Teen suffrage

JP lowers the voting age

by Kristen Lombardi

Cambridge may have made headlines with an initiative that would lower the voting age in local elections to 16 (see "Uncertain Gains," News and Features, December 8), but Jamaica Plain stole the spotlight last week.

On December 19, the little-known Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council became the first semi-official body in the United States to lower the voting age. The 20-member board awarded 16- and 17-year-olds who live in JP both the right to vote and the right to run for neighborhood council. The resolution makes it possible for high-schoolers to cast their ballots in community elections that will take place this April.

"Everyone now realizes that their vote counts," says John Demeter, a council member who represents the Hyde Square/Jackson Square area in JP and who sponsored the resolution. Demeter was inspired to do so after local teenagers began advocating for a much-needed youth center in Jackson Square. More than 200 adolescents rallied October 22 against a proposal to build a Kmart on land near the Roxbury-JP border, calling for the city to build more recreational and educational facilities for youth instead. "What better way to say to our young people, `You count too'?" he explains.

The neighborhood council dates back to former mayor Ray Flynn, who created a council for each Boston neighborhood in the 1980s. Until 1984, the boards were appointed by the mayor. But in 1985, residents of some neighborhoods, including Jamaica Plain, began electing their councils. Today, the boards serve as what Demeter calls "the front line for the city on community issues." Members hold hearings on development proposals, for instance, and make recommendations to city agencies.

The pending Jackson Square development proposal -- which is expected to come before the newly elected neighborhood council for a recommendation -- could be the issue that lures teenagers to the polls this spring. William Castro, a 15-year-old organizer at the JP-based Hyde Square Task Force, says that young people from Hyde Square to Forest Hills are pushing for more resources. And now that they've been granted the franchise, they'll take it seriously. "A lot of responsible kids care about what happens in the community," Castro says. "With this voting thing, they have more power and capability to make decisions happen."

Castro and his fellow youth organizers have already started planning a get-out-the-vote campaign for the April 24 election. Organizers expect to distribute fliers, travel door-to-door, and host youth forums to encourage teens living in JP to exercise their newfound rights.

And if young people do turn out in droves come April, Demeter and his council colleagues hope the latest JP effort paves the way for Cambridge -- and Boston, too -- to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote. "This could be a real pilot civics project for the city," Demeter says. "It could be held up as a model for youth participation in elections -- at least, we hope so."