Poll site problems persist in Highlands

LYNN – Arguments for and against relocating a polling place at the Ford School have been going on for nearly a decade, but a resolution could be only weeks away.”I have been in contact with the state, they are coming out,” said City Clerk and Election Department head Mary Audley on Wednesday.Audley was responding to allegations that she was not following up on a request from the Human Rights Commission that asked her to contact the state’s Office on Disability. The Commission requested Audley invite the state to reinspect the Ford School to confirm once and for all if it is handicap accessible and a viable polling location.Audley shifted polling from the Ford School to North Shore Community College in 2004. She called the Ford School a poor set-up for voting and said the ramp does not meet state standards. The Highlands Coalition has been fighting to have voting reinstated at the community school ever since. In July the group filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, which asked the council to direct Audley to get a second opinion from the state on the accessibility issue.In an email Tuesday to the commission, Audley stated that the matter was beyond the commission’s jurisdiction, but she said Wednesday that didn’t mean she hadn’t complied.”I am responding to a council order (to contact the state),” she said. “I’m not responding to the Human Rights Commission.”Audley attended the commission meeting on the issue in July at the request of the chairman, Robert Tucker.”I went as a courtesy,” she said. “It wasn’t supposed to be a public hearing.”She was taken aback, she admits, when members of the Highlands Coalition were allowed to speak. Audley announced then that she did in fact plan to bring voting back tothe Highlands but not the Ford School. Instead she had brokered a deal to have a polling station at KIPP Academy. The new school is handicap accessible and only two-tenths of a mile from the Ford School, she said.Wednesday she reiterated her plan and said she hopes to have a polling location there for the 2015 election.”I thought I had a great solution,” she said.Coalition member Wendy Joseph said Wednesday the group has an anonymous benefactor who has agreed to make whatever repairs are needed at the Ford School to bring polling back to that location.Audley said she understands the group’s passion, but her duty is to all the voters. She also noted that at the time, the Ford School polling location was not the only polling place that was shut down. In an attempt to consolidate and save money, Audley closed polling locations at Holy Family Church on Bessom Street, Congregation Ahabat Sholom on Ocean Street, The McGee House on Green Street and at the Harrington School on Dexter Street.”All those are no longer polling places and those people all adjusted,” she said. “It’s not like I’m just persecuting the Ford School.”The commission voted to speak with City Council President Daniel Cahill on the subject.Cahill said he would be happy to appear before the commission on the voting issue or any other issue and he is “hopeful to have more guidance from the state before the commission’s February meeting.”