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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-10-06 Committee on People with Disabilities Minutes COMMITTEE ON PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES Friday, October 6, 2006, 10:30 a.m. Kona Mayors Office Conference Room PRESENT: Denise Cowdrey, Michael Gleason, James Souza, Julia Staten, Laura Tobosa EXCUSED: Lawrence Scadden, Chair; Ted Yamanaka, Vice-Chair; Betsy Whitney, Secretary; Jack Matsui GUESTS: Malina Dravis-Tucker, Interpreter; Teri Spinola-Campbell,ADA Coordinator (Equal Opportunity Officer); Robert Zirnstein, Volunteer Enforcement Officer CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order at 10:30 a.m. M. Gleason reported that the first order of business is the election of chair pro tem. Nominations for chair are now open. D. Cowdrey made a motion that M. Gleason act as chair pro tem. L. Tobosa seconded the motion. The motionwas passed. APPROVAL OF MINUTES D. Cowdrey made a motion to accept the minutes of September 1, 2006. L. Tobosa seconded the motion. T. Spinola-Campbell reported that the shower at the Hapuna Beach Park is not a county facility. It is under the jurisdiction of the State Department of Land and Natural Resources. She will forward the concern to their ADA Coordinator. The motion was passed. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ISSUES R. Zirnstein reported he is pleased that people have been in compliance lately. In July, he worked 27 hours and he wrote 26 citations, almost 1 per hour. There were a few confrontations. TREASURERS REPORT The treasurers report was reviewed. L. Tobosa made a motion to accept the treasurers report assubmitted. J. Souza seconded the motion. The motion was passed. CORRESPONDENCE A.CopyofaletterfromDennisTrigliatotheKeaauPoliceStationregardingviolators who have illegally parked in a handicapped space D.CowdreysaidthatthereisonlyonevolunteerenforcementofficerinEastHawaii. It would be helpful if the officer was positioned in Puna and Pahoa. She suggested thatD.Trigliaapplytobeavolunteerenforcementofficer. Hawaii County is an Equal Opportunity Provider and Employer R. Zirnstein said that its hard to get volunteers to join the program. There are four volunteer enforcement officers in West Hawaii and one volunteer enforcement officer in East Hawaii. They attended a two-day training in Hilo. They are now able to work alone instead of working in pairs because of time schedules. There is a form that can be obtained at the Police Department to sign up for the volunteer enforcement program. J. Souza mentioned that there has not been any publicity on recruiting more volunteer enforcement officers. D. Cowdrey said she is not aware of any publicity that Sergeant D. Veriato has done since he provided an update at the MCPD meeting several months ago. M. Gleason suggested that MCPD invite Sergeant D. Veriato at the next meeting to provide an update. R. Zirnstein noted that Major John Dawrs and Captain Paul Kealoha from the Kona PoliceDepartmenthavebeenextremelysupportiveoftheprogram. B.MemorandumfromLincolnAshida,CorporationCounsel,toAllCountyBoardsand Commissions regarding Revised Hawaii State Ethics Commission Flyer relating to Campaign Restrictions for State Official and State Employees TEAM REPORTS A. EDUCATION/PUBLIC AWARENESS TEAM € M. GLEASON No report. B. RECREATIONTEAM €L. SCADDEN No report. C.TRANSPORTATION TEAM €B. WHITNEY L. Tobosa reported that she asked T. Brown to attend the meeting because he does have some updates. She suggested that J. Viernes inviteT. Brown to attend the next meeting in Kona or provide a written report if he is unavailable. UNFINISHED BUSINESS A. VOLUNTEER PARKING VIOLATION ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM UPDATE € SGT. D. VERIATO R. Zirnstein reported that the volunteer enforcement program is going very well. There are some months when he does not write any citations and other times it is the opposite. He feels happy doing this job. B. UPDATE FROM DCAB € C. FLEMING/N. OLESEN/C. TOWNSEND Noreport. C.ADACOORDINATORSREPORT€T.SPINOLA-CAMPBELL T. Spinola-Campbell provided her report as the ADA Coordinator for September 2006.ADACoordinatorsreportattached. 2 D. PARKS AND RECREATION REPORT € A. MITCHENER No report. E. EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS € L. SCADDEN M. Gleason reported that he attended a DCAB working group meeting for the 2006 Interagency Action Plan for the Emergency Preparedness of People with Disabilities and Special Health Needs on September 29 on Oahu. The purpose of the meeting was to look at the goals and objectives and see if they still made sense. The working group broke up into different groups and they addressed each goal and each new objective and made some suggestions for language change. Prior to breaking up into groups, they had reports from the State Civil Defense, Department of Health, and the Department ofHumanServices. The draft 2006 Interagency Action Plan for the Emergency Preparedness of People with Disabilities and Special Health Needs still needs some work on it before being published. There is $2 million for this coming year and they will try and retrofit 32 schools statewide within the next two years to make them shelters, 30 of them will be Level II shelters. There will be two shelters on the Big Island which will be Hilo High School and Kealakehe High School. They hope to have four shelters soon which has not been determined. The overall goal is to make all the shelters Level II shelters. There will be $2 million for the next two years, $4 million for the two years after that, and $8 million for the two years after that which will be enough to get 90 shelters within the next four or five years. The reason why they cannot do it right now is because not all of the schools have kitchen facilities or generator capacity. The $2 million is just for the retrofit which means hardening the windows in some way, making sure the doors are steel frame, and looking for generators for the schools that dont have one. The Department of Human Services indicated that all of the people with disabilities that are in the DHS system will have emergency plans in their case management plan. They are also trying to expand their base of volunteers to help in making a database of all the people. DHS is going to provide signal wrist bans to the 125 most vulnerable people in their system to wear. They have 451 people in their system who are Level II. One of the things the State Civil Defense Agency wanted to know is who is going to be coming to this Level II shelter and how many can we expect. In their planning, they designate 20 square feet for a regular person. However, they havent decided how to plan for someone with a disability such as a person in a wheelchair or has a service animal. The next meeting will be held on November 8, 2006 on Oahu. Francine Wai from DCAB would like two people from MCPD to attend the meeting. D. Cowdrey and J. Souza volunteered to attend the meeting. M. Gleason circulated a An Emergency Preparedness Packet for Hawaii Residents. 3 M. Gleason said that a question was brought up at the end of the meeting. Do we want to tackle the issue of transportation? It was decided that no because it was such a big issue and it will take away from the work of what is being done for these facilities. It needs to be a separate issue probably with the Department of Transportation. Copies of the draft 2006 Interagency Action Plan for the Emergency Preparedness of People with Disabilities and Special Health Needs will be distributed to MCPD members. T. Spinola-Campbell mentioned that there was an article in the Hawaii Tribune Herald and the West Hawaii Today about the Civil Defense Agency and the Citizen Emergency Response Teams that they are going to be actively soliciting and recruiting people in the community to get involved in this. F. ELECTION OF OFFICERS Nominations were made from the floor for the following positions: Chair € L. Scadden Vice-Chair € J. Staten Secretary € L. Tobosa D. Cowdrey made a motion to accept the slate of officers. L. Tobosa seconded the motion. The motion was passed. G. COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP After some discussion, MCPD decided to defer this issue to L. Scadden at the November meeting and the committee could have more feedback from B. Whitney about her status. NEW BUSINESS A. BUDGET ESTIMATES FOR FY 2007-08 L. Scadden and J. Viernes will work on the budget estimates for fiscal year 2007-08 and the two-year period thereafter. M. Gleason suggested that MCPDreview the budget in April to ensure that funds dont lapse at the end of the year. T. Spinola-Campbell reported that Mayor H. Kim provided opening remarks at the budget meeting and his message to the departments when preparing the budget is to consider making the Big Island a nice place to live for the people who live here. T. Spinola-Campbell stated that she has an Assistive Listening Device that she could loan out to the county departments. However, it may be difficult if someone needed it for Kona. Perhaps MCPD could purchase one device with leftover funds. 4 STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON NON-AGENDA ISSUES None. ANNOUNCEMENTS T. Spinola-Campbell announced that T. Brown will be funding a one-week trip for her to attend a National ADA Coordinators Conference in San Diego at the end of October. Secondly, the County of Maui is trying to settle an agreement with the Department of Justice under the ADA. It is available on the ADA website (www.ada.gov) under Project Civic Access Agreement between the United States of America and the County of Maui. The next meeting will be held on Friday, November 3, 2006, at 10:30 a.m. in the Aupuni Center Conference Room. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 11:28 a.m. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, _______________________________ JEAN VIERNES, STAFF SECRETARY 5