Coalition criticizes state polling place report

LYNN – Highlands Coalition members made another pitch to the Human Rights Commission Tuesday in an attempt to bring voting back to the Ford School and, at the same time, dismissed a state report that called the school non-compliant.”The state inspection report, there are a number of inconsistencies in the surprisingly brief report,” said Highlands Coalition member Wendy Joseph, who made the presentation to the commission.Joseph questioned if there was the possibility of a preconceived judgement as to the suitability of the site as a polling location.In 2004 City Clerk Mary Audley, who also heads the Election Department, moved voting from the Ford School to North Shore Community College after it was found, by the state, to be not fully compliant in terms of accessibility. Residents in the Highlands neighborhood and members of the coalition have been fighting to have it reinstated since.During her presentation, Joseph laid out the demographics of the Highlands, noting that it’s the city’s most densely populated neighborhood, many of the residents speak English as a second language and live below the poverty line. She also said the Highlands has historically low voter turnout, which dropped even lower after voting was moved.A bus trip from the Highlands to NSCC takes roughly 20 minutes and includes a 10-minute walk to the bus stop for most residents and a 10-minute walk from the bus stop to NSCC, Joseph explained. She also said the college presented “incredible and unacceptable physical barriers” to voting, and Marielizabeth McKeon backed her up.In November, McKeon was in a wheelchair during her trip to the voting booth where she said she encountered a flight of stairs, a broken handicap door and two doorways that did not accommodate her chair.McKeon said she is lucky that she could stand and use a walker to maneuver through the door, “but not everyone can do that.” Once inside, she faced further hardship when she couldn’t find wheelchair-accessible voting booths.”On the other hand the Ford School is fully accessible,” Joseph said, showing a picture of a woman rolling a walker up the ramp at the Hollingsworth Street school.The state noted that the slope of the ramp was not in compliance with state regulations, but Joseph said the coalition hired its own engineer to look at it, and the engineer reported the slope angle was well within state standards. State statute also allows for a portable ramp to be brought in, which Joseph said would be possible, no cost to the city, and that Lynn Vocational Technical Institute students would re-paint the handicap parking spaces on the property to bring them in line with what the state expects.”The Highlands Coalition is committed to finding the resources,” she said. “We do not expect the city to pay for anything to bring the Ford School up to compliance.”Audley has already announced a plan to bring voting back to the Highlands, but to KIPP Academy, not the Ford School. She argues that it’s a new building with ample parking, easy access and is barely half a mile from the Ford School.Ford School student Olga Delo-Santos and her older sister Bielma, now a student at Pickering Middle School, would like to see voting returned to their neighborhood. Bielma Delo-Santos said when voting was at the Ford School, students were allowed to go through the process with their parents. Students have lost the ability to experience that and pass it on to the next generation, Olga Delo-Santos added.HRC Chairman Robert Tucker said the commission’s review committee would look over the new information and make a report to the full committee at its next meeting on April 15.