share? I'd like to share something. This is Paul. Great. Go ahead, Paul. This June is National Men's Mental Health
Awareness Month, dedicated period aimed at increasing awareness of the distinct mental health issues that men encounter. It's crucial to recognize that mental health struggles can affect anyone regardless of gender. Yet, men often
face societal pressures that discourage them from seeking help. So, if anyone has any um questions or anything, I can be reached at paul.carenboston.gov through my, you know, trial and error advocacy work with with city residents
and family members. And there's also NAMI that has a website that is that is https semicolonwww.nami.org/ and that can also be be found in um if you contact the disability commission we
can further you any kind of awareness. Thank you. Great. Thanks. Thanks, Paul, for bringing up that uh the importance of of seeking mental uh help if you're uh you know, if you're um a male or anyone
really uh that there are resources out uh out there for folks um in in need of uh in need of u you know who want to deal with any issues that they're having regarding um their mental health. you're
you're a tireless advocate for that and I really appreciate that, Paul. Uh does anyone else want to share anything? Seeing none, I will share one thing. One of our esteemed colleagues who is not here this evening uh will be uh Carl
Richardson will be on a uh panel discussion at WGBH tomorrow uh tomorrow under a discussion called disability reframed. Um um it's a it's an annual meeting that
WGBH puts on. It's kind of a resource sphere. But then they talk then they usually have a a panel around, you know, uh particularly around portrayals of people with disabilities in the media and whatnot. And I I just happened to see uh I was planning on attending the
event anyway in person and uh I was I just saw that uh that Carl is is is one of the panelists this year. So, um it is an in-person and hybrid event, an inperson and um virtual event. Um and
for more information, you can go to uh www.wgbh.org uh/events and you can uh sign up for for the event. It's from 6:00 to 9:00 u um tomorrow uh at WGBH.
Um and uh you know really um I would encourage folks who have the time to uh to uh sign up to attend and and uh and to give and to at the very least show support for a uh for a fellow board
member. So uh great. So um with that I will move to the next uh next portion of our agenda which is old business. There are a couple of items under old business. I'm going to skip down to the
um mayoral candidate questionnaire. Um we did have some input from the uh city of Boston's legal department. um maybe a commissioner or or one of your staff maybe you could you could share a little
bit about again what the what the u legal department is advising us. Sure, I'd be happy to. Thanks Jerry. Hi everybody. It's Commissioner Mos again. um wanted to let you all know that I did speak to our assistant corporate counsel
uh in the city's law department and they basically told us that as you are all special employees quote unquote of the city of Boston that it really um would be strongly recommended that you don't participate in any sort of survey or
questionnaire on our elections because you all were appointed by Mayor Woo. So, if you are interested in this sort of work, um, they've suggested that you do it through like other groups you're involved with, like nonprofits, if you are part of BCIL or if you're part of
any other disability organizations, but um, to not take it up as members of the disability commission appointed under. So, I feel with that advice, I'm going to close the topic as far as the board
is concerned. Um, unless anybody wants to discuss it further. Yeah, I I think that's important uh commissioner to to close the loop on on this topic and put it off um take it off
uh the agenda further going forward. I would encourage us all to uh we can work as the commission advisory board on on you know spreading the word and getting out uh getting out the vote uh as we try
to do every election cycle. I know that we've had, you know, various presentations from the the elections commission or the commissioner has has brought it up in her her reports about how, you know, they they work to ensure that polling places are accessible and
the various different, you know, um different forms of of of accessibility. uh the way that people can vote and access, you know, the vote. Um you know, but in terms of participating in a in a
questionnaire, I agree. Um you know, and thank the commissioner for getting uh getting that advice from the legal department that we should take it off um take that off of the uh the agenda for moving forward. Yeah, I would definitely
second Jerry's uh suggestion of encouraging people with disabilities to get out and vote. Um there's so many ways now with electronic voting, online voting, early voting, you can just go to a place that's convenient near your home or if you work downtown, you can go to a
place near you. So, I think as we get closer to the actual election, um I can bring together some resources for at the meeting that um you can all use to promote getting the vote out, getting out the vote. Great. And I'll just
second the early voting. I I've you know in the past several um several election cycles um you know since early voting has been been available. I've I myself have taken advantage of that and it's
very very uh very easy. I I've uh voted at several different early voting uh locations, including at city hall. Um you know, and it was very uh very easy and very convenient and and you know, it
was just a a way to make sure that, you know, because we all get busy, you know, particularly around the holidays and in the fall. And this is just a way to early voting is just one example of a way that to ensure that we all can make
sure that our vote is counted. Um you know so thank you commission. There is a hand up from Wes. Go ahead Wes. Hi everybody. This is Wes speaking. Uh I wanted to thank um the commissioner for
the update from the legal department. Um, I understand the the decision not to move forward with it, but my question would be uh about the whether there are any changes with regard to the bill that BCIL was proposing. Would this affect
that at all? Oh, sorry, the interpreter may have misunderstood. Will we be letting Bill from BCIL know about this? Thank you for the corrections. Thank you. Um, Jerry, are you in touch with with Bill?
Are they working on it? Yeah, I mean, I can certainly uh I can certainly let him know. I I you know, I don't know. You know, I did try to put him in touch with with you, Wes. I don't know if he did respond or reach out to you. Um, you
know, I don't know if that's No, I haven't heard from him. Yeah, I don't know if it's something that's on there. uh their radar to do a survey. Um I can check in with him again though and and see. Um but you know again as I as as I
think I mentioned in previous meetings uh or email communication that doesn't just because you know BCIL isn't necessarily um taking the lead that doesn't mean that any other uh disability rights
organizations that we're affiliated with uh or that that individual members of the commission are commission advisory board familiar with uh are affiliated with um you know doesn't preclude you from
working with any any other organization. So feel free to reach out uh to them. And again, I think the important message, you know, going forward and as we get as we're getting closer to election time is to is to just
encourage, you know, our communities to get out and vote. So, this is Wes. Gotcha. Thank you very much. Great. Next on the uh next on the agenda for old business is the court captioning
state uh state bill. Um, I know that Andrea, I believe, sent out copies of the bill and um and a statement from the uh court reporters association
uh regarding a particular uh particular uh language in the bill asking them to to uh either strike that language or or uh in opposition for that language. And basically what that meant from my
understanding was that that that uh that the court reporters association is looking uh to strike language that or an opposition of language that in the bill that encourages uh the use of um of um
artificial intelligence uh like chatbot uh you know in court reporting. uh and they uh brought up several examples of where the use of um AI C uh transcription
uh you know was detrimental to uh to defendants in in court cases. So, you know, I know we have we do have a quorum uh you know, so we could vote today on
on whether to uh whether to you know draft a similar letter to um you know asking the asking the committee chairs to to strike strike that language and encourage them to to include
language in the bill to uh to uh use uh live court reporters and not use uh artificial intelligence. We could we could uh uh you know ask for that or or
we could uh not vote or we could uh just decide that we're not going to take up this issue at all. So I'm more than happy to to uh to you know have a discussion right now for many members of the of the advisory board on what you'd
like to do going forward. Any uh any discussion on the topic? Uh this is Wes. If I could have the floor. Go ahead Wes. Hi. Um, so I did review the materials
that were sent that Andrea sent and I thought a lot about it and I have gone to some events when I believe they were using I used my uh live transcription app on my phone and compared it to the live cart reporter that was working in the space
and what I've noticed is that there's two differences. the AI transcription is a lot faster compared with the human cart provider and the information that they're able to pro uh produce. I think the accuracy is probably about 98%
accurate for the AI. Um, and my thoughts are that if if the bill allows for AI to happen, then will those, you know, live cart providers be able to catch up um, you
know, whether they will be able to continue in their careers because of the difference in production. From the way I read it, uh, communities could use either AI or, uh, or, um,
uh, you know, a live court reporter. Uh, someone from the commissioner's office, uh, if you, if you have an understanding, could you, uh, could you chime in? Um, this is Colleen. I'm not sure.
Yeah, I'm not very well verssed. Can I see the jury? Sure. Um, sure. Um, but good good point, Carl. Uh, I mean, good point, Wes. But I I I do think it's it's kind the way the the the um the the
letter was was written, the way I interpreted uh with the materials that Andrea sent was that that the national that the court reporters association was concerned that if they if the the bill included that language, it that that it
would mean uh that it would that it could mean u mean jobs. Basically they they could use AI in place of um in place of the uh the live court reporter
or car report. Quest. My my question was of the role of the sorry the role of what the role of the cart reporter during the transition and the responsibility who will be marshalling the
responsibility of accuracy in that transition to AI that I don't I I don't know and I don't I don't know if Andrea knows we could try to get more information but
okay yeah I because I think that information would be very helpful um in helping us to make a decision about whether we want to proceed with the letter or not. Does anyone else have any other comments? So it's so it sounds like for right now
um that we are not ready to make a decision as to as to whether we uh we want to sign on with another letter uh you know either supporting the court repor the uh court reporters um position
to strike that language uh or to have any sort of comment regarding that. Um what I can try to do and the you know as part of the our role in the executive committee is is kind of touch base with Andrea um when she gets back and see if
we can get some some clarification in regards to that. And I had a question around whether we asked them to strike that language, whether that means we would have to oppose the whole bill because the the the bill itself is from
my understanding would allow would allow hybrid meetings to uh uh to to take place in in all municipalities in the state. Someone correct me if if uh that's not a correct interpretation. So
I wouldn't want to see I wouldn't want to see um communication access uh denied for any persons with disabilities. So So I guess we'll table it for now and um and we'll we'll bring it up. We'll keep
it under old business for next month's meeting. And um moving on. Thank you. Oh, go ahead, Wes. Sorry. All set. Great. Uh does anyone have any new business that they'd like to discuss? I I'm just I want to say that I
am in support of looking at will be you're looking at I'm just in support of the next steps for the planning of this. Great. Great. Thank you.
Does anyone have any new business they'd like to discuss? And Colleen, you're my you're my double check your eyes here. I'm double checking. I don't see any hands. Great. All right. Um, and now this is
the this is the portion of the meeting that that Colleen mentioned at the very start uh for public input. Uh does any member of the public have any uh any uh thing that they would like uh to to
address and please keep your comments to two minutes. Um but again I will ask Colleen if she sees anyone. I don't see anyone. One I don't. And just a reminder that if you are from the public, you need to
raise your hand so we can send you a a request to unmute. But I'm not seeing any hands. Jerry, great. So does anyone have does anyone can anyone make will anyone like to make
a motion uh on the advisory board? Would someone like to make a motion to adjourn the meeting? And again, don't be shy about about that. This is Pette. I make the motion to
adjourn the meeting. Any seconds? This is Olivia. I second. Great. All in favor? I I This is Wes. Hi. So, we'll uh with that we'll adjourn the meeting and we'll see everyone uh next month. Again, thank
you for all your uh all your efforts. Uh do work on, you know, using the toolkit for the ADA35 and and uh and getting as many people to that event as possible. I I know that our our next board meeting
is is prior to that to to the event, but I I just want to emphasize that that uh that it would be great if we got as many people to the ADA35 as possible. Thank you and have a have a great night and keep cool everyone.
Thanks, Jerry. Thanks everybody for coming. Bye now. See you all soon.