tv [untitled] February 17, 2013 5:00pm-5:30pm PST
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ship, sorry. i am nervous. you have to bear with me. chip will now read the introductions. >> good afternoon and welcome to the mayor's disability council this friday february 15 in city hall. please note that this meeting is accessible and ramp at polk street at the entrance is temporarily disrupted due to repairs. we appreciate your patience during this time and ask that you use the remaining entrances when visiting city
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hall. assistive listening devices are available and our meetings are captioned and agendas are available in large print and braille. please ask staff for additional assistance. to prevent interference with the sound system and help everyone focus on the presentations please turn off all owns and pda's or in vibrate mode. we welcome the public to comment. you may get a speaker card or please call us and you will be
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recognized. the meetings are the generally the third friday of month. to assist peoples with allergies, environmental illness or related disabilities please refrain from swearing scented products or when visiting the mayor's office disability office. thank you for helping us to provide meetings that are fully accessible to all people with disabilities. our next meeting will be on march friday 15 from one to 4:00 p.m. here in city hall in room 400. please call the mayor's office for further information or tty4 one
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>> and sary berget will be participating by the bridge line and mr. wong is excused absense. now the reading of the agenda. welcome introduction and roll call. action item, reading approval of the agenda. three, public comment, items not on the agenda but within jurisdiction of the mdc. each speaker is limited to three minutes. four, report from the chair. five, report from the director of the mayor's office on disability. six, presentation by bevan dufty, director of the mayor's office of hope. at 2:30 p.m. there will be a break. the council will take about a 10 minute break. seven, senior and disability action, a
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presentation by jessica lehman. eight, action item, cochair election. nine, report from the physical access submit. 10, a presentation from the sfmta advisory committee. 11, public comment, items not on today's agenda but within the jurisdiction of the mdc. again each speaker is limited to three minutes. 12 correspondence. 13, discussion item, council members comments and announcements. 14, adjourn. >> >> thank you. i have made some changes to the agenda. team six will be prepared before team five at 115 to accommodate our speaker's schedule.
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can i have a motion to a -- approve the agenda. >> i move it. >> second. >> okay. public -- so we're -- we're back on public comment. oh i am sorry you guys. this is my first time. we are definitely going to agree. we had a second. >> i second the motion. >> thank you very much. we all agree? >> aye. >> next is the public comment, and i have our public comment cards in front of us, so up for public comments you guys, and
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we might have to cut it a little bit short for our guests so you guys can be prepared out there. if you -- if we don't call you in time come around for the next one. thank you very much. today for public comment first we have ken stein. mr. ken. thank you very much. >> hello. it's good to see you all. i came to the last meeting and speak for about a minute or a little more than that to say that would be my last meeting. i didn't have an opportunity at that time to tell you why i was leaving to talk about what was going on. i have a prepared statement they would like to read to the council with your her mission. it will run a little over but i would like to read the entire statement. i think it's important to hear,
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the public, the council, as well as very important for me to say. >> yes, you have permission. >> thank you. my name is ken stein. for the 10 years i have been the program administrator for the mayor's office on disability which is the ada compliance office for the city and county of san francisco. i retired from city employment yesterday. on thursday february 14. my full retirement age under social security is not for another year and i had much and expected to work at mod for at least a few more years. it is impublic for me to do that. there is a fundamental contract between employees and employers. employees have the obligation to do their jobs well and employers have the obligation to keep their employees safe and protect their rights. my employee has
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violated that time and time again. for the past three years the city of san francisco has engaged in a blatant pattern and practice of discrimination. it has repeatedly violated my states under state and federal disability laws and its own written policies. time again the city attorney who has a sworn duty to enforce the law has advised the city to do things that against the law. in spite of clearly failed accommodations and multiple pleaos my part the city human resources' director and ada cord nailtors refused to meet with me and modify my accommodations as they are required to do by law. this for
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almost an entire year until i was made sick from paint exposure without advanced notification yet again this past april 2012 for the third time in three years. throughout this entire ordeal i made my appeals virtually known to every willful of government and i didn't have my rights or health protected. the city's behavior is reprehensible. it lied and covered up or seriously investigate or even to acknowledge or contact me regarding serious and documented claims of harassment and charges of discrimination as it is required to do under its own civil rights complaints procedures. from day one the city of san francisco has seen me not as a human being but as
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a legal problem and demands for my rights as an annoy ansz. it has seen as the primary responsibility not the protection of my health but the protection of itself and the employees and legal staff. as a consequence my health has been unnecessarily and permanently compromised. i have very much enjoyed the work i have done at the mayor's office on disability for the past 10 years and i have done it well. i am proud of the work that mod does to ensure compliance with the ada on the part of city departments with respect to city departments, and i have the greatest respect and admiration for all of my coworkers at mod, every single one of them. particularly as someone who has had the honor of being part of the movement for
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independent living, disability access and disability rights from the earliest beginnings 40 years ago and i couldn't work for the municipality that repeatedly and ashamedly violated my rights. in the united states constructive discharge has different meanings depending on the jurisdiction. in california the california supreme court defines it as follows: in order to establish a constructive discharge an employee must plead and prove by the usual preponderance of the evidence standard that the employer either intentionally or created or knowingly permitted these conditions that were so intolerable or aggravated at the
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time of the employee's resignation that a employer would realize that a reasonable person in the employee's position would be compelled to resign. no one in their right mind would continue to work under these most sorry circumstances. the city could have easily done the right thing all along and it consistently chose not to. i have done through appropriate state and federal legal processes throughout all of this, and these will take years to resolve. there will be a full federal investigation of my eeoc charges and i have every confident that justice will prevail at some point. there can never ever be any just compensation for what i have had to go through. the cost to my
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physical and mental health and successful career being pulled out from under me and all so unnecessarily. for now i thought it important to go out with whatever dignity i am able to maintain, and to publicly charge the city and county of san francisco with discrimination and constructive discharge. as many of you know the most difficult thing for an advocate is advocate for one oneself. as the former director herb levine wrote me recently "i am happy for you in your decision. you are being a role model by not sacrificing your health as you have been an advocate and spokesperson for others all these years .". in
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closing i would like to thank my friends and colleagues in the city and in the bay area and around the country for all your kindness and support throughout this ordeal, and most especially my wife ingrid. without her love i don't know how in the world i could have gotten through this. indeed i don't think i could have. thank you for giving me the time to speak today. >> thank you. skip. okay.
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donna will. -- donna wilma. >> [inaudible] >> i apologize if they're not in order. i just get them. i'm sorry. >> hello council memberrings. good afternoon . i am donna welmerand with consumer action and i am an advocate there. this is an emotional moment. i came here to say how much i'm going to miss ken stein as he leaves his position at the mayor's office on disability, and when i first started doing this work four years ago ken was one of the main go to people for me. he was someone who was available to guide me around ada issues to give help and support
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whenever i had a question i couldn't answer and i am very sad to see him go. i feel like i have been in many, many meetings with ken, and i feel like he's always been the conscience of the meeting regarding disability rights issues. i feel he never fails to raise the question on the top and i can how does this impact the disability committee? and i just wanted to say that we will miss him and his leadership. thank you. >> thank you. bob plant. >> eye bob planthold. i was fortunate some years ago to be given the beacon award from the
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disability council. some of you weren't on then. that's why i am reminding you of that, so now i want to turn around and ask you folks to consider what level of active involvement and advocacy you're actually showing , and i will suggest what to me is a simple project. here at city hall over the past few years i complained repeatedly that not all of the elevators on the floors ding and it's a varying situation from one time to the next. as you folks come in and out of the building for these and other meetings test them out and make a log. i made complaints over the years to ken. i have given up just because it's more than one person's data can provide and that's a simple thing. but when i ask about action i want to suggest that you folks could have a better impact if you
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were more visible than just at these meetings. i will give you examples. we don't see or hear from members of the council individually when there's board of supervisors committee hearings. your names do not show up on the board of supervisors communication lists and they list emails as well as written letters, so there's a lack of visibility on an issue. it may not be a disability issue. it could be street repaving or a housing issue but your names are not out there. the disability community is large and growing because you have more people living longer with disability. we have more seniors aging into disability and yet we are not as powerful as let's say the bike constituency. there aren't enough people active out there saying "we want this". saying
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"no" or asking "why or why not?" and i am suggesting you could help yourself and all of us by being much more visible, involved. even phone calls to your district supervisor. as i will tell you if you do that enough you will find out they don't respond. i have papered the supervisors, not just the official email but the staff by name, and as you will see maybe next week again they don't respond. there's another story i am involved in about the disabled and the supervisors do not respond. until more of you do it they will continue in that neglectful pattern. thank you. >> thank you. walter paulson. >> good afternoon mayor's disability council. i want to
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thank ken stein for his great work. it's too bad he is stepping down. "when will we be loved? we have been pushed down. when will the disability be loved? when a find a new city job they want. it always breaks my heart into two. happens every time. i have made -- we have been made blue. we have been lied to. when will we be loved?" and "you're sweet like a disability bee but left my heart in pain. all you left
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is a famous city song. why don't you bring better disability better along? it's the same disability old song with different item meanings since you have been gone. precious memories keep lingering on. why don't you bring it -- bring it good along? it's the same, same old city song but with a different meanings since you have been gone. precious memories gone. it's the same old song". thanks. >> thank you. james excuse me. can you please say your last name? i didn't want to mess it up.
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>> that's okay. keonsine. thank you commissioners. it's hard to follow that up. i'm sorry. the reason i am here is not address any of these specific issues but to honor and recognize a very loved and respected colleague and coworker and i just wanted to do that to mention ken by name and then acknowledge the loss that we as a community for advocate are for and people with disabilities and seniors are losing. i really enjoyed working with ken and ken is the one who helped us -- helped me personally be conscious about a lot of things, around issues. i will send the email and i get a call. it's ken. "james, listen you didn't make that
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