[IL-Talk] chicago minutes for march 2021

[David Meyer]

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