Minutes of June 17, 2010 

Access Benton County

 

Present:  Edith Yang, Judy Heath, Tony Albert, Joe Harrod, Mary Marsh King,

Linda Wagner, Marlene Massey, Ronald Naasko, Jim Smith.

 

ABC Minutes are intended to describe the discussions, decisions, and

actions that occur during ABC’s monthly meeting.  The minutes are 

to be considered only a draft until they are approved at the following

monthly meeting.  Persons who receive the draft of the minutes and

see inaccuracies or omissions in them are asked to please inform ABC.

 

Meeting called to order at 12:00, Noon.  Introductions.

 

A.  Minutes of May 20 approved as submitted.

 

B.  Treasurer's Report:  Balance of $355.00.  This includes an anonymous donation.

 

C.  Correspondence:  Received request to update ABC's "Our Town" information

          for the yearly supplement in the Gazette Times.  ABC will continue to be listed

          in this area resource guide.

 

D.  Continuing Business:

 

          1.  Ability Awareness Day/Wheel Chair Day with the Mayor continues to be

          planned.  Invitations to many organizations and businesses that have some

          connection to services to persons with disabilities have been mailed.  Vendors

          can set up tables or booths on the North end of Riverfront Park.  This is being

          coordinated by Bruce Marbin (541.760.6174).  We have mailed invitations to

          many dignitaries (mayors of all Benton County incorporated cities), governor

          candidates, coaches and staff for athletic teams at OSU, and many other 

          organizations.  We invited managers and staff to participate in this event!!  The date

          will be August 7th from ten a.m. to noon.  Hope you and friends can come and

          participate in getting information and watching persons try the wheel chair

          course.

 

          2.  Updates on contact with Corvallis Businesses requesting consultation about

          access concerns. 

 

          We are pleased to report that the Safeway store on 53rd Street

          has removed obstacles outside of the store which now allows easy access for persons

          using mobility devices on the East side entrance of the store.

 

          

          Ronald reports improvement to the access on the sidewalk beside Enoteca Wine Bar.

          We give our special thanks to Mr. Chris Westfall, Code Enforcement Supervisor,

          Development Services Department, City of Corvallis,  for mediating the efforts

          needed to accomplish access improvement!

 

          Two additional projects with businesses are in progress.

 

E.  New Business:

 

          1.  Discussion of idea of a progressive "Poker" event in downtown Corvallis that

          might benefit consumers with disabilities to visit businesses for the first time.  Our

          discussion showed that there is exciting potential for such a new event to benefit

          our community.  We agreed that ABC is too busy just now to focus on this idea

          but in the near future we might work on this and ask our readers for their input!

 

          The initial idea involves finding businesses and persons using mobility devices who

          would be interested in participating.  Consumers using mobility devices would

          visit downtown stores that participate and get a poker card at each store they visit.

          After visiting all participating businesses, the card holders would submit their

          best poker hand from the cards they received.  The highest poker hands would

          qualify the players to receive prizes.  We see that this could encourage businesses

          to learn from players about access in their stores and to relate to persons with 

          disabilities more than they generally do.  The players might find businesses that

          they would like to patronize that they have not shopped in before.

 

          2.  Please visit our ABC website if you haven't seen it on the internet in a while.

          Our webmaster, Nancy Edwards, continues to improve the site and to truly serve

          our citizens by creating a useful and clear site for ADA and ABC information 

          pertaining to accessibility.  www.accessbentoncounty.org

 

          3.  Future ABC Guest ideas?  Suggestions are Sara Gelser, Sharon Phipps,

          Linda Elder.   We will line up our guests in the Fall.

 

Meeting Adjourned at 1 p.m.

 

Next ABC Meeting, Thursday, July 15, 2010, Noon to 1 p.m., Benton Plaza, Commissioner's

Meeting Room.  All persons are welcomed to join us!