Voters to consider $1.42M in funding for amenities building

On August 19, special election voters will decide whether to approve a $1.42 million bathroom building at Acton-Carlisle High School’s Memorial Field — one that meets legal requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The proposal, which required a two-thirds majority, passed Town Meeting 276-111 in June. Approval came after Concordians spoke that night, and in other venues, of challenges with the field’s restroom situation and appealed for improvements.

“Fundamentally, this is about providing access,” CCHS alumnus Justin Moy told fellow Town Meeting voters.

“The fact that CCHS does not have a bathroom on the fields has limited so many aspects of how I go throughout my day,” said Moy, who uses a wheelchair.

In advocating for the facility in April, former Regional School Committee Chair Julie Viola said that the committee was “literally” receiving letters about wheelchair users being carried to portable toilets at Memorial Field. 

A Acton Bridge public records request, however, produced no such letters. 

Viola subsequently told The Bridge she used the term “letters” metaphorically and was instead referring to accounts shared with her in private. 

An urgent need

Viola has on multiple occasions warned that the district — and by extension, the town — could be at risk because current portable toilets don’t meet ADA requirements.

“We have had complaints that have come in verbally that we know, eventually, will come in written form and — God forbid — legal form,” she told the Finance Committee on April 15.

On April 24, Viola told the FinCom that school officials were “literally getting letters of people who are in wheelchairs being physically carried to a toilet.”

The Bridge requested accessibility complaints received by the School Committee over the past year, including emails, verbal accounts, or other notices of concern. The district provided some materials, but no records of the kind of letters Viola described.

At a May 20 School Committee meeting, after The Bridge filed the records request, Viola said the concerns had been shared informally, not submitted in writing. 

She also expressed frustration at requests to see written complaints.

“I think what’s really hard is people want to have proof, and they want it in a form they are comfortable in,” she said at the May meeting. “It’s 2025, and not everyone is filing a formal complaint.”

In a May 22 email to The Bridge, Viola said that more trust should be placed in the School Committee to pass on informal complaints without reliance solely on formal written comments.

Viola has since left the committee because she moved out of Carlisle and could no longer represent that town. 

Former Acton School Committee Chair Carrie Rankin has also said that the debate shouldn’t hinge on complaints because accessible bathrooms are mandated by law.

‘This is about dignity’ 

Viola also said she made clear her comments came from private conversations. 

“As I noted in multiple forums, people do not want to send public messages around toileting or incontinence. This is about dignity and providing basic needs to the community,” she emailed The Bridge. 

She shared other accounts she said she received in private, including from a parent of a child with a chronic disease who said they could not attend events past a certain timeframe, a person whose 80-year-old parent had an accident in the stands, and grandparents who left a lacrosse game at halftime because they couldn’t access the portable toilets.

None of those accounts were provided in response to The Bridge’s records request.

Asked about the discrepancies, current School Committee Chair Tracey Marano told The Bridge via email, “The School Committee is grateful to the town of Acton for supporting the amenities building at Town Meeting so we can build [an] ADA compliant permanent bathroom.”

One example 

The Bridge’s records request yielded two meeting recordings, several emails, and presentation slides from past discussions of the amenities building. 

Only one email specified an example of accessibility needs.

“I know of a grandparent who can no longer attend their grandchild’s events at this venue because their mobility challenges made it impossible to use the porta-potties,” resident Yumi Yasutake wrote to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Commission and the regional school committee on May 21.

Additional testimonials from residents supportive of the upgrade appeared in the meeting recordings. 

In one that came closest to matching Viola’s original claim, a mother said her child, a wheelchair user, required the help of two people to use a portable toilet at the field.

The School Committee attempted to bring an amenities building proposal to Town Meeting in 2024, but went back to the drawing board after pushback on the pricetag from the Select Board and FinCom.

Carlisle has already approved its share of the proposed building’s cost.

Dakota Antelman contributed reporting.