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An Essex County Superior Court judge will hear an Andover man’s request for an emergency injunction to block the Town from holding Annual Town Meeting as scheduled on Monday at 7 p.m.
The hearing is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. on Thursday in Lawrence Superior Court.
High Street resident Donald Coleman filed his emergency petition last week, claiming Annual Town Meeting will violate the American With Disabilities Act if held at its scheduled time. Coleman is asking for an emergency injunction and for the Town to move Town Meeting to a Saturday morning to make it easier for seniors and disable voters to attend.
“Currently, [Annual Town Meeting] is scheduled at 7 p.m. on May 1, 23, after dark, making it difficult for Sr. Citizens to attend, as well as disabled voters,” Coleman said in his handwritten complaint.
The Town Governance Study Committee had a subcommittee consider the time and location of Town Meeting. The study committee recommended the Town continue holding the election in March and Annual Town Meeting in May, but having newly-elected officials take office after Annual Town Meeting when it submitted its 198-page report in December.
In surveys conducted by the study committee, 130 of 288, or 45.1 percent, of respondents said time conflicts prevented them from attending town meeting. Of the respondents who wanted to keep Andover’s open town meeting form of government, 7 percent said the Town should consider changing the meeting time and location.
More coverage of the 2023 Annual Town on Andover News.
Finance committee member Andrew McBrien, who sat on the study committee, said the subcommittee also gave “significant thought” to the time and date of town meeting.
“The subcommittee…noted that Saturday meetings might be easier to attend by those who travel or who have younger children and by senior residents who prefer not to go out in the dark,” McBrien said. The subcommittee also noted when Town Meeting met on Saturday’s in the past, “attendance declined year-on-year, only to recover when the meetings were moved to mid-week evenings.”
Attendance did spike when Town Meeting was held on Saturdays during the coronavirus pandemic, but there were also “big ticket” items on the warrant, including approving construction of the new West Elementary School, that typically draw a higher turnout. The full committee unanimously voted to keep Town Meeting on weeknights.
“Meeting on either day of the weekend would discriminate against the faiths whose Holy Day was being encroached upon,” McBrien said. “The committee felt that this alone was sufficient to rule out moving Town Meeting to a Saturday.”
David Floren, who served on the subcommittee, said the working group was also concerned that Saturdays “are filled with youth activities and would provide another reason for younger families, whom we want to be more engaged in town discussions, to feel conflicted and or unable to attend lengthy town meeting sessions.”
Town Meeting disenfranchises 45.1% of Town residents who cannot make it due to time conflicts.
In other cities and states, it would be illegal to make voting so difficult that you prevent a small % or a particular group from
participating, let alone 45%!
Being a senior, I totally agree. I know seniors that will not drive at night.
Every time is bad for someone. It doesn’t get dark until after 7.