LIGHTLY EDITED FILE MNCCD - Tuesdays at the Capitol Minnesota Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Remote May 12, 2020 10:00 - 10:50 a.m. * * * * * DISCLAIMER This text is being provided in a lightly edited draft format and is the work product of the CART captioner. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility, and this lightly edited CART file may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Nothing within this file should be duplicated, excerpted, or quoted without the express written consent of the CART captioner. Due to the live nature of the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled, and this text may also contain phonetic attempts at sounds and words that were spoken, and environmental sounds that occurred during the event. * * * * * CART PROVIDED BY: Angie Sundell, RDR, CRR, CBC, CCP, AE Paradigm Reporting & Captioning Inc. a Veritext Company 612.339.0545 Captioning-paradigm@veritext.com >> Bridget: All right, good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining today. I'm just going to go over a few things before we dive into what we have planned for today. I know some people have been here for our virtual Tuesdays before and some haven't, maybe. So I just want to go over a couple of things related to Zoom. First, we have -- there's a chat feature. So at the bottom of your screen, if you're on a computer, there's a little chat symbol, if you click on that, you can join in conversation with everyone. As well as we have captioning available. I just put in the chat a link to the live captioning and then we also, at the bottom of your screen, you can click closed caption and turn those on to have them at the bottom. We do ask that you mute yourself. Everyone is muted as of now. So that's great. And then we're going to kind of have a conversation today a little bit and, so, we can either use the chat feature or we can -- there's a way that you can raise your hand if you want to talk. So if you click on "manage participants" you can -- you'll be able to click on raise hand. Otherwise we can -- you can unmute yourself and talk whenever as well. I think those are our main things. I don't think I'm missing anything. But I think we'll start off today with, Bill. If he wants to give a little bit of an update, I'll pass it on to Bill Amberg. Bill, are you there? We can come back to him if he's not ready yet. Well, we can have him step in whenever's ready. So today is our last official virtual Tuesday. Next week is our session wrap-up. So we'll have a full legislative update about the whole session, which obviously looks a little different than it did in years past. So one thing that we want to do today is to ask for your feedback about these virtual Tuesdays. It's the first time we've done anything like this and, so, we want to know from your experience whether this is your first time right now or if you've joined us in the previous weeks, we just want some of your input to see how this has gone from your perspective. So if anyone is willing to throw a comment in, just unmute yourself and -- or throw any comment in the chat. >> Bill: This is Bill. I think I was on mute. Was there a question? >> Bridget: If you're ready to give a legislative update a little bit, that would be great. >> Bill: Oh, sure. Well, the legislature is due to adjourn next Monday at midnight. And as some folks have seen, particularly the House Republicans are pushing back on the Governor's approach to protecting the state and having some things closed. They seem to want to open things up completely, including having schools come back. And I've talked to a few parents. It seems to be particularly in New York this weird twist with the virus that does seem to be affecting some children in a different way. And I think there's a lot of nervousness for parents and schools, they want to get more research and data, is this happening in other parts of the country or is this not related to the virus and it's a different infectious disease that's affecting children in New York. So we'll see if that happens. The Governor doesn't seem inclined to give up his emergency powers right now. But the bonding bill is kind of hanging in the balance, so that's kind of the big drama going on at the Capitol. The House did move forward with our PCA bill. Price tag is over $20 million, so House and the Senate are going to have to negotiate differences in their bills. So we're hopeful that we get in the final mix, but this time of the year there's negotiations that happen away from public view and witness, kind of done behind closed doors, and I think with the virtual legislature, it's even more in the dark than usual. So we just need to kind of keep our fingers crossed and say our prayers that that gets included. And when we have opportunities to contact our legislators, we will take those. That sounds like enough. Is that good? >> Bridget: Yeah, thanks, Bill. >> Bill: All right. >> Bridget: I told everyone that next week is our session wrap-up, so we'll have a little bit more information then. >> Bill: Yup. >> Bridget: And what will happen after, maybe. >> Bill: Yup. And we should have Mitch on that call too. >> Bridget: Yup. Thank you. So I think going back to the question of if anyone wants to answer how this experience of virtual Tuesdays have been for them and if it is your first one, you can just observe if you want or you can put your comments in about what it's been like for you as well so far. >> Jean: I'll just say thank you for posting the previous Tuesdays up in the Facebook page and I recommend everyone with kids check out the kids edition, it was pretty fun. >> Jillian: I really look this year's Tuesdays at the Capitol, definitely not being at the Capitol, but I do appreciate that it created a lot more accessibility for people that would not necessarily be able to attend from different areas and also there's that playback feature, so if you weren't able to be there the day of, you can still catch up and find out what's happening right now and what needs to be done versus not getting the information. >> Bridget: Thanks, Jean and Jillian. I see in the comments that Hannah said it's been awesome so far. And Roger's attended most of them and it's been great to have this place for talking. And Tom just said, this is my third meeting and I find it helpful. So thank you. Can I ask if there's anything that could be improved for future ones if we either choose to keep them virtual or have some combination of virtual and in-person in the future? >> Jillian: I think it would be really cool to combine the virtual, but not necessarily at the same time, but doing virtual Tuesdays at the Capitol to kind of help give people information to better prep them for real-life Tuesdays at the Capitol. I think with the space that we're in and the sound system we have, sometimes it's hard to make sure everyone is getting all of the information or to have a really back-and-forth discussion about the information. So I think using maybe almost every other week, like using the virtual Tuesday to prep people for real-life Tuesday and then having more on-the-ground support to actually go out and talk with people during real-life Tuesday could be really cool. >> Bridget: Thanks, Jillian. Jill just said, thank you so much for the opportunity to sit in and listen to these meetings. My director has sent me here and it's been interesting as a hospital employee and as a disabled person as well. I have learned some things. So thank you so much, Jill. This has all been like a learning experience, I think, for a lot of us of moving this program from in-person to virtual. And I think it has created a lot of opportunity for us. And, so, thank you for all the feedback because we really hope that this can help us improve in the future as well. I think one question is for whether this will be virtual or in-person or some combination, what topics are you all interested in having for Tuesdays? I know we did a few different ones this year that were virtual, such as like the federal town hall that we might not have been able to do in person. So I'm just interested in knowing what topics that you all would find helpful or that you would find interesting or fun to do. >> Tom: It would be good to have one on health issues. >> Bridget: That's a great idea. Thanks, Tom. Roger just wrote, my church has been having virtual services, followed by a virtual social hour open chat. Maybe virtual Tuesdays could host a chat room or other breakout rooms in the time after the meeting. I think that's a great idea. It's a time to continue conversation, but also a time to socialize as well as all of us are social distancing and quarantining at home. Hannah just said, interviewing people with different disabilities from the community and what services they use. Thanks, Hannah, that's great. Are there any other topics that you would want to hear about in the future as we look ahead to next year, even though it's a little far off right now? >> Jean: Is there any discussion about perhaps having something maybe not weekly but even once a month just for updates on what -- the legislature won't be in session but perhaps updates on what the departments are doing or new resources that may come out for people or just even a check-in, how's everyone doing over the summer as the State maybe even starts opening up? >> Bridget: Yeah. We kind of brought up that idea the other day and, so, I think that would -- I would be interested to know if everyone would be willing to participate in those as well because I think -- I mean, we do have the opportunity to do it now on this platform. So if people would be interested in having, yeah, like a once-a-month update from MNCCD about what is happening and where things are headed, we would be happy to take that into consideration as well. From the chat it seems like people are quite interested. So I'll definitely pass that along and hopefully we can make that work. Well, thank you so much for everyone's input. I know this is probably not the most exciting way to start the meeting, but I think it's very beneficial to us and eventually to all of you because we want to make this the best experience as possible despite the circumstances. And, so, I think this has really helped us in many ways and hopefully it's helped you as well. If anyone has any other comments, feel free to share now. >> Tom: I saw that someone had mentioned about Metro Mobility. I had trouble with Metro Mobility getting to places on time and I was meeting someone at a restaurant and it took them two hours to get them there. If they could find a way to get that better, that might be a good idea. >> Bridget: Yeah, thanks, Tom. We can definitely talk about that more and reach out to some other people about that. Well, thanks for the feedback. I think if everyone is ready to move on, we kind of want to open this time to all of you share any stories or experiences that you're having right now in this time of COVID and if you have any questions or comments that you want answered or to talk about further, I think this is a great group of people that would be willing to listen and very understanding about that and we want to hear your stories and what is happening from a firsthand point of view. And, so, with that, I want to open it up to anyone who's willing to share their experience right now. >> Jean: We might have to play the game that we played on Mother's Day when we did a virtual Zoom, and that was somebody commented and did a check-in about how they were doing and then they tagged someone else to start talking. >> Bridget: That sounds good. It looks like Roger's going to share with us first. >> Roger: I think I figured out how to unmute. Can you hear me? >> Bridget: We can hear you. >> Roger: So I'm trying to screen share. I don't know if screen share is working. >> Bridget: Yup, we can see it. >> Roger: This is an email I got back on -- I think I got it on Monday, yesterday -- no, Saturday. So on Friday I got an invitation to send testimony in for a town hall meeting by the legislators who were wanting to hear testimony about how COVID-19 was affecting those of us with disabilities. And, so, I wrote in to say that I've got a disability where I need legal services that right now I'm experiencing disability rights violations, and I'm trying to stop those violations and need legal help to do so. And, so, I was saying that the Disability Law Center is our state's designated protection and advocacy agency, but they don't have enough staff and funding to be able to be of any help in disability rights cases. And, so, right now I'm on my own in court against the State of Minnesota for disability rights violations, and I'm asking the Court for disability accommodation to let me talk to them instead of having to write to them. And the Court is just rejecting everything that I submit and, so, I'm not getting any disability accommodation and my disability rights are still being violated. So it's really hard at this time where the courts are feeling overwhelmed by the pandemic and I think that's the reason. They're not giving any reason for their rejections, but I think that the pandemic is just causing every function of government and private industry to slow down and not be able to do much and, so, I'm trying to not take it personally and not see it as a disability rights violation by the courts, but it really still feels that way that the Court isn't explaining whether or not they're rejecting my accommodation requests based on their merits or based on their inability just to do anything. And, so, it's a very frustrating time and I would just like people to know that I'm still out there trying to advocate for disability rights and it's very tough going in the courts these days. And you can see at the bottom of my email I'm hoping that the legislature will actually consider providing emergency funding for the Disability Law Center during the pandemic and that's what I hope to work on in the days ahead is to get some more funding for the Disability Law Center and I've got the idea that maybe we could even eventually get a legal services provider tax in place so that there could be ongoing funding for legal aid in general and disability rights, in particular. So that's my current story and experience. So thanks for listening. And if anybody has any ideas or suggestions, that would be great. >> Bridget: Thank you, Roger, for sharing your story and what you're doing. It's definitely a challenging time and I'm glad that you're being persistent and still following up with everyone because I think that's really important, especially right now. Jean left a comment and she asked -- or she said, have you contacted the Department of Human Rights as an option? So you could take that into consideration as well, maybe. >> Roger: Yeah, actually, the Department of Human Rights is one of the defendants in the lawsuit that I started out reporting the disability discrimination to the Department of Human Rights, and the Department of Human Rights white washed my complaint and said there was nothing there to investigate. So the Department of Human Rights has been part of the problem, and they have been chief defendant in the lawsuit. >> Bridget: Sorry to hear that. But thank you so much for sharing once again. >> Roger: You're welcome. >> Bridget: Is anyone else willing to share their story about right now or any questions or comments they have? We want to keep this an open space for everyone and see if there's things that we can work on together, maybe, to see what we can do to move forward as much as we can. If there's no one else who wants to share, I can -- maybe I'll take Jean's idea and we can see maybe where everyone's at, do a little check-in about how everyone's feeling right now during this time of COVID and being at home and all of that. So maybe I'll throw it to Jean first to start. >> Jean: Okay. We're doing okay. I was thinking about maybe talking about this anyway, so I'll share kind of what I went through in the last week, spending about five, six, seven or more hours on the phone just trying to get a virtual medical appointment for my mom, so I also -- I have an adult son with disabilities, but my mom also has, as she's been aging, she has a disability, actually something she was born with that was never diagnosed because she accommodated but now it's causing more problems. So I was trying to get a virtual appointment with her. She is having a lot of trouble with technology and, so, I had to finagle, first of all, Mayo Clinic, where her doctor was, into allowing me to access her patient portal because the way they did all of their telemedicine was through the portal. Well, my mom has not been able to use the portal. I've set it up for her a couple times, and she always accidentally deletes it or says she can't get in. So in order for her to access the Zoom meeting, I had to first talk them into and get all the permissions for me to be in the portal. Then I had to have a practice call because they didn't know how to do a three-way. My mom lives in another city. So then we had to practice. I had to call their tech department and spend about an hour practicing letting me into a Zoom call and then being made the host so that I could turn around and invite my mom, but my mom still doesn't know how to do Zoom or any of these virtual things. So before I could even get my mom in, I had to talk about -- talk to the assisted living to see if there was staff at her assisted living who could go and help her because no family members, nobody outside who doesn't work there is allowed in to her assisted living. So then I had to negotiate that with them and then we had to practice and then we had to have a real call. But guess what? It actually worked. And as I spent, like I said, hours finagling all of this, I can just imagine someone who doesn't speak English, doesn't have the technology, doesn't have the education, hasn't had Zoom meetings like CCD so at least they basically know how Zoom operates. So that was my struggle this last week, trying to get to a doctor's appointment when even though she lives a couple of hours away, it would have been faster for me to go get her and bring her to the doctor and come back home than to try to arrange all of this via technology. So that's my story. Let's see. Do I have to tag someone? Let me see who's on here. Mollie, are you able to unmute and talk? I want to know if you won your virtual sidewalk chalk contest. >> Mollie: Hey, Jean. Yeah. This is Mollie. I'm really fortunate, you know, that we have great connections with the community and with a lot of our folks. We've really also struggled with some of the technological gaps, just folks who don't have computers or don't have a smartphone who can't use things like Zoom. And, so, that's really been a hurdle for us at the Brain Injury Alliance, getting people engaged. And I did win that walk chalk competition, so that was kind of a fun thing happening in the neighborhood this week. But, yeah, I think in a lot of ways, you know, Zoom and meetings remotely have been a huge help to folks, especially people who don't live, you know, in St. Paul or Minneapolis, but I think they also bring a lot of challenges. You know, we know with brain injury that navigating technology can be really difficult, and, so, we've really struggled with that and with our folks and trying to make sure everybody has access to the same information regardless of their ability. That's a tough thing to do sometimes. So we've just been working on it. Let's see. And who can I tag next? Maybe Jillian, do you want to share? >> Jillian: Yeah, I can share. It's been interesting being home all this time. The routine keeps shifting on what that looks like. Kind of in a new stage of quarantine, kind of worrying about what will happen next, especially seeing all -- [ indiscernible ] [ computer chime - somebody joined the meeting ] And knowing that's probably not very safe and worrying about what that means for my safety, as well as my family's safety. So, yeah, just kind of hanging in here, holding my breath, waiting for what the next steps are. And I'm going to tag Tom in. >> Tom: Hi. I'm trying to think. I have a mental health disability and the program I'm in has been on Zoom calls several times a day but a lot of them don't have this. And a lot of them are just closed. And one of the worst things for mental health is to be kept at home or staying at home and not getting out and doing things. And, so, this has been really hard on me. I'm glad you have this program to -- for people to voice things about disability. I had an independent living skills worker forward me the information about this Zoom call, and I found it helpful. Other than that -- Kris, did you have something you wanted to add? Kristen: No, thank you. >> Bridget: Thanks, Tom. We really appreciate you sharing your experience. I know it's difficult. And I think based on people I've talked to mental health is a big challenge right now for people who are in their houses and especially people who live alone, with limited social interaction, so I definitely understand that and appreciate you sharing that. Is there anyone else who's willing to share about their experience right now or how they're feeling? I can read a couple of the chat ones. So Jill said, I'm actually okay with most things myself. I can work from home and transcribe things. Cub delivers groceries. Though I do sometimes have to tell them where to bring the stuff so I don't have to walk clear to the other side of the building. The Minnesota Senate committees are talking a lot about the troubles disabled communities and other minorities have during the pandemic because we are all harder for people to reach. And then Hannah said, Hi. I have been lonely. I'm happy. I have my dog. Also having a hard time with other residents not obeying the social distancing rules. Because of all the problems in my apartment, I am looking to move. I might have found a new place. I'm sad I can't take my ASL class anymore due to being blind and it's on Zoom. Thank you, both Hannah and Jill, for sharing those personal living experiences because I think it's always good to hear what people are living day to day, especially during this time because everyone's experience is a little different and, so, for everyone who did share, you can tell that everyone's having a different experience and having to cope in different ways. So we definitely appreciate all those stories and everything that everyone is trying to do right now. Anyone else? Does anyone have any questions or comments for anyone on here that we might be able to answer or at least find some sort of answer to your question and get back to you with? We're definitely open to any conversation that anyone wants to have right now. Looks like Hannah wrote, anything you would recommend doing? I have been harassed with in regards to my guide dog. I told the apartment people but should I do anything else? I don't know if anyone has any comment or reaction or answer to Hannah's question? Anyone willing to answer it? >> Jillian: Hannah, who's been harassing you in regards to your guard dog? That would kind of depend on the next steps. [ silence ] >> Go ahead. >> Hannah: Hi, this is Hannah. One day last week I was taking my dog out and when I got back in, a woman said, I was watching and waiting for you. Please make sure you pick up that poop. I told her, I do. I'm blind. And if I miss something, I'm sorry. I told her it could have been another dog and I said, who are you? And she said, I'm another tenant. That pays the bills. So it's kind of nerve wracking that she was watching me. That's it. >> Jillian: What I would recommend, Hannah, is continuing what you're doing, reporting it to the apartment people, and also keeping a document -- documentation, a log, of any interactions with her so that if the apartment people continue to not follow up and do something about it, that you have a record of when it occurred and when you reported it. Reporting it to your apartment staff, that's the right first step. >> Hannah: It just makes me so nervous that I don't know when she's watching again. I'm really scared, to tell you the truth. That's all. >> Bridget: Thank you, Hannah, for sharing. I think Jillian had some good advice there that you could continue to do what you're doing and hopefully it gets better. We have a few minutes left, but I want to keep it open if anyone else wants to share either their experience, their stories, how they're feeling, anything like that, if you have any questions, comments, just let us know. This is just kind of a listening session right now just for everyone to see how we're all doing. Well, if there's no other comments, I just want to say thank you to everyone for sharing and being here today. This is definitely a tough time for a lot of people right now, so we want to make sure everyone knows that they're supported during this time. With that being said, we do want to invite you to come join us next week for our last official virtual Tuesday and it's our session wrap-up where we'll be reviewing the whole session, legislative session, which obviously looked a little different this year. And, so, will be at the same time from 10:00 to 11:00 next week with Bill and Mitch to give us the rundown of what happened and what's to come and then hopefully by next week, I can let you know if we can plan on doing our once-a-month check-in with everyone throughout the summer as well. In the meantime, I encourage you all to follow MNCCD and any of our member organizations on social media and to check our website for any updates that might be happening in the next few weeks and the next few months even. With that being said, we hope that we have more action steps that we can take down the road to help us the best we can. So we'll have emails and on our social media where those will be posted. So if anyone else has anything, feel free to speak now, otherwise I think we'll just wrap up a little early. All right. Well, thank you so much, everyone. We hope to see you next week for our last virtual Tuesday officially. Have a good day. DISCLAIMER This text is being provided in a lightly edited draft format and is the work product of the CART captioner. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility, and this lightly edited CART file may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Nothing within this file should be duplicated, excerpted, or quoted without the express written consent of the CART captioner. Due to the live nature of the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled, and this text may also contain phonetic attempts at sounds and words that were spoken, and environmental sounds that occurred during the event.