City’s Districting Commission votes down Council maps
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The proposed City Council redistricting map of Queens that was rejected by the New York City Districting Commission on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Map via Redistricting and You/CUNY Graduate Center
By Jacob Kaye
The process for redistricting the city’s 51 City Council districts hit a major bump in the road on Thursday after the commission charged with drawing the new electoral lines voted against sending its latest set of maps to the council for review.
In a close 8-7 vote that came as a surprise to many, the New York City Districting Commission voted against sending its latest – and what could have been its final – maps to the City Council.
Sending the maps to the council would have signified one of the final steps in the once-in-a-decade redistricting process, which will now take longer than expected – the final maps are due no later than Dec. 7.
Thursday’s vote eerily reflects the troubles of the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission, which couldn’t agree on a final map for the State’s Senate, Assembly and congressional lines by its deadline – though Thursday’s missed deadline was arbitrary and the commission still has several months to submit a final map.
While Queens-related issues with the maps weren’t entirely absent from the commission’s conversation over the maps Thursday, they in no way appeared to drive the decision to vote the map down. With a few exceptions, many of the concerns raised by Queens residents and lawmakers who testified in front of the commission over the past several months about the preliminary maps released in July appeared to be rectified.
Rochdale Village, the second largest co-op community in the city and one that is largely home to Black homeowners, is no longer split under the now-rejected maps, as it previously was under the preliminary maps. Also, District 26, which covers a bulk of Western Queens, no longer extends into Manhattan and now is a Queens-only district.
But that all can change now, with the commission again tasked with creating a new map.
The commissioners who voted the maps down mostly took issue with either the reconfiguration of Staten Island’s council districts or the process by which they were drawn. Some took exception to both.
“A few individuals undid some of the work of the many, often at the last minute of a mapping session” said Mike Schnall, who was appointed to the commission by the Democratic majority on the council and who was the first commissioner to vote against the maps on Thursday.
“When it comes to vilifying Staten Island – and there's been a lot of that recently, it frankly, it's cliche, I've heard it my entire life, I'm tired of it and enough is enough,” Schnall added. “Staten Island deserves the same respect and chance and self determination that the other boroughs enjoy.”
The New York City Districting Commission voted against sending its latest City Council maps to the legislative body on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Screenshot via NYC Districting Commission
Under the rejected maps – which the commission has yet to post online for public viewing – one of Staten Island’s three council districts would extend into Southern Brooklyn, diluting the power of the borough’s voters, according to several commissioners. The borough saw the least amount of growth in population over the past decade, a large factor in determining the districts’ borders – Brooklyn saw the largest growth and Queens saw the second-largest growth.
A bulk of the members who voted against releasing the maps on Thursday were appointed to the commission by the Republican minority leader in the council, City Councilmember Joe Borelli. A number of commissioners appointed by the mayor also voted down the maps.
Mayoral appointees to the commission, including Queens members Maria Mateo and Joshua Schneps, and Lisa Sorin and Kai-Ki Wong, voted against sending the maps to the council – seven members were appointed by the mayor, five were appointed by the council’s Democratic majority and three were appointed by the minority leader.
But while a number of commissioners took issue with the map itself, those outside of the room took issue with the process.
“Today’s vote by the NYC Districting Commission comes as a surprise,” said Betsy Gotbaum, the executive director of good government group Citizens Union. “Should the Council reject the Commission’s next revision, we are concerned that by delaying the process, there will be limited time for public input on the maps.”
“We encourage them to quickly resolve their issues so there can be adequate time for New Yorkers to review these maps,” Gotbaum added. “The Dec. 7 deadline for the final maps is around the corner, and any further delay will only minimize the time for public feedback on a revised map.”
What exactly might come next in the process is slightly unclear.
A date for a commission meeting will be determined in the next 24 to 48 hours. Commissioners will then begin to hash out some of the issues with the maps and prepare them for submission.
“We will go through the process of addressing any of the concerns because we still have a responsibility to submit these plans to the City Council for their review,” Commission Chairman Dennis Walcott said to close Thursday’s meeting.
Gotbaum said that the meeting should be open to the public, unlike previous deliberations over map drawing.
“Today’s vote demonstrates the need for transparency throughout the process,” Gotbaum said. “Opening the Commission’s deliberations to the public would have allowed all commissioners to weigh in on the issues that led to today's surprise vote. The Commission should hold its next deliberations in public to prompt healthy dialogue between commissioners. This act will reduce the potential power of outside influence on the process.”
In rejecting the maps, the commission also rejected publishing the maps online for public view. The result is a lack of information on the proposal for New Yorkers.
A number of Queens community leaders contacted by the Eagle on Thursday said they had yet to see a version of the map they were able to analyze.
“It just seems like the spirit of real transparency is not really there,” said Richard David, a district leader in Richmond Hill and South Ozone Park.
But the map’s contents are known – the commission broadcast the maps during its live-streamed public hearing on Thursday.
During the commission’s second round of public hearings, which focused on the preliminary maps released over the summer, Queens residents focused much of their testimony on District 26, and a number of issues related to South and Southeast Queens. It appears as though the commission took that testimony into account and made corresponding changes to its map.
Rochdale Village is now whole, District 26 is now a Queens only district and includes a larger portion of Woodside, John F. Kennedy Airport is included in District 31 and Downtown Jamaica is more unified.
But issues remain.
City Councilmember Jim Gennaro, who represents parts of Kew Gardens Hills, Pomonok, Electchester, Fresh Meadows, Hillcrest, Jamaica Estates, Briarwood, Parkway Village, Jamaica Hills and Jamaica in the 24th District, called the maps “poor” and said he was “grateful” the maps had been rejected.
The councilmember took issue with a number of divisions made under the map throughout his district.
“Using the district in central Queens that I represent, for example, the Commission broke just about every criterion it was charged to uphold,” Gennaro said. “In the 24th District, the Commission did not ‘keep intact neighborhoods and communities with established ties of common interest and association, whether historical, racial, economic, ethnic, religious or other.’ The lines voted down today were a vicious slap in the face to the Orthodox Jewish Community, unconscionably cutting that vibrant community in two despite that community’s fervent plea to the Commission to preserve it.”
Gennaro also blasted the commission for dividing parts of Jamaica, Jamaica Hills, Kew Gardens Hills and Rego Park.
“I thank the eight Commissioners who today had the integrity to vote down this plan that was drawn without regard to the good criteria that should have guided its creation,” Gennaro said. “The redistricting plan proposed today tore at what is left of the precious fabric that holds together the good people of New York City. Good riddance to it.”
Though it made a majority Asian American district in Brooklyn – no ethnic or racial group grew more than Asian New Yorkers over the past decade – it declined to create a new one in South Queens, which is home to a large and growing South Asian population.
Under the rejected maps, most of Richmond Hill would be made whole – a change from the map currently in use and from the electoral maps used at the state level – but it would be separated from other South Asian communities to its south and west.
The result, advocates say, is a continued dilution of the voting and political power of the area’s growing bloc of voters.
“It seems like it would undo some of the progress that they've made to even achieve what we have today,” David said. “This seems like a regression.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Mike Schnall as one of the appointees of the Republican minority on the City Council. He was appointed by the Democratic majority on the City Council.
