 Maureen, you can do a roll call. You have people, or people can just announce it's just two people besides me. I'm my response. Yep. Tori, you want to say you're here? This is Tori. I'm here. And Ruth, you want to say you're here? Yes, it's Ruth. I'm here. OK. So we have three of our five members present. And we have some. Actually, could you hold on, Myra, for one second? Yeah. We do have a couple phone numbers calling in. And maybe that's Elise or Sarah. So let me just see. Let me, there's a phone number ending in 91197. Hello, who's this? Can I? They're muted. Let's see here, sorry. I think I'm unmuting them. Allow to talk. Disabled. Yeah. Can the person calling in with the last four digits of 91197 say who they are? Can they talk? Maybe not? Interesting. All right. Well, never mind. They're muted, I think. They're muted. Yeah. I'm trying to. You have to unmute them. Yeah. I keep on pressing the button. And for some reason, it's not working. OK, and then there's another phone number that says 14135. I'm clicking hello. There's a, if I'm unmuting a phone number right now. Can you say hello? Who is this? This is Sarah. Oh, Sarah, you are here. Great. OK. I cannot, I cannot log in. I see it on the computer. But I cannot get there. OK, well, you are echoing. We don't know why. But at least you're here and you're saying that the link doesn't work for you're not you're having trouble accessing the meeting with the link. OK, that's all right. Sounds like a baseball stadium. Yeah. Good dance. Well, Sarah, and you're here. I'm sorry that the link is not working, but we can hear you. I might put you on mute at times. Well, no, I'll leave you. I'll let you be able to talk the whole time. But it does echo when you talk, but that's fine. OK, Myra, go on with the show. Anybody have any new business? That isn't on the agenda. I wanted to say two things. I'll keep it very short. First thing I was reading about the mail-in voting and a friend of mine, my next door neighbor, and we are willing to do any volunteer work if needed, like stuffing envelopes, putting labels in, and that kind of a thing. Would there be any need? I don't mean to publicize things. What do you mean? They said in the newspaper article, they said it takes lots of time to stuff the envelopes with the ballots to stick the labels in. And there was traffic shortage to do all of that work. And then we're ready to do some volunteer work if needed. Well, thank you so much, Sharon. I will let the town clerk's office know that you and your neighbor are willing to volunteer for election assistance, such as stuffing envelopes and such like that. So if they do take you up on your offer, they'll certainly give you a phone call or email. Does that sound good? OK. And then one other thing that I wanted to talk about is mail in broken. That's on the agenda, right? Can I make a suggestion? Yeah. It's possible if Sharon has the video open, even though she's not connected and her audio. And Sharon should log out of the computer if you're just going to use the phone. See if that helps. Probably lost her. She's muted. OK. Maureen, can you unmute her? I'm trying. Sharon? Maybe she went away from the telephone to unmute her computer to disconnect her computer. There's no number up anymore with her number. We've lost her as an attendee. Yeah. Well, maybe she'll come back and we don't know what the other phone number belongs to. Here comes somebody. Well, I hope that Sharon can rejoin us. So let us just continue. And when she rejoins us, I'll let you know. There's someone raising their hand, Pat. Yeah, I was wondering. I sort of would like Maureen, if it's OK with you and the committee, to give a very brief update. I know that you had contacted Paul about people applying for the committee. Yes. I also tried to get information. And he would not give me any whatsoever, including if there were people who applied what the number of people. I have some information. Yeah, OK. But let me go on just a little bit. I'm glad you have the information, because I've been really frustrated. I would like to suggest, and Jerry's taken me up on the suggestion. You, as a committee, can invite people to be participants. So even if Joe and Jerry aren't on the committee, you can invite them in to participate in meetings. They can't vote. But the reason I was thinking about that is because I was looking at Joe's response about the grant. And it's clear that he has knowledge that you folks really need to apply for the grant. So that's the one thing I wanted to bring up. And I thank you. In the interest of time, this point is well taken. And we'll see. My information is that there are interviews next week on the 16th from 3 to 4.30. I guess that means it may mean two people. It may mean three people. I don't know how long. I don't know anything about the people. But I know I was contacted about a specific time for interviews. And Paul just said that the interviews were being set up. So the next point after that is once we have interviews, once Paul has a decision, getting it through the town council is, I think, an important question. Because last time, I think that the appointments decisions were made probably two months before we had, before we got on the committee. So it's a town council issue after they've made the decisions. And I'll know more about the timeline next week. And I can let you know. But what I know now is that there's a tentative appointment scheduled for the 16th. All I know is that I have agreed to the 16th. I don't know what anyone else has agreed to. So it may be changed. But she's working on it. OK, maybe we need to move on to the consultant report about the ADA self-evaluation from the town, because I think that's what we really wanted to hear. And then if we have time, we can go into recommendations. Maureen, you, that letter from Joe, do you have access to any of those former reports? Myra, yes, I do have access to those reports. And I can share them with you all. I will say that they are largely outdated. And so I don't know if those are of good use. Not terribly useful. OK. However, what would be of wonderful use would be the draft report, which is being produced right now. And hopefully, the consultants today can talk about that. OK, so could you introduce the consultants? We don't have their names or anything. Yeah, so today we have. It looks like maybe two, or maybe it looks like Sharon is back. So that's good. Barbara Thorpe is here with us and Jenny Grover. They're both from DAC consultants. And they have been working with the town for updating our ADA self-evaluation and transition plan. So Jenny and Barbara, if you want to introduce yourselves. Thank you. Yes, I'll go ahead and start. It looks like Barbara is still muted. This is Jenny Grover with Disability Access Consultants. I'm unmuted, yes. OK. And thank you. That's Barbara Thorpe, our president of Disability Access Consultants as well. OK. And so thank you. We appreciate that Jenny and I and DAC appreciate the opportunity because I've been following your minutes and the history of the disability advisory. And I believe this will provide some very valuable information into the ADA self-evaluation and transition plan. So we wanted to thank you. So we can get to the substance of what you determined. Can you just very, very quickly tell us what the process was, who you interviewed, and then spend most of the time on your observations and conclusions? Yeah, I can start with the focus of the study as we're aware was to identify any potential barriers that would deny access to facilities, program, services, special events, and activities for persons with disabilities that are owned or sponsored by the town. And the ADA self-evaluation transition plan is also incorporating Section 504 requirements in Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, preceded the ADA, and is very similar. So by doing your updated 2020 study, we were able to incorporate that. And then we meet the grant requirements for block grants for your Department of Transportation and other areas that require a 504. So the study addresses structural or operational barriers that may be policies and procedures. The onsite surveys were done by our staff of town buildings, parks, trails, and recreational areas. And I wanted to mention that the town was extremely helpful at helping get these organized and planned. And we do appreciate all the town staff efforts. Then we've identified all of those potential barriers in buildings, parks, trails, and recreational areas. We also did an additional sampling of public rights of way where the pedestrian access routes are. So we did a sample of some sidewalks and some intersections to see if we were seeing any potential barriers. A lot of the public input did identify concerns with sidewalks and crosswalks. So that was done, even though it wasn't included in the scope. We did that as a barometer to see if there were any issues. So it seems like you're talking about physical barriers. Do you have any? No, I'm not done. Yeah, we did look at the physical barriers would be addressed in the transition plan. And the requirements in a transition plan, as you're probably aware, to identify what the barrier is, the proposed method to remove it, who's responsible to oversee it, and then the projected schedule for barrier removal. Many towns project that over 10 years or longer. As we know, the transition plan terminology comes from transitioning into compliance from 92 to 95. The very good news is that you had a prior study in 0607. So as Maureen or others mentioned earlier, this would be. And then what we've done is placed all of the physical barriers. And I'll get to the others in a online management program. So being in an online management program, you're able to go in and see pictures and photographs of the actual barrier, the actual measurement, where the information was. And town staff have access into the program that's called DACTrack. So it's all online and pretty much takes you in a virtual tour. We did review policy programs, services, and activities. Did review, and we're in the process of also reviewing your website for accessibility. And the website we're looking at to see if there's any potential barriers that are standards for persons with disabilities. So also, and I believe you wanted an overview of the process, public outreach is required for public entities, such as a tent of Amherst, to get public outreach. And the stakeholder input is very valuable to help prioritize and develop the plan. And you did get an excellent response to the surveys that were done. And Jenny, I'd like to explain a little bit about the process. Certainly, the city, excuse me, the town offered many opportunities for the public to offer comments, also organizations that provide services to persons with disabilities and the staff. There were hard copy surveys that were made available, also an online survey that respondents could give comments. And like Barbara was saying, there was a very good response rate for these surveys. For the surveys for the public, there were nearly 70 persons who responded with the online and hard copy surveys combined. Organizations, there were more than 20. And staff, there were over 30 staff members who responded. So there was a lot of really good input that was collected through the public input process. There were many methods that the town used, also to advertise that the public input was being collected to generate responses. So that really helped. And as Barbara was mentioning, the comments that have been received, a lot of them are regarding public rights of way, that there aren't accessible sidewalks, and that also maintenance of the sidewalks is difficult. And in the wintertime, the snow removal sometimes isn't as fast as the snow is falling, I suppose. So it makes it difficult for people to get around. But that is information that is going to. We've compiled all that information, and we are going to be providing that to the town in the self-evaluation of the programs and processes procedures, along with the website review. And I just wanted to thank Jenny. And I just wanted to piggyback on what you were saying. So the town, we offered a dedicated page on the town website for getting people to direct people to take the survey. And it was featured on our main page on the town website as one of the banner featured items. And then there was a press release done. And so as Jenny said, there were three types of surveys, one for the general public, one where targeted organizations that deal with persons with disabilities, and a third for town of Amherst staff. So I then sent out a plethora of emails to different apartment buildings, different nonprofits, different supported services, organizations, shelters. Basically, everyone and everyone, I reached out to the bid and the Chamber of Commerce to then include the survey to their networks. And so I asked that of all the people that I sent the email to share with their networks for both the individual survey and then poor organizations. And so I just wanted to make sure that. Maureen, did you include any school parent groups or school people in your? Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Myra. Yeah, I did reach out to the schools and the LSSC. And then I reached out to Julie Federman from the Health Department, who's part of a whole network of groups and families. And so I asked for everyone and everyone to share this with their networks. And then also, I shared the survey with our senior services with their department head. Are we ready for findings? Anybody have any questions so far? Nope? Right. I don't know who wants to talk about your observations and conclusions, or if that's what you plan to do. That would be great. Otherwise, do what you plan to do. Thank you. Yes, as Jenny said, we've compiled the information together into what's called the ADA 504 self-evaluation transition plan executive summary. In that, it will give the actual findings, whether they're compliant or not, and then give the recommendation if there is one to remove the barriers. So it will address areas such as, say, grievance procedures for members of the public, how readily accessible are those, the identity of the ADA coordinator, service animals, for example, if there's any policies regarding those. So all of that and many other things are compiled into this document that the date for that to go to the town would be on Monday or Tuesday. And then that would go to Maureen for initial review of the draft. We are also planning to assign logins to all of the data. And we were going to talk with Maureen about which staff would have logins to the DACTrack system where you can see all the detailed findings. So that summary and then goes through the findings in recommendation. Are you able to share any of that with us now, or is it not ready for that yet? Well, I can share some, but for example, Jenny had mentioned the public right-of-ways. We did a sampling of sidewalks and intersections, not a complete survey. And we did find some areas that were described in the surveys in terms of sidewalk joints being too wide. In some cases, curb ramps where there were not truncated domes or there was an overlayment that the bottom landing was not flat. There were other areas with crosswalks. And I don't know Jenny may have the exact number of findings, but we're putting that all together and releasing the passwords as soon as we work with Maureen on that. Yeah, I was so grateful that I can't think of his name. What were the two guys that came to Amherst? Well, Sean was there. Sean, yes, yes. And Chris was there. And then Mike Bogus. Mike Bogus has been involved in the review of the study, as long as Candace Perch. Yeah, thank you, Maureen. They were wonderful. I talked to them, felt like on a daily basis, and I met on-site with them for some of the locations, as well as a few other staff people. It was very tricky in context of COVID to get Sean and Chris, the auditors, to go into certain buildings, because all buildings are not open to the general public. And then we brought them to trails and parks, where they had much more, obviously, flexibility, because those aren't closed to the public. So I was so grateful that we were able to add a sample of what a sample of looking at sidewalks as part of this project that was unfortunately not part of the scope of this project, as it would have been very costly to add all the sidewalks of the town. But maybe in the next phase of this project, we could include all sidewalks and curb cuts and sidewalks. But I wanted just to point out, so I was able to work with Chris and Sean. So they were the sidewalks, or the right-of-ways that they looked at, was on Spring Street, starting at the intersection of Spring and Churchill Street. In a sense, that's where the police station is. And where is this? No, Main Street, sorry, Main and Churchill, where the police station starts. And then they headed up to the intersection, the main intersection of Amity, Main and Pleasant. And then they went to Route 9. And then they went backwards. And I can't recall where they finished. It could have been at Kellogg Ave. And so they did those stretches. And they looked at the sidewalk and the street, the sidewalk, the curb cuts, the joints, the ramps, the crosswalks. And they looked at the bump. Running slopes and cross slopes and the width of the sidewalk, too. You're doing an excellent summary of it, but I just thought I'd mention that. No, no, thank you. Thank you. Right. And what I wanted to mention, too, overall, what I've seen and I've done hundreds of these and was also an ADA coordinator and worked in a public entity, have over 40 years of experience. But I want to mention that of all the towns and cities, I do see some very positive things that the town of Amherst has done. Not to mention the organization and the activities that I've seen, but the Disability Advisory Council has been well-established. And I'm going for a period of time. And I do see some that have disability advisory committees or councils that aren't really active. Yours appears to be very active. I also saw throughout the town, there's many other areas where you've incorporated disability into not only your budgets, but in some of your other activities and your other committees. So I wanted to say I see that as very good. There's things that I was very pleased to see that you don't always see with some of the other public entities. So I think you... So do you have a timeline? I'm sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry, go ahead. I just wondered if you had a timeline for release of your findings and you said you had not yet completed the evaluation of the website. So I'm interested in how that's being evaluated, whether you're actually using assistive technology yourselves to figure out if it works, instead of just thinking that they went by the book. Now, I'm going to have Jenny explain that. We have several detailed processes to ensure standards that need to be compliant. And we use different software programs to incorporate that. I know that we had done one. And Jenny, do you want to explain what was done previously and what we're updating as of yesterday? Yes, absolutely. We did run a website accessibility survey report. We have a software program that actually crawls through every one of the pages of the website and clicks all the links to make sure that everything works. It also checks photographs and images to make sure that they have descriptive text. It also reads what the text is. And if it's just a placeholder text, it lets you know that. So this is a very, very detailed software to ensure that the website is as compliant as possible. It'll let you know anything that's not in compliance with WCAG Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 level AA, which is the standard for public entities. So I'm looking at the initial report we ran. Well, we ran one in January, and then we did an updated one just because right now, with how much has gone on, things have become so virtual, we went ahead and did an updated one. It actually crawled through, if you can believe this, the town of Amherst has 20,543 pages and images on their website. So it actually crawled through every one of those and looked to see if there was anything that was out of compliance with WCAG 2.0 level AA. So we do have a number of findings that we will be compiling this report and presenting that to the town. But like I said, it is very comprehensive, and it will tell you anything that is not in compliance. It also checks to make sure that there is captioning on any videos that are on the website. It checks for background versus foreground text to make sure that the color contrast is legible. So like I said, this software program that we use to crawl through the website is extremely comprehensive. And we've done that a few times just to make sure that you have the most up-to-date information on your website because so many things have changed over the past few months. Okay, that's great that they do that. I just wondered if you had anybody actually turn on NVDA or JAWS and see if you can actually find things. I mean, it's one thing for all the links to work and I really applaud you for checking that because many links do not work when you go to various websites and there's a lot of bad labeling or lack of labeling on various websites. I'm not saying the town, but it is the town things do work that way, but it's really hard to find things. The way it's organized is, I find myself typing in search terms because I can't figure out where I'm supposed to find things. So I don't know. I mean, I'm glad that it all works with the software program, but it has some issues about how it's actually designed. You don't have a way to know that, right? When you're saying how it's designed, are you talking about the method to review the website or the website itself? The website itself. And how it's designed. Well, the program that we use to review the websites does check to see if the pages are compatible with a screen reader software. So while I don't manually check that, that is part of the program that we use to do this very comprehensive search. No, I really applaud you're looking at the technical specifications to see if all the links work and all the things are labeled and all the captions are provided. That's fabulous, because a lot of websites don't do that. And I'm really glad the town website does that, but that doesn't mean that it's easy to use it because if you can't, even if all the links work, if you can't find the links and if they're not organized in a logical way, it's, I find it not the easiest website to use. Like when I typed in, when I went to the State, Secretary of State website about the elections, it was instantly available. I had typed in, I just looked down the list, found what I wanted, looked into it, and it was all there. And when the town of Abner's website, it's not always easy to do that. So that- That's really good feedback, Myra. I do know that the town IT department is actively trying to strategize of how to make improvements to the website and there has been talks about redesigning it, specifically about making it more user-friendly. It's like, we all run, we all come across these issues of like, oh, how am I supposed to find this web page within this website and then you end up sort of Googling it on the website. So- Exactly. Yeah. So I'll definitely relay this message to Brianna, who is our communications manager about this. And I'll see what kind of updates and what kind of projects she is working on, specifically related to the website. Cause I know she is actively working on website redesign and redesign work. So back to my other question, I'm sorry, I never even let you answer it. What's your timeline for release of your report? The release of the report would be on Monday or Tuesday, the 14th or 15th of September. Wow, okay. Yeah, but that would be to the town. So they would review the draft, be able to respond to some of the findings. That's why I wanted to ask today of the committee. And we do have all the detailed survey results. If there's any particular high priorities or any particular input, you just provided one in terms of website accessibility. But are there any other high priorities or priorities that the committee has that they could share with us today in the absence of time? Anyone have suggestions? I don't, everything that you're talking about, this is Tori sounds good. I don't have any suggestions right now. Do you have any particular locations Tori that are problematic for you that they might not have been able to visit? Well, they looked at the sidewalks, they looked at the gaps in the sidewalks. Those are difficult for me. When I'm riding my scooter around town, I don't know exactly which, I mean, I'm sure they couldn't get to all of them, but especially... So if you know any places that are particularly problematic because you cannot navigate, that would be a really good thing because they were not able to look at everything. But you have experience that they might not have. So if you could tell them where there might be some concern that's serious, that would be great. And you too, Seren, if you have any places that you really can't navigate. Is Seren still on? I don't see her name anymore. Seren is on, she's on a phone. Oh, Seren, I just unmuted you. She still looks muted. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Hello. Hi, Seren. I can hear you. Hi, hi. I had one question to ask about the site, about the website. Is there any way it can be voice activated? Like when you're searching a site, can you just activate it by voice? I don't know. There might be an assistive technology program that you would be able to use to apply to your computer that would allow you to command the website by voice. The website itself, I mean, it all depends on the computer that you're using, the technology that you have, but we can look into possibilities of a voice-activated program that would be compatible with the website or any website, any web browser. That would be excellent. Okay. Any other suggestions? Jerry, are you still there? And this is Barley Thorpe from DAC. I wanted to mention some of the comments that we received that the bus stops weren't accessible. I was not sure which one, but if they're even owned or managed by the town, but there was some comments on the bus stops. I wonder if you could forward those to the PVTA. Yeah, so we had this conversation, Barbara and I, we wanted to include the bus stops. So the pavement, the property that the bus stops are on are owned by the town, the physical shelters and any other bench, stuff like that. Those are owned by PVTA. And so I don't know if Sean and Chris ended up including their observations about the shelters or what have you, but if we do have any comments by them, we would, the town would happily forward that information to PVTA, who are the owners of the shelters. Okay. And other general comments you may want to add to, they were that there weren't curb ramps at many of the corners and some concern with pedestrian crosswalks. So I just wanted to mention those. And the walk signal for the time to cross the crosswalk, some input was that it wasn't long enough. If you had mobility and it took you longer with a walk or a cane, that a person with disability may not be able to adequately get across. The other general comments from the public, not enough accessible parking spaces, which is very common. I mean, actually the public input where we see this pretty good and very comprehensive. You know, again, as we mentioned, several inputs or many input regarding better sidewalks, safer sidewalks, accessible walkways to entrances. There were some comments on special events and some questions on accessibility, but all this information will be contained in that executive summary. That's first submitted to the town, to Maureen and staff, and that would be draft one. And then that gets further vetted and refined and then we will work with the town on the next process or the step. I have a question about whether you looked into any, how many, the maintenance and the operation of the audible pedestrian signals, because they're not all working all the time. The downtown ones were not working for a long time. And that's a good point that was brought up in many of the surveys that some are not working. I think it was the council on aging or a few others that expressed that concern. So I hope that'll be highlighted in that report actually because we don't have the most up to date pedestrian signal, audible pedestrian signals anyway, but when they don't work, they're not useful even if they're not up to date. I see two grants being raised, one roof and then we'll call on Jerry's roof. I'm gonna, I think you're muted. Let me unmute you. I just want to know is once the town reviews the report, will the executive summary be available for people to go to the town website and take a look at the executive summary? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, so once, I actually, I'm thinking out loud here, but I would hope to post the draft report. I don't know if it would be draft one or draft two on the town website. And also I would certainly email this group of the draft copy and any other person or organization or board that wants a copy. And then of course for the finalized report will be on the website, you all will be given a copy. And then in addition, what I think is most important is who is responsible of making sure that this is a living document once it's finalized and that it's part of the discussion for capital projects and for grant opportunities moving forward. And so that needs to be really laid out as part of this project. So like currently right now, I have a couple of grant opportunities that I think this project that are identified in this report could be wonderful grant projects for these grant opportunities. So I'm getting all excited to get my hands on this draft report and then it will be applicable to all grants or all projects in general for town projects, DPW projects, LSSC projects, the library projects, planning projects, et cetera. So anyways, in short, yes, you'll get a copy. Jerry. Thanks for calling me. I have to go in a couple of minutes. I wanna underline and bold what you just said about it becoming a living document because if it's not part of the capital planning of the town, nothing much will happen. And that was a frustration I had with the last review that was done, I think 04 or 04, I can't remember when, or 6 maybe. And I have a lot of observations about snow removal downtown because I worked downtown and I walked around a lot. Is that something I would just report to you Maureen or it's not just because this town doesn't keep up with the snow? I mean, I know. So I don't know if you want specifics from me of what I've observed over the years. I took to carrying a shovel in my car and walked around downtown shoveling curb cuts because some of them were totally impassable for anybody who couldn't climb over one. Yeah. That's a issue everywhere actually. And there's places that, because it doesn't get much sun, even though it got plowed it would turn to ice like bolt would walk, just turns to ice every winter. It just has to be monitored. Gets plowed, but then there's ice, then there's melting snow and then that freezes and somehow it all ends up on bolt would walk. I don't know why, but I could give you a whole list of problems like that. Sure. Is there anybody that he could give the whole list of problems to? Would you like to include his information in your report? Is it too late for that? It's no, it's certainly not too late to include that. We did have a notation in there. That comes under the ADA requirement to maintain accessible features, which includes sidewalks. But no, we'd love the input. If you can forward that to Maureen, that would be very helpful. And then we can incorporate anything we haven't already incorporated. So thank you. And who was that just speaking? That was Jerry Weiss. I was, I used to be on the DAAC. I've been involved for 16 years. Yeah, I thought I saw your name on some of the past minutes. I was reviewing all of the activities. Yeah, Gerald Weiss. So you were in the December 2019 also. Yeah. Okay, well, thank you, Gerald. Appreciate that. Thank you. And it's great to see you all again. Sorry, I have to, Brian, I got another meeting I have to go to. Thank you for coming, Jerry. My pleasure. Thank you, Jerry. See you again. Thank you. Bye-bye. I have a question. Did anybody bring up the new rotary downtown at Triangle Street as either way as a good thing or a bad thing? Because for blind people, for blind people it's pretty dangerous. It's not the best thing to do. And that's a typical comment we hear about rotaries for pedestrians to safely cross rotaries and persons with disabilities whether visual mobility have challenges. So that wasn't an area assessed in the study, but I'll turn that over to Maureen. Did you have any other comments on that, Maureen? The rotary? I have not as part of this project specifically, but I have heard people express concerns, either pedestrian cyclists and people, persons with disabilities express concerns about the newly constructed roundabout at the corner of North Pleasant and Triangle Street. But I don't know. So under this project, if we've received in the surveys, whether we've received any concerns. Is it possible to include something like that in the statement? Because there is no traffic control on a rotary. The ones in South Amherst are not in heavily pedestrian areas, but this one really is. And there's no slowdown, there's no speed bump. There are some things after the fact that they could do to make it a little bit safer because the cars just go zooming around it. There's no reason for them not to. There's no controls. And it's in a highly pedestrian area. I don't know whose idea it was to do that without any safeguards, but it wasn't a good idea. And I don't know how to fix it, but it should be in the report. Yeah, actually, to back up, so as we mentioned earlier, so the public right away wasn't part of the scope for this project. The consultants were able to do a focused area along Main Street and North Pleasant Street. I don't believe that they were able to get up to that roundabout that you were talking about. With that being said, I'm really, again, I'll say, I'm really glad the consultants were to give us that sample of if the town were to audit the public right away. This is what it would look like. These are the sorts of things that they would audit and these are the sorts of findings and hopefully recommendations that would come from it. And so if the town were to do a phase two of this self-evaluation transition plan, maybe that scope would be to look at sidewalks in right-of-ways throughout our town villages or maybe the entire town. And so that's why the consultants were so agreeable of adding basically at the 11th hour to add Main Street and North Pleasant to give us a sample of what that could look like for the town to look for. So, because yeah, we need to look at all the sidewalks and crosswalks and ramps and roundabouts. And especially if we're gonna propose new, more roundabouts, how does that impact persons with disabilities? The town really needs to know what kind of improvements can be done before they continue designing them. And this is Barbara, I'd like to add to that that yes, I agree that we can certainly include comments in the input you just gave. And that was, was that Myra? Yes. Yeah, that Myra just gave regarding the rotary. So I have those notated. And because that's what we need is the input regarding as some rotaries are not necessarily built in DOT, control over some of those in federal highways. But there are some, we see many rotaries that don't include all the accessibility features. But at least we can include that comment in your comments in the executive summary. Thank you. Is there exactly the summary going to anyone here? Hello. Yeah, go ahead. Sarin, go ahead. Sarin, let me unmute you one second. Go ahead. Sarin, can you shot? Nope, nope. Sarin? Sorry, I'm not good at unmuting people. So hold on. Hold on, Sarin, you're still muted, hold on. Okay, Sarin? There you go. Hi. Anyway, we cannot touch this mute, unmute things. Many times I try to say something and I cannot get through. So like in many meetings, this is not like a huge meeting with 40, 50 people. It's just like handful of us. Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm actually not muting or I'm not muting people. So if you just want to keep, just don't press the button. I'm not touching, I'm not pressing the button, you know? But what I wanted to say, we had a conversation about this with Joe Tringale and he stressed the importance of the schools and there was some violations. They were not in compliance with ADA and he especially wanted us to check what the consultants findings were on that. You can unmute me now. You can mute me now. And this is Barbara. I've been doing Star 6 to mute and unmute, I'm gonna tell you. So I've just been manually doing that. Of course, we can override it and mute everyone, but that's what I'm doing. You can hear me now, right? Yeah. Yes. Yeah, so that's what I do. So yeah, there were information in there. There's comments roundabout, present too many crossings for pedestrians, you know, safety concerns. There were some concerns regarding school programs, but we produce these in their entirety and then there's a summary also in the executive summary by area. So, I just wanted to mention that also. You know, listening to you, I think it's really important and you probably did it for you to include in your executive summary and even on the top as a preamble, this was the scope of work. This is what we were asked to evaluate. This is what we were not asked to evaluate. And this report doesn't deal with things, most things that we weren't asked to evaluate because I don't want people who don't know really all the details, who might be involved with capital planning to think that this is comprehensive and it deals with everything that we have to fix in the town. So I think that the scope that you were contracted for and the scope you were not contracted for is really important for us to have out there. Absolutely. And I agree, we have that already in there under the scope of work and the methodology is. So that is already in your draft executive summary. Okay, thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear. Yes, Joe, hi. You can hear me? Yeah, yeah. I can't see anyone, but hi, how's everyone doing? Sorry, I've been fumbling around with this stupid thing forever. So anyway, I'm hearing about the executive summary and this is all about the, God, I hate this computer. The transition plan? Yeah, this is all about the transition plan, right? Yes, yes. And I'm sorry, I don't want to be playing catch up here. So in a thumbnail sketch, can you please just let me know what happened and I'll try to piece it together. Oh, sure, Gia, we can give you a brief summary of what we've discussed today. So we have Jenny and Barbara who are part of the consultant team that have been updating the self-revaluation and transition plan for the town. And we talked about, Barbara talked about, but actually Barbara, do you want to just quickly mention the things that the team is working on, the structural operational and onsite surveys? Yes, I'd be happy to. So the focus as we said earlier was to look at any of the town's facilities, program services, activities and determine if they're accessible for persons with disabilities and if any findings or recommendations need to be made for any change. So all of that is put together with the onsite surveys of potential physical barriers in buildings, facilities, trails, recreational sites. And then we did a small sampling of the public rights of way with some sidewalks and some intersections. And then all of that, we're now getting the input from the Disability Advisory Committee. We already received input from the public. You did great input from the public, from staff and from organizations. Marine and the town staff have been very, very good that work with and very helpful. I wish all of the public entities were. But we're discussing now, putting it together. Part of this call is to get your input that's incorporated into this draft executive summary. Okay, well forgive me if I'm asking questions that have already been answered, but I'm gonna have to. Go for it. If you don't mind. Yeah, go for it. Okay, I'm assuming that are you working off the existing evaluation and transition plan? We reviewed the 2006-2007 plan. This is much more comprehensive. And we didn't work from it. The value of that, if you had a complaint or concern it documents your part of your baseline. You've added facilities, deleted, you've added programs, codes of change, for example, 2011 Department of Justice, requirements for other power-driven mobility devices, the requirements for service animals. So this current study 2020 updates the prior study. Well, the prior study, yeah, I'm sorry, the prior study is just woefully inadequate and it doesn't include the schools. Now, is your review going to include the schools? I'll turn that over to Maureen to discuss the schools and how that was done. Yeah, so the regional school did their own audit last year and which was pretty similar to what has been reviewed with this, it's not part of this report. They did their own study last year and by and large, I would say they're using a similar methodology. However, it's not the same methodology. So they were not captured in this report, unfortunately. And we really didn't have any control over that. And so there were some aspects like the, there was a pool and some outdoor fields that were at the schools that are part of this report but now the schools. That's the regional schools. The Amherst schools should be in this report because the regional schools is its own legal entity. The Amherst schools is part of the town. Well, I mean, I guess it's too late now, but I mean, I would argue that even the regional because Amherst pays the lion's share of the staff, the staffing and the insurance, I think that Amherst, the town of Amherst is responsible for the regional assistance as well. Well, that would go into a capital plan from a different line, I guess. And there's nothing, I get that Joe, but you can't do anything about that, but the Amherst elementary schools should be part of the scope of this report because they are not under the average of the report. Yes, I agree. So are we comparing apples and oranges if they did their own report? Yeah, unfortunately the schools, none of the schools were part of this project, but however, I do feel that there could be a future phase to this project. And so maybe we talked earlier about how sidewalks, et cetera could be part of the next phase. And maybe I would then argue that the schools would be part of it. I'm not sure why the local schools weren't part of it. I think the town felt that we had such a limited amount of money to fund this project that they were excluded was the ultimate. I'm looking at the list right now on my other computer. Yeah, so that's the reality of it. But I anticipate there would be another phase to this project. The Department of Public Works create their own because they're supposed to create their own transition, their own evaluation and transition plan. Yeah, most of the problems are them to tell you the truth. I'm sorry. Barbara, did you find it, did you find anything worthwhile in DPW's evaluation and transition plan? Or did they just leave it blank? You're talking the prior say 2006, 2007 study? Yeah. Yeah, there was much more general than ours. I did talk about some potential barriers. The one that the town, the one that we just assisted with and update is much more comprehensive and is up to date with the current codes. So the value that being done, it showed you attempted to do that. It did identify some barriers. And then we've already compared that with what we have and what we've done is much more comprehensive. We also reviewed the studies from the schools to see how they would fit in if they appropriately identified barriers. Again, not as detailed as we are, but it did identify some of the barriers such as parking, doors, ramps in and out of the school, some of the public areas where people meet. So it did identify the school reports, did identify barriers. Did they go over their programs? A little bit, yes. They did actually some survey input and identified some concerns. The one that Maureen and the town that we worked with on is much more detailed. In your public input, you do have comments regarding the schools. And when you see that, you'll be able, so we were also, there's, you know, LSOC member of ZBA, there's some other things that are identified in terms of school activities. Yeah, that just happened to come up. And they're after school activities that they have. Yeah, that was mentioned. Yeah, I don't know if they're, are they doing anything about that? Well, when this report, and that's again, I don't want to overstep the town, generally what happens, the town would take this information, review it. They usually the ADA coordinator or designated person from the town would contact the schools and state, we've received this input. And then those things can work together. I don't know about Amherst, the elementary school per se in detail, but we did review the other reports that the schools did. So the good news is it does have some things that they need to address what we didn't have. The transition plan, and this is where some public entities fall down. And I worked for one for 20 years and then I've done this for over 20 years. But you can identify the barrier, but the ADA requires, and it's an estimated timeline. So the projected schedule for bare removal, which can change. It can be earlier or later due to high use areas, safety concerns, complaints, public input. But I did not see any projected dates for bare removal. So technically, it's not really a transition plan yet. The school. I know that, believe me. Yeah, so what it is right now is an architectural list of barriers. There is some program information in there. And then the basic requirements, like of your study is who is the ADA coordinator? Who's a 504 coordinator? Where are the grievance procedures for the public? Did you post the notice of rights for protections afforded by Title II? Did the town post the non-discrimination statements? All of that in accommodation statements we will have in that draft. I didn't see that level of detail in the schools. Well, those things are pretty much standard. The language is already created. My experience doing the evaluations and transition plans is the language around accommodations and discrimination is typically just there. Yeah, it's pretty straight across for everyone. Yeah, we don't have to create a new one just for Amherst. But, you know. But what we do is we look at, is it there as a comprehensive? Are there any recommendations? So when I go on the website and I'm a community member and I want to fill out a grievance or complaint procedure, how accessible is that for a person with disability? Or a community member or senior? So is that available? Is there information on service animals, for example? So yes, there's basic requirements, like fees and surcharges. You can't charge an extra fee for an accommodation. But what the study does is also looks at some of the practice, what we can see is happening. It also looks at newer areas, such as social media. And so you'll see when the draft comes out, it's fairly comprehensive. It meets all the requirements for department of justice, department of transportation, reviews, all those areas. Typically I see these done in phases. Some of the larger cities, counties and towns can do it all at one time. But as Maureen says, this gives you the foundation. And I'm glad they sampled a portion of the sidewalks in the few of the intersections. And I see we work with one large city that this has been done in four phases over time. But as someone mentioned earlier, it's a living document that is meant to be a planning document that has got to be updated on a regular basis. So for example, the 2006 study probably didn't get updated, probably didn't have projected dates in it for when things could or could not be done. Yeah, it didn't have dates where people are responsible to make sure that it got done. So. And actually the requirements are for projected schedule, doesn't have to have dates, but that's usually the schedule. And like in the software program that the town has called DACTrack, that's where the training is to provide your projected date for bare removal when it was removed, when you did it, was it done in a compliant manner so that you can continually update your progress. You can get progress reports, you can get photographs, very good documentation. So it's the framework, the roadmap, if you will, for bare removal to make your community more accessible. Great, and you're doing telecommunications, so you're doing the, you know, like you said, the social media. Yeah, yeah. All the Bobby stuff. Effective communication down to are interpreters available when requested, assistive listening, alternate formats, are PDS accessible, are the fonts and the documents accessible? For example, the type of font, is there enough contrast? So it's a fairly detailed study. We've done these for many years. And like I said, the town has been great to work with. Right, yeah, well, Maureen's been right on top of things, so she's great. Yeah, and as always, there will be, there are recommendations for things to improve compliance. There's many areas that are compliant and some that are not, but that will all be addressed in the summary. Yeah, all in all, Amherst is really good. We're trying to be responsive. And I think the town is trying to be responsive. I think that, and... Oh, sorry. I'll go ahead. I can't remember if you were on the call yet, Joe, yet, but Barbara and her team is going to provide town staff the first draft of this report early next week, and which is great timing because there is a grant opportunity through the Mass Office of Disability. And I believe the application is due October 9th, and so I wanna get my hands on this report, and I would love to get the board, the committee's input on what project we should submit as a town for the MOD grant. And so... Does anyone have any ideas about, I mean, I've thought of some that aren't in the scope of this project, unfortunately, there are some sidewalks that aren't downtown that are really a passable. If you're in a stand. Barbara, I think what we have to do, and I, well, Barbara had mentioned it, is there's four areas that need to be addressed, which would be, if I correct me from wrong, Barbara, but I believe it's access to town, to the town facilities, to the town hall, access to public accommodations, access to transportation areas, and there was access to an exit... Recreation, parks and recreation. Yeah, I think it's employment, places of employment, possible employment. But regardless, there are areas that are already designated as part of the areas to first put your concentrations on. And the other ones, I think that we can handle as the committee. I don't know, Barbara, what do you think? No, all the areas you mentioned and more have been reviewed. There's self-evaluation, as we know, we self-evaluate and come up with a plan. And I think we've incorporated even some of the newer areas in this. We've talked about what type of training has been done, what budgets support this. I'll write down to a location of publications for the public. Of course, we're not doing as much of that with COVID, but I think when you see the executive summary, I think it is a good start for the framework and the roadmap for the town. I do feel that you may need, as I mentioned earlier, many public entities do this in phases, especially the small, the middle-sized towns, that there's very limited budgets, they haven't got a huge tax base, huge tourism, but they're doing this in phases, even though we all know the law was passed quite a while ago. I see that the town of Amherst has actually done more than a few of the larger towns that I work with. I have some that have done very little until there's a bunch of litigation. They're not serving the community and then all of a sudden they're going to do this. We have some with a lot of money. I think with the resources you have and having a long-standing Disability Advisory Committee and long-standing, I saw many of your other committees, whether it's finance and others, almost all of them have some form of accessibility included in them. So that was a plus and I put that in the draft. I'm assuming you're not going in at Title I? At the purpose of this was Title II, the public entities. This wasn't a Title I focus. However, we do address some of the issues in terms of online applications. We do look at some applications and I do touch upon a few of the Title I areas, although that wasn't the major scope of the project at all. Yeah, just curious. So Barbara, do you have any suggestions given an October 9th deadline for a grant proposal? Do you see anything that looks like it would be, given the conversation that we've had here, that is in your report that would be a good idea to apply for in the first phase? Yeah, now what I would want to do to see what is the scope of the grant, what's included, what is the focus of it. So if it's a block grant funding, we know what areas we can focus on and include. Many of these areas could be included that are identified. And I don't know, Maureen, that's good. She's stepping out to take a look at the grant opportunities. But I don't know, Maureen, what areas of focus are incorporated in the grant opportunities? Yeah, I can answer that. It's to remove barriers and create and improve accessible features and program access for persons with disabilities. It has to be on town property. Project grants can be awarded up to $250,000. However, when you take a look at the recipients, every other, the communities that have received grant money over the last few years, on average, towns get about $50,000, $60,000 per town. Not to say that it's not impossible to get more money, but it seems that they try to give more grants and then spread it out a little bit. So that's it in a nutshell. So last year, the town was successfully able to get, last year's grant through this program for crosswalk replacements and a sidewalk replacement. All three replacements are in downtown, air-merced. Due to COVID, this should have already been done by, probably by this month, but due to COVID, the state is giving grant extensions. So we hope to be done with those projects by next summer. Do you have anything in mind, Maureen? That you think should be one of the next things given that you understand the scope and how these things are often awarded? Sure. It's a good question. I mean, I think there's a plethora of crosswalks and sidewalks that need to be replaced to make it ADA compliant. So that could be a good project. Even if it's the accessible traffic signals, I don't know why they don't work, but maybe that's something, I mean, it's a very big project to change them, but maybe not to repair them. I don't know. Yeah, I would have to tell you. I have also something that comes to my mind is the access, very easier access to the library. Since it's not only a library, they hold different functions there. I know we can't- Jones Library or the Munson? Jones Library. I know we can park across the street behind the cinema. However, we have to go to the library, we have to cross the street. I think there should be safety, some blinking lights or something that people can push on to allow the traffic to stop. And also, once you are on the other side of the road in front of the library, there was a little ramp there. And I remember the railing. I haven't been there for a while. And that was something temporary. It wasn't permanent. With the idea, it was going to be made permanent later. So could we apply to fix this problem or could it be part of the problems? Well, aren't they applying for a whole new library anyway? Well, I have no idea where it is at and whether it is accepted or not, and they are cutting down on the project. But this could be at least help with that, whatever because there is no other additional parking place by the library. So the only accessible spaces they can provide is across the street. Maureen, do you know if the library is within the purview of the Amherst transition and evaluation? It was included. Actually, it was not included in the transition plan. Pat is raising your hand. I'll recognize that. Well, Pat, if you wanted to follow up with that. Yes. The cocoon riddle architects in the last month, month and a half presented a library study on what it would cost to make the library ADA compliant. And all the costs were there and you can probably go online. Maureen can help with that to get a copy of that study. And it was, I think fairly well done. So that's something Joe that and everyone you might want to find a way to check out. Yeah, actually, just to say Pat, I don't think Joe is at the last meeting. So Joe, Pat DeAngeles is a town council member and she is a liaison to the committee now. And so she'll be attending. Yeah, sorry. That was one length. Okay. Hi, Joe. Hi, welcome aboard. Thank you. I'm not sure we can do something about that by October 9th without knowing what the scope of the library project is gonna end up being. So I think that's probably not something we can do. Yeah. But it would be. I was just thinking there must be something downtown that is pretty clear to everybody that we could apply for. I mean, I can think of things in my neighborhood. For example, there's a guy who lives on High Street who uses a chair and he literally can go out of his house. He can go to the right when he gets out of his driveway and he cannot go to the left and he cannot cross the street because the sidewalks are impassable. So he's completely limited about where he can go and what he can do with his chair. Pretty outrageous. Yeah, that is. I wanted Barbara to loop back to the transition plan in context of the Jones Library. So it was not audited by the consultants. But it was done. You did it June 10th, 2020, the Coon Riddle Architects. You know, I have reviewed the study and that's why I believe that Maureen and the town had removed that one. Yep. And because you had a study done. And, but there are some components in there that certainly could be incorporated in the grant funding. And a few of it relates to our study. I do wanna mention that there's comments regarding down or your town hall and accessibility in your public input and in our study. It's not just sidewalks, it's access to building. Comments such are the entry stairs are dangerous. So you do have comments where grant funding could be used at high use public buildings in areas where we've found that your priorities, for example, the Department of Justice says that in its standard that high priority is you need to be able to get into the building. So from the public right away, parking or pass the travel into the building, you have many cases where grant funding can help provide access to your buildings. If you can't get in a building, it doesn't matter how accessible it is inside. You have to get in at a higher priority. A lot of grants are done for the high use public areas where persons with disabilities may have a higher prevalence. There's comments about senior center, other areas that are typical, the Bangs Community Center was commented on from parking to accessibility. So it went well beyond sidewalks, some very good input and many of the other areas that we can work with Maureen and the group in terms of some grant funding. Well, what about the polling places too? Polling places or? There were comments regarding that also. Yeah. Are you going to list all those comments in an appendix? How do we get to hear the comments even if they're not in the specific? How we do it, we give you the actual comments that were done from May 8th to July 11th. You get the actual unadented or not redacted comments in the appendices. We're just careful if there's something and it isn't your case at all, like fire the town manager or something in appropriate statements, that's the only thing we redact. Then the areas we summarize those, for example, if there's a lot of comments about service animals being excluded, that goes in the executive summary under service animals. It may say a policy was not found or there was a policy found that excluded service animals. That's what would be addressed. So all of the comments are included in the executive summary and there's certain ones that are highlighted by area or topic. It seems we are running out of time and this has been a wonderful discussion. Yeah, thank you so much. And I'm sorry I got on so late and probably had you review things that you already spoke about. Oh, that's okay. I'm horrible. So normally we meet monthly, but in anticipation or in preparation of this grant, would folks wanna meet later this month to discuss? I think that's a great idea. Once you've seen the report. Yeah. And once, I don't know when you plan to give us access to it, but what if we meet on the 22nd? Yeah, that works. Which gives you still three weeks to write the grant. Yep, I think that's perfect. I think the 22nd or the 29th would be ideal for me. Well, Maureen, I'm no longer... Well, the 29th gives you only one week. It gives me one week. Yeah. Yeah, maybe the 22nd. Does that work with folks? Yeah. I'm no longer a member, Maureen, so... But we still expect you to come to these meetings, Joe. Right. That's really critical. The committee can invite anybody they want to participate. You just can't fool Joe. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just a sucker, anyway. And, you know, I end up looking at Maureen and saying, oh, come on, how can I resist, you know? So, anyway. And all our meetings are open to the general public, so... And I finally get a chance to see Sarin. I haven't seen Sarin in forever. All right. I'm available. This is Tori. I'm available on the 22nd, not the 29th. Okay, the 22nd. How about other folks? I can do 22nd, too. You can. Yes, Sarin. And I can, as well. I'm not hooked into my computer, so I can't. You know, but just send me the invite, you know? Because I don't know if I'll be in for surgery or not, so... Sure. All right. Well, I'll send everyone an email just confirming the September 22nd as the next possible DAAC meeting. Oh, thank you for that idea, for offering the extra meeting. I think that would help us really figure out how to do it with the money. So are we ready to do the voting and thank Barbara and Jenny for being with us? And Barbara and Jenny, might you be able to be with us again for this 22nd meeting or no? Yeah, we would be able to if you'd like us to participate. Certainly that would be up to you. Yeah, I don't know if that's needed, but we can certainly extend the invitation. We get, well, let's talk next week. Okay, I put it on the calendar as a tentative already. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you for answering all the questions, which might seem mundane to you at this point. No, no, no. And I want to quickly thank the Disability Advisory Committee, the Disability Access Advisory Committee. I think you've got a good input. I appreciate all the input. And if you think of anything else or any other comments, if you could send those to Maureen to send on to be included with this draft, that would be appreciated. That's great. Thank you so much for your flexibility about what goes into the report, even at this late date. I think that's great. Thank you. Okay, can we do a motion to adjourn and then we'll have to do a roll call? Wait, are we adjourning or are we gonna have a quick update on voting? I need to get to my next meeting, but... Yeah, I do too. I apologize. I can't vote anyway, so... All I want to say about the voting is that it is going to be possible to vote independently and privately for the November election if you cannot write on a ballot or read a ballot. You're gonna be able to do it through an online application. Basically, you're going to have to reapply for a mail vote and then you're going to have to fill out a form and which is like five questions that are very easy and then they're supposed to send you a link to the ballot and you're supposed to be able to print it out. I mean, fill it out online and print it and put it in an envelope. So that's the thing. We're also supposed to have a list of all the polling places that are going to be open to make sure that they're accessible. So we need that as well. Okay, all right, we can do all that at the next meeting. All right, is there a move to adjourn from anybody? I can't make a motion, but I feel strongly both ways. This is Tori, I'll move to adjourn. I second that. We got a second, Ruth, Sarah, somebody? Yes. Okay, I second it. And all in favor of adjourning roll call, Tori? Aye. Ruth? Yes, we did. And, uh, Sarah? Yes. And me, yes. Okay, Mara, are you the new chair, Mara? Yeah. You are, congratulations. Thanks. Well, thanks so much, guys. And I will send a follow-up email about the next meeting, which will be September 22nd at 11.30, right here on Zoom. Excellent. All right, thank you, goodbye, everybody. Thank you.