Towns rush to comply with access rules for polls
Town officials in the region have been scrambling over the past several weeks to make polling places fully accessible to people with handicaps in time for the Sept. 14 primary and Nov. 2 final elections. A state survey recently found that many locations are not in compliance with state codes.
Of 48 communities in the region south of Boston, only polling places in Easton, Foxborough, Norton, and Sharon are in full compliance, according to the survey released Aug. 30 by the Massachusetts Office on Disability. Larger communities with many polling places, such as Braintree, Plymouth, Randolph, and Quincy, had the longest lists of violations.
The Office on Disability conducted the survey over eight months by visiting every polling location in the state. Of 1,488 polling places, only 39.45 percent are in compliance. Local officials have been notified and ordered to be in compliance with the law by the Nov. 2 presidential election. If the changes are not made by then, the list would be sent to the state attorney general, said Brian McNiff, spokesman for state Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin, who requested the survey. The state's polling accessibility requirements have been in place for more than 15 years.
Among area communities, violations varied from minor infractions, such as missing parking signs, to major problems that require public works crews or contractors to repair, such as improperly sloped handicapped ramps.
Several town officials said most of the infractions on their lists are minor and that they either recently have brought polling places up to code or will be in compliance by Nov. 2. But advocates for the handicapped contend that even something as minor as a missing parking sign could discourage voters and that there is no excuse for such oversights.
"This is 2004. I expect state and federal buildings to be role models," said Pam Burkley, director of the Hyannis-based Cape Organization for Rights of the Disabled. In 2002, Burkley's organization won a lawsuit filed against the state and Plymouth County to make Plymouth County courts and the Plymouth County Registry Office accessible.
The state accessibility survey was sparked by complaints that polling places lacked parking, were poorly lighted, and sometimes had accessible entrances that were unmarked or locked, said McNiff. A problem "may appear small to you, but may not appear small to someone who has to negotiate in a wheelchair," he said.
In Massachusetts, 1.5 million people have handicaps (not all involve mobility), according to Myra Berloff, director of the Office on Disability.
Statewide, poor parking and a lack of signs were the most common problems cited at 52.74 percent of the nonconforming polling places. Ramps were another widespread problem. Often there were no handrails or the slope of ramps was too steep, according to the survey.
"We were very concerned when we got the report," said Charles Kokoros, chairman of the Braintree Board of Selectmen. "There was a report done many years ago that addressed many of these concerns. Unfortunately, as boards change and administrations change, a lot of these reports get lost in the shuffle."
Braintree town crews have nearly completed work correcting ramp slopes and designating handicap parking at 11 polling locations, Kokoros said.
Last week in Plymouth, a contractor removed curbing at Town Mall to make room for van parking and chiseled out a concrete ramp leading to Town Hall to correct the slope, said Acting Town Manager Mark Sylvia.
In Brockton the parking lot at the housing authority's Sullivan Towers on Colonel Bell Drive is about to be ripped up as part of a modernization project. An appropriate number of handicap parking spaces will be included in the new lot, said Tom Thibeault, chief operating officer for the housing authority.
In Weymouth, which has 16 precincts, the list of problems was so long and would have been so costly and time consuming to address by the Nov. 2 deadline that town officials decided to relocate eight polling places to buildings that are accessible, said Jane Hackett, Mayor David Madden's chief of staff.
Berloff noted that, in the majority of towns, officials aren't intentionally blocking access. "They just aren't aware of how it impacts people," she said. Some town officials said they did not know they were not in compliance.
Burkley, who has used a motorized chair since being injured in a 1973 car accident, said she hopes the state survey will give people with handicaps more clout when seeking changes at public buildings. "It's like pulling teeth to get people to change the little things, unless someone gets hurt," she said.
The complete survey results can be viewed at www.mass.gov/mod/.Sandy Coleman can be reached at sbcoleman@globe.com. 