Polling Location — 2024-09-16
Agenda
Transcript
▶ 0:01 Robb Stewart: Good evening. The date being September 16th, 2024, on Monday at 7:00 PM Uh, this is called to order of a special, uh, committee for polling location. Um, this is special committee to review polling locations for future elections, uh, per the, uh, call of this by President GL Alley on March 13th, 2024. Um, uh, so this is, um, we have, uh, joining me, uh, counselors Roal and Williams as part of the committee, and also non-voting members, uh, counselors, OPPE and Hamilton. Uh, this provides notice of a quorum and in accordance with the open meeting. Law of this meeting is being recorded and broadcast on our local cable access channel, MMTV, as well as live streamed on the MMTV website and available for future viewing through the City
▶ 0:57 Robb Stewart: of Melrose's meetings portal. So, without objection, I'll open the floor for public comment. This is the section of the meeting where anybody from the public can come forward to speak on the items on this agenda. Madam Clerk, is there anybody online? There are no remote participants without objection. Then I'll close public comment. Public comment is now closed. Um, so on this agenda, as you can see, uh, we have a number of items for discussion. And this being the initial meeting, uh, what I wanted to do is use this time more for brainstorming as opposed to a directive and looking for inputs, uh, in terms of what next steps are gonna be to be able to define and recommend, uh, what this committee will bring
▶ 1:51 Robb Stewart: to the full council, uh, for, uh, polling locations. Uh, and so on. This agenda for discussion this evening included potential sites, um, the analytics that are gonna support, uh, the, the metrics and how we should get go about getting those, uh, what the approval process is from a state and elections division, uh, the legal requirements as well, from a, both a regulatory and a DA, uh, perspective. Uh, how, how and what kind of public feedback we should gather, uh, the potential cost, uh, and it's comparative, uh, for one location versus multiple locations, as well as the timing for, uh, what, uh, if, if we do go to, uh, a new polling location, what that should look like. Uh, so, uh, is before we get into each item on the agenda,
▶ 2:44 Robb Stewart: are there any questions or, uh, is there anything else that should be on the agenda that you think, okay. Uh, so then for potential sites, um, I know that we had, uh, eight, uh, an original locations, uh, in the city of Melrose. Um, and I know that discussion, uh, suggests that that would be onerous from a cost perspective from an a DA compliance perspective, and generally from the feasibility relative to what we were trying to accomplish by going to one site. So, uh, I want to open it up to the floor and, um, ask what potential sites we should consider for, uh, for pulling locations if we do go to multiple sites. Okay. So, um, And please speak freely too. I, okay. I'm not gonna call on anybody. Okay.
▶ 3:44 Ryan Williams: Alright. Um, so for me to, I mean, I have a couple sites in mind, right? Memorial Hall, Mm-Hmm. Um, city Hall. Um, but understanding that we need to do, you know, an evaluation of some of these sites for capacity for a DA, um, I wanna know more and we should pick somebody to be the, the person who goes and finds this out to just really lock down what the regulatory, what the legal requirements are for these polls. Because I recall in the discussion there was a lot of ambiguity, a lot of statements made about, well, we can't have the poll here or there, or we can't have them in the schools unless we have one for each ward. And I never really got clarity on what that, you know, I never heard from the state, yes or no, that's true
▶ 4:34 Ryan Williams: or not so, 'cause for me, you know, if it is a question between, you either have one in every ward or you just have one in the city, that's a, you know, that's gonna be tough for ward six. Um, so that's one thing I think we should, we should be looking at the legal requirements first and foremost before we really get serious about site selection in terms of analytics. I also wanted to throw out, um, during the initial poll consolidation discussion, I did a walk she map of the city based on locations at, you know, roughly here, city hall, and found that you could probably pull the majority of the city within a walking distance of a pole if you did kind of a linear group, you know, the middle schools up north, the city halls in the middle,
▶ 5:22 Ryan Williams: and then you find something that's, um, that's further down to the south. Um, I don't know if we have any municipal buildings that qualify further down south, but, but for me, the, the, the data should definitely support that. The, you know, you get as many people as you can within a half mile of a pole, basically the distance where they could comfortably walk even if they don't choose to. Um, that's, that's just one piece of analytics data I'd like to throw out. 'cause it's something we can actually do. You know, we can put a pin in the map and do a walk she map on a website and just say, Hey, you know, what does this look like? Um, and that's, that's, those are my, Okay. Uh, so, uh, you had mentioned, so, um, thanks for all that.
▶ 6:11 Robb Stewart: You hit a, a number of the topics, which is good. Uh, I think that, um, in addition to Memorial Hall, city Hall and you also had thrown in the middle school, I think BB school is a prime candidate since it has been, uh, considered in the past. Uh, it should meet, um, I believe the a DA requirements that would have to be confirmed. Um, and it's not an act of school, so it avoids some of those, um, potential conflicts of being an active school. Uh, so Bibb is another location. Any others can you think of? Yeah, I concur with Councillor Williams. Uh, you analysis that we should really do our due diligence on the, with the Secretary of State's office and figure out what our, you know, what the potential levers are,
▶ 6:56 Devin Romanul: but thinking, um, you know, whether or not if, if it is one in each ward that might confine our choices, but, um, if there are, um, you know, our opportunities to widen the aperture of potential sites, you know, something like the library, something like, you know, other, um, yeah, I, I don't know if there's anything outside of municipally owned, uh, facilities that is permissible. I think that's one area of interest, depending upon what other parts of the community we're looking to get into. Um, not having been on the council at the time, I'm, I'm, I might wanna go back and think about some of the considerations that were, um, proffered when they were going through the consolidation phase and,
▶ 7:34 Devin Romanul: and what the, like terms of analytics, what is the cost breakdown? Some of the options that we're considering, like if it really, if the costs are dramatically one way or the other, um, it's gonna guide our, um, our thought process and, and, um, and then also like what, uh, one piece of analytics that Councilor Williams didn't mention that I, I thought of was, what is the impact of our voting participation, um, in different segments of our community since the consolidation? Is that something that, that is a real easy slap dash way to take a look? It might, um, if we've widened our opportunities for early voting or, um, you know, voting by mail, that may have solved for some of the, you know, if we choose
▶ 8:16 Devin Romanul: to stick with the consolidated voting, we, we might say, well, we really gotta put more time into this early or remote voting method that, um, you know, that helps ameliorate some of those considerations. And, um, yeah, I think those are, because if, if we've not seen, I know we've got a really small sample size to deal with, but if we've not seen a considerable drop that, that might inform our decision as well. Sure, sure. One, one thought on, um, I think what you're alluding to Council Roman, is that the sites, the multiple site and the cost thereof, we should be able to get some historical information because we had that in place at one point. Um, and that's something that we could go to the election,
▶ 9:01 Robb Stewart: uh, commission and, and ask them for help in that regards. Um, because they have cost for both. I'm sure they have the cost right now for i, the existing, um, uh, location right now. And if we can get, get a comparative and understand if there's a metric that shows, um, any kind of incremental when you expand to multiple sites. And, uh, well, I, I think it really comes down to looking closely at the data, uh, and, and getting that. So I think that's another to do is to get the, um, the comparative from historical to current sites. Okay. Um, so, um, the other option is to also include, I think schools, but we need to understand what would be required for a DA compliance for schools. Right. Um, I don't know if, I dunno if we want to go back
▶ 10:01 Robb Stewart: to the original setup. 'cause I believe that, you know, that was what was driving us to consolidate. Uh, but if there's, to your point, const Williams, if there's one, uh, additional site that is representative of a location that is otherwise requiring people to drive to a voting site, um, that might be something. So I think what we may want to do is, is look at these sites based on like a city map, right. Uh, and be able to determine what is reasonable. Um, okay. So, um, so then we move on to, um, the state and legal requirements. Um, I think that, and just, just so you know, after we go through this, I think what we wanna do is then come back and figure out what next steps are and who can take action on the next steps.
▶ 10:57 Robb Stewart: Is that fair? Okay. Um, on the state and legal requirements, I think that would require, uh, outreach one to Solicitor Phillips, uh, to get her input, but then also get guidance from the election committee, uh, on who to reach out to on the state side. And, um, uh, I, I think that's, that's something that, um, can be pursued as well. Any further thoughts on that? I think that's fairly cut and dry, what we need to do there. Sounds good. Okay. Um, now public feedback, uh, that, that's a more interesting, uh, uh, area, uh, because, you know, the, the public feedback that I've received, and perhaps you have as well, has been more anecdotal in nature. Uh, nothing has been, you know, it's people,
▶ 11:53 Robb Stewart: people tell me it's frustrating and they couldn't find parking and it was a nightmare and all that, but, um, but there also, um, could be, um, a silent group that actually likes, so I'd like to understand what the public feedback is. Um, and there's various ways we can do this. You know, we can put a poll online, we could, um, could request, but, um, this is where I'm looking for ideas and suggestions. Uh, I'm not quite sure how to facilitate that. So I think if the, if the mayor is up to it, um, they have a very robust weekly email, and you could put a poll in there. You'd have to, um, go over the wording of the poll, you know, in terms of like thinking about what the data is that we want to extract from it.
▶ 12:49 Ryan Williams: You know, are people happy with the polling location? Do they see room for improvement? Do they prefer, you know, neighborhood polls or whatever. Um, and, and just give that, you know, a week or two to gather some responses and see if we get anything interesting from that. We just wanna make sure with the questions that we're asking, that we're not leading people to a particular conclusion. Right. Which is, is actually, I think, hard to do, hard to make sure that when you're doing that, that you don't do that Right. To find an unbiased questionnaire. Yeah. It's hard to do. It is. Um, but I think that would be a good avenue for us to, you know, put a feeler out about the committee's work. Okay. Okay.
▶ 13:41 Devin Romanul: I think that, um, so we can reach out to the mayor's office and see if, uh, we can get that. Um, is there, do we wanna do anything else? Do we want to have something put, for example, in a statement in the weekly pri a weekly press Sure. Um, and ask for feedback from that standpoint. Yeah. I think figuring out if there are a couple of different methods would be, would be helpful. I mean, there's, the, the political scientists to me wants to start thinking about selection bias, but I, not that we have to wade too, um, uh, too heavily into that, but yeah, if there are, if there are a couple of methods, methods that are fairly facile that don't require like a ton of legwork, I think it would be good to see if there's,
▶ 14:23 Robb Stewart: you know, either a virtual, um, email, you know, whatever, meet people where they're at. Mm-Hmm. Right. Without necessarily having a, you know, we're not, um, you know, we're not doing a double blind, uh, study here, but just trying to get a couple of different slices of the community. Right. Right. Yeah. And I think we need to consider, um, how we reach the different segments fairly, right? 'cause not all, all people are as, uh, virtual and tech enabled, if you will, uh, as others. So I wanna be sure that that's, there's a fair distribution according them, right? Yeah. We Could offer people, we could offer, if you're going to put something in the paper, if you're targeting a demographic that you don't think is likely to respond
▶ 15:07 to email or a survey, you could have them call the clerk's office. Um, Or, or, well, I stop in and publish the dates of the city council meeting where we hear the final results. Or I, I think we'd wanna work with the administration on, uh, best way to collect that data without, uh, unduly burdening them. Mm-Hmm. Um, so, uh, I think that's an action in terms of working with the administration, uh, accordingly, you Could even have a voicemail box where people can just call and leave a message, Right? So, And you could put it in the water and tax bill. Right. That suddenly came to me as if by God. Um, I don't know about that. Thank you. Okay. Um, and then in terms of timing, uh, I think that, um, I think
▶ 16:06 Robb Stewart: first steps on timing would be to, uh, identify some actions on, on each of these points Oh my. And get a commitment to date, we'll reconvene, and then we will, I think we'll have a little bit more of a formal plan of action to start building the case for making any kind of a recommendation. Yeah, that make sense. And realistically is the next, I'm thinking ahead, is the next election that we're running in the city after this November, would it be November of 25? Is that, what we're, I I believe it's, uh, early November, there's, yeah. And this, this is not targeting that timeframe at all. Oh, no, No. I just, I Was curious if there's anything imminent. This, this would be something that probably would target
▶ 16:50 Robb Stewart: at some point next year. Yeah. If, if the decision, uh, to move forward was made. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Um, the only other, um, the question that I will have, and I can, I can talk to the city solicitor about this, is the contact of this meeting as we go forward and participation from people outside of the core committee. Um, I'd like to understand what that is. Um, for now, I think what really what we're doing is we're just gathering, kind of getting level set in terms of what we need to do for initial action collecting data. Uh, but there's gonna be a lot of interest in input, I think, from both members of, uh, the council, potentially external folks, uh, potentially in, uh, public comment.
▶ 17:37 Robb Stewart: Uh, and then as we get public feedback, I would expect that's gonna roll in as well. So we'll need to understand what that is, and I can take that as an action. So any final thoughts before we, we kind of go back and figure out who's gonna do what? Okay, so potential sites, um, I think the goal here is to, to identify the, I would say the primary and the secondary, uh, and be able to put that on a map, uh, somehow. Is anybody want to take that one, or shall I sign? I, I don't wanna sign. I mean, we're, we can Well, I, we can figure it out. I don't, I, It's something I can do. I mean, I'm, yeah, no, that's, I think that's, I think it, what I would, what I would seek to do is I would look to get like a map
▶ 18:29 Ryan Williams: of public properties and then highlight their pros and cons. That's something I think that we could do as a first step, but I wanna know more about the legal part and the regulatory part. Mm-Hmm. You know, before we put 'em on a short list of like, this is a good polling location, you know. Sure. But I think that would be impor an important first step, and I could do that. Okay. The, the legal and regulatory, I could Do that. Okay. So you have legal and regulatory, so you'd talk to, uh, Ms. Phillips and, And others. Okay. Okay. Um, I'll do potential sites and I'll also, I'm a data guy, so I'll look at the analytics, uh, of past present, um, to, to see what that looks like from distribution standpoint.
▶ 19:22 Ward Hamilton: I can run some numbers on that. Um, And I'd be happy to take the remaining. Do you want, do you wanna jump on the public feedback, back considerations and kind of try to figure that out? Sure. Yeah. I'm, uh, happy to take a look at the feedback and the, uh, cost considerations. Okay. Place the initial, initial tranche of information. Great. Mm-Hmm. Okay. Any other thoughts? Consul Hamilton, Just to, uh, put on your radar at the Public Safety Building Committee meetings, as we've been talking about the new police station, which we're leaning towards the BB site in your ward, and, um, also the New West Side Station on Remont. One of the things we've talked about is the new police station have, it has a public space inside.
▶ 20:20 Ward Hamilton: It's gonna be fully a DA accessible, its proximity to, well, talking about making it, building it so that it could be a polling location, and then you consider the proximity to two of the congregational retirement homes as well as the, uh, senior housing. So I just wanted to put that on your radar. Sure. And I guess, as I mentioned, that, um, congregational Retirement Homes as a non-city owned fully a DA accessible site. Um, I guess putting on a different hat and speaking on behalf of that board, um, I feel very strongly that that's something we would be open to. Okay. Great. That's good to know. Thank you. Okay. Uh, any other thoughts? All right. Well, without objection, uh, I'll motion to adjourn.