On April 28, at 7 p.m., attendees at the annual Deerfield Town Meeting will be asked to vote on an article to lower the voting age to 16 years old. This same article was defeated at last year’s annual Town Meeting so why try to have a second vote?

This year, the same Sunderland resident submitted a second citizen’s petition to the town of Deerfield for an article to be placed on this year’s warrant again asking voters to lower the voting age to 16. Why would a Sunderland resident create this petition and not a Deerfield resident? It is important for residents of Deerfield to know the following facts about this initiative.

■Last year, the Massachusetts Association of School Committees presented resolutions for consideration by local school committees. Lowering the voting age to 16-years-old was one of the resolutions. The time limit for this resolution was expiring last year.

■A Frontier Regional School Committee member from Sunderland presented the resolution to a 2024 joint school committee meeting which included the Frontier School Committee and all four towns’ (Whately, Sunderland, Conway, and Deerfield) school committees. This 2024 joint meeting voted for the four towns, Deerfield, Sunderland, Conway, and Whately to place this resolution to lower the voting age to 16-years-old on the annual warrants for each town’s annual meeting.

■Frontier administrators confirmed that this resolution, presented in 2024, was not an initiative by the school. No teachers have had any discussion in their classes about lowering the voting age to 16-years-old.

■The Frontier Administration has confirmed for a second year, the school has had no discussion or involvement in promoting this resolution to lower the voting age to 16-years-old at Frontier High School.

■This year, a Frontier School Committee member confirmed that the Frontier School Committee has had no discussions about lowering the voting age to 16-years-old.

■This resolution is a political agenda item for some elected politicians. In 2019, Ayanna Pressley, a member of the House of Representative from the 7th District (Boston area); Grace Meng, a New York representative; Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois representative; Barbara Lee, a California representative; and Mondaire Jonesaa, New York representative promoted lowering the voting age to 16 years old. Lowering the voting age to 16-years -old is currently a political agenda item at the local, state, and federal levels.

■The local group “pushing” this resolution has not been working with Frontier teachers or administration as a school wide initiative either last year or this year. There also has not been any school committee discussions this year on the resolution.

Deerfield residents, it is very important for you to attend the April 28 Town Meeting to defeat this article a second time. The following questions should be considered: 1. Should adolescents be allowed to make fiscal decisions for residents who pay taxes? 2. Do adolescents fully understand how local, state, and federal governments operate since they have not completed all the high school courses that would present that important information? 3. Have adolescents been actively attending the many town meetings to learn about how local government works? 4. Have adolescents fully matured to handle adult activities? 5. Will Deerfield Academy students legally be able to vote since they are residents of Deerfield? 6. Will peer or family pressure influence adolescents’ decisions regarding voting? 7. Should local school committees foster political agendas? 8. Why is a Sunderland resident placing an article on a Deerfield warrant?

I seriously hope this article is defeated for the second time. Please consider coming to the meeting to vote “no” on this article. Because the Deerfield Town Meetings usually have low attendance, if you do not attend, you are allowing the people in attendance to decide this important article’s fate.

Charlene Galenski lives in South Deerfield.