City Council - Regular Meeting

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All right, welcome to the general government meeting of the Springfield City Council. We apologize. It's now 438. So we are a few minutes late. I'm joined by Councilor Martin, as well as obviously myself. I'm also, I don't think there are any other counselors online. If we could just go around and introduce ourselves for those that are watching online. We greatly appreciate it. Starting.

I'm Jacqueline Fleet.

I'm with the League of Women Voters. Chelsea Parmentier, Deputy Election Commissioner.

And Gladys Oyola-Lopez, Election Commissioner. Okay, and we're also joined by Erica Cruz on line. Erica, thank you for being here once again. And we have two items on the agenda this afternoon. The first one is the continued discussion of the 2025 elections with a focus on the mail-in slash absentee voting process. And then the second item is just an update on previous concerns, many of which will be focused on the actual polling locations. So to the extent we can kill two birds in one stone and address one of the reasons why I sent these particular items to committee, and that's great. If not, then we'll also have another meeting. on it. So with that being said, a couple questions, and I'll get us started. Gladys and or Chelsea, if you could just, for those who are watching, give us sort of the process of, or tell us the distinction between absentee voting and mail-in balloting, and then sort of tell us what that process looks like from your end.

Yeah, you go ahead. So absentee voting was before vote by mail. It still exists, but that you really need to have a reason to why you can't vote in person. So you're out of town, you have health concerns, you're in a rehab, hospital, whatever the case may be, vote by mail voting is open to everybody. That's really the two distinctive differences.

Okay. So go ahead.

Just to clarify, so I think If we want to look at it as a process historically in 2020, which was when we were in kind of the height of COVID, the Secretary of State's office really changed the terminology around absentee voting. Absentee voting used to, all voting by mail used to be considered absentee voting. And so the distinction then became early voting is either early voting in person or you're early voting by mail. And I think the further we've come You know, using the terminology now, everything is considered vote by mail. So any voting that we do, we here just use the catch-all phrase vote by mail. Some people still have that. So it's still written in mass general law, absentee voting. It still has all of the rules associated with it. But we in the election office and people, if you talk to anyone statewide in elections, they refer to absentee voting as vote by mail. And I think part of why we have chosen to adopt that language and to stray away from using the term absentee voting is just to simplify it for voters. Got it.

We're also joined by Councilor Victor Davila, who's also a member of this committee. Can you walk us through the process? If somebody wants to vote via mail-in, what does that look like? What are the different ways in which they can do it? What's acceptable?

So we have paper applications, which can be requested by phone. We can mail out the applications to the voter. They can fill them out in person. They can register for a vote by mail ballot online at the Secretary of State's website. They can come in, like I said, come in person and fill it out. Those are really the two ways. Calling, coming in online. They can email it to us. They can download it online, print it out, drop it off. Email it to them if they ask.

And what I've heard from a number of viewers and every year, I guess at one point in time, once you say maybe it was during COVID, once you signed up for an absentee ballot, you received it the next year. That was never the case. So every single year, An individual signs up. They have to resign for an absentee ballot every calendar year, every calendar year. So there is no difference between. So every calendar year. So if you apply for the primary, then you'll.

If that's how you complete the application, yeah. So on the application, there is the option for a specific election or for all elections within that year. I think where a lot of confusion is coming in with voters, because we get the calls about it, is in the beginning, and even up until now, on a state year or federal year, the state will send out postcards to all the voters. If you want a requestable by mail ballot, you fill out the postcard and send it into your local election office. So that's something that I think voters will say, well, I get something every year in the mail requesting for me to sign up for a ballot or if I want to sign up for a ballot. But I think there's the confusion between local and state years on that one.

And so we've decided that, I mean, obviously, have you looked at the turnout with respect to the state elections versus the municipal elections? It is higher. It's higher. And one probably would expect that, especially if everybody is being mailed an option to do mailing voting. I'm assuming that it's probably pretty costly to do something along those lines. I know we talked about potentially including a reminder, but nothing related to mail-in ballot. A reminder in the tax bill that is closest to that particular quarter, just that voting has taken place, but we never sort of talked about actually including maybe a card saying, you know, allowing them to register for mail-in voting and

I will say on the census, we do have a blurb on there. This year, we actually put a bigger one on there. If you would like to vote by mail, call the office for an application. So it used to be small on the census, but it's a bigger wording this year we did.

But to your point, we don't send like an independent mailing. Do I think it would boost voter turnout? Absolutely. because we do see that in the state election years when the Secretary of State started doing that. It's not something that they always did. Again, it started during COVID that the state, I'm assuming with COVID funding, was able to start that process where they sent everyone a postcard. The postcard gets filled out, sent to us, and they send it out actually twice. They send it out once before the primary and then once after the primary. And some people will just blindly fill out both and request a ballot for all elections this year. I think it's smart of the Secretary of State to do that because it has increased the option of vote by mail. That first year, people were a little, people took advantage of it because of the fact that they don't want to leave home. So for safety reasons, they decided to do that and then realized that it was easy. It was inexpensive to vote by mail and they didn't have to worry about election day possibly raining or being out in the elements, being cold weather. And we've seen people kind of certain, population in the city that has migrated to doing vote by mail.

And so have we at any point in time thought about potentially targeting or using a small amount of funding to target our seniors and make sure that, well, I'm assuming might be more apt to do an absentee ballot, just not wanting to deal with the traffic and the polling location. I mean, getting to the polls uh might be more difficult for them maybe just targeting i don't know those who are 60 and over or something along those lines have we have we ever thought about maybe just incorporating them uh into some sort of mail-in balloting system to make it easy for them i can honestly i've i've never considered it and

Aside from it being cost prohibitive, I think what I've seen is that there are certain groups out there that distrust the mail-in ballot process. So it's been, as much as I personally think it would be a great move, I've never honestly thought about implementing it on a larger scale like that, but that's a good idea, a targeted mailing to certain age bracket.

Yeah, I'm just thinking how soon we might have a more difficult time getting back and forth to the polling point.

Well, the thing is, I think we're in a good space and place now where it's something that I would be more than happy to go to the finance team about and say, are there funds where we could do maybe two birds with one stone type of situation where if we do the census mailing and have it be an additional cost where we are already paying the postage fees, And all we would have to do is maybe add an additional amount to do a buck slip inside of it where they can do the signature. Because what we have to require is a signature line for whoever wants to receive the ballot to be able to actually sign. So that's something that we can discuss with the commission and see how. how we can implement that, because that is a good idea.

I think it would be something to explore.

For city election years, because the state already knows it from the alternate years.

Sure, and I'd love to have an idea as to how many people we're talking about, how many households we're talking about. 89,000? Yeah. Well, no, if you just narrowed it down to the seniors, you know, over 65 in order, I don't know what makes sense, but just something to think about. And so a couple other questions before I open up the floor. What do we say to those individuals who say, I signed up for that? No, no, no. Before we ask that question, what is the law behind you not being able to continuously receive absentee ballots?

Who tells us that?

The Secretary of State's office is there. And I can look it up. I don't have that.

So they mandate that you have to sign up for an absentee ballot every single year.

And there are some voters that are kind of, you know, they're savvy at this point. And that's their preferred method of voting. So every January they'll call us. and say um you know can you send me my application and then they will sign up for all elections this year in january there are others that are not and you know they kind of wait till right before the election to do it um we and even with and chelsea can speak to this there's a group of what we call permanent permanently disabled and so we maintain all this in the election office of this is really just one person at this point so back when it was

solely absentee, you needed kind of a reason. We used to require a letter or some kind of note from a physician saying that they would benefit from receiving their ballots by mail. So if we got that from a physician, we would keep a file of it and they'd still need to do the application every year. But the only difference is I would automatically send them out in January. So it's still up to the voter to return it back to us. But it's kind of an automatic mail-out, yeah.

And so filling out that application is mandated by the state every single year? Yes. Okay. And so back to my other question, what are we saying and what can we do as counselors for the individual that says, I signed up for an absentee ballot or I signed up for a mail-in ballot? And I didn't receive it. What what is it that we can do? As electors, where do we direct them? How do we because there are a number of people that I heard from in the 2025 elections that said they signed up for mail in ballot. And for whatever reason, they they they didn't get it. I think one of them I ended up contacting you all and you ended up remailing it. But what what what should we do?

I think the first thing you should do is tell them to call us because we can look into it. We have a lot that we end up with a file of, say, issued applications. So if the address has changed, they didn't put a phone number, we now have to mail them a letter if they're not at the address that states in the city. So a lot of that is having the right information on the application. So if we have one that is They've moved since they filled out the application. We mailed it to a previous house. It comes back to us. We tried mailing it again. There's no phone number. We have to mail a letter verifying the address. Where is it going? Is your name on that mailbox? Because they won't forward a ballot. So it's very important to make sure that the information is correct on those applications so that we make sure we're sending them to the correct place too.

And so we talked about verifying folks voter status on the database of the state's website. When that information comes up and someone wants to find out whether they're an active voter or is interested in a mail-in ballot, their application is to match Yeah, yeah, because that's where they're that's what we have.

That's what you have unless they've moved, then they have to update it with us. Match the new address of the application.

Okay.

Um, we do have a lot. Sorry. We don't have a lot of people to that. If they've moved, they'll submit the registration with the. Absentee application or mobile application.

So I like a register like a voter registration.

I don't know if I updated my address. I want to go by mail ballot. Here's both.

OK. And that's one of the things that we do tell candidates or currently elected officials. If you're going out to do door to door, if you're going to do voter event. Here, give them all of these materials and have that person. It's an extra step, unfortunately. Have them, because you ask someone, the first thing I'm going to do as a candidate is ask you, are you registered to vote? That's my first question. And if they say, I don't know, or they say, yeah, but I don't remember where I was registered. i would ask them to please fill out the registration i i encourage because i do like the vote by mail process i encourage candidates to take the vote by mail application so when chelsea preps the packets downstairs all those materials are made available or at least if the understanding is you can take any of the materials we have in the office part of that is please take a registration please take it up vote by mail application give it to that voter and have them fill out both if they want to vote by mail. And when we get those, even if the registration is a duplicate in our system, sometimes we're changing something as seemingly insignificant as a middle initial and we update their registration we update their census here so they're active for this year and then we have the matching vote by mail application so then those two pieces of paper then become kind of like up them updating their record uh i would even go as far as saying have that as a tool for you if whoever whatever candidate wants to go out there and and you're doing your door knocking, if you can't make it to the polls here, consider and leave a vote by mail application on each doorstep because someone in that household or someone in their family or their neighbor may take that application and vote by mail. To your point, as far as them reaching out to you and saying, well, I requested the ballot, I never got it. I would say the window would, As it gets closer to election day, two weeks would be what I would be comfortable with because we do send up to three ballots, the original ballot and the two follow-up ballots. Having the phone number on the application helps a lot. Sometimes I have even gone to the point where someone will say, you know, it's election day. I request the ballot. I never got it. And if they call City Hall and speak to anybody that's in the office, I will drive the ballot to their home. I have driven the ballot and sat in someone's living room, waited for them to vote their absentee ballot. They seal it, and then I bring it back to City Hall to make sure it gets approved. you know, documented in the system. And then one of our runners will take it out to the polling place because I, you know, sometimes it's that much of a process, but it's important. You know, it's something that I firmly believe that absentee ballots or vote by mail ballots are, should be used more often, especially as you said, in the senior centers, I dropped them off in you know, I live in the Brightwood section of Springfield. So if I go to any events over at the SHA properties, I'll drop off absentee ballots, the vote by mail ballots. Vote by mail applications, not the ballots.

So the last question that I have before I open up the floor is, so last year, 2025 elections, we I obviously was running. And as we normally do, I had signed up to receive an absentee ballot. As we got closer to the election, I was wondering why my absentee ballot did not come in. And my wife also had signed up for an absentee ballot. And so I picked up the phone and called Chelsea to find out what was going on. And lo and behold, I had signed up on the state's website. And so for whatever reason, there was a glitch or maybe glitch is not the proper term. your system and the state system had not merged. And so can you just talk a little bit about what occurred? And I say that because I'm really wondering about the checks and balances that will be in place for the next time. Because had I not notified you all, there would have been hundreds of folks that had signed up for absentee ballots that would have never received. So if you could just tell us, tell me, tell us a little bit more for those who are listening, what occurred and then what are we doing to prevent that from happening again, whether it's on your side or on the state side?

So correct me if my verbiage is wrong on it. Local elections have to opt out of vote by mail. Or you can opt out of vote by mail. If you don't, the state has to know that you're doing it and everything. So I think there was just the miscommunication of them not opening the portal. So the election dates were in our system, but that connection between their website and our VRIS system was not connected. So it's I don't know if it's like a flip of a switch for them to let that portal be open so I can view it.

Can you explain what the portal is?

Oh, yes. So when you do it online, when you request the application online or the ballot online, it comes through to a queue, if you will, in our VRI system. And it's a button you click on and it goes into the EV applications. And when I was doing that, it wasn't open for that specific election date until I contacted the state and said, we are doing vote by mail. This should be accessible. And then that's when they all came through and I was able to process it.

So the process starts for every election when it comes to the vote by mail. The staff, every morning when they walk into the office, they log into what she referred to as a BRS system, which is our voter registration and information system. It's housed here in the building. The server is housed in the building, but it's a state server. And they communicate directly with the Secretary of State's Elections Division. They are able to basically push through applications on our computer that the staff can view every morning if there are applications to view. So when the staff logs in, they'll see, oh, these are all the registrations of anyone that has registered at the MassHealth, at the RMV. They'll see another queue that has anyone that's requested an absentee ballot on the Secretary of State's website, which is what you referred to that you and your wife did. Now, when we open that queue, if there's no applications and if there are no names, the assumption is that no one has applied. However, I think that there should be more diligence on our part in terms of noticing, I would say, because the queue is not open all year round. So that portal that Chelsea's referring to is not open all year round. communicating with the Secretary of State's office to say, when is the beginning? When is it open so that we know this is when we should start wondering if there are no applications in the queue in the morning when the staff logs in, then there should be a call so that they have a help desk, a dedicated elections help desk that we should call and say, hey, is the portal open? So then that way, because there has to be an application. At some point, especially as we get closer to the election, We should be seeing applications on our end when we log into the queue every morning.

Yeah.

So that has to be, I think, an added step that we make sure. Yeah. So that there's a checks and balances.

And so there was not. So. So when you all sent out that first batch. Yeah. you all weren't thinking at all about, you just assumed that everything would come to that particular server that you had. You assumed that they were already there.

Yeah, I'll speak for myself because during state years and federal years, it's just open. We get them all the time. So by not having it, I didn't even think twice about it at the time because we never really have to check.

The portal was not something that was in use probably prior to... Yeah, it's relatively new. That portal is relatively new as a format to request the quote by mail balance.

Yeah. So I'll open the floor up to counselors. I definitely think have a concrete procedure as to how it is we're going to handle the mail-in ballots and the systems to make sure that they are talking to each other and so that you all know that you are receiving these ballots from the state website. should be able to delineate between the two and then be able to have cross-check at some point in time to make sure that you have those individuals that have signed up through the state website. Any questions from anyone else at the moment, Councilor Martin?

Yeah, I'd like to make a comment and kind of refer back to an earlier point made by the clerk and kind of share a little story from my experience in the 2025 election. and how accommodating and how wonderful I think it was. I mean, there was a woman, a 90-plus-year-old woman who was blind and was a little unable to move and access the voting booth. It was a week prior to the election, so a lot of the deadlines had been missed. But I called Chelsea right away, and she was more than accommodating. And much to your point earlier, Madam Clerk, she was willing to drive down there and make sure she got her ballot so she wouldn't ruin her decades-long streak of not missing an election. So I know you both and the whole team are doing everything you possibly can to make sure every ballot is counted. I have full confidence in you guys. And every time we sit down and have a meeting, I hear more of an explanation the more I feel confident. So continue the good work, and I got your back.

Thank you, Councilman Martin. Are there any other questions? before we move on to the second item. Yes. No, go for it. I'll circle back to Councilor Dap for that exact question. He's not shy.

Yeah. Is there a way to check if an absentee ballot's been received by you guys?

You can call. I know the Secretary of State's website has like a track your ballot.

And I like that question because it opens it up to another distinction. Part of What leads to some confusion is that during the rules and procedures on state election years vary compared to city election years. So in a local election year, which would be just local races on the ballot, the connection is directly with us. There is no tracking your ballot on the Secretary of State's website. So people will track their ballot on the Secretary of State's website during a local election year, get very concerned because they're not seeing that it's been received. So in a state election year, you can check on the Secretary of State's website and call us. I say calling us is your 100% way of knowing that it has been received. Checking on the Secretary of State's website is more convenient, obviously, because you could do it on a Saturday at two o'clock in the morning when you can do it at any time. I would hope that at some point the SOC will update and allow all the ballots to be tracked because all that information is housed in our VRAS system. But those are the two ways you do it. Either calling us for checking on my, track my ballot.

And there hasn't been any issues with some of the senior homes getting their absentee ballots in?

No, actually, I'm going to to Chelsea's horn for her because she's the one who does all of the absentee balloting in the city of Springfield. So she has made it a point to target and make relationships with like say Reed's Landing and many of the others where she has their social director's email address and phone number she requests a list of all of the residents and then matches it up with the address list at that location and she'll say there's 10 people on your list that are not registered to vote in Springfield would you like them to register to vote she sends them the registration sends them all the materials for them to request the absentee ballots and then make sure that you know, they kind of have little voting parties. They all, you know, fill up ballots and then they will either send them back to us or they'll ask us to come and pick them up and one of us will go and pick up the ballots.

I'm going to add on to that too and say, There's always, and to speak to your point earlier, Councilor Hurst, there is always that aspect of the mail. So there is always, we get calls, we request it, and then on our end, we say, well, we mailed it on this date. And then it's hard to not pushing it on anybody. It's hard to say what happens in between us mailing it, you getting it, or you're not getting it. But like Gladys said, we have, the three ballot options. So if it's a certain period of time and now we're getting closer, we're gonna mail you a second one or a third one. And then if something happens there, then there may be a bigger issue with the address or something, but we try and work it out as we go. Does it have to be received on election day? In our office, 8 p.m. on local years. There are different guidelines for state years, yes. Okay.

So why is it again that the state has a tracking system and we don't?

Good question. Because it's through their portal. So again, it's through their online website. And it's not something that they... allow us access for. And it may be due to the fact that there are so many different elections statewide. Some people have town meeting versions. Some people have a local election that happens in March. We have our September primary in a certain week. Other cities and towns have it the following week. So I'm not sure if that's the case, whether it becomes unmanageable for them. It's something that I'm more than happy to reach out to Kelly, is it Kelly? Yeah. And ask her if it's something that they plan to offer, if it's something that's even possible on their end for local elections, local election ballot tracking.

Seems to me like it would give voters a sense of security that their vote is actually count and receive.

I agree.

So if we can do it.

And it'd be easier for us getting 100 calls. That's what I'm going to say. That's what I'm going to say.

Time consuming. Yeah. Ms. Cruz, I see your hand raised. Councilor Davila, if you would like to speak after Ms. Cruz, if you have anything, any questions, then the floor will be yours, sir. Ms. Cruz.

Go ahead. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate you. So I do have a question for the Election Commission. On June 2nd, 2026, the U.S. Postal Service has published a proposed rule to allow the federal government to control who cast a mail-in ballot or absentee ballot. Do you guys have a plan, like a backup plan for that? Do you guys know about that at all?

It's something that we received guidance from the Secretary of State's office, and we will not be... following a guideline where the U.S. Postal Service would determine who can cast ballots. That's strictly against any state law that Secretary Dalvin has now on the books for elections. I think, unfortunately, nationally, I'm glad you brought it up, Erica. There has been so much talk in the news recently about limiting or changing voting so that it AFFECTS PROBABLY PEOPLE WHO NEED THAT TYPE OF ACCESS THE MOST. AND THE LAST THING THAT WE WANT TO DO, I THINK I'LL SPEAK FOR THE ENTIRE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS, IT'S DISENFRANCHISE ANY VOTERS. EVERY SINGLE VOTE, AS COUNCILOR MARTIN SAID, WE COUNT EVERY VOTE. We want to be able to have every single vote by mail ballot here in the state. And that is not something that we are in favor of whatsoever. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Cruz. Councillor Davila, did you have any comments or questions, sir?

Just more of a comment. Thank you for calling this meeting and continuing this discussion on the voting in Springfield. I just want to echo Councillor Martin's feelings. I am aware that the office is doing the best it can to have not only efficient, but also watch the integrity of the elections. And so I just want to echo those sentiments as well. Good information that is being shared back and forth. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councilor Davila. And so the only other things that I wanted to address or get updates on at this meeting were the polling locations. And I know what we'll probably end up doing, because I know it's part of what was sent to committee, is for the sake of following the open meeting laws to a T, is we'll have a quick virtual meeting as to the election warrants and the polling locations. But what I would like to know, which will save us from having much conversation at the virtual meeting, is have we had any updates on the polls of concern? from 2025.

MLK has agreed to close for the September and the November election.

They've agreed to close for the September and the November election.

Yeah, Chelsea had a conversation with, is he considered a CEO? Their director? Yeah. And informed him that we would possibly be requesting his presence at this next meeting and explain to him the importance of us having that location be more accessible and we came to the compromise that that is actually going to be like an in-service day for them and he has accommodated us completely so we are actually changing our location within the building One of his staff members is going to be there to open and close the polling location for us. So I think the voters there will be very, very happy. And I appreciate that, you know, kind of having this forum has had such a quick turnaround and had a net positive effect for two pretty busy polling locations. Yeah. So thank you both. And you, Councilor Nakba.

Absolutely. Rebecca Johnson was another polling location that was a concern, and that was less about, both locations were about parking, but certainly you weren't having a great relationship with the individual at MLK. I still am a bit concerned about parking, even when they had professional development days. So if they're closed down for good, I mean, for that particular day and for teachers and students, because they may not be required to have the professional development days, being that they're not part of the Springfield Public Schools. The Rebecca Johnsons of the world, however, the big issue there was parking and the teachers parking in the parking lot for the professional development days.

And that's also something that... I keep stealing your thunder, but also I do it as because I think Chelsea won't openly applaud the work that she does herself. She has a very good relationship with Rick Garib at the school department. And part of what he has agreed to help her do is kind of put out those announcements prior to the election so that all of the principals and all of the custodians at the schools know and are aware that these are the election days. Please make sure that these parking spaces are open. The voters are going to be here using these spaces and have that signage be more visible and dedicated for the voters as opposed to having the staff kind of take up all the space. In addition to that, I've been working with Trini to have him through the superintendent's office, make that impress upon the principals that voting is happening at these specific sites and make sure that they're aware that voters will be coming and going on election day and that we need access to the parking spaces. So we're hoping that having those two different voices over main office will help alleviate some of the problems this coming election.

Got it. The other location was in Ward 4 where the gentleman did not show up to open the polling location. Highland House. Have we been in conversation, not just with him, but probably with anyone who's responsible for opening up the polling location?

Yeah, so he was the resident that was kind of their maintenance guy, so he was on call for election specifically, but now I'm in contact with the director of it. I can't think of her name offhand, but we've been talking. I have her email. We've been going back and forth. So she is responsible for that whole location. Okay. So she's well aware of that concern.

Okay. Is that the only location that is... not a school, probably not, because I'm looking at a number of them on here. And so I guess, you know, I know we haven't had issues, but it just seems to me, I don't know what the process is to letting folks know in advance of election day, the importance of opening up on time and closing on time. But we probably should reiterate that to those individuals as

So I do in the beginning of the year, maybe February, March, send out a letter to all of them once we know election dates and when like delivery dates of the equipment is going to be, which is usually a couple of days the week before. I send them all a letter. I follow up leading up to the election, just reminding them. I get all updated contact information if there is any updated contact information I need. So it starts with a letter with the dates and everything, and then just follow-up calls getting closer to the election.

And then a week before the election, they're contacted by Chelsea because the equipment is then delivered. So everyone is fully aware throughout the year. sometimes at that location, the disconnect ends up being between the person who manages the building and then the person responsible for opening the building, which in some locations are two different people. Not to air out some of the mistakes that have happened, in one location, which was a city building, we had someone not open it on time over at Pine Point Library, one election. So I'm calling the deputy director of the libraries at six o'clock in the morning, waking her up so that she can call up her custodian so that he can go and open up the polling location. Because our poll workers show up at 6 a.m. so that they can have an hour prior to the election to set up. So it does happen, unfortunately.

Mason Square Library and Brookings were the only, I believe, other two concerns that we talked about as it relates to polling locations. Mason Square Library was an issue with folks parking in the front, then having to walk around the back.

That shouldn't be an issue this year. The construction there is done.

Okay.

So hopefully that's all back to...

So I think about that. While I think about that in terms of that location, there are a lot of There's a lot of construction happening, because I know we approved construction for the schools, and especially because these are having primaries, which are right after school starts. I just think we want to make sure that there is not any construction happening at the locations in advance. And if there is, I'm sure you all will figure out a way around it. But that particular site received a lot of complaints. It was extremely difficult for some folks to access the site. So that is good. And then Brookings, any updates on, are we going to send out any further reminders? I know that was a new polling location. I'm sure folks are still getting acclimated with the fact that it's now moved from the JC Williams to the Brookings. Is there, will we be thinking about doing any sort of reminders? Is Brookings part of the 11th Hampton District?

We won't have to this year, luckily, because the Secretary of State will be doing their mailing. So because it's a state election year, each voter gets mailed what we call their Red Book. So they're going to get a dedicated mailing, any voter in the city of Springfield, and that will have their warded precinct listed on it. Additionally, we still intend to put up signage at the old location, which we do regularly. Whenever we move polling locations, we will keep signage of several elections afterwards just to remind them that this is not their location any longer, especially this year because it's a governor's, lieutenant governor's race. I do expect people to turn out that may not have voted in the last local election. So, yes, there is a mailer that's going to go out. It's just not going to come from us.

Okay, those are all of my questions. Are there any other last minute questions before we close the meeting? Yes.

Question about, I have no doubt the election commission is doing an amazing job of counting every vote and getting out absentee ballots. But there's a whole group of people who just don't vote. They just don't register and they don't vote. And I assume there's a lack of finances in this local area and in the state to have money to do things like billboards or PSAs or mailings or, you know, because that all takes money. But our turnouts are pretty thoughtful in this Greenfield area. Yes. We're working hard to try to get the word out, but I don't know if there's anything that the commission can do or has any funds to do.

And I think that's a struggle statewide. We just saw the recent... tax override question, right, in South Africa, where they had their vote turnout was atrocious for such an important election. And we struggle with it every election. I mean, that's something that Erica, who's online, you yourself, we've been attending these meetings. What we've started is trying to take advantage of the input from different groups, including Tracy Carpenter over at Mass Senior Action or Legal Women Voters Northampton, depending what day it is, what hat she's wearing. And she's doing the PSA online, something that Erica had suggested, not Erica, it was Tara, had suggested was us increasing our social media presence. So we're aiming to do at least multiple posts a week on our Facebook and do things like that to just... I'm going to be a little bit more visible tomorrow. Tomorrow we're going to be at Union Station doing a voter event with the Shannon Grant groups, the Shannon Grant recipients. So I think our aim is we've done it. you know, in certain spaces and places where we've been invited in the past. And I think this year, based on our work with Councilor Govan and that voting initiative that you suggested and started, is to start attending events where we aren't invited and we're just inviting ourselves. We have a new employee who has volunteered to go to all the C3s, any C3 meetings during the week and just... kind of be a face at those events. And that's what we can do at this point. And I don't know what the answer is. I think it's been a struggle since I started back in 2004. We worked with neighbor to neighbor and they go door to door. The different unions go door to door. And I don't know what the answer is, unfortunately.

We'll keep working on it.

Yep. Thank you, Ms. Cruz. I will give you final word unless Councilor Davila has a question.

Yeah, I just wanted to follow up with her question. Yeah, I was going to jump in and let them know that we have been working with the coalition. Both me and Tara actually suggested the social media presence and I did suggest to the Elections Commission to start promoting becoming poll workers. And at least we believe, my organization believes if we start promoting that, which they are doing, which is great. If we start promoting the public being engaged and becoming coworkers and letting them know, hey, you can get paid for the day, that might also help amplify the voter turnout. So I'm just hoping that maybe everyone can be on board and help the elections office out with that. Just letting like maybe the League of Women Voters and any other organizations let them know to start also not just asking people if they're registered to vote, but if they are registered to then become poll workers to also help the election commission out, because I think that would be very helpful for them and also help the voter turnout.

Thank you. Uh, Councilor Davila, since I don't see your hands hand raised.

Yeah, no question. Okay.

We, um, we are going to adjourn the meeting, but Councilor Davila, I just want to make you aware, uh, and Councilor Martin, I am going to set up a virtual meeting to deal with the item that we sent to committee yesterday. Uh, it will be all virtual and it should take all of five minutes since I'm pretty much asked all of my questions and are not going to have too many. So I will give you a buzz to let you know, Councilor Davila, after I coordinate with Gladys and Chelsea, to see when that meeting will be. Sometime next week. All right?

I think it was adjourned.

Thank you. Can we have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Motion made. Is there a second? Seconded by Councilor Davila. All in favor, say aye. Aye. The ayes have it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.