Minutes of Feb. 10, 2009 Commission on Disabilities meeting:
Members Present:~ Jim Spindler, Adeline Naiman, Debbie Dorsey, and Anita Scheipers. Also present: residents John Ritz and B.J. Scheff. (Rob Loud was resent before the meeting and gave Dorsey two binders of LCD materials.)
Meeting convened at 1:15 pm.
Discussion and Action Items:
1. Minutes of the Jan 6, 2009 meeting were approved with minor edits.
2. Debbie confirmed that Rob Loud had submitted a letter of resignation to the Board of Selectmen. An expression of appreciation will be presented to Rob at the town meeting in recognition of his years of service. Town Administrator Tim Higgins is working on this.
3. Announcements:
a. COA participation - The COA has advised that they are not able to send staff routinely to each of our meetings; however, they are willing to assist with specific issues as needed. It was suggested that a COA volunteer might be sought to represent the COA at our meetings. Debbie will contact the COA on this issue.
b. E-mail list - Debbie has contacted past members to ask if they wish to remain on the email distribution list. Kitty Stein, Christina Brown, and Rob Loud have confirmed hat they wish to be included for informational purposes. John Ritz said that he would like to be a member of the LCD. Anita will inform the Selectmen. John will be added to the list if appointed. B.J. Scheff is considering joining.
c. Member list as of 1/09 - Dorsey gave out the list, corrections were made, and she will give out the corrected list at the March meeting.
d. Annual Appointment Process - Debbie has contacted Debra Parkhurst regarding necessary edits to the membership list. This will be provided to each member.
e. Rep. Tom Conroy and Sen. Susan Fargo plan to attend our April meeting.
4. Group Homes - Housing Commission member B.J. Scheff~gave a brief explanation of the group home on Concord Road, which raised such concern among~neighbors. She explained the legal parameters under which the town was required to work with the proponents of the home and which limited the town's ability to provide advance notification to neighbors. She also explained~ two citizen petitions will be placed on the town meeting warrant to require that a committee be established to look at the issue of group housing in Lincoln and to limit the ability to use town funds for group housing as was recently done. She also invited the members of the commission to the group home's open house scheduled for Feb. 26th at 6pm.
5. Adeline asked if there could be an article in the local paper informing the public about the Town of Lincoln website to encourage more to take advantage of this source of information. It was also suggested that a display be placed in the lobby of town meeting to educate the residents about the website. Anita agreed to pass along this request to the Selectmen's office.
~6. The next meeting was set for Tuesday March 3, 2009 at 1:00 p.m.
~The draft agenda for the next meeting will include the following:
a) sharing ownership of disability issues with more than those simply defined by the state statutes.
b) lack of access to Lincoln public meetings and offices.
c) the LCD's possible vote on the two~ citizen petitions on group housing.
d) the five-year plan.
e)postings on the town website, in the Lincoln Journal, on a possible list-serve.
f) creating a sign-up for people interested in receiving the LCD emails, etc.
g) asking the Selectmen to create a more formal communication system to inform the public on important issues.
h) plan of questions for both Rep. Conroy and Sen. Fargo for our April meeting.
i) response of COA.
7. Meeting was adjourned at approximately 2:40 p.m.
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