When the pre-convention meeting of the ACB board of directors was called to order on July 1, 2000, all board members were present, and approximately 40 guests filled the meeting room. After the meeting agenda had been adopted, the board turned to the minutes of the mid-year board meeting, which were read and approved.
Noting that he would be delivering a detailed report to the convention, President Paul Edwards told the board that he is particularly proud to report that ACB has become recognized as an active agent of positive change for people who are blind. “ACB is the organization which embraces change and is constructively using change for the benefit of all blind and visually impaired people,” Edwards said.
He then discussed management initiatives, which are aimed toward meshing the day-to-day operations of both ACB and ACBES. Edwards described meetings which ACB’s elected leadership held with the staff of the Washington, DC office in the fall of 1999, and with the staff of the Minneapolis office in March of this year. Edwards said that ACB leaders had been surprised to learn that the Minneapolis staff felt that ACBES, its mission, functions and operations were not very well understood or appreciated by the ACB membership and staff.
Therefore, Edwards continued, in an effort to foster mutual understanding, ACB was scheduling convention-week tours at the ACBES thrift store in Louisville, so that members might gain a clearer understanding about ACB Enterprises and Services, and the role the organization plays in supporting ACB programs and services.
Edwards described an upcoming meeting between ACB and ACBES staff and leadership where the agenda was expected to include communication and flow of financial information to elected officials and staff; refinement and delegation of functions for carrying out the national convention; and refinement and delegation of priorities and duties regarding operation of our scholarship grants program.
With respect to the scholarship program, Edwards announced that he had reluctantly agreed to accept John Buckley’s resignation as scholarship committee chairperson. He indicated his intention to announce Buckley’s successor at the post-convention board meeting.
In his executive director’s report, Charlie Crawford pointed to the very successful March legislative seminar as an example of the sort of program which is growing and having an ever more important impact on our members and upon decision makers on Capitol Hill. Crawford also pointed to a sound on-time performance record for “The Braille Forum” over the past six months as well as to the successful outreach and widening impact of ACB’s web site and ACB Radio.
Crawford described efforts to raise grant funds to support important ACB program initiatives such as the revised edition of the pedestrian safety manual. He ended his report by telling the board that the national office’s initiatives to partner with and support members and affiliates are bearing positive dividends in achievements throughout the country.
In a brief summary of her written report to the board, Penny Reeder reported that “Braille Forum” readership is up 7 percent over last year’s levels. She also indicated that, except for the May edition which had been late because of Braille Institute of America’s errors, for which they had apologized and taken corrective action, the on-time performance of the Forum had improved in the past six months. Reeder noted that ACB’s web site has been growing ever more popular among members and the general public who want to learn about blindness, and that ACB Radio has dramatically widened the scope of the Internet audience for ACB and awareness about our organization.
Jonathan Mosen spoke to the board about the remarkable development and progress of ACB Radio in its short seven-month existence. Mosen thanked the board and membership for their forward thinking vision in commencing and supporting the ACB Radio project.
Using the latest available figures through the first five months of the fiscal year, ACB treasurer Pat Beattie indicated that while revenues were lagging behind budgeted expectations by approximately $44,000 as of May 31, expenditures had been held in check and were running approximately $51,000 below budgeted expectations. Thus, as of May 31, our actual deficit was only about $35,000 instead of the budgeted and anticipated deficit of approximately $42,000 at the five-month point in our budget cycle. While Beattie cautioned that the big expenditure months, such as July, were still to come, she ended her report by saying that ACB’s financial condition was slightly better as of May 31 than anticipated in our budget documents.
The board entertained several brief committee reports. Dawn Christensen reported for the awards committee that five separate awards would be made by her committee at the 2000 national convention. Brian Charlson reported on behalf of the information access committee that several ACB representatives had been working collaboratively with others to ensure improved timely publication of textbooks in alternate formats for secondary school children. Charlson said that it was his hope and best educated guess that concrete results could be expected to come out of these negotiations within the next 12 to 18 months.
M.J. Schmitt reported for the Durward K. McDaniel Committee that committee had made awards to enable two first-timers to attend this convention in Louisville. From west of the Mississippi River, the committee had selected Laura Collins of South Dakota, and from east of the Mississippi, Stancil Tootle of Georgia.
Convention coordinator LeRoy Saunders reported that the convention appeared to be getting under way in good shape. Saunders said that there might be a shortage of volunteers on the Fourth of July. “There are always last-minute glitches, many of which are only apparent to those keenly involved with convention operations,” Saunders continued. But he said that, in general, he believed we could look forward to a highly successful convention week.
President Edwards called upon Dr. Otis Stephens of Knoxville, Tenn., to make a report to the board regarding the constitutional challenge being mounted under the 11th Amendment against the ADA in the U.S. Supreme Court. Stephens briefly reviewed the history of the Supreme Court’s rulings regarding the sovereign immunity of entities of state government as well as the various doctrines or legal criteria or tests which the high court has developed over time to assess whether Congress does or does not have the authority under the fifth section of the 14th Amendment to abrogate the states’ traditional immunity from private party lawsuits under the 11th Amendment. In particular, Stephens pointed out that unlike race, religious, gender and national origin discrimination where the high court has imposed a standard of strict or heightened scrutiny in order for states to justify their actions and defeat efforts by Congress to permit private party lawsuits against those states, the Supreme Court has thus far not granted disability discrimination such a status. Thus, the states may justify their allegedly discriminatory conduct under a low rational basis test where the burden of proof remains clearly on those who are advocating that Congress did appropriately abrogate the states’ 11th Amendment immunity by subjecting the states to private party lawsuits such as those under Titles I and II of the ADA.
Dr. Beezey Bentzen of Boston College reported on research projects which ACB had an important role in initially funding. Bentzen congratulated ACB for having the foresight to grant seed monies to help get a number of important research projects off the ground. For example, as early as the 1993 national convention in San Francisco, ACB granted financial support for research into talking sign technology, detectable warnings and curb ramps, wayfinding tiles and other directional surface treatments, and audible pedestrian signals with emphasis on the location of and timing of push button control locator tones. These research projects have led to published results in recognized academic journals which have in turn served as decisive ammunition in influencing decision makers at the national and international levels to include items of special interest to our membership in ongoing standard setting projects. In particular, Bentzen pointed to the inclusion of language on location and timing of push button locator tones in the current draft language of the latest revision of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. Bentzen’s recent research on roundabouts is demonstrating to traffic engineers that these designs often have adverse impact upon blind and visually impaired pedestrians.
When the NISH appeal came up for discussion, Edwards told the board that a scheduled meeting of the advocacy services committee during the coming week was expected to result in a post-convention report on this topic. Several board members raised concerns about the potential cost of the appeal, as well as the requirement which had been imposed by the trial court of having one lead counsel, who happened to be the NFB’s counsel, speak for all party defendant intervenors. In response, Edwards assured the board that their concerns would be conveyed to the advocacy services committee.
Second vice president Pam Shaw reported on the work of a special ad hoc committee which had reviewed applications from ACB affiliates for financial support. The committee recommended that the board approve a grant of $3,000 to the ACB of Maryland to assist with a well-designed membership development campaign. The board voted to approve the grant request of the ACB of Maryland.
In his report on behalf of the history committee, Dr. Otis Stephens indicated that, since the manuscript of the ACB history is nearing completion, the committee is turning its attention to finding a publisher. The committee has some encouraging leads and believes that the ACB history can and should be published during the year 2001, the 40th anniversary of ACB’s founding. The chief editor for the history, Dr. Jim Megivern, described the revised contents and chapter outline of the history and said that he expected the publication to be completed by the 2001 convention.
The next topic was the recently announced acquisition and merger of Blazie Engineering and Henter-Joyce into Freedom Scientific. Although the board was pleased that Freedom Scientific would be exhibiting Blazie products at this convention, several members expressed concern over the dampening of competition in the assistive technology products field, which may result in higher prices for blind consumers. On the other hand, Brian Charlson pointed out that in addition to exhibiting a full line of Blazie Engineering products at this convention, Freedom Scientific had also donated a Braille Lite for a deaf-blind consumer to use at this convention. Pam Shaw agreed to take the lead in preparing and submitting a resolution concerning Freedom Scientific.
In a discussion of the circumstances which had led him to authorize posting the 2000 convention program on ACB’s web site, Edwards told the board that the board of publications had persuaded him that the membership’s right to relevant and timely information outweighed the concerns for protecting ACB revenues through the convention administrative fee which had lead the board to adopt a 1996 policy prohibiting release of the program in advance of the convention.
Crawford announced that a lawsuit brought by a blind woman employee of a bank in Oregon which had been supported by ACB was successfully settled with the blind woman being awarded the reasonable accommodations which she had sought.
Under old business, Edwards and Charlson indicated that in late March, because WeMedia had not been able to guarantee the terms which had been a condition of ACB’s preliminary understanding, the decision was made to break off negotiations with WeMedia and to keep the ACB web site located at Telepath. Under new business, Brian Charlson announced innovative computer/Internet classes which would be made available to presidents and leaders of ACB affiliates during convention week. The classes, Charlson said, were being funded by a grant from Bell Atlantic, and conducted by trainers from the Carroll Center.
As the meeting concluded, the board voted to thank outgoing directors Chris Gray, Ardis Bazyn and Sue Ammeter for their dedicated service as ACB board members. These three directors were not eligible to run for re-election to the board at this convention on account of term limit provisions in the ACB constitution. In addition, the board voted to express its heartfelt thanks to John Buckley for his dedicated service to ACB as scholarship committee chairman.