Easy Does It
Board of Directors Meeting
Minutes for May 23, 2002

Present: Jonah Markowitz, Felix Knauth, Peter Trier, Winston Ching, Daniel Drake, Jesse Townley; Jonathan Gold
Hale Zukas arrives at 6:45 pm; Dina Valicenti arrives at 6:50 pm; Kyle Eminger arrives at 7:15 pm
Not in attendance: Leslie Gordon, Todd Groves,

Meeting started at: 6:40 pm; Peter Trier, Chair

Public Comment:
Peter Trier: services have been running smoothly
Daniel Drake: are complaints up or down
Felix: down
Daniel: would like a committee recruited from the disabled community that explores the idea of how to match attendants with clients; a committee to make surveys and a way to make money
Jonah: wheelchair repair class by John to be held sometime in June; can't record a phone conversation of someone who doesn't know it.
Hale: what was played was a message from the caller, so the caller obviously knew it was being recorded.
Jesse: website radio over the internet; push by recording companies to squelch broadcasting over the internet; digital millennium act; library of congress can set outrageous rates; www.saveinternetradio.org or kls website;
Daniel: EDI could be powerful political force if it had 300 clients; we could be participating in other issues as well.

Approval of Minutes:
March: Jonah refer to February minutes.
Jesse: are we going to email these to one another before the meeting
Jonah: motion that we approve March 26th minutes; Peter: second
Motion passes.
April: Jonah: Correction to the April minutes, change names -J Yates and Willamena Taylor; Jonah seconds.
Jonah: motion that we approve April 25 minutes; Peter second; Winston abstains; Motion passes.
Dina will email minutes 10 days prior to meeting to board members.

Agenda:
Peter: Move signature card to A
Peter: will add something to the President's Report; it will take 10 minutes
Jonah: consent calendar - if we are doing a consent calendar, I'd like to talk about it. Make it 1 under discussion topics

Consent Calendar
Skipping because there is none

President's Report
Peter has not run an executive committee yet; filling in for Leslie; asked by Leslie to see through negotiations for next year; as of next Monday Leslie will be the president until the end of her term; limit 15 calls if they are not making payments and have not been willing to work out a payment plan; 35 hours; increase to 45 hours;
Jonah makes a motion that hours within the 15 calls be raised to 45 hours; Winston seconds;
Felix: whatever the limits are needs to be consistent; elements: calls; time; payment; making payments; rears are all over $1000.
Daniel: I thought there would be intervention from the case manager; is there a place to refer them other than here?
Felix: I don't know.
Peter: my reading is we made the decision to allow some clients to not follow the payment policy.
Jonathan: someone who has paid up gets 25; if you haven't paid up you only get 15 or 35 hours; you have to work out a payment plan at 20% a month.
Dina: it's always the same group of people; they'll never get their bill paid off
Jonathan: client pays the attendant but don't pay the overuse fees
Hale: he doesn't pay them because he doesn't think they are legitimate; the reality is that he has a lot of weight to throw around, and at one time we tried to deny him services and Deputy City Manager wouldn't let us have any money allocations; like it or not there are times when the rules have to be bent.
Jonathan: summary; if paid off you get so many calls/hours over; 25 calls and 100 hours; if a person has overuse fees that they haven't paid, and no plan to pay them, reduced to 15 calls and 45 hours and then they can appeal.
Peter: any client who needs 3 hours in a morning won't have enough hours with 15 calls limited to 35 hours.
Jesse: leave at 35 hours to put pressure on client to be more motivated to pay up. It's not cutting off services, but it is restricting. You want to push the client to follow the rules that others follow. Ratio of number of calls to hours so that someone who had a short routine would come near the limit of hours.
Daniel: sometimes you need to give more support to give them motivation.
Peter: Calls the question:
Yes: Jonah, Peter, Kyle, Hale
No: Jesse, Winston, Dina
Abstains: Jonathan and Daniel
Motion passes.

Peter: workmen's comp; a client was dropped by EDI attendant; $450 for acupuncture; Peter and Leslie are contributing privately. Wants to know if someone else will contribute; will go into executive session at 8:30 pm

Executive Director's Report
Felix: Any questions or clarification?
24% of financial year to spend in May and June;
Draft #5, letter that has been in process for 10 weeks; essence: the city has given us X number of dollars in which to operate; there is no way we can meet our operational expenses; proposing that we put all operational expenses into capital budget; workers comp premiums which we cannot pay;
Set up objectives to show that we are trying to meet these problems; 92 on call hours;
New program called "Return to Work" will start in June. Not for discussion but to inform; given an impossible number of revenue and cost numbers pledging myself through our work safety program to bring workers comp down 75% in the next 2 to 3 years.
Strict procedures for Executive Director and employees to follow; taking safety seriously and making it the number 1 priority; no cap to it. Went from $30,000 to $90,000. Particular case: for $4500. If E.D. takes hands-on approach he/she can get these costs under control. Costs go back to 1999.

Jesse: Have you talked to El Cerrito and Albany about programs like ours?

Felix: talked to a CPA in El Cerrito who has severe MS and wants to start program; told him it would take 6 people in his living room to get it started; $500 case management for someone in Albany who lives two blocks over the line;

Hale: mayor of El Cerrito is a wheelchair user.

Jesse: Return to Work program looks good. I think this is a policy issue. Pre employment testing is a change in policy; have you talked to the lawyer; once this comes into effect how would you deal with current employees?

Jonathan: do you have any sense that any of our attendants have an attitude problem about this, i.e. taking advantage of workmen's comp?

Felix: one

Daniel: has this been increasing like this every year?

Felix: agency, lawyer, health services, insurance carrier: none have EDI's interests in hand;

Jonathan: they base rates on one or two years back and jack it up for two or three years;

Daniel: disability agencies targets for fraud

Peter: disabled community does a good job of chewing up the backs of attendants; age of litigation; one of our employees who got a permanent injury is pushing to the limit with a lawyer; any employee could push our rates over the top;

Jesse: if our work practice is causing or contributing to injuries it is our responsibility; most people are not trying to milk us.

Secretary's Report
no reports
Hale: why is that on the agenda?

Executive Committee Report
No reports

Development Committee Report
Did not meet

Action Items
Signature card: add Gina because Rose is not here on Friday.
Dina makes motion that Gina be added to signature card; Jonah seconds; Motion passes.
Mission Statement: put off to next meeting
Comp time: Felix: tabled until we check it out more; June
Personnel Committee: Jonathan read out loud the draft that Peter wrote; Jonathan capped - 5 people on this board; it's a policy committee;

Suzie left the meeting, notes are continued by Dina.

Jesse: This is a positive proposal; it is an important fact that people have direct experience with EDI.
Dan: This could get some interesting results. It has effects that ripple out to whole community, it will be positive.

Jonah: Motion to approve creation of Personal Committee.
Dina: second;

Kyle: Thinks it is a good idea, would like to read over proposal again. Thought Felix said it would interfere with his duties.
Felix: Said it wouldn't be different then last month's proposal.
Jonathan: What if 5 people don't want to participate?
Peter: Then it could be less than 5 members.

Motion passes.

Jesse: Amendment to Personal Committee. That current employees and independent contractors can not be on the committee, although input from them is good. The committee will seek out their input.
Jonah second..
Jonah: Thinks that we are moving away from independent contractors.
Dina: Friendly amendment that up to a maximum of 2 employees on the committee.
Motion passes.

8:30
Jonah: Motion to move to executive session
Jonathan second; motion passes.