Gordon College may get another hearing

LYNN – The city’s top attorney ruled Tuesday that residents opposed to a 2014 School Committee vote cutting ties with Gordon College have a right to ask the committee at a public hearing to rescind the vote.”The people should be heard. The committee should hold a hearing,” said City Solicitor Michael Barry.Barry issued his opinion a week after committee member Charlie Gallo questioned a 153-signature petition calling for the committee to revisit the Aug. 28, 2014 Gordon vote. Gallo raised concerns in a letter last week to City Clerk Mary Audley about signatures submitted on a blank petition page.”The City Charter is ambiguous on this issue and I thought it was worthy of the city solicitor’s opinion,” Gallo said.The committee’s next chance to review the petition is May 14.But Barry said the petition included a description statement reading, “We, the undersigned, are concerned citizens who urge our school committee to act now to rescind the vote to sever ties with Gordon College ?”Gallo urged committee colleagues last August to break the School Department’s connections with Gordon after college President Michael Lindsay signed a letter seeking “a religious exemption” from a federal non-discrimination order applying to gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual individuals.Gallo and committee members John Ford, Patricia Capano and Maria Carrasco voted to sever ties. Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy and committee members Rick Starbard and Donna Coppola voted to continue the relationship with Gordon.Petition organizers, including Euclid Avenue resident Lori D’Amico, referred to City Charter guidelines for submitting petitions to elected officials and turned in a petition to Audley last November. They submitted additional signatures in March. On April 14, Audley confirmed the petition contained 153 certified signatures – three more than the charter requires.D’Amico said petition organizers want another chance in the wake of the August vote to tell committee members why they think Gordon’s 11-year relationship with Lynn schools was “beneficial to students” and ask the committee to rescind its vote.School Superintendent Catherine Latham last week said local students “won’t suffer” from the severed ties with the college. She said Gordon student teachers were active in only a few local schools.”Gordon’s involvement was overrated,” she said.Lindsay in an Item interview in January called the controversy over the letter “overblown” and based on “misinformation.” In a message posted last summer on the college website, Lindsay said he signed the exemption letter “to affirm the college’s support of the underlying issue of religious liberty, including the right of faith-based institutions to set and adhere to standards which derive from our shared framework of faith ?”