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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013-06-26, Committee on People with Disabilities, Minutes MAYOR’S COMMITTEE ON PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES c/o Hawai‘i County Office of Aging, 1055 Kino‘ole Street,Suite 101, Hilo, Hawai‘i 96720 MINUTES Wednesday, June 26, 2013 The County of Hawai‘i Mayor’s Committee on People with Disabilities met at 10:10 AM at the Aging and Disability Resource Center at 1055 Kino‘ole Street, Hilo, Hawai‘i 96720. MEMBERS PRESENT: Paige De Lima, Chair, Wesley Tanigawa, Vice Chair; Jessica Arruda, Pauline Aughe, Janice Mancini, James Souza, Raelene Souza, Laura Tobosa. ABSENT: Chris Cholas, Dr. Ron Wagner-Wright. OTHERS PRESENT AND GUESTS: Renee Schoen, Corporation Counsel; Teri Spinola-Campbell, Human Resources; Alisa Mitchener, P&R; Darryl Oliveira, Civil Defense; Ku Mei Kern, Interpreter; Sam Nagasawa, Maureen Denning. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order at 10:10. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF THE MARCH 27, 2013 MEETING P. De LimaW. Tanigawa called for a motion to accept the minutes. wanted to clarify item 8 for ADA Day. In addition to procurement issues, he wanted to include that the purpose of the Mayor’s committee is to serve as an advisory body for the purpose of informing the Mayor- to serve more as a supportive body P. De Lima than a coordinating one. inquired if there were any other corrections or additions to the minutes and called for a motion to accept the minutes. W. Tanigawa made a motion to accept the minutes with additions and it was L. Tobosa seconded by . All were in favor and none opposed. The minutes were passed. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC (Agenda Items) There were no statements from the public. NEW BUSINESS Presentation by Civil Defense Director, Darryl Oliveira on emergency preparedness for people with disabilities W. Tanigawa introduced Darryl Oliveira, Civil Defense Director, who will be speaking about emergency preparedness for people with disabilities and the issues surrounding that. D. Oliveira wanted to apologize to the committee because he didn’t even know this body existed but would like to work together with everybody to address the different needs of the community. Civil Defense has multiple roles. First and foremost, it is understanding the hazards that affect our community. One of the primary job is to understand these hazards and how it impacts the community. Another mission is the responsibility to communicate to the public about what’s going on and giving the community information so that they can make decisions to protect themselves. With the exception of an earthquake, we do have some kind of an indication something is going to happen. Different sources of media are used to get information out to the community. First is the radio. We have a partnership agreement with the radio system here on the island and they will play messages as soon as we get it to them. We also have the ability to cut into their program if it’s that urgent like if you have an earthquake with a possible tsunami. Another tool is a mass notification system at Civil Defense which will send out a text message, an e-mail as well as a phone voice message. The phone voice messaging is something you have to subscribe to, because we don’t have access to the phone numbers, etc. But we do get our information message out through them. The other one would be the sirens. For all intent and purpose, the siren means turn your radio on and see what’s happening around the island as far as what’s the threat, what’s the problem, and what’s the recommendation. We also have access to the emergency alerting system which is the scrolling on the TV. And for the most part, the National Weather Service does that. Those are the primary means by which we will notify the community of what is happening. Worst case scenario is if we lose any of the capability to get messaging out. Let’s say we’ve lost power, the sirens aren’t working, we will actually dispatch first responders into the community, go door to door in most cases, and warn people and get the message out. So, we identify the hazard, we identify its potential risk or threat, and communicate to the public what’s going on. Next is to support people when they are asked to evacuate or relocate even if it’s just to relocate temporarily, i.e., flooding. We can do a better job of educating the community on what is a shelter. The State surveyed the buildings to identify that 2 it was designed and built to a certain integrity standard that would provide better than staying-at-home opportunities for people. So, if you’re in a home built probably prior to 1980’s, it might be advantageous to go to something like this rather than try to ride it out at home if your home wasn’t built to the current building code standards. The State Civil Defense website has a listing of all the shelters on the island. It is also identified by special needs and access as well as the pet shelters. The schools have partnered with State Civil Defense because the school has facilities that have already been set up for access accommodations. Later on this month, the Disabilities and Communication Access Board is going to provide training to our CERT, Community Emergency Response Team personnel and some of the other agencies to go out and survey the facilities to identify what might be some access corrections that need to be made. So if anyone in the committee would want to participate in that training the DCAB office is hoping to create a cadre of volunteers. It is primarily to help the DAG’s office with identifying what they can do to improve access and accommodations. Red Cross is a great partner or the leading primary shelter management organization. We open up the shelter and they partnership with Department of Health to provide the assistance and staff to support the management that provides the sheltering of people. It is basically a place to stay, a parking space in a facility. There won’t be blankets and pillows, cots, water and food, at least not for the initial opening of the shelter. But it’s identifying what you’re vulnerable to and how you can prepare yourself and your family with a kit to take with you, (food, water, medications) and what basic provisions you’ll need as well as those items that will be necessary to host an event for recovery, like your insurance documents, forms and materials that are irreplaceable and be critical in the recovery process. We do partner with many agencies. Civil Defense is a staff of just seven, so we don’t manage the incidents. We help to coordinate the response to these incidents with the different agencies and departments – as I mentioned Red Cross, Department of Health, Public Works, Office of Aging. So all these agencies show up at the Civil Defense Emergency Operation Center when there is a disaster. It’s a team effort in responding to the emergency and it’s that collaborative process where someone needs assistance, it’s reaching out to that service provider and connecting the dots. It was suggested doing a local PBS monthly show advising people what needs to D. Oliveira be done in an emergency. stated that they have done one broadcast with Kimo Alameida but feels more can be done as far as education. We have a hazard mitigation plan for the island, and for each community in that plan, we’ve identified the hazards that community is vulnerable to. J. Souza stated that he is a little concerned. Speaking for the deaf community, we definitely have some special needs and they involve communication. About nine years ago we met with Troy Kindred. We gave him a list of recommendations as far as communicating with deaf people. I’m curious if you still have that list, and if those names have been acted upon. 3 D. Oliveira was not familiar with that. There have been a least two or three different administrators since Troy left. D. Oliveira felt that this is a great opportunity to hear what has been discussed previously and what gap still exists. With that mass notification device or system that was mentioned earlier, one of the things we’re trying to do now is change provider to get a better service to include the outreach to the TTY service to provide that contact. But right now, that isn’t available. J. Souza advised that with most deaf people, English is not their first language. James inquired if there were plans to have an interpreter signing those messages and also if there would be one at the shelters. James stated he got his First Responder training, has a nice certificate on my wall, but there have been no further trainings, no notifications about what we’re supposed to do. James was curious as to how we can get the deaf community more involved. D. Oliveira felt that this is a great venue because it’s identifying what was started, what hasn’t been kept up, and what we can follow through on. He’ll try to stay in better contact and work closer with them on how to address these things because who better to reach out to than the community that has the solutions that will work. A. Mitchener recently had staff training for all of the Summer Fun workers, and announced to them to sign up for this city watch mass alert. Emergencies may not be happening where we live, but where we work, and so we need to prepare kits for our cars, kits for our office, and know if there is an alert, especially if you’re in a tsunami zone. D. Oliveira stated that people are at work, at school, at home, you have kids, you have people that need assistance, it’s how do we account for that and tract them because disasters happen at the most inopportune times. And we may not know who needs assistance, so we’re turning to Office of Aging, and Elderly Activities Division for needed services, people who already are connected to the community in providing whether it be transportation or other services, because we don’t maintain a directory of who has needs and would need assistance at the time of a disaster. We have to find solutions that would work most of the time. We can’t cope with every scenario, but part of it is creating that accountability network with those other agencies that provide services and making sure they are there when something happens so that we can identify who may need assistance. The other part of it would be mass notification. Although you’re signing up for where you work and where you live, for the most part the messages go out islandwide. With almost every message that is sent out, there is always someone who will complain – why are they being notified when they don’t even live in the area. They’ll say I don’t want this message. Mr. Oliveira stated that unfortunately that’s just the nature of where we live, but they do the best they can. P. De Lima stated that another good thing is “friends calling friends” because sometimes they didn’t receive the text, they didn’t have their TV on or the siren 4 was broken at that time. It doesn’t matter if it’s in your district or your neighborhood. That’s one of the things about community. It works. D. Oliveira stated that they just purchased the language cards for Civil Defense. This is information for people who don’t speak English. It would be good to include other communication medium in brochures that go out so we can reach out to everyone. With meetings like this, we’re identifying some of the gaps and finding ways we get to close them. And I would welcome suggestions from anyone. A. Mitchener declared that they are working on evacuation plans for kids from Keaukaha School. The recommendation is for them to head toward the airport and cross the tarmac. They were meant to be picked up by bus then bused to the Home Depot parking lot so that parents wouldn’t interfere with trying to find their kids in an emergency at the airport or the school. So that’s a creative kind of concept of transportation and meeting at a safe place and getting out of a really tight area. Alisa is also brainstorming transportation solutions for people who are homebound to possibly a meeting place where they then could be transferred to another point. D. Oliveira stated having meetings with the Elderly Activities Division where Roann shared a concern relating to the October earthquake/tsunami event. They were picking up seniors that had special needs. The notice/communication that went out stated go to Hilo High School. The buses went to Hilo High School, but DOE wasn’t open/ready, so they were told to go to Carvalho Park. The bus drivers or pick up crews weren’t going to just drop them off leaving them alone and in the dark, so Roann then made a command decision and said go to Kamana because at Kamana they had resources to help. But again, things like that weren’t necessarily planned. We have to fix all these things. There are several different opportunities for disaster preparedness according to D. Oliveira . June is the kick-off to hurricane season for the state. And what was already predetermined for the exercise was to run some public education and outreach to the Hamakua area. Many churches have facilities. They can provide sheltering. It’s just integrating them into the response plan so if we have something, we can say, church so and so is open and accepting people that need assistance to go there. So we try to improve the capabilities and capacity with integrating with different players into the plan. M. Denning brought up the idea of having some of the major stores like Walmart, K-Mart, etc. to give discounts for times of emergency. D. Oliveira likes that concept because 95% of what is consumed is shipped. If it affects the ports, you need to plan for 7-10 days. For people on limited income, that’s hard. And that’s why it’s so important we stress this through community, knowing our neighbors, knowing what assistance they may need, what assistance they can provide. We just need to reconnect with one another. 5 Review draft memo from the Housing Ad Hoc Committee to Mayor Kenoi regarding universal home design. P. De Lima asked for approval of Chris Cholas’ memo to the Mayor regarding universal home design. She requested for a motion to finalize and send to the L. TobosaJ. Mayor. moved to finalize and send the memo to the Mayor, and Mancini seconded it. All were in favor and none opposed. Motion was passed. Review Recreation Committee’s draft letter to Mayor Kenoi regarding renovations at Richardson Beach Park J. Mancini reiterated that the park was purchased back in 1972 with matching funds from the federal government. It was supposed to be made accessible according to ADA and nothing has been done to the park as far as making it accessible. It was supposed to be done years ago, but they keep putting it off. They want to start with the building, which doesn’t make sense. A. Mitchener conferred with one of the Parks and Rec Park Planner. The planner stated that they have increased the Scope of Plans to the building. Alisa inquired if it was possible to switch the priority to get to the beach before the building. He said that the order of priorities could be put into the specs with the consultants and the designers. So, it’s possible to suggest that it be done in increments, and that this would be our preference, even if it’s a pathway or a trail to the beach during the process of renovation. He did say that one pathway along the house is very narrow and the plan is to widen that, but it is a limited space because of the fish ponds right there. That’s why we’re talking about design and safety and honoring the configuration of the natural layout of that place too. R. Schoen suggested the committee consider amending the letter and maybe incorporating some of that information into the letter and then suggest that the A. Mitchener priority be made to provide access. reiterated that it’s offering a solution or a conversation rather than just saying it’s time to do this. So, that’s kind of the way to build on what we’ve already worked on and then give them an J. Mancini idea of what would be helpful so we could go to the beach. asked what good is the building there if people can’t get to the beach. According to Alisa, the challenge is the ADA covers the facility, the building, the road, the parking. It doesn’t cover the beach. Concerning the use of the emergency access road, it is by request per individual need. According to Renee, there is a state and county ordinance regarding vehicles on beaches because of health and safety hazard type of thing. P. De Lima suggested the language of the letter be amended regarding the priority information in a positive language with a solution and then come back to the committee for approval. REPORT OF THE COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I EQUAL OPPORTUNITY OFFICER AND ADA COORDINATOR, TERI SPINOLA-CAMPBELL 1. The automatic entry doors at the Aupuni Center work should start soon. 6 2. The Department of Parks and Recreation is proceeding with installation of the curb cut and an accessible on-street parking space for the University Heights Park in Hilo due to a request by a disabled individual. 3. Conducted three service animal trainings for County employees and one at the request of a community policing officer for security staff of various retail establishments. 4. Conducted two ADA Title II trainings for police officers. For the effective communications portion of the training, I started using DVD called Deaf Sensitivity Training for Police. It was developed by Deaf Incorporated in St. Louis, Missouri, and it’s viewable on You Tube. The Department of Information Technology hired a contract employee to work on the website accessibility. It’s been a 90-day contract. It’s been funded through the ADA modification fund. REPORT OF COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I, ADA RECREATION SPECIALIST, ALISA MITCHENER A. Mitchener shared her three month overview of her programs. 1. No open house programs at Pahoa, Puueo, and Yano Hall due to Summer Fun. This year serving a full spectrum of kids with different disabilities. Referrals are made to DOE for assessment based on observations that happen in Summer Fun. That is an important catalyst for maintaining that children with disabilities have a chance for services year round. 2. Alisa was able to obtain ADA funding from Teri for modifications for disabled veterans to use the Honokaa swimming pool. Participants’ needs from Easter Seals Adult Day Program were assessed, and they are now able to use the NAS swimming pool twice a week throughout the summer. Since there has been a major shifting of senior lifeguards within the Aquatics Division she made sure they were all familiar with the pool lifts because there nine pools and each one has different pool lifts. There is a special ed class that may be creating an adaptive swim program in Konawaena. In May there was a graduation with two students who use wheelchairs and the lift to the stage in the Civic had to be compliant. State inspectors came to make sure we were compliant with the little elevator that goes up to the stage. Again, Teri helped with funding. 3. I had first chance to go to Merrie Monarch this year and observed accessibility in the stadium. Within the seating bleachers little alcoves were set up providing comparable view within the stadium and companion seating for people with wheelchairs. 4. Beach access is important now especially since it is summer time. I wanted to celebrate our collaboration with Deep and Beyond. They are there once a month on the third Friday of every month. I will be starting up Mobi Mat day in July, on Wednesdays this season, starting July 24 through September 25. 5. Janice and I did our Ad Hoc Recreation Committee. That resulted in our letter. 6. Alisa will be sending out a schedule of her programs as per Paige’s request. Alisa has submitted an article with photos about Mobi Mat Beach Projects at Richardsons for a new magazine, Hawai‘i Recreation and Park Society magazine. She joined the Learning Disabilities Association of Hawai‘i where she will do a presentation for Parks and Rec programs to parents, special ed teachers and other community resource representatives. The DOE serves 7 children through age 21. After that Parks and Rec has a strong role in providing them with something to do and people to work with, and ways to exercise in the pools. 7. P&R collaborated with Full Life and Mar with drum socials where there were rhythms, drums, congos and water colors and lei making. The drummers from Puna Taiko have been invited to perform on August 30. 8. Alisa made a special request for some kind of recognition/certificate from the committee honoring people who have shown exemplary services to people with disabilities and just acknowledging their interest, awareness and effort. Access Ad Hoc Committee P. Aughe According to the Access Ad Hoc Committee met in April. Their mission is to ensure access to county facilities, programs, and services, and to ensure that county employees are trained to uphold the laws that affect public access for people with disabilities. 1. County issued facilities and programs. a. Evaluate the access of each county facility and program by visiting their buildings and looking at things such as parking, doors, walkways, bathrooms, service areas, counters, the seating or waiting areas, staff training and programs. b. Evaluate the accessibility of the process in which people with disabilities can make complaints and/or modification requests. c. Create or check on the availability of a standardize evaluation form so when you go through those county buildings or programs, there is some sort of standard to follow. 2. Look at law enforcement by county departments. a. Parking - to urge the mayor to emphasis to the County Police Department to enforce lawful disabled parking and to issue tickets as needed. b. County Building Inspectors evaluate the process by which the county building inspectors authorize building permits to new businesses in compliance with the ADA. We noticed a lot of businesses are opening and they don’t have an entrance that’s accessible. c. Obtain a list of county facilities and programs to consider for access evaluation. P. De Lima asked Teri if she has or if she can obtain a list of all county facilities regarding accessibility. Teri would check on it. Pauline stated they would just do a courtesy visit to the department or site after getting approval, and work in coordination with them to see how the process by which someone with a disability is handled. They will meet and figure out the next step. ANNOUNCEMENTS: W. Tanigawa introduced Raelene Souza, a new member who comes from Hawai‘i Centers for Independent Living. She replaces Edel Hanoa who has left HCIL. Raelene brings over 20 years of experience working and advocating for people with disabilities. Raelene thanked the committee for allowing her to be on board. 8 P. De Lima reminded everyone that Mar is having AHA Day at the mall on July 20 and the committee will be having a table for the Mayor’s Committee on People with Disabilities. The next meeting will be on July 31 at the ADRC Training Room. ADJOURNMENT Meeting is adjourned at 11:30 AM. Respectfully submitted, Sandra Arriola Transcriber 9