[IL-Talk] chicago minutes draft 3

[David Meyer]

National Federation of the Blind of Illinois Chicago Chapter

Minutes for December 12, 2020

The meeting took place via the Zoom platform.

President David Meyer called the meeting to order at 1:01 pm. Of note, 
participants included Horacio Esparza from the Progress Center and Ann 
Brash from the Illinois Council of the Blind. We all recited the NFB Pledge.

What's Happening: Dave stated that things are good for Teresa. Dave's 
extended family, his younger brother, his wife, and his daughter all 
had COVID and his cousin and his wife had COVID for a second time. All 
are recovering pretty well. Board member, Denise Avant, reported that 
she was recently elected to the board of directors for Access Living 
Chicago. Gina Falvo said that she is a 9-year breast cancer survivor. 
Nadia Sherman says that she had a minor procedure done and that she 
asked everybody to pray for her. First Vice President, Patti Chang said 
that Dick Davis from Blind Inc. has had COVID. He is in the hospital, 
but he is not on a ventilator. She also says that some of her family 
members down in Belize have COVID. Steve Hastalis reports that Metra 
and its ADA advisory committee have appointed him chairman and his 
first meeting as chair will take place on February 2. We had a grand 
total of 29 people participating.

Program Item: Our speaker for today's program, Ms. Hazel Bowman is a 
disability inclusions coordinator for an agency called Anixter in 
Chicago. She has come with a host of jobs to fill. She says that “the 
Anixter Center has been advocating for people with disabilities for the 
last 100 years.” “We have been advocating for individuals with 
disabilities.” Anixter received a grant and this grant is geared toward 
placing individuals with disabilities into healthcare job 
opportunities.” Anixter is partnering with Mount Sinai and the 
University of Chicago Hospitals. The goal is to place individuals into 
current jobs. Anixter is trying to find individuals who can do the 
essential functions of the job and there will be some accommodations 
being made based on individual situations. Anixter hopes to place 
people into jobs who are blind or low vision. Ms. Bowman wants to find 
out if we know of someone who is qualified to fill any role in either 
Mount Sinai or University of Chicago Hospitals and to place these 
qualified individuals into jobs. Ms. Bowman's phone number is 
312-415-4505 and her email address is hbowman at anixter.org. Dave 
commented that not everybody uses the same accommodations because 
everybody is going to need different needs in accommodations. He asked 
if this can be taken on an individual basis for those who apply. Ms. 
Bowman said “we can take this on a case-by-case basis.” Patti commented 
that many times we get into a job situation where the underlying 
software is inaccessible. These hospitals ensured that their underlying 
software is accessible to blind who use screen-reading software. Dave 
mentioned that there are other organizations that would also be 
interested in working with Ms. Bowman. Horacio Esparza from the 
Progress Center is willing to help find recruits. This is a center for 
independent living that is a cross-disability center, so it would be 
more than blind folks possibly.

National Presidential Release #500, Tuesday, December 1, 2020: 
President Riccobono said that they are in the living room foyer space 
of the Barney Street Wing, the newly remodeled space.
We still have Braille calendars available from the American Action Fund 
for Blind Children and Adults. 2021 Braille calendars are available 
while supplies last and will be available in the market until 1/31 and 
not available after that date. So if you have not gotten a free Braille 
calendar for 2021, you should call the market and get yours quickly. We 
do have gift certificates available for the Independence Market. They 
are available for purchase in amounts of $25, $50, $75, or $100. The 
gift certificates are valid for up to 4 years from the date of 
purchase. You can get the gift certificates as a PDF that's emailed to 
you or you can get it sent to you via the regular mail in Braille 
format, and you can get more information about them by sending an email 
to independencemarket at nfb.org or you can call the national office at 
410-659-9314. A good piece of news to look forward to in 2021 will be 
the reemergence of our Independence Market website where you can order 
products. It has been down for some time. We've been rebuilding and 
retooling it into our new website.
Last month during American Education Week which was11/16, we sent a 
letter to all of the top education officials in all of the 50 states, 
the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. You can read that letter by 
going to nfb.org/legal. That letter calls on the state's education 
officials to recognize the critical barriers that blind students face 
in inaccessible educational technologies and it calls them to take 
actions to make sure that blind students have equal access. We have 
gotten a number of responses from some of the state's educational 
officers and we will be following up with those individuals in putting 
resources together. We're getting a good response so far. We've gotten 
some engaging phone calls from folks who are interested in what we have 
to say and we're going to put together some resources to help.
We have a December open house. The open house events are for 
prospective new members to learn about our organization and we'll be 
having an open house on Sunday, 12/13, at 7:00 pm. Our Smart City 
Summit meeting is on 1/28, and, on moving it to 1/28, we're also going 
to take advantage of that being the day before 1/29/21, which will be 
the 10th anniversary of the blind driver challenge. The blind driver 
challenge was our effort to build a car that a blind person can drive 
and the first public demonstration was on 1/29/11. More information 
will be sent to the list serves about the Smart City Summit. Our access 
technology team has a number of accessibility training sessions coming 
up, we call these accessibility boutiques. Go to nfb.org and look for 
our accessibility boutiques under our programs and services. When we 
get into January, we will be preparing for our Washington Seminar. We 
are encouraged to plan to participate in the Washington Seminar during 
the second week of February, but also before that, we're going to be 
offering some training in January to get ready for the issues.
The Freedom Scientific Company is offering $50,000 to NFB if we can 
raise $50,000 before the end of the year. If you give a gift before the 
end of the year, it will be matched by Vispero up to $50,000. You can 
make a contribution online by going to nfb.org/donate. You can send a 
check to the National Office at 200 East Wells Street, Baltimore, MD 
21230. You can call our main number and dial extension 2282 and someone 
will get back to you to make your contribution. As long as it is made 
by the end of the year, that will help.
Secretary's Minutes for October 10th: Approved.
Treasurer's report: Steve says we have $3,285 in the treasury.
State Presidential Report: NFBI state president, Marilyn Green thanked 
everyone who came to the state convention. It was a great success; we 
have our next state board meeting on 12/21 at 7:00 pm. The state 
committee list will go out on January 1 on ill-talk. If there is any 
committee that you would like to serve on, please send Marilyn an email 
at president at nfbofillinois.org and her phone number is 312-343-8396. 
The Blind Services Planning Council has appointed Marco Giannotti as 
one of our representatives. Andrew Webb has served on behalf of our 
affiliate for the last 6 years. Governor Pritzker reviewed the 
composition of the Blind Services Planning Council Marilyn thanked Dave 
Meyer for sending letters to the state legislature, to the minority and 
majority leaders as well as the speaker of the house, Mike Madigan on 
behalf of the affiliate as it related to our appointment on the Blind 
Services Planning Council. Marilyn got a phone call from the honorable 
speaker, Mike Madigan's chief of staff regarding our seat on the Blind 
Services Planning Council.
We are currently beginning to work on making voting accessible by mail 
for all blind people in the State of Illinois. Just because this year's 
election is over, there will be elections going forward and blind 
people will need an accessible vote by mail option.
Marilyn has appointed Denise Avant and Dustin Cather to chair our 
federal legislation committee. Denise states that the Washington 
Seminar is going to be virtual and this will give everyone an 
opportunity to apply to represent the Illinois affiliate at the 
Washington Seminar because you don't have to travel anywhere. You don't 
have to worry about the expense of travel, getting a hotel, or food. If 
you want to represent our affiliate at the Washington Seminar for 2021, 
you can apply. The application is on the NFB of Illinois website. Go to 
www.nfbofillinois.org/washington-seminar and that application is due to 
our president by 12/31. We will make sure you are well-trained in the 
issues so that you can be articulate. Everyone in our affiliate is 
intelligent. Illinois is one of the few affiliates that offer training, 
plus our national office also offers training. The dates for the 
Washington Seminar are February 8, 9, 10, and 11. The Washington 
Seminar will start with the Great Gathering In. Denise invited everyone 
to fill out the application, submit it by 12/31, and, perhaps, you will 
be chosen to represent our affiliate at the Washington Seminar. We have 
received 4 applications so far, but we can have more members this year. 
Illinois has a large congressional delegation, so we're looking forward 
to having people who don't ordinarily get the chance to participate be 
able to do so.
Patti Chang and Debbie Stein are co-chairing the scholarship committee 
for 2021. The committee has started by posting the application. The 
application is on our website at nfbofillinois.org/scholarsh ip or you 
can go to nfbofillinois.org and look for the link. The application is 
due on 3/31. We need to get the word out and we'll need to make sure 
that students don't wait till the last minute to apply. There is an 
application. There is an essay. There is a letter of recommendation and 
you'll need to talk to the president or her designee in order to apply 
in Illinois because you do need a president's letter from our president 
or her designee. Spread the word to anybody you know. Make sure that 
they are aware early enough that they can get this done. The best time 
to do it is over the winter break. The second thing that we will need 
to do is come to the meetings with the students, to keep urging people 
to apply and offer some assistance if people need assistance. The 
committee will meet on 1/7 because we'll be proactive about getting the 
word out. Ellen Bartell says that there will be a virtual Midwest 
Student Seminar. The dates that we are looking at are 3/19 and 3/20. 
The registration form is not up yet.
Dave asked if one is not selected or chooses not to apply for the 
Washington Seminar, may they still attend the Great Gathering In being 
that it is a zoom meeting this year? Denise said that we don't have a 
lot of details about that yet. From the way things sound, you would be 
able to attend.
Exchequer Pub is having a very difficult time right now. It is 
difficult enough that somebody actually started a Go Fund Me page for 
them. We had discussed whether or not we should give something in 
advance to Exchequer, either a donation or something in which to help 
them out in the short-run. Our Chicago Chapter board came up with a 
possible solution and Dave would also like this discussed and acted 
upon during the general meeting as well, that we would pay for our next 
12 sessions at Exchequer in advance. This would be a total of $900. It 
does stretch us tight in order to do this, but we do have the money to 
do it. If Exchequer is not able to make it from a financial standpoint, 
they would be left with the remaining contribution that has not been 
used. We were hoping to advance the contribution from what would amount 
to the next 12 meetings. Whether they would be in 2021, 2022, or a 
combination thereof. Patti will make a motion that we pay Exchequer for 
what will amount to the next 12 meeting sessions. Jemal seconded the 
motion. Jemal asked if Exchequer does not make it, has there been 
alternative plans made like another meeting site? Dave replied if 
Exchequer can't handle us, we're not sure if any other place can handle 
us either, and, if they are, it will be a lot more money than we now 
pay. The motion carried.
Read-a-thon: We had a read-a-thon in November. It turned out reasonably 
good. Once all contributions come in, we will have $775 as a result of 
this event. We did not have a lot of people reading this time and 
people who did solicit or make donations towards the read-a-thon did 
not reach outside of the organization to try to get donations. Dave 
asked if anybody has any ideas as to maybe what changes we might be 
able to make to improve the read-a-thon overall or to make it more 
inclusive. Patti says that for her the timing is difficult because it's 
close to the state convention and close to other state conventions. 
Patti said that she would like to see us move it to February or March. 
We used to have Dick's fundraiser in the spring and the Read-a-thon 
would be good for a different time of year. We can do more on social 
media to promote it. Patti also suggested that we do something to help 
people understand that even if they can't read, they can still seek 
donations from their friends and families to support whoever else is 
reading. Denise suggested that those of us who are Braille readers if 
we could tie it to Braille Readers are Leaders so that people 
participating in that can get people to sponsor you. Dave said that we 
did the time that we did either October or November because we 
considered it to be a Chicago Chapter Meet the Blind Month activity. 
There were some folks that did not participate this year because we had 
to do it via conference call and the reason we had to do it that way 
was that the Zoom account was still in transition at the time of the 
event. That no longer is an issue. The Zoom account is presently in 
place. It might be best that if we do have a Read-a-thon, that we use 
the Zoom platform to do it, because, in that way, we can simply do it 
from where we are. We don't have to congregate anywhere. During the 
last several years, we have set up this event where we had a $10 entry 
fee for anyone choosing to read. But, if they were able to raise more 
than $10 from others, that $10 admission fee would be waived. Dave 
asked us to keep this in the back of our minds. If you do have any 
thoughts on this, let Dave know.

Old Business: Eileen noticed that there were scooters in her 
neighborhood that are attached to poles and the Lime scooters are in 
Braille and the Bird scooters do not have Braille on them. Dave stated 
that from his understanding that all companies were to provide both 
Braille and large print contact information on their scooters. Debbie 
replied yes, the scooters are to have Braille and raised print which 
will be legible to large print readers and legible to some people who 
cannot read large print but don't know Braille. Steve says that we have 
another meeting coming up on 12/22. It seems like the people running it 
are dismissive of the concerns of the blind community. We have a 
resolution on the website, so we can go tell them to consult our 
resolution that expresses NFB's concern. We have a state resolution and 
a national resolution on the subject. Debbie raised the concern about 
scooters parallel to the quiet automobile advocacy that we have done 
and nobody seemed to know or care about that. Debbie and Steve attended 
the last advisory committee meeting. The people running that activity 
have not contacted Debbie or Steve. Denise did write to the Mayor's 
Office for People with Disabilities in 2019 asking them to make sure 
that any people entering as contractors for the scooters to make sure 
that they were marked with Braille and large print so that people would 
know where to call in case there was a problem and also make sure that 
the AP was accessible. Now that was in Round 1 of the testing and then 
in early January, the city said that it was going to engage in Round 2 
of the testing. Denise knew that Lime had put Braille on their 
scooters, but she did not know about the rest of the carriers. We may 
need to reach out to the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities to 
remind them about our concerns as far as reporting. The other thing is 
that Denise heard on the news that the City is supposed to do a survey 
of citizens citywide to get their comments or their feelings about the 
scooters. The news report did not say when the survey would be started 
or how people would be able to go online to take the survey. If we can 
ever find out where that survey is, it would give us a chance to take 
the survey and register any comments that we have about scooters. 
Marilyn commented that this would be a wonderful opportunity for the 
Chicago Chapter to reach out to Commissioner Arfa particularly on this 
item, because if Lime was doing it and the other scooter companies are 
not and they are allowed to operate in the City of Chicago and Mayor 
Lightfoot has stated that she wants Chicago to be the most accessible 
city in the country. This is definitely an issue that we should address 
to Commissioner Arfa's Office whether it's a letter to her or a phone 
call inviting her to a future chapter meeting to express the concerns 
that we have. Denise said the pilot project may be over. They will 
survey and then it will be time for Mayor Lightfoot to make a decision 
as to whether she is going to allow them in. Steve commented that we 
needed to get this to the city officials, so when they bring this 
program back after the winter months, they have this requirement for 
the operators of these scooters. It seems that Lime has taken our 
concerns seriously unlike some of these other service providers. 
Marilyn said that it's important that we get ahead of this and if we 
make our concerns known to the Mayor's Office, she has jurisdiction to 
determine and to let these companies know that in the next pilot, for, 
if they are going to operate in the City of Chicago, these are the 
requirements and, hopefully, she will put forth some type of censuring 
for them if they don't do as asked if they don't provide Braille, large 
print, raised letters, whatever the case might be, that some type of 
sanctioning for them. Kira states that the legislative committee will 
take action either having Steve or someone appointed or herself prior 
to the December 22 meeting.

New Business: Horacio Esparza, executive director of the Progress 
Center, thanked us for the invitation to the meeting. He has been at 
the Progress Center for 21 years. Prior to working at the Progress 
Center, he worked at ICRE Wood for a couple of years providing Spanish 
translation for anyone who needed it. In 1994-1995, he formed a support 
group for the visually impaired who were undocumented and were not 
eligible for any services and he was teaching them Braille, as well as 
orientation and mobility. Recently he has been appointed to serve on 
the Blind Services Planning Council. Horacio said that under their 
internship program, they recruited many blind and visually impaired 
people at the Progress Center.

The meeting adjourned at 3:01 pm.

Respectfully submitted: Eileen F. Truschke, Secretary, Chicago Chapter
Date