Redistricting Plan Passes 14-3 Despite Public Hearing Opposition

The Special Committee on Redistricting met at the Rockland County Legislature last night for a public hearing and to vote on the proposed redistricting plan. The plan passed 14-3. The three that voted against the plan were:

• Joseph Meyers, District 12
• Bob Jackson, District 14
• Connie Coker, District 17

After the census came out, Rockland County grew by 8.7 percent from the years 2000 to 2010. Consultant Phil Chonigman of GeoPolitical Strategies headed up the redistricting plan and the redrawing of the legislative district lines. There were a few public meetings in February and March to get input from the communities.

“Had that (population growth) happened evenly throughout the county, we wouldn’t have had to undertake a redistricting,” said Chonigman.

“As we saw when the population came out, we had some legislative districts that grew as much as 27 percent while others lost a bit of population,” Chonigman said.

Chonigman then explained the population changes that occurred:

• Every district should be at or near 3 percent so that each is fairly balanced in population
• “The largest gain was District 6 with 19 percent over the new average mean of the districts.” District 6 is mostly Montebello and Monsey.
• “District 11 fell 10 percent under that number.” District 11 is mostly Valley Cottage and Congers.
• That’s not permissible under law so we have to do redistricting
• The plan that the legislators voted on “came in at 2.18 percent overall deviation with the highest deviation being 1.02 percent, which is 187 people
• “The average deviation is .72 percent, so on average, the districts deviate less than 1 percent

The Chonigman also had to make sure that the redistricting plan complied with the Voting Rights Act:

“Where there is a substantial minority population, that tends to concentrate in certain parts of the county, as such, the Voting Rights Act requires that legislative districts make an effort to create districts where those parties have an opportunity to elect the person of their choice,” he said. “In Rockland, we had three of those districts, those being districts 3, 8 and 13.”

• Districts 8 and 13 had significant increases in population .
• District 3 (Orange) didn’t need a lot of change. This district is Haverstraw and West Haverstraw
• District 8 (Teal) is parts of Spring Valley, New Hempstead, Hillcrest and Ramapo
• District 13 (Light Pink) is  parts of Spring Valley, Hillcrest and Ramapo

"I began by working in from the corners of the map. Fortunately, there’s only so many ways you can go when you start from various ends of the county,” said Chonigman. “Communities that were located closest to the periphery suffered the least disruption but … every municipality is divided in some way.”

“As you move toward the center (of the county), there’s an increasing need to create division because the goal is to create districts of equal population,” he added. “That’s the No. 1 goal of redistricting and as I said, we met that objective. As you move toward the center, there’s only so many things you can do so that the numbers can balance without dividing communities.”

The following were divided into two legislative districts according to Chonigman.

• Bardonia
• Valley Cottage
• W. Nyack
• Suffern
• Montebello
• Chestnut Ridge
• Spring Valley
• Hillrest
• Monsey
• Viola
• Blauvelt
• Orangeburg
• Pearl River
• W. Haverstraw

New Hempstead split into three legislative districts, Nanuet into four and New City into five.

He added that for towns that were divided up quite a bit, such as New City, he was able to maintain the “core central business area” of those towns.

“So … where the division needed to take place, it was not in a way that was disrespectful of the local citizens and their desires,” Chonigman said. “Of course in areas such as Nanuet, you have the issue of a not clearly defined boundary area.  Some people defined it as a school district, some saw it as part of Orangetown, other people defined it as … part of Clarkstown … so where is the exact boundary line for a town such as Nanuet.”

“In Nanuet, they have most of their population in Districts 9, 14 and 15, each of which had over 5,000 people in it … that’s more than a sizeable amount to have significant influence in that area,” he added. “They should have a greater voice in the county because they have three legislators with serious concerns about what goes on in Nanuet. “

“There were some areas put back together such as Airmont and Montebello. There are some pluses, some minuses. It didn’t work quite as well as we had hoped, but overall it was an improvement on what we had going into the process and we achieved all the objectives.”

Video Stories that are attached:

• The vote
• A few of the community members that came up to speak during the public forum
• Words from a few of the legislators