The California Council of the Blind continues to lead the way in advocating on behalf of Californians with vision impairments. We can be proud of our accomplishments, but there is little time to enjoy them.
We did, indeed, have some great victories in 2019. First, under the authorship of Assembly Member Lackey and the leadership of our affiliate, the Golden State Guide Dog Handlers, and both their president and CCB Governmental Affairs co-chair Alice Turner, along with the incredibly hard-working Margie Donovan, the third time really did become a charm. AB169, which addressed various flaws in the law regarding liability of pet dog owners whose dogs attack service animals, was signed by Governor Newsome. After suffering two vetoes from Governor Brown, we persevered in our efforts and finally struck gold. Now, even if your guide dog is not in harness, you can seek to have criminal charges brought against a pet owner whose dog attacks your dog. This area of the law remains imperfect. For example, determining to bring the criminal charges remains within the province of local animal control agencies, as opposed to police and sheriff departments, but you can bet that the guide dog handlers in CCB won't give up until they obtain all the protections they need.
No less impressive was the victory we achieved through the passage of AB947, our special education bill. What made this achievement so noteworthy was the collaborative effort between CCB and the special education field. It began several years ago when we became aware that school districts were imposing severe restrictions upon the ability of orientation and mobility specialists to provide instruction, which in whole or in part limited the hours and environments available to students. CCB worked with the California Association of Orientation and Mobility Specialists and others in the field to craft a bill to address this issue. However, we did not stop there. The bill, authored by Assemblywoman Quirk-Silva, also placed into state law the list of services known nationally as the expanded core curriculum. Many of these services are those that sighted kids acquire in their daily interactions, but our students do not, thus necessitating classroom teaching to obtain them. They include daily living, concept development, social interaction skills and many others. We were unsuccessful in requiring them to be considered by school districts as part of the IEP process, but in 2021 our collaborative efforts will continue and we will pursue that goal. Not only did this bill achieve great results for our students who are blind or have low vision, but I believe that it provided the field with a real understanding of what power we have when they get together with us for the betterment of children with vision impairments. I hope and believe that lessons learned this year will prove fruitful for years to come.
However, the year did not come without setbacks. $500,000 for the Braille Institute library contained in the 2018-19 fiscal year budget was not renewed this year. As is now occurring with the special education field, we need to be kept more closely in the loop by Braille Institute and in turn, we must work tirelessly to help them in this battle to restore and expand this funding amount.
Another issue of great importance arises from a CCB Resolution adopted in 2018, that of passage of an accessible drug labeling law in California. We are working to have such a bill introduced and I will report our results in this area in the months to come. If we are fortunate enough to have a bill introduced, it will take hard work from all of us to carry the day.
Finally, I want to take a moment to discuss a state initiative on which I am representing CCB and which is of importance to many of us. The Governor has issued an executive order requiring submission of a Master Plan on Aging by October, 2020. Although I was unable to obtain a position on the main committee crafting the plan, I am the sole representative from the blindness field on the Long Term Services and Supports subcommittee. The plan will apply to both middle class and low income individuals, and in reality, most folks that lose their vision later in life have worked all their life and would loosely be classified as being middle class. Most importantly, from whatever income strata one comes, obtaining the generic services that all seniors need, in addition to those services specifically needed by persons with vision loss, is very difficult for many and impossible for some. Others don't even know that such services exist. Educating our colleagues in the aging field about the needs of those with vision and hearing impairments is, itself, even a challenge. In consultation with others in the field of services to seniors with vision loss, I am doing what I can to bring these issues into focus as part of the much larger master plan discussion. I invite any of you to call me at 916-995-3967 or e-mail me at jsthom@comcast.net if you have ideas that you feel should be part of this conversation. I can't come close to guaranteeing that, in a topic so enormous, any of your ideas will get an audience, but I can do my best. Additionally, I will attempt to send out meeting notices. These meetings can be accessed telephonically and every one of them has time for public comment. Eighty percent of persons with vision loss are seniors and we must make our voices heard!
In closing, I hope we can all enjoy some good food, good cheer, and lots of holiday joy, but prepare yourself for the CCB advocacy work in 2020. As the saying goes, there is no rest for the wicked!
