Three—Count 'Em, Three—Plans to Redistrict New Rochelle

Three plans now exist offering proposals for reconfiguring New Rochelle council districts.

The City Council held a public hearing Wednesday on the —officially—but the other plans were commented on.

New Rochelle resident Diana Mason said she thought the three proposals need to be studied in order to better understand what was being put on the table.

"I think with all these maps this process seems rushed," she said.

The Democratic plan has already been amended, Mayor Noam Bramson said, with portions of Residence Park being more fully incorporated into two council districts, with a third area—consisting of multifamily dwellings on Drake Avenue and Pelham Road in a third district. Because of those changes, another public hearing will have to be held.

Demographer Andrew Beveridge, a consultant who analyzed the Democratic plan, said the population shifts between districts in the city made necessary a redistricting before the November elections.

"Simply put, the New Rochelle present council districts have to be redistricted because of the way they violate" legal considerations," he said. They have to be reconfigured "in order for the city to avoid legal jeopardy."

Melinda Maxwell of New Rochelle said that during the last redistricting neighborhoods were split up and questioned the wisdom of continuing to do so.

"Would you like to be included in a district" where one's interests are not known by a councilmember, Maxwell asked.

The Republican minority council members released their plan an hour and a half before the public hearing but there was no discussion of it or comment on it during the public hearing.

Mark McLean of the Concerned New Rochelle Citizens for Redistricting Committee said he thought the Democratic plan was wrong to lower the percentage of blacks in District 3 to 43 percent.

"That is not acceptable," he said.

His committee's plan proposed a 48 percent black representation in the district.

McLean said the reliance by the Democratic plan on what could be categorized as spurious data used to come up the number of citizens of voting age (CVAP) should not be part of a redistricting plan.

"You talk about the CVAP," he said. "That is not a sturdy statistic. It's as sturdy as water."

Still, there were speakers in favor of the Democratic plan.

Pilar Atterberry of New Rochelle said she was a supporter of the Democratic proposal.

"The plan is fine," she said. "Black people are not being disenfranchised. Hispanic people are not being disenfranchised.

"I commend the City Council for taking the time to go over the numbers with someone they lost to the last time," Atterberry said, referring to consultant Beveridge, who participated in the lawsuit over redistricting from the last census that lead to a court-ordered creation of a minority representation district, now District 3.

Former Mayor Leonard Paduano, who was part of the Concerned Citizens redistricting committee, counseled people to not support any plan until they had seen the alternatives.

He said the committee's plan was based on election districts and did not "slice up" any of them, adding that it took into consideration court mandates for minority representation.

"Please don't make up your mind until you see this plan," Paduano said.