Queens group says redistricting hearing excluded Muslim voices

The Central Queens Redistricting Coalition requested the IRC be more culturally sensitive when planning events and conducting outreach in a letter published this week.  Map via Redistricting & You/CUNY Graduate Center

By Jacob Kaye

A group of Central Queens residents are demanding that the New York Independent Redistricting Commission be more culturally and ethnically sensitive when it comes to planning and translating public hearings.

Last week, the commission hosted several hearings during a Muslim holiday.

The Central Queens Redistricting Coalition said the IRC, the independent body tasked with drawinging the new lines for electoral districts throughout New York State, has a “responsibility to respect one another’s holidays when we schedule events that demand public accessibility.”

“It is critical that as future hearings are scheduled that every effort is made to ensure that these conflicts don’t exist,” the coalition’s chairpersons Heather E. Beers-Dimitriadis and Raj Korpan wrote in the letter. “This type of barrier is just unnecessary.”

The public hearing in Queens was held on Thursday, July 22, as Muslims were observing Eid al-Adha, a major holiday which ended the following day.

“We are certainly going to use that when scheduling and refer to that when scheduling future meetings and future hearings,” Blatt said.

This is the first time in the state’s history that Congressional and State Legislature districts, which are redrawn every 10 years, will be drawn by the IRC. The commission was created in 2014 as a way to take the redrawing powers out of the hands of elected officials vying to get reelected.

At the commission’s first public hearing in Queens last week, residents testified that communities in Central Queens, South Queens and Eastern Queens are divided by the current lines, weakening their power as a voting block.

The Central Queens Redistricting Coalition said that too often, underrepresented communities are left out of public processes such as these.

“I feel like many times in the way that we design civic processes, we design them for people who have no barriers,” Beers-Dimitriadis said.

Being in one of the most diverse communities in the world, it’s important to include as many voices as possible, they said.

“I think that the idea of redistricting is to create representation of the communities that live here in Queens,” Korpan said. “The idea is we want that diversity reflected in the process and if the process is not inclusive, the resulting districts are not going to be inclusive and representative.”

In their letter, the Central Queens Redistricting Coalition also advocated for the IRC to conduct outreach in more languages. Additionally, they requested that non-English speakers be given the opportunity to testify at public hearings.

“There didn't seem to be any thought being given to the consideration of people who aren't proficient in English and want to engage in the process,” Beers-Dimitriadis said.

Translation services are available to non-English speakers hoping to participate in the process through a special accommodations section on the IRC’s website, according to the commission.

“Any transcript of the hearing can be translated into another language if requested after the fact,” Blatt said. “It could be language access, it could be if it's an in person hearing and someone needs certain ADA accessibility accommodation – we will make sure to do that.”

The commission will host an already planned second meeting in Queens in the fall, following the release of census data, which largely informs how the lines are drawn, and an initial round of draft maps, created by the commission.

Queens residents will have an opportunity to submit their feedback on the draft maps at the second hearing.

Following the fall hearings, the commission will draw up a final version of the maps and present them to the State Legislature for approval in January 2022. If the legislature rejects the maps twice, the lawmakers will be responsible for drawing their own electoral maps.

Queens residents can continue to submit testimony and draft maps by heading to nyirc.gov.