ORDER-2022-69 : Permanent consolidation of polling locations to the Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School Gymnasium Complex for all City of Melrose elections. (Item # 9605)

Transcript (~27 min @ 1:24:00)

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▶ 1:23:57 Jen Grigoraitis: counselor oh is everyone just waving sorry what's with all hands um all right we have one more item before us tonight which is order 2022-69 permanent consolidation of polling locations to the melrose veterans memorial middle school gymnasium complex for all city of melrose elections item number 9605 president sanella

▶ 1:24:26 Christopher Cinella: thank you uh madam chair i'll be brief i know it's getting late but i um i filed this order um after seeing three successful um elections uh consolidated down at the middle school i know that um you know we we had one recently special election that wasn't as as large of a turnout as full elections are. I also realized that two of those elections down there had mail-in voting, which reduced the number significantly, and I can touch on that in a second. I have heard an overwhelming amount of constituents in favor of making this permanent. Really haven't heard much in opposition, although I do recognize that it exists. From younger constituents, many have raised concerns of folks wandering the halls in the schools during election day. I know that they were all innocently probably looking for a restroom, but in any case, that is a concern for many of those younger constituents. Older constituents have raised concerns of accessibility. One in particular who happens to be one of my favorites, my mom, has had a real difficult time went through school which was flagged by the state for accessibility issues as well as the steel house now fortunately for my mom there is a bill awaiting governor baker's signature making mail-in voting permanent something she and many others are a big fan of it was passed by both the house and senate so i'm sure that this will get signed i bring this up because i know Traffic and parking are concerns for folks. Should this bill get signed? That will certainly lessen the numbers showing up at the polls in person that. But for those that do want to show up in person, you know, we still can. And in a much more accessible space. I also think logistically, you know, for the city clerk or staff, the poll workers, you know, it makes more sense being under 1 roof. As opposed to 7 different polling spots where she has to bounce around. It's also easier for to set up. You know, in 1 location, as opposed to 7, so I think this just in my mind makes sense having lived in a city or town. I should say for. 10 plus years, this is the way we voted and it worked out just fine. So. I'll defer back to you Madam chair, which I think she's having some technical difficulties. Looks like.

▶ 1:27:17 Speaker 1: No, I'm here. Can you see me? Oh, I can't, but I don't know. There you are.

▶ 1:27:20 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you President Snell. Is there any other Councillors wishing to speak? Councillor McMaster.

▶ 1:27:32 Speaker 5: Thank you Madam Chair. Can you hear me? Thank you. Yes.

▶ 1:27:36 Speaker 1: I voted against the 20 provision twice.

▶ 1:27:41 Shawn M. MacMaster: um and since then other than the experience that comes with holding two elections at centralized locations nothing new has really changed what we've consistently failed to recognize as a city is that just because voting by mail exists doesn't mean that every resident is comfortable with that and to me that raises concerns about access and concerns about equity so the question that i think we need to ask ourselves as a council is who are we leaving behind if we consolidate polling locations permanently because whether it's mississippi or massachusetts closing polling locations always leaves vulnerable and marginalized people behind the elderly the indigent communities of color and naturalized citizens I feel very strongly as I have in the past and I've been consistent in my position on this is that before we fast-track this vote to make this permanent that we need to ascertain who is at risk of disenfranchisement here in Melrose. I'd really like to see the Board of Registrars and the City Clerk conduct an impact study and come up with a series of recommendations for eliminating barriers before we entertain this any further. I don't think we're there yet. I think we can potentially get there but we you know we've heard tonight there been a number of surveys over the last few years here in Melrose whether it's the library or ARPA or the mascot. At a bare minimum we should be looking do a survey on this issue because it's voting and there's no more important fundamental right to citizens than the right to vote so i do think again at a minimum we need to do that i would encourage us to have at least one full public hearing beyond tonight's meeting uh and whether or not this passes tonight uh i understand the public will have another opportunity to be heard but i think at least one public hearing is necessary perhaps more that's all i have thank you

▶ 1:30:03 Jen Grigoraitis: madam chair thank you council mcmaster councillor gemaladin thank you woman um i i appreciate um

▶ 1:30:11 Maya Jamaleddine: uh my fellow counselor um um mcmaster's um comments i would like to um ask him through the But, chair, if you can just clarify for me and help me understand and to the public, how is consolidating the polls is actually not serving equity and serving a specific population, minorities and people of color. So, if you can just help us understand.

▶ 1:30:55 Speaker 1: Through the chair? Can you hear me?

▶ 1:30:56 Speaker 4: Yes.

▶ 1:30:56 Speaker 1: May I be heard through you? Yes.

▶ 1:31:02 Shawn M. MacMaster: Thank you. With respect, we'll start with the elderly. With respect to elderly residents, there are many residents because of their age to vote the old fashioned way. To come in person, wake up, put their shoes on, tie their shoelaces, and head down and vote in person. So, again, because the opportunity to vote exists through the mail, it doesn't mean that certain people, especially elderly people, not all, but I've heard from a number of constituents, will access that. They may not be trusting of the vote-by-mail system. So, that's just elderly. With respect to naturalized citizens, we can't assume that all naturalized citizens are proficient readers of the English language. And to have information sent in the mail about voting that they may not completely understand, that they may find confusing, that's problematic. For indigent people who live in a neighborhood that would otherwise be, may not have access to transportation may not own a car may have they work multiple jobs and by the time they get home let's say a single mother who has young children can't get them together and get them over to vote or figure out how to even get to vote at a centralized polling location if they can walk to the local polling place so they can maybe leave their children with a neighbor and historically we just know that communities of color are always adversely impacted when polling locations close and I don't think we can imply that because we live in Melrose that that won't be an impact there so I think generally speaking this is something that can have um broad based far impacting um a far impacting reach on vulnerable and marginalized residents and i think it behooves us to slow down and look at the potential impacts and hear from the public uh do an impact study conduct outreach before we go any further

▶ 1:33:26 Jen Grigoraitis: thank you madam chair thank you councillor jamal dean did you have any additional comments i i

▶ 1:33:30 Maya Jamaleddine: I just wanted to think for that clarification. I just want to also wanted to give my personal opinion that I personally feel that the way that the last 3 elections, it actually serve to be more equitable and serve different population. Because we were able to do the early voting. We were able to do the mail. So, we had different options for those who don't feel probably comfortable to serve in to vote in person, or for those who don't have time to to vote in person or on specific days. I personally feel that it was. It did serve a different population on a different level. However, I do respect all different opinions.

▶ 1:34:27 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you, Councillor Jamaleddine. Are there any other councillors wishing to speak? Councillor Eccles, followed by Councillors Garipay, Stewart, and Williams.

▶ 1:34:37 Jack Eccles: Of the last four elections, the 2020 primary, 2020 general election, 2021 municipal, and then the vote just a few weeks ago, I've been able to vote in person once, and I thought it was a very good process. I thought it was Well, Ron, I've spoken to some people who work in volunteer at the polling places. I think that a centralized voting location is fine. Some of our peer communities, I know there are towns, but Saugus, Wakefield, Stoneham all do it and many of those have a larger area than we do here in Melrose. I do think that it's valid to not want voting in elementary schools because As everyone on this Webex knows, we vote more than once a year often, for example, between spring of 2019 and in the winter of 2020, we actually went to go vote five different times throughout that. So, that's five days of, I think we had eight polling places before or seven. So, I really like the idea of isolating it to one part of one location. I would have real concerns if we were a community of a larger size that, you know, had people who had to travel more than two or three miles to their polling place. But I don't think I would have voted to consolidate the polling places even temporarily if I thought that it was going to infringe on anyone's vote right to vote even once. So, I voted for it before and I'm comfortable supporting it again tonight.

▶ 1:36:17 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you Councillor Eccles. Councillor Garipay.

▶ 1:36:23 Mark Garipay: Thank you Madam Chair. Yeah, I supported the temporary change because of the situation we were in. I think everyone knows that I was pretty vocal about not supporting a permanent change. I do have some concerns with the location. I think one polling location, if we have a larger parking lot, and it's not on a hill, it's a tough entrance. I understand we've had three elections, but we've also had elections during a pandemic, and I understand a lot of people are going to continue with mail-in voting. But I think when people feel safe, people are still going to exercise their right to come in and vote in person. And I think if you say last election, November 2nd, I sat there from I stood there holding side from seven to seven to eight. And there were quite a bit of people at certain times coming in and out. And it was a little tough. It's a tough, tough location to get in and out of. I mean, everyone goes to the gym on a Saturday or Sunday and sees their basketball. all that is a it's a tough place to navigate i worry about the safety i i just don't think that location uh for parking is is big enough and i've said it before that i think we're seniors that if they don't have a handicap placard they can't get a can't get a space in the in the lot and they got to park farther down the hill that's a long walk um we also had back um except august 16th in front of us uh uh jim troop when they were talking about the accessibility at certain locations well i personally had asked some some questions about um what can we do what can we do to some of these locations to make them accessible for everyone we're making a decision on something that we've never even heard any new information. There's nothing new from the time August 16th. So I can't support this. And as I was going back through the minutes just to try to educate myself, there were comments in the minutes that said a permanent change really needs a larger discussion. And I think just making this change, putting this up today to vote without any additional information from the gpw any information additional information on how to how to fix the um polling locations or come up with a solution um i just think it's uh putting the car before the horse i don't think it necessarily has to be done today so um i'm

▶ 1:39:07 Jen Grigoraitis: not going to support this order thank you councillor Garipay councillor stewart and

▶ 1:39:10 Robb Stewart: then councillor williams thank you madam chair um so as war three city councilor i have um two elderly residences, the Fuller House and the Levi Gould, and they're literally right across the street from the Beebe School. I've been voting at the Beebe School since 1990, and when I go there, in the morning, you typically see little old ladies coming from Fuller or Levi Gould and coming over there and passing votes, and they really, you can tell it's event for them they get to get out and go and do their thing and do i know um for a fact that it will disenfranchise them uh that it will cause more problems i don't honestly i don't but i don't know that it won't either so i think we're being a little hasty here in terms of just trying run this through. I think we need further input for making a well-informed decision that we get our community involved as well. So from that standpoint, I don't think I'm ready to support this. It doesn't mean I won't support it going forward, but I don't think this is the time to vote yes right now. So thank you, Manager. Thank you, Councillor Stewart.

▶ 1:40:34 Ryan Williams: Councillor Williams. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, President Cinella, for bringing this issue before us because it's something that I've been thinking about and talking to folks about. Boy, I agree with a lot of the folks on pretty much all sides of this issue. I think it's a no-brainer that we should not have our polling locations in elementary schools, right? I mean, our politics are divisive. They can be hostile. And I personally have just never been comfortable with the idea that we might have school in session potentially at the same time that elections are going on because you can get circumstances where people tend to stage their campaigns out in front of the school and um you know i've been dragged into this myself uh and it makes me uncomfortable so i would love to see the polling locations be set in a more centrally located area of the city that's more accessible speaking as the ward seven counselor up until we had the wonderful sidewalk project that came around to the school the ward seven polling location was probably the most inaccessible polling location for any of the wards because it really only served the folks that lived immediately right there in seven two around the school the people that were in seven one had to cross lebanon street and it's actually easier for some of them to go over to a place like city hall or the middle school than it is to go to all the way to the Hoover School. But that being said, I also agree with the folks on the call who have said that we should really be thinking about how to study the impact of this opening up a community conversation with people about where the polling locations might be, whether they have strong feelings about the change in polling locations. I don't think that we should keep the polling locations the way they've always been just for posterity's sake. I think it's a great conversation to have and now's the time to have it. The middle school is a great location for an election, but it's kind of far from my neck of the woods, right? If we're down in the corner of 7-2, it's almost as far away as you can get. And so for my folks, we've had some concerns, particularly about how long it takes people who either don't drive or people who are elderly to get out to the middle school for for polling so you know i would love to see some kind of a hybrid approach here where we look at a couple of polling locations like a north and south city hall middle school something um but but maybe to just to just take this back up one step and reboot the conversation with an eye towards um getting some more community input and looking at some more options for how we might conduct a consolidation in a way that answers some of the issues of potentially restricting access, answers the questions of ADA accessibility, answers the questions of safety in our elementary schools, not to mention the fact that, you know, and does anybody have parents in the elementary school? It feels like we never have a full week of school, right? So I would love to put our kids back in school as many days as possible on the calendar. So, for that reason, I wouldn't support the order as it's written tonight, but I think it's great that we're having the conversation and I would support future efforts to get some information on this. And I would also support a future order that that addressed some of the concerns we've heard here.

▶ 1:43:56 Speaker 4: Thank you, Councillor Williams, Councillor Karn, Shady.

▶ 1:44:04 Manjula Karamcheti: Yeah, I have been thinking about this a lot as well and While I mean, I don't want us to make assumptions about any one population and any of the populations in Melrose. So, it does seem like I love data, I love information. And I think we've learned in other situations in this community, it makes sense to get some community input. So we have as many voices represented as possible. I have talked to people and elderly and minorities in the groups that I'm in and who are in Ward 1, and those particular folks are okay with the middle school location, but we're also in Ward 1 really close to the middle school. We would be voting at the Roosevelt anyway. So I think more information, more data, more community voice makes sense. even though I support the centralization. Thank you.

▶ 1:45:14 Jen Grigoraitis: Councilor Migliorelli. Oh, excuse me, Vice Chair Migliorelli.

▶ 1:45:17 Leila Migliorelli: Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thanks everyone for this conversation. It's really helpful to hear from everyone the different factors that people are considering while weighing this decision. I think I'm generally in favor of a consolidated poll location. I think that Melrose is a very small area-wide city i mean it's it's it's tiny so we're not talking about traveling you know tens of miles to get to a polling location it's it's within within a two mile span um i do i wanted to reflect as we were talking about the different elections that we've had or the many elections we've had over the last two years i think the last election that we had that it was in the old polling locations, there were a few errors there. I mean, and there were errors that couldn't be fixed because we were in disparate locations and it created quite a problem in which we were trying to deal with, you know, just paperwork and certain ballot inconsistency, not ballot inconsistencies, but lack of appropriate materials. And it created quite an issue. So, I think having a consolidated polling location, just from a just running a program kind of piece is makes sense because you can deal with all of that issue in 1 place. And I found I voted for the 1st time in person at this last election and in the middle school and found it super easy and very well staffed and was quick to go in and out of. So, I just think from. It just makes sense to have that kind of system. I think that if we have early voting, that provides an opportunity to perhaps, I know we've had early voting in the past at City Hall, that provides maybe a different location for people to come in person in a more centrally located area. But overall, I think I'm in favor of consolidating the polling locations.

▶ 1:47:13 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you. Thank you, Vice Chair Migliorelli. Just to add my Thoughts to the conversation, I think sort of continuing on what we talked about with the mayor is that has presented us with an opportunity to rethink this entirely. Thanks to the state legislature. We have the ability to make changes without a home rule petition, which is usually very onerous process and. I think there are problems with both the way we used to do it and what we've done currently and I'd really like to think. bigger about how we change this, I think, to the concerns about disparate impact. The Winthrop School is not currently a viable polling location. There's some question about whether or not we could put a ramp up. That hasn't been answered, but to stay with the way things used to be would mean that residents of upper 4-2 and upper 6-2 would most likely have to go vote at City Hall or Memorial Hall, which is certainly not, you know, I think is not an equal impact across the city when people when we're talking about people being able to want to walk to their polling location i also have real concerns for my own profession about the fact that we currently allow adults into elementary school buildings to vote there is no other time that you can enter an elementary school in this state without a quarry check except on election day i think that's incredibly concerning and we've had at least three elections in the past two years that have occurred during school um so i think that's something we need to take into account as well but I also want to thank President Sinella for bringing this forward because I think we need to figure this out I know I feel like we were caught a little flat-footed as a community with the Vogue special election and that was probably not going to happen again for the next 20 years but I felt like we put that school committee in a bit of an awkward position when they came to us asking for guidance on how to where to hold elections and we didn't really know what to tell them so I I think it's something that while there may be more a desire for more information, I think we have to really get that information and make a decision so that come the fall, which I think is going to be an election with significant turnout in all ways, vote by mail, early voting, and in person, that the clerk's office and the board of registrars feel like they've had the time to really put together an effective and equitable plan. Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to comment or make a motion? President Cinella.

▶ 1:49:33 Christopher Cinella: At this time, I mean, I would make a motion to recommend to the full board.

▶ 1:49:41 Jen Grigoraitis: So, we have a motion to recommend for passage made by President Sinella. Do we have a second? Second. With a second by Councillor Eccles. Is there any discussion?

▶ 1:49:55 Jen Grigoraitis: Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, can you please call the roll?

▶ 1:49:59 Speaker 1: Sure. Vice Chair Wigley-Reilly? Yes.

▶ 1:50:04 Speaker 1: Councillor McMaster? Councillor Eccles?

▶ 1:50:12 Speaker 6: Yes. Yes.

▶ 1:50:15 Speaker 1: Councillor Garipay? No. Councillor Jamaleddine? No. Councillor Stewart?

▶ 1:50:24 Speaker 1: No. Councillor Crimeshedy?

▶ 1:50:26 Speaker 9: No.

▶ 1:50:30 Speaker 1: Councillor Obremski? No.

▶ 1:50:37 Speaker 7: Councillor Williams?

▶ 1:50:40 Speaker 1: No.

▶ 1:50:42 Speaker 5: President Sinella?

▶ 1:50:46 Speaker 1: Yes. Chair Grigoraitis?

▶ 1:50:48 Speaker 6: Yes. Motion fails.

▶ 1:50:51 Speaker 1: It's five, six nos, five yeses. All right.