[IABS-Talk] chicago minutes for march 2021
David Meyer
datemeyer at mysero.net
Wed Apr 7 14:25:04 UTC 2021
NFBI CHICAGO CHAPTER MINUTES
MARCH 13, 2021
The meeting was held via Zoom.
President David Meyer called the meeting to order at 1:04 pm. There
were 27 participants.
Beginning Activity: Dave posed a question to the participants. What is
the one thing that you have learned or become especially good at since
the beginning of COVID-19 restrictions which was a year ago? Michal
Nowicki said ignoring the CDC travel recommendations. Dave said that he
has gotten better at using the iPhone. Juliet said that she has gotten
really good at constantly washing her hands. Denise said that she was
good at ordering from restaurants using APPs. Gary Jones said that he
was glad that he had his own home. Ellen said that she got better at
not seeing people in person. Ken Borst said that he got better at being
sick and tired. Ken Schad said that he was getting used to a routine.
Eileen said that she was better off getting her different masses on
YouTube and learning different things on YouTube. Marco says he's
learned more about Zoom and WebEx and how to use the different meeting
technologies. Marilyn said that she got better at using Jaws. Greg says
that he learned to do weaving. Gina says she has gotten good with all
these phone calls with Zoom and conference calls with Blind Services.
Kira said she got better at staying at home. Jemal said that he used
Zoom so much that he put the Zoom phone number on his cell phone speed
dial and made sure that he had a proper face covering. Nicole said she
got better at communicating in writing. Sara said she got better at
staying organized with a calendar. Bob Widman said he got good at the
Victor Stream and trying to learn his Android Phone. Dan Tevelde said
he is developing a new exercise routine and doing resistance training
and using his Apple Watch to keep track. Howard says he got good at
Zoom and social distancing and better at not complaining about Zoom and
social distancing. Debbie Stein said she got better at Zoom and was
patient and waiting for things to open up. Syed said that he got better
at being patient and stock training. Pam G. said that she got better at
listening to people. Steve said that since COVID, he has not done a lot
of things, namely things that have a lot to do with traveling.
Approval of Meeting Minutes from 2/13/21; Minutes approved.
Treasurer's Report: Steve said we only had one transaction in the last
4 weeks which is the next PAC debit to the national office for $50. The
balance is $2,660.
Program Item-Washington Seminar: Denise thanked everybody who
participated in the Washington Seminar. The Washington Seminar occurred
from 2/8 to 2/11 and it was virtual. Overall it was successful and we
were able to have most of our appointments during the week of the
Washington Seminar. We were visited by several of our congressional
members. Jan Schakowsky, Congressman Krishnamoorthi, Congressman Brad
Schneider, and Congressman LaHood. The Washington Seminar attendees
from Illinois were Denise Avant, Dustin Cather, Marilyn Green, Juliet
Walker, Steve Hastalis, Ellen Bartelt, Natalia Abar (a student), John
Holtgreve (vendor), and Jennifer Howe (parent). Denise also thanked
everyone who came on call as part of the audience.
HR-431-S212-Access Technology Affordability Act; That is the
legislation that would allow for a refundable tax credit of up to
$2,000 to help blind and low vision people to purchase access
technology to be used in employment, education and computer accedss. As
of 3/12, we have 62 cosponsors in the House and 12 in the Senate.
Illinois picked up 2 more cosponsors. We now have Representative Mike
Bost, who is a Republican from downstate. We have Rodney Davis, who is
a Republican from the Springfield area. In addition to that, we already
have Lauren Underwood, Brad Schneider, Bobby Rush and Raja
Krishnamoorthi. Denise urges those of us living in and around Chicago
to please call and write to your representatives that we don't have in
the Chicagoland area and ask them to now sign on to HR-431.
The other 3 initiatives have not been introduced into Congress yet. One
of them is the Medical Device Home Use Accessibility Act. It's designed
to solve the problem of inaccessible home use medical equipment, blood
glucose monitors and blood pressure monitors. People can now do in-home
dialysis and in-home chemotherapy, if necessary. The problem with these
devices is that they have a digital interface. Cconsequently, we can't
read them. There's no speech. There is nothing that vibrates to let us
know how to take care of ourselves. We want to have the Food and Drug
Administration come up with the rules that manufacturers would have to
follow in order to make their devices accessible. There would be a
chance for comment and then eventually final rule and the manufacturers
would be expected to make the devices accessible.
The Americans with Disabilities Voting Rights Act: That bill is
designed to make sure that all aspects of the voting process are
accessible to blind people. We all have a constitutional right to vote,
but we know that there are some areas in which we have problems voting
and the biggest problem is just registering to vote. We would like to
have the ability to be able to register online with screen readers
braille and large print technologies. We'd like to be able to have
every voting machine in a polling place be outfitted with an audio
interface and a large print interface. That means that we don't have to
worry about whether poll workers will know how to operate one
particular voting machine. They will have to know how to operate them
because all of the voting machines will be accessible. Also, we don't
have to worry about our ballot that we print out looking different from
any other ballot that is being used. We want to have the right to have
an accessible vote by mail to both receive our ballot and to return our ballot.
The 21st-century Mobile App and Website Accessibility Act: That's
designed to cure the issue of inaccessible mobile apps and inaccessible
websites. Most of us use the web every day. Sometimes for blind people,
it can be a bit challenging because you probably encountered some
accessibility with Jaws, NVDA and even Voiceover. With mobile apps,
e.g. sometimes you could be using Uber one day and then they do an
update and then, all of a sudden, there are buttons that are unlabeled
and then you can't use that app anymore. Once introduced, this
legislation would be designed to have the US Access Board come up with
a standard that is going to define accessibility for businesses and
government. Businesses say that they want to make sure their websites
are accessible. With the expertise of the US Access Board, we hope that
problem will be solved.
The last 3 bills that Denise talked about are not really bills yet. We
hope they will be introduced in Congress soon. In the meantime, when
you do call your congressperson, please ask them to champion those
bills once they are introduced.
Dave asked how should one go about putting together a letter to a
congressperson and have that letter be effective. Denise says that when
you write to your congressperson, you introduce yourself. You explain
that you're part of the NFBI and also explain that you are a member of
the district of the congressman to whom you are writing. You also want
to say thank you for meeting with members of the NFBI during the
Washington Seminar. You want to ask your congressperson to please
support HR-431 and give a brief synopsis of what it's designed to do.
If anyone wants email addresses for their congressperson, please reach
out to Denise or Dustin Cather. Denise's email address is
davant1958 at gmail.com and Dustin's email address is
cather.dustin at gmail.com and we can give you the name and email address
of the person that we met with during the Washington Seminar.
Presidential Release #503, March 2021: Patti explained that we have
been doing these presidential releases monthly for decades. They
started with cassette tapes that were mailed out to every chapter
president in the country every month. The idea is that our national
president puts on the release whatever they deem should go on the
release and it keeps us connected. President Riccobono officially
pronounced 3/1 as Pedestrian Safety Day for all Americans thanks to
blind people, because this day that the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement
Act goes into full effect. This goes back almost 2 decades and it was a
grassroots-driven initiative started by Deborah Kent Stein of Illinois
and ultimately culminating in a bill that was passed by Congress and
signed by President Obama into law on 1/4/11. As of 3/1,100% of all
hybrid electric vehicles manufactured now or in the future must make a
safe level of sound while stationary, in reverse and up to speeds of 30
kilometers per hour. If you want to learn more about the Pedestrian
Safety Enhancement Act, there's an article titled Progress on the
Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act that was published in the April 2017
issue of the Braille Monitor. President Riccobono would like to
celebrate our great work on our first virtual Washington Seminar. We
did tremendous work on our cosponsors for the Access Technology
Affordability Act where we doubled our support in both the House and
the Senate. We gained 29 new House cosponsors for ATAA and gained 7 new
Senate cosponsors. We also received tremendous support for our other
legislative initiatives. Keep the pressure on Congress. Keep working on
getting those cosponsors and stay tuned for alerts when we need
immediate action.
President Riccobono recently sent a couple of important letters to the
members of Congress. One had to do with voting accessibility and the
other had to do with the elimination of Section 14C of the Fair Labor
Standards Act and our work to get rid of subminimum wages for people
with disabilities. Both of these letters can be found on the advocacy
portion of our website at nfb.org. President Riccobono wrote to all of
the governors regarding the urgent need to ensure that access for
individuals with disabilities to COVID-19 vaccines and testing is being
fairly implemented and done without barriers. One of the problems that
we're hearing about is vaccination signup websites that are completely
inaccessible to blind people. There's a copy of this letter on our
advocacy page at nfb.org. It has gone to every state and we're
encouraging our affiliates to follow-up with local municipalities and
testing administration agencies. We're going to be providing affiliates
with a template to do that, but our letter to governors should give you
a great basis for following up with those local administrating
agencies. Very soon we will be putting up a survey to gather data at
nfb.org about COVID vaccine access and the barriers you might be facing
in local communities. When that page comes out on our website, post
your experiences, so that we can collect that data and hold government
agencies accountable. We need the data to determine what our best strategy is.
Recently we have become aware of outreach by some serial plaintiff
attorneys who are inviting NFB members to join in the website
compliance testing initiative and asking NFB members and chapters to be
plaintiffs in the serial filing of website accessibility cases. We have
a policy in the federation to coordinate our legal work. We want to
make sure that we're putting NFB's name on credible efforts and that
we're not using our organizational capacity and especially mobilizing
our members to work with attorneys who aren't out ultimately for
accessibility but might be out for a quick dollar. Please notify our
legal program team at the national office. Call our main number
410-659-9314 and dial extension 2440 if anybody has reached out to you
or if you have the information you would like to coordinate.
The Independence Market product of the month is the Kenneth Jernigan
map of the United States. It is a puzzle map and encourages tactile
learning especially about the various shapes and graphic features of
the United States. The map includes each state which is a puzzle piece
and the major geographic features are all tactilely discernible.
Underneath the puzzle pieces, the map shows the borders of the states.
It is in our Independence Market for $250 as our product of the month.
NFB Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning (BELL) Academy In-home
Edition: After a very successful initial launch of that program last
year, we will offer 3 virtual programs of NFB BELL Academy this summer
for students across the country. Options will be available in the BELL
Academy for beginners, intermediate and advanced students. Our 3 BELL
sessions will run this summer. Session 1 will be from 6/7 to 6/18,
Session 2 is from 7/19 to 7/30 and Session 3 will run from 8/9 to 8/20.
The BELL Academy is appropriate for blind and low-vision children ages
4 to 12 who fall into 1 of the following categories: Children who do
not receive enough Braille and nonvisual skill instruction in school,
children who could benefit from more Braille exposure over the summer,
and/or children who would be connecting with blind role models.
Starting on 3/1, you can apply and space is limited, so we should
encourage families to apply as soon as possible. Applications are
available in Spanish and English. You can go to nfb.org/bell to receive
more information and find access to the application.
Registration to the NFB Convention: You can now go to our website to
sign up for the 2021 NFB convention which will run from 7/6 to 7/10. It
will be held anywhere and everywhere. Our theme for our convention is
Stronger Together-Transforming and Unifying our Future. Registration
will be open for the next few months. You can go to nfb.org/convention
to get all of the convention-related updates. If you want to jump
directly to registration, you can visit nfb.org/registration.
Registration will be available free of charge to all participants. We
registered over 7,000 people last year for our convention with less
time. You will be offered an opportunity to provide a donation along
with your registration. Keep in mind that the convention does have
associated costs, but you're not required to donate. Registering makes
you eligible for door prizes, special announcements as well as perks
that might come along exclusive to convention registrants. If you want
to vote at the national convention, you do have to be registered. In
order to vote, you will have to be a dues-paying member in 2021 and you
will have to have paid your dues by 5/31/21. If you are a member and
want to vote, you'll have an opportunity within the registration
process to provide the phone number from which you will vote, so there
won't be a separate process this year. Register by 5/31/21. We are
encouraging chapters that may have members who might not be able to
access the online registration, to help them register. There will be a
form in the Braille Monitor. We do have members who like to send in
their paper registration form and you can do that as well. We'll have
the downloadable form on the website. As you go through the
registration process, at the end of the form, you will find 2
paragraphs that briefly outline the Code of Conduct, a link to the code
itself, how to file a complaint under the Code of Conduct, consequences
for violators, and information on how to contact the Survivors' Task
Force. Anyone who registers for the convention will need to check a box
to acknowledge and verify that they have read the information. There
will also be a second check box for a registrant to acknowledge that
they have read the code and agree to abide by the code at the national
convention in 2021. The language of the acknowledgment and verification
will be included in April's Braille Monitor for those who utilize
postal mail. You can find more information in an upcoming Braille
Monitor about the convention. The NFB of Maryland is hosting the
convention this year for us. If you have any ideas for the general
sessions, please send an email to President Riccobono at
officeofthepresident at nfb.org. We will have a virtual choir at the
convention. Rehearsals will be 7:00 pm central every Friday in April
with the exception of 4/2, Good Friday. The rehearsals will be recorded
for those who cannot attend. Also, materials will be available for
singers to learn their voice parts on their own. Singers will then
record themselves singing their parts on their own while listening to a
counting track with headphones and their tracks will be combined
together to create the virtual choir. All tracks will need to be
submitted by 5/15. If you would like to register to sing in the virtual
choir, registration will be available for a month starting on 3/1. It
can be found at nftb-pad.org. The deadline to submit the registration
form is 4/5.
We're doing well on the PAC (preauthorized contribution program) with
an annual amount of about $495,000. However we need to do better. You
can go to the PAC form at nfb.org/pac and you can find the PAC form
there. You can increase your PAC. You can sign up to make a monthly
contribution to our organization there or you can call 877-632-2722 or
you can send an email to pac at nfb.org.
State Presidential Report: Debbie Stein says that we started out
sending out information to everyone on our mailing list which includes
parents, teachers, agencies, and agencies around the state on our 2021
BELL Academy. At least one of our families from last summer signed up.
Debbie would like to start recruiting some mentors. Mentors contact the
families on a daily basis during the program which is a 2-week session
and check in with them to see what they have been learning the class
periods, see if they would like help doing some of the activities, and
be there to answer questions and to give a little bit of gentle
direction. If you would like to serve as a mentor, please get in touch
with Debbie Stein at 773-203-1394 or dkent5817 at att.net. Everybody who
takes part as a mentor will need to undergo a background check.
Scholarships: We have 3 completed applications for the state and we got
some inquiries. The deadline is 3/31 at midnight central time for the
state. For the national scholarship, it is midnight eastern time. There
are at least 9 completed national applications. The national website is
nfb.org/scholarships. Our state website is
nfbofillinois.org/scholarships. We have about 12 applicants at the
national level. The only difference between national and state
scholarship is for the national scholarship, they interview with
Marilyn as state president.
National and State Conventions: The national convention is 7/6 to 7/10.
Registration is now open at nfb.org. If you need assistance with
registering, please reach out to Marilyn or to your chapter president
or someone in your chapter to find out about getting help to register
online for our national convention. We're still gathering information
to determine what our state convention will look like. We will have a
state convention on the weekend of 10/22. Please be thinking about what
you would like to see at the convention as far as program items. Be
thinking about a theme for our convention.
Steve sent a brief note to one of Representative Schakowsky's
legislative people to remind her to cosponsor HR-431. Steve wanted to
know if we got any inquiries in response to all the emails and phone
calls we made to the teachers of the visually impaired informing and
reminding them about our scholarship program. Patti says that she got a
few emails from teachers and some of the DSS officers from the colleges
also saying that they will post the information.
State Level Voting Rights: Last year the state legislature passed a
bill that said that you can have your voting ballot if you're going to
vote by mail by large print or braille, but you got to have somebody to
help you fill it out. We started working with Equip for Equality
initially and then later on the Illinois Council of the Blind and
started talking with the Illinois State Board of Elections because
Denise had written a letter to the Secretary of State as a follow-up to
President Riccobono's letter back in 2019. The Secretary of State
forwarded it over to the Illinois Board of Elections. We did have a
vote by mail system that was accessible if you told them on time and
you could, at least, receive an electronic ballot. That legislation was
only for 2020. We introduced legislation to make the legislation
permanent and make sure that accessibility is included. The one that we
would be concerned with is HB-2951, introduced by Representative Carol
Ammons, who is from the Champaign Area, and then SB-1907, introduced by
State Senator Julie Morrison by the Libertyville/Deerfield area. The
trouble with the bills is that they would both provide us with the
ability to receive an electronic ballot, it does not contain a
provision for us to be able to return the ballot electronically. We
have attempted to submit language to amend those 2 bills.
Representative Ammons' bill is the one that might be moving the
quickest. We asked for a meeting with the Illinois Board of Elections,
Senator Morrison and Representative Ammons. We've been successful at
getting a meeting with the policy staffer from Representative Ammons
and tell her what we want and why we want it. She did inform Denise
that there are other stakeholders who are interested in the bill. On
the call will be Denise, Dave, and Bill, representatives from ICB,
LouAnn Blake from our office as well as Scott Labarre and Jeff Kaloc on
the calls with us when they could attend. There was scheduled to be a
hearing on HB-2951, but it's not ready to be called yet because they
need to do more exploring. Overall we want to support the bill, but we
want to try to get the ability to return votes electronically, because
we don't want to deal with envelopes, signatures, etc. There is another
bill that Patti shared with us that's just a restatement of the bill
from last year, which has no accessibility provision in it except to
allow for braille and large print.
Chicago Chapter Report: Dave says that we are in reasonably good shape
financially. We could be in better shape. We have not been able to use
the traditional means of fundraising that we have when we've all been
able to meet live. We do have 1 fundraiser that should be helpful
coming up on May 1, which will be a read-a-thon again. Those of you who
are interested in either contributing or reading, please let Dave know.
We will do it this time via Zoom. The elections will occur on April 10.
Hopefully, those of you who intend to vote have paid dues, because the
time for paying dues ended as of 3/11. Constitutionally in Chicago, one
must attend one meeting and be a dues-paying member 30 days prior to an
election. We will proceed with elections next month. Dave thanked all
of us for our efforts and support and for the things we have been able
to do while he has been chapter president over the past 2 years. Dave
says he is not standing to run for president of the Chicago Chapter
this time. He has asked Denise Avant if she would run for the Chicago
presidency and she has agreed to do so. Anybody who is a member is
eligible to run for any of the offices or board positions and, if you
choose to run, just make sure that you have somebody who would nominate
you when we have our elections next month. Patti thanked Dave for his
service. She also asked if we could read a flyer drafted for the
read-a-thon so that we could take that and send it to our friends and
family to solicit contributions. Dave thought that it was a great idea
and he will call Dustin and see if he is willing to do a flyer for the
read-a-thon. Jemal asked if the read-a-thon will happen this year or
next year. Dave said it will be 5/1/21. Jemal asked how come we're
doing the read-a-thon on 5/1/21. Dave said that there were some people
who said that they would be in a better position to read during the
spring than they would be in the autumn because of their involvement
with the state convention and other national events, etc. We do need to
have something additional in 2021 if we wish to contribute to National
funds this year. With the treasury standing where it is right now,
we're not going to have sufficient funds to do very much. Kira wanted
to thank Dave for his leadership and for being a mentor. Ed asked how
we will handle the elections. Dave said that last year we took voice
votes to start with. If a voice vote does not work, Dave suggested that
we raise hands if an election is contested. Though the moderators will
know who's voting for whom, nobody else will and it would just be a
matter of counting how many hands are raised. He pointed out that for
many years when there were contested elections and when a few votes
were too close to call, we used to employ 2 counters and they would
have to agree. Ed asked how we confirm that the people that are voting
are legitimate voters. Patti says she has a list of the members and she
will have checked off people who have attended at least 1 meeting. She
has the list of when people paid dues and so on. Patti said she would
have the master list of who is eligible to vote. Eileen complimented
Dave on what a wonderful job he did being president. She states that
she will not be running for secretary next year. She needs to step
down. She hopes that somebody that never ran for an office before can
take over. She thanked everybody for their support. Patti suggested
that we should do the elections early in the meeting because if we run
into an election that's close, we can do another agenda item while she
and Michal validate the election results. Steve commented that Dave
asked him to contact Jim Forniborg and we settled on moving the meeting
an hour earlier at 12 noon instead of 1:00 pm. Steve told Jim that he
could speak for 15 to 20 minutes and then we'd open it up for
questions. The program would run 30 to 40 minutes. That would take us
to 12:45. At which point, we could have the elections. Denise suggested
that Dave post the change in the meeting time to Ill-talk more than
once. Denise also suggested that anybody doing fan-out’s call people
starting now because 1:00 is the time that folks are used to. Dave said
he'll be doing periodic posts between 3/13 and the April meeting. Patti
suggested that we don't start elections before 1:00 because you'll have
somebody who comes in at 1:00. So run the program, do presidential
release, etc. If you start your elections at 12:45, you'll have
somebody really upset, especially people who don't have access to the
internet who will not get the word. Denise suggested that you put the
notice on NewsLine. Patti suggested that we could tell people that
elections will start promptly at 1:00 pm. The meeting will start at
noon with the program. Depending on when the program ends, we could do
things that don't take very much time until we get to 1:00 like
committee reports, etc. Dave mentioned that Bob Hansen will not be
handling the fan-out list. Pam G. said that she would be willing to get
the word out to people. She does have quite a few phone numbers.
Local Legislation Committee: Kira says we had 2 meetings this year. We
will have another meeting on 3/15. We worked last year to honor
individuals in our state that have done work for us. Many of you have
experienced in meetings to make sure that the scooters that they have
in the City of Chicago had labeling that was in large print and braille
and making sure that any transportation within the city, any kind of
transportation that they come up with such as scooters, future
self-driving vehicles, etc., make standard sounds and are safe for
everyone living in the city. We will be requesting and holding a
meeting with Commissioner Arfa to discuss any future plans the city may
have to embark on any type of transportation and to make sure that we
are working with them and they are aware that we are here. We are
meeting on Zoom on 3/15 at 7:00 pm. The Zoom link is on Il-Talk, but if
you didn't receive it, feel free to reach out to Kira. Her email is
kobradov at gmail.com.
Ken Schad said that there are quite a few of us in this chapter that do
not have computers or internet and wants to know how are we going to
know what's going on from meeting to meeting. Dave said that Pam has
got different numbers. Dave has a list of Chicago members. Hopefully,
we'll talk to others who were previously scheduled to do fan-out calls
to make the ones they're supposed to be making.
Old Business: No old business.
New Business: Steve said that he enjoyed working with Dave in his
capacity as treasurer and he will accept the nomination to serve as
treasurer for another term. Patti says she was able to get an
appointment with the United Center to get a vaccine. If you have some
time to sit on hold because it takes a bit of time, the 312-746-4835
number does work. This number is for appointments to get the vaccine at
the United Center. You must be a Chicago resident. Pretty soon they
will open up to the suburbs. Patti said that she had to leave her phone
on a speaker off the hook for a number of hours, but it does work. Mary
Grunwald said she received her first dose. She had to sit on the phone
for hours on end to get it. A couple of days ago, she got it and it
went OK. Pam G. says to check the local hospitals that you are
affiliated with. Jemal thanked Dave for his service and he would like
to be nominated for his current position.
Dave asked if we could have a social call between now and the April
meeting just so people can get on and enjoy their drink of choice and
commence. Patti says that we can use her Zoom if we can't use the
affiliate Zoom. We will have a social hour on 3/19 at 5:00 pm. Patti
says she will serve as a cohost.
The meeting adjourned at 3:23 pm.
Respectfully submitted: Eileen F. Truschke, Secretary, Chicago Chapter
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