[NFB-Greeley] Fwd: [Colorado-Talk] Day at the Capitol Monday, Feb. 13

[Melissa R Green]

Best!Melissa R Green and PJ 
Scentsy consultant readerlissa.scentsy.us 

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dan Burke via Colorado-Talk <colorado-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Date: February 10, 2023 at 11:23:16 AM MST
> To: NFB of Colorado Discussion List <colorado-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Dan Burke <burke.dall at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Colorado-Talk] Day at the Capitol Monday, Feb. 13
> Reply-To: NFB of Colorado Discussion List <colorado-talk at nfbnet.org>
> 
> Here's an update with some earlier times to be seated.  Attaching the
> Memorandum we'll be giving to the General Assembly members, and also
> pasting at the end. Please read before Monday morning.
> *    We will meet in the Old Supreme Court Chamber, which is the 2nd
> Floor of the Capitol, on the north end of the building.
> 
> *    We will begin our organizing promptly at 9:00, so please arrive
> between 8:30 and 8:50. We have a tight schedule to start the morning,
> but we will get ourselves into groups and all will have assignments as
> in years past.
> 
> *    At 9:40 or or earlier, we will begin to make our way to the Senate
> chamber for a tribute to Scott LaBarre by our long-time friend, Sen.
> Jessie Danielson. This will be entered into the record of the Senate.
> 
> *    The Senate is on the opposite side of the Capitol from the Old
> Supreme Court Chamber, or on the south side. Most of us will need to
> go to the 3rd floor to take seats in the gallery. A few, including
> Anahit and family, will be ushered onto the floor of the Senate for
> the tribute.
> 
> *    The Senate session begins at 10:00 that morning, and so we need to
> be settled in our seats by 9:50 if possible.
> 
> *    Afterwards, we'll get our groups back together and march off to
> deliver our message to all 100 members of the Colorado General
> Assembly!
> 
> * In the basement of the Capitol is Nate Hecker's vending site. You
> can get lunch there, bottled water, and Nate has a brand-new espresso
> machine. So, be ready to support our blind vendor at the Capitol on
> Monday! Wahoo!
> 
> Our memorandum on issues is attached in PDF and pasted below. Please
> read up on the issues. Our schedule this year is a little more
> compressed than in our past years, so we won't take time to read the
> entire thing when we collect in the Old Supreme Court Chamber but will
> focus our time instead on getting our groups and assignments
> organized.
> 
> Thanks all, and see you on Monday morning!
> 
> Dan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> MEMORANDUM
> 
> To: The Members of the Colorado General Assembly
> From: The Members of the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado
> Date: February 13, 2023
> Re: Legislative Concerns of Blind Citizens
> 
> GENERAL BACKGROUND
> 
> The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is the oldest and largest
> organization of the blind in the United States and in Colorado. The
> primary mission of the Federation is to allow the blind to live the
> lives they want in all areas of life from ensuring basic civil rights
> to securing employment and education for the blind. Founded officially
> in 1955, the NFB of Colorado (NFBCO) engages in several programs
> specifically designed to create greater opportunities for the blind.
> For example, NFBCO is the founder and chief sponsor of the Colorado
> Center for the Blind, an agency which provides training in the
> alternative skills blind people need to become fully participating
> members of society. Additionally, NFB offers national and statewide
> scholarships. We also provide a free talking newspaper called
> NFB-NEWSLINE®, a service which enables the blind of our state to read
> daily newspapers and many other on-demand publications just as easily
> as their sighted peers. We advocate for the rights of the blind in all
> areas ranging from education to employment. Where positive changes are
> happening in the blindness field, there is a good chance that the
> Federation is involved.
> 
> 2023 LEGISLATIVE AGENDA
> 
> 1. NFBCO calls upon the Colorado General Assembly to adopt legislation
> which would require pharmacies in Colorado to provide accessible
> prescription labels for blind and/or print-disabled users, thereby
> enabling them to accurately and independently identify the medications
> they use.
> 2. We ask the Colorado General Assembly to pass the legislation
> embodied in HB23-1032 which seeks to correct Colorado’s
> Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) by Restoring the legislature’s original
> intent that administrative exhaustion should not be required before a
> person with a disability may file a disability discrimination lawsuit.
> 3. Provide $500,000 in state funding for Colorado’s Business
> Enterprise Program so that the program can recover from the disastrous
> effects of the pandemic and expand opportunities for blind
> entrepreneurs.
> 4. We urge this Assembly to at least maintain funding for
> NFB-NEWSLINE® which gives blind and print-disabled Coloradans timely
> and independent access to newspapers and other periodicals.
> 
> For further information contact:
> Jessica Beecham, President
> National Federation of the Blind of Colorado
> Phone: 615-497-0435 / Email: jbbeecham at gmail.com
> 
> 
> REQUIRE PHARMACIES IN COLORADO TO OFFER ACCESSIBLE PRESCRIPTION LABELS
> TO THE BLIND AND PRINT-DISABLED
> 
> Prescription medication is routinely dispensed by pharmacies
> throughout Colorado, the nation, and the world. The printed labels
> used to identify specific medications, whether in liquid or pill form,
> are not accessible to individuals who cannot see well enough to read
> printed information or who cannot, due to a print disability, read
> what has been printed. The ability to properly identify specific
> medications without assistance is critical to ensure that a patient
> does not take the wrong medication. This is truly a matter of life and
> death.
> 
> While technology exists to produce prescription labels in Braille,
> large print, and audible formats and while pharmacies can be found
> which can produce prescription labels in one or more of these formats,
> consumers who cannot use traditionally-printed prescription labels are
> finding that drug labels in accessible formats are neither
> consistently nor readily available to them. They cannot be confident
> that all of the pharmacies from whom they may acquire their
> medications will use any of these technologies and approaches, let
> alone telling them about ways in which the pharmacy can provide
> accessible prescription labels. In short, pharmacies in Colorado are
> not required to provide prescription label information in ways that
> work for people who are blind or print-disabled, and there is no
> consistent way in which the pharmacies are required to provide this
> critical information.
> 
> Please support legislation which would:
> 
> 1. require pharmacies to provide accessible prescription labels for
> blind and print disabled users,
> 2. require pharmacies to notify each person to whom a prescription
> drug is dispensed that an accessible prescription label is available
> to the person upon request at no additional cost,
> 3. provide that if a person informs the pharmacy that the person
> identifies as a person who is blind, visually impaired, or otherwise
> print disabled the pharmacy shall provide to the person an accessible
> prescription label affixed to the bottle that is:
> 
> A. available to the person in a timely manner comparable to other
> patient wait time and lasting for at least the duration of the
> prescription;
> B. appropriate to the disability and preference of the person making
> the request through use of audible, large print, or Braille labels;
> C. conforms to the format specific best practices established by the
> Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board
> (established under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973); and
> D. Contains all the label information required by state statute and
> federal law, including cautions and warnings, and any information
> available to sighted individuals reading the printed label.
> 
> For further information contact:
> Jessica Beecham, President
> National Federation of the Blind of Colorado
> Phone: 615-497-0435
> Email: jbbeecham at gmail.com
> 
> 
> SUPPORT LEGISLATION TO FIX THE COLORADO ANTIDISCRIMINATION ACT
> 
> Part 6 of the Colorado Antidiscrimination Act (CADA) originally
> provided the basis for disability discrimination claims against public
> businesses in Section 602. This section provides that a person with a
> disability can either file suit or file an administrative complaint,
> but not both. Courts agreed with that interpretation. In fact, the
> language in Section 602 regarding remedies is still there.
> 
> But when the CADA was amended in 2014 to expand protections for people
> with disabilities, a provision was inserted into Section 602 that led
> to some confusion about the remedies available to individuals with
> disabilities filing discrimination complaints against public
> businesses. Some court decisions required people with disabilities to
> exhaust administrative remedies before they could file lawsuits.
> 
> HB23-1032 will clarify that people with disabilities have a choice of
> filing an administrative complaint or filing a lawsuit to address
> discrimination issues. It also cleans up the CADA by putting the
> disability discrimination provisions together in Part 8.
> 
> For further information contact:
> Jessica Beecham, President
> National Federation of the Blind of Colorado
> Phone: 615-497-0435
> Email: jbbeecham at gmail.com
> 
> 
> 
> PROVIDE STATE FUNDING FOR COLORADO’S BUSINESS ENTERPRISE PROGRAM
> 
> The Colorado Business Enterprise Program has historically been the
> most successful employment program for blind Coloradans, providing
> entrepreneurial opportunities for blind vendors on state and federal
> sites. At the federal level, the program is operated under the United
> States Department of Education, Rehabilitation Services
> Administration. In Colorado, the program is over seen by the Division
> of Vocational Rehabilitation within the Colorado Department of labor
> and employment. The program receives no state funds for its
> administration and operation. It has been funded by set-asides from
> blind operators themselves along with matching federal funds. House
> Bill 16-1048 increased the opportunity for blind entrepreneurs to
> operate contracts under the state of Colorado, but before the benefits
> of this bill could even begin to be implemented, the pandemic
> virtually shut down the program and closed too many vending locations.
> 
> In order to expand Colorado’s Business Enterprise Program into new
> business arenas and stabilize current operations, The National
> Federation of the Blind of Colorado is asking the state legislature
> to:
> 
> 1. allow the Business Enterprise Program spending authority to meet
> current needs as indicated by the Colorado Department of Labor and
> Employment and its request to the joint budget committee and
> 2. appropriate $500,000 in order to upgrade and expand the existing program.
> 
> For further information contact:
> Jessica Beecham, President
> National Federation of the Blind of Colorado
> Phone: 615-497-0435
> Email: jbbeecham at gmail.com
> 
> 
> 
> MAINTAIN FUNDING FOR THE NFB-NEWSLINE® SERVICE
> 
> For more than a dozen years, the Colorado General Assembly has funded
> NFB-NEWSLINE® in Colorado, providing blind Coloradans the same daily
> access to newspapers and magazines as their sighted neighbors and
> family members enjoy. This year, we request that the General Assembly
> at least maintain its financial support, currently at $120,000.00
> annually, so that blind people can access the critical and vital
> information provided by the service. Because NFB-NEWSLINE® is funded
> through the Disabled Telephone Users Fund (DTUF), funding to
> NFB-NEWSLINE® does not impact general funds. The DTUF’s funding comes
> from a very small fee on Land lines and cell phones in Colorado.
> 
> Access to information from the newspapers and magazines of our nation
> and state plays a critical role for each of us as informed and
> participating citizens. Recognizing this, in the mid 1990’s, the
> National Federation of the Blind developed and implemented
> NFB-NEWSLINE®. With this revolutionary system, the blind are able to
> pick up their touch tone phone, call a toll-free number or open an app
> on their iOS or Android device and select from more than 450 different
> newspapers and magazines including the Denver Post, Colorado Springs
> Gazette, Fort Collins Coloradoan, Wall Street Journal, New York Times,
> and many other national newspapers. Today the phone-in option is still
> in place, but access via the NFB-NEWSLINE® mobile app has comparable
> usage statistics. Additional options include online on-demand reading
> with a web browser, email delivery, and remote content download via
> specialized devices used by the blind and others with print
> disabilities. Thus, subscribers have access to the three Colorado
> newspapers offered, national newspapers, and numerous magazines –
> everything from AARP publications to Time and Wired. There are even
> accessible and locally-relevant television listings – something
> impossible to find in an accessible form for the blind. Additionally,
> the system provides current weather conditions as well as watches and
> warnings. Currently, over 1400 blind Coloradans have access to the
> 450-plus newspapers, 75 magazines, and other publications on
> NFB-NEWSLINE®. About once every two minutes, a blind Coloradan is
> tapping into the vast wealth of information available through
> NFB-NEWSLINE®.
> 
> With the funding provided, the NFB of Colorado will not only maintain
> the service, it will expand its reach. We will create even greater
> opportunities to share NFB-NEWSLINE® on additional web based and other
> technological platforms; expand the number of publications available;
> train more blind individuals to use the system; and work with the
> Audio Information Network of Colorado (AINC) to provide more
> information to the blind of Colorado. AINC is another service funded
> by the DTUF providing other timely publications and information to our
> state’s blind and print-disabled citizens. The NFB of Colorado
> supports continued funding for AIN as well.
> 
> For further information regarding NFB-NEWSLINE® contact:
> Jessica Beecham, President
> National Federation of the Blind of Colorado
> Phone: 615-497-0435
> Email: jbbeecham at gmail.com
> 
> 
> 
> SUPPORT THE COLORADO CENTER FOR THE BLIND AND NFB SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMS
> 
> Founded in 1988 by the NFB of Colorado, the Colorado Center for the
> Blind (CCB) offers world class rehabilitation and adjustment to
> blindness training to blind/visually impaired individuals in our state
> and from all over the world. We believe blind people can do anything.
> Every day, we encourage and challenge each student—and they come to
> understand their potential as they build the skills and confidence to
> live the life they want. Because when you believe in yourself and
> experience a thriving community of positive blind people, nothing can
> hold you back from pursuing your dreams.
> 
> CCB programs serve all ages from kids as young as elementary age to
> seniors. CCB teaches cane travel/orientation and mobility, Braille,
> technology, independent daily living skills, employment skills, and
> much, much more. Nearly all of the teaching staff is made up of blind
> instructors who serve as excellent role models. Please read the CCB
> brochure in your packet for more information or go to
> www.cocenter.org. Our Center is located in Littleton, and you are
> always welcome and encouraged to visit.
> 
> SCHOLARSHIPS
> 
> The National Federation of the Blind, on a national basis, offers
> thirty scholarships to talented blind men and women attending a
> post-secondary institution. Over two hundred thousand dollars are
> awarded each year and provide real opportunity for deserving students.
> Interested applicants can find more information at
> https://nfb.org/scholarships.
> 
> On a state level, the NFB of Colorado offers up to five scholarships
> to blind men and women attending a post-secondary institution and
> scholarships range from $1,500.00 to $5,000.00. More information on
> how to apply is contained in your legislative packet. Please inform
> your local high schools, colleges and universities as well as any
> blind/visually impaired post-secondary student you know about these
> valuable scholarship opportunities.
> 
> For further information on any of these issues contact:
> Jessica Beecham, President
> National Federation of the Blind of Colorado
> Phone: 615-497-0435
> Email: jbbeecham at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
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