Secretary of the Board of the National Council on Independent Living [NCIL], working to pass a new state building code, External Vice President of NCIL, overseeing the legislative committee

Jacobson

Okay. Are you ready to move on?

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McQuade

From what I'm doing now? Or move on in your questions?

Jacobson

In the questions.

McQuade

Sure.

Jacobson

If you think of anything, you could throw it in at the end. Can you talk about what you're doing now?

McQuade

Sure. First of all, when ADA passed, I was on the NCIL board, as I told you. I was first the secretary of the NCIL board.

Jacobson

What does NCIL stand for?

McQuade

National Council on Independent Living. What we did was, for our center either a board member would come with me, and maybe another staff person sometimes, we went to the NCIL meetings. We went to our state association meetings. We would have a legislative day. A lot of our efforts, it's either for particular pieces of legislation like polling access, or having accessible mass transit statewide, the requirements that, you know, we had in the city. Issues like that. Or building codes. We worked on changing the city.

The state building code was changed in '84, and it was a very good building code. It required adaptability rather than that two percent of the apartments are accessible. Then we worked on--the lead was taken by Ann Emerman, who was with DIA, and Terry Moakley, from Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association. But in 1987, we passed a new building code. All of us did the support work. The centers, we were all working together for the same thing. Then, our building code was in compliance with the state building code. New York City has its own building code, and that meant that universal design would be used in apartments and all.

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So, I worked as a secretary for NCIL. The external vice president resigned, I think it was. We had two vice presidents, external and internal. One of them oversaw the legislative committee.

Jacobson

That was?

McQuade

That was--

Jacobson

External?

McQuade

I believe that was external. When this person resigned, I was asked to become the external vice president, I think. I think that's what happened. So I oversaw the legislative committee. One of the major functions of that committee during the time I was on NCIL was to pass the ADA. NCIL also worked on the Air Carrier Access Act, the Fair Housing Act, and our center being a member of NCIL supported all this and worked on it locally.

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We would get legislative alerts and you would follow through on what the legislative alerts were. For ADA--Fair Housing, and also Air Carrier Access Act, you would be responsible--like, once I was overseeing the legislation. I would have to see that the alerts got out all over the country, and see that the alerts got out in our state.