(Editor’s Note: What follows is a compilation of information from ACB Executive Director Charlie Crawford’s weekly submissions to ACB-L, the organization’s Internet mailing listserv. These weekly e-mail notices are intended to be informal brief summaries of weekly activities in the ACB National Office. We include them here for the benefit of those who do not currently have access to ACB’s Internet mailing list. If you would like to view these notes on a weekly basis, visit the ACB web page, http://www.acb.org. Scroll down to “News Notes” and select it. You will then be at the page where “News Notes” is housed. You may choose the current issue or whichever back issue you would like to read. Please let us know your opinion of “News Notes.”)
For the week ending February 25, 2000
ACB board gives thumbs up on budget and other proposals
In an action-filled agenda the ACB board of directors approved the yearly budget, voted to admit a new affiliate to the family, and to migrate the ACB web site and its subparts to We Media's facilities. After a careful explanation of the budget parameters and elements, the board voted to accept the nearly $1.4 million budget. The document calls for continued growth of ACBES and its thrift store operations that account for an important portion of Council revenues. Even as expansion of the thrift store operations was taking place, the budget moved to diversify revenues and lessen dependency on any particular source. In addition, the budget called for an expansion in the number of pages in “The Braille Forum” due to the increased readership of the magazine and even a 13th issue devoted to coverage of the national convention.
The board accepted the well-articulated and presented application of Blind Friends of Lesbians and Gays to become an affiliate of the organization. Noteworthy in their presentation was the fact that blind gays and lesbians only make up about two-tenths of one percent of the gay and lesbian community while gays and lesbians may make up as much as 10 percent of the blind community. With the odds very much imbalanced in the gay and lesbian community for appropriate representation, the BFLAG group is as much in need of having an organized voice as ACB itself is, with respect to the general society.
The board further acted to preserve and grow the ACB presence on the Internet through a decision to accept the offer of We Media to host and assist us with our web efforts. We Media is a large, well-funded web site that is an electronic version of the upscale We Magazine that has done so well in the publishing world. ACB will retain its identity and ability to control web content while We Media gains another aspect of the disability community in its attempt to accurately represent an electronic disability village.
Among other decisions, the ACB board also voted to endorse the report of the Affiliate Rights and Responsibilities committee to articulate and define the mutual expectations of the national organization and our many affiliates toward each other. The document will now be distributed to affiliate presidents for their review.
Keep reading “The Braille Forum” for a more complete report on this last board meeting that took on many decisions with a sense of responsibility that was only matched by their strong commitment to the best interest of ACB.
Legislative seminar overflows with registrations!
Looks like another banner year for the ACB legislative seminar! Already we have passed the anticipated block of rooms we had reserved and have expanded to accommodate as many ACB folks as we can. Currently the overflow looks to be the capacity for the meeting space and we will seriously have to consider a larger hotel and meeting space for next year.
The issues to be covered in the seminar have not fully been chosen as yet. This is due to the fact that we must select those issues most likely to be impacted upon by the group at the time they will be in Washington. Likely candidates for action are Social Security linkage, Medicare coverage of low vision and blind services, the voting rights bill and other discrete actions needed on air carrier transportation rights and other issues.
The speakers will include people who are directly on the front lines of the action and we can guarantee all comers that we’ve got a power-packed weekend of work and fun ahead. Thanks to Terry Pacheco and Melanie Brunson for the teamwork that has gone into putting this coming seminar together.
DC blind kids at risk
Can inclusion in the public schools turn out to be exclusion from education? The answer to that might well be yes in the schools of the District of Columbia.
Last Wednesday the District of Columbia Council of the Blind along with the NFB groups in Washington met with other interested parties at the ACB national office to take a closer look at the effective elimination of a vision program in the DC schools. This situation has been brewing for some time and now blind advocates need to take it on if we are not to lose another generation of blind kids to neglect. More to come as the meetings progress.
For the week ending March 3, 2000
Blind left behind on tech objection as House passes HR5
Before a hearing room filled with blind people, the House Ways and Means Committee was denied the opportunity to vote on re-linking the blind to elders in a bill to remove earnings limits for the elderly in their receipt of Social Security benefits. After attempts to amend the legislation came from both a Republican and a Democratic member of the committee, E. Clay Shaw of Florida killed the effort by claiming the attempt to include the blind was not germane to the bill.
Blind advocates suspect that this parliamentary point of order was contrived to defeat their efforts and to let those against our interests off the hook. Advocates further speculate that the votes were there to pass the amendment had it ever been allowed to come up for consideration.
Chairman E. Clay Shaw of the Social Security Committee announced that there would be hearings on March 23 to look at the SSDI implications of substantial gainful activity for all disabilities. This move was denounced by one Ways and Means Committee member as a kind of distracting move to offer false hope that there would be any changes. Blind advocates are reviewing our options with respect to this announcement.
In a related story, ACB has lodged its strong objections to representations made by certain persons who inappropriately used their positions within the Consortium of Citizens with Disabilities to forward their negative views about passing the blindness amendment. These ACB objections have resulted in an appropriate response from CCD. ACB is now working with the other members of CCD to insure that no recurrence of negative representations happen as the action now moves to the Senate.
Medicare legislation makes agenda for ACB action
As the legislative seminar approaches in two weeks, ACB has begun to crystalize the issues for action. A proposal in the House of Representatives to include services for low vision and blind beneficiaries of Medicare will be on the agenda as ACB works to build support for the measure.
The proposal offers a real revitalization of funding support for services such as low vision evaluations and follow-ups, mobility instruction, and home teaching. The bill as it is currently composed will not receive a negative score from the Congressional Budget Office which would almost guarantee failure if the costs were higher. For this reason, various pieces of equipment were not proposed to be covered in the bill. Some attempts are under way to include equipment, but other efforts at the administrative level in the Health Care Finance Administration are showing promise at getting equipment covered under existing authorities. The benefit to this dual strategy is to get both equipment and services without having the proposed legislation fail on the basis of costs.
New technology to read prescription bottles seen at ACB
Executive Director Charlie Crawford had a fascinating view of a new technology to read the information on prescription labels. Rather than current efforts to somehow mark a label and perhaps provide written information on a separate paper, this new approach allows the pharmacist to generate a “smart label” that can be fit right over a part of the regular printed label. The consumer can then simply pass the bottle in front of a small electronic reader that will then speak what is on the label.
Already, there are software developments at the level of those companies that write the software to drive pharmacy printers to incorporate smart label features. The maker of this technology will be showing a prototype of it at our convention this summer and this low-cost solution could well take off as the way to go.
ACB sends legal letter of demand on office phone system
Those who have called our national office over the past couple of months will most likely recall that they may have been thinking the connection was by way of Venus. Increasing noise problems on a number of our lines without proper remedy from the seller of the system have caused us to demand specific performance of contractual obligations. We realize the inconvenience caused to callers and we are taking the necessary actions to get the problems behind us.
Kentucky 2000 taking shape in a big way
Woo, there are big plans for Louisville this summer! Education, entertainment, skills training, social opportunities, training on legal issues, exposure to new technologies, tours, sports and much, much more are now being put together for your benefit. So start making those plans today and be on the lookout for the pre-registration forms that will be arriving in just a couple of short months!
These notices are meant as informal brief summaries of activities in the national office. They do not represent official positions of the American Council of the Blind, its staff or elected officials.