1. I am running for a seat on ACB’s Board of Directors. I have been active in ACB since 1980, serving as an officer in two state affiliates and contributing significantly to the work of several national committees over the decades, but I have never previously served on ACB’s Board. I would like to contribute to ACB in that capacity now.
2. I am President of the North Carolina Council of the Blind. I initiated the successful ADA litigation against the State Board of Elections which enabled visually impaired citizens of North Carolina to electronically vote absentee privately and independently in the 2020 election.
Prior to moving to North Carolina in 2017, I served in several officer positions at ACB of Minnesota. As an active member of that affiliate, I shepherded a bill through the Minnesota legislature to criminalize assaulting a service animal. I was the first blind Co-Chair of a state-wide disability organization, the Minnesota Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, and testified before Minnesota legislative Committees on numerous issues related to the concerns of blind people. I also have been heavily involved with ACB’s Advocacy Services, Environmental Access and Transportation Committees representing our organization in numerous ways. I provided materials for and conducted a session on the “Federal Role” at last year’s “From Mobility to Beyond” workshop put on jointly by the Environmental Access and Transportation Committees. In May, I facilitated a Community Call on “Using Litigation to Get Accessible Pedestrian Signals” and I wrote ACB’s comments to the Federal Highway Administration’s proposed amendments to the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. I also served for several years as ACB’s representative on the A117.1 Standards Committee on Accessible Buildings and Facilities.
However, my most significant contribution to the disability community in general and to blind and visually impaired people in particular was to be one of the disabled lawyers who wrote the ADA. After the law was passed, as an attorney with EEOC, I oversaw the development of the ADA’s employment regulations.
3. ACB has many older members who have gained a great deal of expertise in a variety of subject areas of importance to our community. These subjects include ADA, assistive technology, environmental access, media, Medicare and Medicaid, rehabilitation services, special education, transportation, and many others. Unfortunately, we do not yet have an effective mechanism to pass that knowledge and experience along to succeeding generations of ACB leaders. If elected to the Board, I would propose that ACB establish an “Academy of Advocacy and Civic Engagement” modelled upon the educational offerings of our Community Calls. The Academy would involve as “teachers” members with experience and expertise in blindness-related fields who would instruct member “students” in those subject areas using Zoom webinars as the vehicle of initial instruction. There could be follow-up training of the webinar participants with the expectation that they serve as active members of relevant committees on the national and affiliate level. Attracting members with the commitment, time, and passion to teach and to learn would be the key to making the Academy a success. If it works, a growing cadre of confident, experienced, and knowledgeable members would be created to strengthen ACB moving forward, building upon the foundation left by those who came before.