Boston Disability Advisory Board Reelects Ireland, Backs Parenting Anti-Discrimination Bill

BOSTON -- February 22, 2023, Boston's Disability Commission Advisory Board reelected officers and backed two state disability bills at its February 22 meeting. The board unanimously reelected Wesley Ireland as chair, elected Carl Richardson as treasurer and Paul Caron as secretary, and deferred the vice chair election after nominee Lucia Lagos-Giulia was unable to attend due to a fire alarm at her residence. Disability Commissioner Kristen McCosh reported that implementation of the city's closed-captioning ordinance is underway, with a multilingual mass mailing in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Chinese set to go out imminently to licensed restaurant and bar businesses. Richardson announced that state Representative Denise Garlick and state Senator Michael Barrett have filed companion bills to extend a Boston-style captioning mandate statewide. The board also voted unanimously to write a letter of support for HD 2669 and SD 679, which would bar courts from removing children from parents with disabilities without evidence of actual harm, citing data that 18 percent of children in foster care have a parent with a disability while only 6.2 percent of U.S. parents have one.