DASH Board Meeting Notes

11 October 2005

First Federal Savings and Loan

Who was there

Julie Duke, Pat Teal, Lesa Barnes, Karen Pierce, Annod Bickley, Leslie Bunton, Lynn Gressley, Kay Harper, Susan Kinne, Curtis Stacy, Nancy Obert, Joannie Murayama

Guest Speaker: Thatcher Bailey, Executive Director of Centrum:

Thatcher spoke to the Board about Centrum’s accelerated interest in making Centrum Events and Fort Warden Events accessible for people with disabilities. Centrum is working towards serving a larger audience making all groups feel welcome. Thatcher reported that the State recently held an assessment and discussion forum where the Fort Warden Campus was inspected by higher up’s at the state level and a number of DASH Board members to survey the accessibility of Fort Warden. This survey revealed there is a lot of work to be done, but Centrum and the State Parks are committed to begin making changes. Thatcher reminded the Board the Fort is a Historic area and some compromises will have to be made regarding changing some of the building structures to ensure access. Thatcher also encouraged the Board to work with Representative Lynn Kessler's office to make sure she understands who DASH is and their interest in helping assure accessibility for Fort Warden. Thatcher announced that VSA Arts would be holding a two-day seminar where the Fort Warden area will be surveyed even more specifically for accessibility.

Thatcher also announced that Centrum is working with Goddard College to explore the possibility of offering a Masters of Fine Arts Degree on the Centrum Campus.

Committee Reports

Education Committee

The committee will be giving an educational presentation on disability awareness to the 4-H after school program, at the Quilcene Community Center. This will take place on Oct 19th, at 3:30 p.m. Leslie shared with the Board the outline for the presentation, which includes getting kids talking about different kinds of disabilities, how to use “People first Language”, and Lynn will talk about living with a disability. The age range of the children will be 6-11 years.

Public Access

The restaurant brochures are finished and Lesa passed them out. She will be taking some to the Visitors Center today. Lesa asked the Board to look over the brochure and let her know if you see any typos. She has only made 100 copies so errors can be changed before she runs another batch. Annod pointed out that only part of Nemo’s restaurant in accessible and you should call ahead to make certain an accessible space is open for you if need be. This info will be included in the restaurant brochure. Pat shared Snug Harbor Restaurant in Discovery Bay is not accessible as they have the accessible entrance blocked and an unfriendly dog who limits entry into the accessible entryway.
The committee is working on a letter to restaurants in the brochure that recently have been found to be blocking access to their bathrooms and other necessary pathways. The letter will ask restaurants to clean up these areas and remind them that they have been included in the brochure as an accessible place.
The Port Townsend Accessibility Map is in progress. The committee met with Tyler Johnson and hope to having the final draft finished by the next meeting.
The committee has yet to gain access to the City Hall Annex to survey its accessibility. The City reported the construction site is not safe at this point and the elevator has yet to be installed. There was discussion regarding the functionality of the elevator. The committee identified two important accessibility issues for the elevator. 1) Where the buttons are placed. 2) The elevator must be large enough so a person in a wheelchair can turn around. The committee would like to see the designs specs of the elevator and decided to make contact with City Engineer Dave Peterson to illuminate this issue. The committee also needs to meet with Dave to go over the disability access grievance policy.
Pat continues to regularly attend Chamber luncheons.

Long Range Planning

Individuals from the committee will be meeting with Sam in the near future to discuss their wishes regarding the future of DASH.
Susan informed the Board that the state must submit its 2006-2007 funding application to the CDC by December 21, and that the state’s application must include work plans for the local projects. Based on this, the board decided that the committees would come up with work plans and have them ready for the November Board meeting. Work plans should be written for the time frame of April 2006-March 2007.
Susan reminded the board that the CDC wants more background from committees as to why the committee was established in the first place and a brief history of where the committee has gone since its inception. Susan reminded everyone to emphasize the impact on health when establishing the goals for the year ahead.

Art s Enrichment Committee

The committee has worked with Centrum regarding Centrum’s co-hosting the ADA workshop with Monica McDaniel in March. It is likely the meeting will take place in the Chapel.
The committee is coordinating with the Poetic Justice Troupe regarding a performance around disability issues in April, which will coincide with Disability Awareness Month.

Announcements / Outside committee updates / Other business

Karen announced the new city police chief Conner Daily will be attending the November board meeting rather than the October meeting. Karen asked the board to be thinking of questions and topics they would like addressed so Chief Daily can be prepared.
The Universal Design Video that Bitsy Bidwell presented at the Centrum accessibility meeting is available for groups. Annod will see if it could be available for the November board meeting.
Centrum will be holding a wheelchair-dancing seminar in April. Sally Rodgers at Centrum is working with Jefferson Transit on training a number of Centrum volunteers to become certified in driving the community wheel-chair accessible vans.
Lynn spoke about his recent involvement in Emergency Preparedness Planning discussions in regards to evacuating people with disabilities. Curtis stated that he has also been involved with this group. There will be a meeting on October 19 at Pope Marine Park to look at this relevant topic.
Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, which was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina, has a radio station, WQRZ, which is operated completely by people with disabilities. Joannie will research ways that DASH can be supportive during the reconstruction and look into how WQRZ and DASH could coordinate their efforts around disability issues. For example, WQRZ was pro-active in Mississippi regarding emergency preparedness for people with disabilities.
Annod announced that there is a new disabled parking spot at Pope Marine Park.
Annod would like to invite Rory Calhoun, ADA Coordinator for the Interagency Committee for Outdoor Recreation for Washington, to speak at an upcoming Board meeting. Lesa suggested he could be involved in a more extended disability event that would be open to the public. Annod will contact Rory.
The Peace Movement showed a film titled “Sunset Story” highlighting the life of some nursing home residents who were and still are social activist. The Peace Movement would like to coordinate with DASH on showing this in a public forum. Joannie will work on this.
DASH has once again been invited to have booth at the EARTH DAY EVERYDAY event in April. This takes place at Memorial Field, which is limited in its accessibility. Joannie will get more information for the board.
Key City Playhouse will be installing a new ramp in their facility. It will provide better access to the stage and theater.
P.T. Shorts will use a disability theme for its April Readings.

The Next Board meeting will be held

November 8th, 2005

12 p.m. – 2 p.m.

First Federal Savings and Loan

Guest Speaker:

Conner Daily

Chief of Port Townsend Police