Chair Williams offers to convene disability access roundtable and follow up with DCLA

Thank you.

I'm happy to engage around the plan.

If I don't know where you all are in your assessment and your planning, if you're near completion and you want to brief members and figure out how to actualize it and, you know, connect it to...

Policy or, you know, I'm happy to engage with the plan.

I didn't know about it.

So it's the first time.

So thank you for educating me and, you know, let me know how I can be helpful in the plan and asking clearly some follow-up questions to DCLA around the disability forward funds.

I think one thing that's been challenging is actually just sort of getting the ear of, you know, having the opportunity to meet with elected officials as well as with the many different actors because

cultural accessibility touches many different agencies and it's a fragmented landscape that it's hard for organizations to navigate.

And so if we could do some kind of listening session that would bring together these different agencies that includes the Department of Cultural Affairs, something like that.

a roundtable so that people can actually hear from disabled artists, audience members that represent different constituencies within New York City,

as well as cultural access, you know, people that have disability expertise that have been working on this for decades.

Yeah, I would encourage you to reach out to Chair Shahana Hanif.

So the speaker actually separated out a committee, and so we literally have a disability committee.

So I would encourage you to reach out to her.

I'm happy to do joint hearings.

So I would say just reach out to us, like I said, because this is the first time that I heard of your organization.

Okay, we did reach out.

Okay.

And we have also met with the staff, with Councilmember Marte.

And we have also reached out several times to the commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs in the hopes of getting a meeting.

Okay.

Well, yes, feel free to reach out to me, and I can try to help pull a meeting together.

Because Gonzalo is right.

I always say we have the power to convene.

We don't have a lot of powers, but we do.

When we tell people to come meet, for the most part, we can get people to come together.

It's true.

And we'll be happy to forward you the formal proposal for a roundtable we sent to Chair Hanif.

Sounds great.

Thank you all so much.

Appreciate you.