Minutes of the EDIDA Board Meeting
5/25/06 (May)

Board Attendees: Hale, Jonah, Winston, Leslie, Mark, Aydan

Other Attendees: Gina and Rose, EDIDA Executive Directors, Karla (Voicer for Hale), Don (Voicer for Winston and Minute taker).

The meeting came to order at 6:50 P.M. Mark acted as Chair.

Public Comment

Jonah stated that Anna Whitaker, who lives in his building, choked to death while eating. He suggested that EDI attendants learn the Heimlich maneuver. Leslie said that attendants should be trained in feeding and in the Heimlich maneuver. There is a planned training in feeding techniques being given, and Rose asked for information.

Aydan said there would be a training for disabled people in a disaster. She will send out information on the event on EDI-board-general.

Approval of Minutes from April 27, 2006

Hale had a question on the section on invasive care in the minutes. He said that Rapid Response was a Public Authority program and doubted they would bid against EDI. His guess was that the agency the Public Authority has contracted with, Nightingale, would be the one bidding. Rose said that EDI's bid was the only one submitted.

Jonah corrected the stated nature of his attendance at the Commission on Labor workshop on workplace bullying.

Jonah moved and Aydan seconded to accept the minutes as corrected, and the motion was approved unanimously.

Approval of Agenda

Because Charles was not present, Jonah moved, Winston seconded, and it was passed unanimously to postpone Item 6B regarding term limits for Board members.

For the same reason above, Winston moved, Jonah seconded, and it was passed unanimously to postpone item 6E regarding the Executive Session minutes policies.

Jonah interjected that he might be leaving early and wanted it known that he desired some warning be given to the clients if a habitual user policy was passed later in the evening. Concerning the item on looking for a new lawyer for EDI, he said that he had given a name of a lawyer in his synagogue to Rose.

Jonah moved, Winston seconded, and it was passed unanimously to approve the agenda as modified.

President's Report

Leslie congratulated Rose and Gina on getting the RFP in to the City of Berkeley.

Executive Directors' Report

Two female attendants were hired, one female left, and EDI has a current need for female attendants.

For April, there were 347 attendant calls, 68 transportation calls, 58 on-demand response calls, and 4 repair calls.

A single client complaint is under investigation.

A speaker at the last staff meeting spoke on the topic of Respecting Boundaries and Appropriate Behavior.

The RFP was handed in on Thursday, May 18th and the ED's did their oral presentation on Monday, May 22nd. They felt it had gone very well. The City of Berkeley Contract Monitor, Angelique, will be sending EDI a "Best and Final Offer", which was described as that EDI would be getting the contract for each of the next four years, conditional to a satisfactory annual evaluation to be held in March. The contract award will now be placed on the City Council's consent calendar and the contract will be awarded on June 21, 2006.

The Client Handbook is progressing.

For the end of the fiscal year, the ED's had prepared a draft bonus structure for the employees, similar to what had been done the previous fiscal year, and requested that the Board take action on it this evening. Jonah moved, Leslie seconded, and it passed unanimously to approve the draft proposal. Jonah moved to include drivers in the proposal, Leslie seconded, and it passed unanimously.

Action and Discussion

Workshop(s) with Sabrina Klein

Extensive discussion took place over when it would be possible to schedule the workshops with Sabrina Klein for maximum attendance and effectiveness. Jonah moved, Winston seconded and it passed unanimously with one abstention to set the workshop dates and times to June 11th from 2-5 P.M and June 14th from 6-9 P.M. Leslie said that she would e-mail Sabrina to confirm her availability on June 11th.

Habitual User Policy

Jonah moved to approve the Habitual User Policy as he had seen it written, but there was no second.

Aydan said that she had revised the policy.

Don felt that looking for a penalty was inappropriate and that a rule would suffice. Rose and Gina agreed that a penalty might not be needed; that some flexibility and triage of habitual users would work.

Winston suggested adding a $3.00 surcharge, but others said that it had been tried before and that they didn't think it would work.

Extensive discussion followed on the character of the problem and possible solutions, which included Rose suggesting language about triage of client needs be put in the client policy; that clients could be 'bumped' or taken in a different order, pulled if a more urgent need arose elsewhere for a different client, and some restrictions on the length or amount of services that might be applied to a given client's overuse. Gina said that services should not be denied. No formal action was taken by the Board.

Jonah left, and the question of whether there was a loss of quorum for the Board to take action was raised, but the discussions continued.

Dispatcher Policy

This primarily concerns a dispatcher who is living in L.A. and it was decided this would be discussed by the Executive Committee.

Disabled Lawyer Search

Briefly mentioned earlier by Jonah.

COB Invasive Care Policy

Rose said she would follow up on finding out the City's stance on invasive care.

Secretary's Report

Winston said he was concerned about the distribution of the Board packets.

Executive Committee's Report

It was noted that the Executive Committee had approved the draft budget for FY 06-07.

Fundraising Committee Report

The committee did not meet but it was noted that the Executive Directors are meeting with Belinda Stradley.

Winston asked about the newsletter, and Rose replied that production of the newsletter would probably be added to the job duties for EDI's new Outreach Coordinator position to be added at the beginning of the next fiscal year. Rose also suggested that the Outreach Coordinator might also act as Chair of the Fundraising Committee.

Winston asked whether the $6.00 co-pay for transportation rides had been approved and was told that it was in the budget.

Leslie said that she would follow up on the lawyer referral from Jonah.

SUS Committee Report

Aydan said that a client wanted to meet with the SUS Committee regarding a letter he had been sent by EDI about his habitual use of the service.

Invasive Care Committee Report

The committee had not met so far as anyone knew.

By-law Committee Report

Did not meet.

It was decided without formal action to drop the Executive Search Committee.

Rose had discovered that one of the complicating factors to performing invasive care was that even nurses could only legally do it if there were doctor's orders.

Winston moved, Aydan seconded and the motion to adjourn passed unanimously at 9:34 P.M.