ORDER-2021-19 : Calling A State Primary Tuesday, the First Day of September, 2020

Transcript (~11 min @ 2:30:58)

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▶ 2:30:51 Speaker 1: order 2021-19 calling a state primary tuesday the first day of september 2020.

▶ 2:31:02 Leila Migliorelli: counselor Migliorelli make the motion for immediate consideration

▶ 2:31:05 Jen Grigoraitis: so we have a motion for immediate consideration of order 2021-19 is there any objections okay seeing none the order is before us i believe mosa are you planning to speak to this uh i i can

▶ 2:31:23 Speaker 2: um if you would like me to come forward um i think as you know now that this council has done this

▶ 2:31:34 Speaker 3: several times uh this is just a formal statement that we'll be having an election on september 1st

▶ 2:31:43 Speaker 2: it's a primary um you can find the sample ballots uh for the various parties available on our

▶ 2:31:52 Speaker 3: website at city of meadows.org slash elections um and i you know would love to take the opportunity

▶ 2:31:56 Speaker 2: to kind of remind the public of your various options for voting for this election season

▶ 2:32:06 Speaker 3: this fall um we've received thousands and thousands of mail-in ballot applications which

▶ 2:32:12 Speaker 2: we're now in the process of mailing out ballots and receiving quite a few back early voting starts this coming saturday august 22nd in memorial hall which is different than the past when it's been in city hall it'll be open 2 to 7 p.m on saturday 10 to 3 p.m on sunday and then normal city hall

▶ 2:32:33 Speaker 3: business hours monday through friday ending august 28th and then of course the final reminder is that

▶ 2:32:37 Speaker 2: the polling locations have changed temporarily for these two elections all voters who choose

▶ 2:32:45 Speaker 3: to vote on election day we'll vote um in the melrose gymnasium um complex on melrose street

▶ 2:32:54 Speaker 2: which is behind the middle and high schools um does anyone else have questions i believe

▶ 2:33:00 Cory Thomas: counselor thomas had a question thank you madam president uh madam clerk uh i've seen a lot of notices go out online um have notices about the election changes gone out via mail uh to people that might not be on the internet or social media um english is the second language um and so forth can you please talk about what has gone out to the general public uh as far as public notices

▶ 2:33:23 Speaker 3: yep we've done several press releases with uh various new newspapers we sent um a postcard to

▶ 2:33:29 Speaker 2: all households and businesses in melrose and uh another mailing will be going out um hopefully to time it just a few days before the election to remind people about the polling location change

▶ 2:33:45 Speaker 2: uh and that will be that postcard hopefully will be warden precinct specific so you'll know what your warden precinct is when you get the postcard so when you go to the middle school uh you won't be wondering which line you should walk in you'll uh you can match your card to the the actual uh

▶ 2:34:12 Jen Grigoraitis: polling location great thank you so much sorry i hit the button that didn't go through with counselor stewart followed by councilor Jamaleddine thank you madam president uh madam clark

▶ 2:34:19 Robb Stewart: can can you do the public a favor and allay any of the concerns the potential concerns that may be coming forth based on some of the national news about uh potential delays in mail um

▶ 2:34:42 Speaker 3: thank you counselor stewart uh so i think first and foremost um everyone um should know that we

▶ 2:34:49 Speaker 2: have a secure ballot dropbox that's been permanently installed in the alleyway between the

▶ 2:34:56 Speaker 2: post office and city hall so um on essex kind of you would turn on to from essex street uh that is securely locked it's a secure dropbox anyone who's used it will know that

▶ 2:35:08 Speaker 3: uh it's you really only have enough space to put one ballot in at a time um and it has multiple

▶ 2:35:12 Speaker 2: keys and we only uh allow we have it everything kind of secure on that and um so i think for anyone who's concerned about um their ballot making it to city hall via the us mail uh that would be your best option we're also receiving um mail-in ballot applications through that dropbox

▶ 2:35:31 Speaker 2: um you can also of course come into city hall uh city hall does have um pretty specific protocols

▶ 2:35:42 Speaker 2: to um visit as a member of the public uh we're open in the mornings 8 30 to 12 30 you need to enter on the lower level of main street and check in you know and answer some health questions

▶ 2:35:51 Speaker 2: before you move forward upstairs but you're welcome to do so if you would be more comfortable handing off your ballot in in person um but so far our experience has been that um people voting using the U.S. Postal Service, our first round of ballots, where we mailed out over 3,000 ballots the first day, we actually received hundreds back the next day. So I think

▶ 2:36:19 Speaker 2: the Melrose Post Office has done an excellent job so far, so I have confidence in their ability to get ballots to us and the application cards in a

▶ 2:36:30 Speaker 10: timely way. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Thank you, Madam President.

▶ 2:36:33 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you, Councilor Stewart. Councilor Jamaleddine, did you have anything?

▶ 2:36:37 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you, President. Also, I would like to thank Ms. Camusa for all the hard work that you and the election office have done. I know it's going to be a busy month ahead of you. I wanted to ask if you did target specific population and outreach that you did.

▶ 2:37:02 Speaker 3: so we've um reached out to all senior housing um specifically to explain to them what their

▶ 2:37:06 Speaker 2: choices are so that um all the housing complexes have received through their directors um direct communication um about the changes um and we'll be doing um in two everbridge calls so the the reverse 911 system um this later this week to talk about early voting and then again next week to talk about the polling location change so that should reach other residents that don't um

▶ 2:37:40 Speaker 2: have you know spend a lot of time on the internet or don't read print newspaper so um those are those have been since our in the council on aging has also done specific outreach for seniors um

▶ 2:37:51 Speaker 3: that has been what we identified as the most um the the population that we think would need the

▶ 2:38:01 Maya Jamaleddine: most specific outreach related to these changes awesome do we know about that about how what is the percentage um that we of answers we received till now sorry the percentage of approximate percentage of how much did we receive like the answers of um specifically from this population

▶ 2:38:25 Speaker 2: um and when you say answers do you mean applications or do you mean application application

▶ 2:38:29 Speaker 3: um we i don't know a specific number of percentages for that age group um i mean we've had

▶ 2:38:36 Speaker 2: we're well over we're you know well over 30 percent of our total registered voters in melrose have opted to do some kind of mail-in um voting at this point um so i think so far i think from you know what i hear anecdotally i think that we've had a pretty even distribution of members of the public who have chosen mail-in voting but we definitely have received quite a few from seniors so they're definitely aware of their choices and have communicated

▶ 2:39:08 Maya Jamaleddine: with us directly about that one last question when um the if you can just explain to us when the voters would like to mail back their application um uh some have been confused about whether to put one stamp or two stamps um so if you can just explain that um so

▶ 2:39:27 Speaker 3: the actual so they don't um it's postage paid

▶ 2:39:34 Speaker 2: so they don't need to um the only postage that has that we have to worry about is when we mail them the ballot the city does have to pay for that postage but from a voter perspective everything they return has

▶ 2:39:48 Jen Grigoraitis: been postage paid perfect okay thank you thank you councillor eccles i think we maybe just lost

▶ 2:39:53 Jack Eccles: no i'm here um i'd like to make a motion for passage

▶ 2:39:58 Jen Grigoraitis: okay councillor Garipay did you have a question yes i did one uh one more question for miss

▶ 2:40:03 Mark Garipay: camoso uh on the uh early voting you had mentioned that and forgive me uh you had mentioned that uh it's early going is the same as city hall hours correct and right now city hall hours are

▶ 2:40:22 Speaker 3: 8 8 are we 8 to 12 30. so when i say city hall hours it's city hall business hours not the hours

▶ 2:40:26 Speaker 2: that they're open to the public so it's standard open city hall hours so 8 30 to 4 monday through

▶ 2:40:34 Mark Garipay: thursday and 8 30 to 12 30 on friday okay so it's pre more or less pre-covered hours is what we're

▶ 2:40:39 Speaker 2: what it's open for early because it's again we're only the open to the public doesn't mean that we

▶ 2:40:47 Speaker 7: all close we're still open until i just i just wanted that clarification i appreciate the

▶ 2:40:51 Jen Grigoraitis: clarification thank you so we currently have a motion by councillor eccles for passage is there with a second by councillor mcnaught any discussion adam clark can you please call the

▶ 2:41:05 Speaker 2: the role. Councilor Sinella. Yes. Councilor Epples. Yes. Councilor Garipay. Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine. Yes. Councilor McMaster. Yes. Councilor McNaught. Yes. Councilor Migliorelli.

▶ 2:41:20 Speaker 2: Yes. Councilor Stewart. Yes. Councilor Thomas. Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi. Yes. President

▶ 2:41:33 Jen Grigoraitis: yes 11 yes 11 yes the motion passes thank you ms camosa uh i don't believe we have any orders out of order and i believe we have now come to the orders from committee portion of our agenda