DALTON, Mass. — The Select Board meetings are back at the Senior Center. 

 

Residents raised concerns regarding the accessibility of Town Hall following the board's July decision to move its meetings back to the Callahan Room on a trial basis. 

 

"Not a surprise," Select Board member Anthony Pagliarulo said.

 

"I'm not surprised either, because it is a challenge," Chair Robert Bishop said. 

 

During the meeting in July, several of the board members were hesitant to move back to Town Hall because of its lack of accessibility but agreed to hold its meetings in the Callahan Room for August and September to see how it goes.

 

According to the town's calendar, the board's Aug. 18 meeting has been relocated to the Senior Center, after just one meeting in Town Hall. 

 

The Americans with Disabilities Act Committee approved sending a letter to the board, during its Aug. 4 meeting, advocating for moving the meetings back to the Senior Center.

 

"[The town hall] is not ADA friendly," ADA Chair Pat Pettit said. 

 

During the July Select Board meeting, board members demonstrated that accommodations could be made with advance notice, using the library lift. 

 

"[This sentiment] is the most ableist disenfranchising thing they could have said. Accessibility is accessibility for all, and my husband and I shouldn't have to make plans ahead of time to have someone let us in through the library. We're not convicts. We're disabled," committee member Lynn Clements said. 

 

Additionally, there is no parking, and getting to the library is a long way around Town Hall, Pettit said. 

 

"I didn't appreciate their reasoning. I didn't appreciate their reasoning at all …The reasoning was that it's much easier to have their files readily accessible across the hallway," Clements said. 

 

"But if my husband is in that meeting and a fire breaks out, it's going to take him a while to find someone to help him with the lift in the library."

 

The Town Hall has another lift at the police station. However, its functionality is unreliable, committee members said. 

 

Pettit explained how the lift only works when he is there because he knows how to run it. 

 

"It's a very lengthy instruction manual on how to operate it and if you jolt it, because you get nervous with it, you actually, like, jump the chain, so to speak. And then that's it's done. You can be halfway up and become stuck," Pettit said. 

 

Clements highlighted that there have been instances where someone got stuck on the lift and needed assistance from the fire department to carry them off. 

 

When raising her concerns to Bishop, Clements said he was "fantastic, as he always is" and was advised to write a letter to the board advocating for the board to move back to the Senior Center and why.