Thomas MacMillan Photo
East Rocker Michael Wilson asks to join East Rock.
As aldermen moved forward with a once-a-decade redrawing of ward maps, they heard an urgent appeal from a concerned constituency: People afraid they’ll lose their neighborhood identity in the voting boundary shuffle.
Ward 9 East Rockers living on the edge of Wooster Square’s Ward 8 asked aldermen Tuesday night to please not make them join that ward.
Aldermen also heard from “Sohu” neighbors technically in Ward 8 who are eager to be annexed by Ward 9, the neighborhood to which they said they truly belong.
It’s that time of the decade, when a neighbor’s thoughts turn to the mapping of (very) local political boundaries.
And the inevitable tricky detail questions started arising about how to carve up maps to make numbers work out right — without slicing common sense in the process.
The city has begun its once-every-10-years redistricting process, during which it adjusts the boundaries of its 30 wards to equalize population between them. Tuesday was the second meeting of the Board of Aldermen’s special redistricting committee. The group has until the end of May to put forward a new map of ward boundaries.
Click here to view a PDF of ward-by-ward maps prepared by redistricting consultatnts ARCBridge. Click here for even more data.
The redistricting committee, chaired by Alderwoman Dolores Colon, took public testimony Tuesday evening in the aldermanic chamber in City Hall.
First to speak was Lisa Siedlarz (pictured), who lives at 53 Pearl St. She considers herself an East Rocker, but her home is located in a three-block spur protruding from the north slope of Ward 8, which otherwise consists largely of the Wooster Square neighborhood.
“We’re so separated from the rest of Ward 8,” Siedlarz said. “It’s frustrating.”
She said it can be difficult to get the help she needs from her alderman, Mike Smart, since he’s more focused on Wooster Square.
Ward 9 neighbors Donald Harvey (pictured) and Cynthia Chegwidden spoke up in favor of eliminating the notching of Ward 9 by Ward 8. “Lisa [Siedlarz] is our block watch captain” but can’t participate in the neighborhood in other ways because she’s part of a different ward, Chegwidden said.
Fred Giampietro, who lives on Bradley Street, said he’s concerned the redistricting process could result in his block being folded into another ward. “We want to stay with Ward 9,” he said.
Ward 9 — with the exception of the Ward 8 intrusion — follows the natural boundary of the lower East Rock neighborhood, Giampietro (pictured) said. If Bradley Street were separated, “we’d lose that continuity.”
Michael Wilson lives in Ward 8 at the corner of East Rock’s Pearl and Pleasant streets. “I always get confused which ward I’m in,” he said. “It’s this gerrymander issue where we really are part of Ward 9 but we’re in Ward 8.”
ARCBridge Image.
The East Rock section of Wooster Square.
He said he has to go to both his alderman, Smart, and Ward 9 Alderwoman Jessica Holmes when he has a neighborhood problem. Smart is a good alderman, “but we’re not his core constituency,” Wilson said.
“We’ll do everything to accommodate them,” Smart said after the meeting. He said he understands Ward 8’s East Rockers feel like they’re isolated. “I’ve always heard that.”
Who Counts?
City government watchdog Ken Joyner (pictured) also sat to testify at the meeting. He delivered a warning: You’re going about this all wrong.
The redistricting process has so far focused on equalizing population between wards. But that’s not redistricting, said Joyner who said he worked for the U.S. Census in 2000 and 2010. The committee should be focused only on the voting age population — people over the age of 18, he said.
Those numbers are significantly different, he said. The overall city population jumped from 123,626 in 2000 to 129,779 in 2010, he said. But the voting-age population grew proportionately more, from 92,180 to 100,197, he said. He urged aldermen to get the proper numbers from the redistricting consultants they hired and focus only on the voting-age population.
Former Westville Alderman Nancy Ahern testified next. She said there are two legal ways to go about redistricting. One is to focus on total population. The other is to focus on voting age population. The city has always done the former, she said.
Chair Colon said after the meeting that the committee will look for an answer on just what is the proper way to go about redistricting.
Simplify
Ahern (pictured), who said she went through two redistricting processes during her time on the board, urged the committee to follow state congressional district lines when they draw new ward boundaries. To do otherwise is to saddle the city with thousands of dollars of voting-day expenses for 10 years, she said.
When a ward contains sections of more than one state representative district, it has to staff more than one polling place when aldermanic and state elections coincide, Ahern said. Personnel costs alone for staffing those extra polling places quickly adds up to large sums of money, she said. She estimated it would be $30,000 over 10 years for every time a ward line crosses a state district line.
“I have three state reps in my ward,” said Hill Alderwoman Jackie James. Portions of her Ward 3 are represented at the state capital by state Reps. Pat Dillon, Toni Walker and Juan Candelaria.
District lines also run through Wards 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 12, 14, 15, 20, 21, and 22.
Ahern advised James to pick the district that contains her house and try to keep her ward within it. “You have to protect your seat.”
She also advised the committee to follow natural boundaries like parks, rivers, and highways. Also, keep in mind how wards are likely to change in the future, she said. For instance West Rock’s Ward 30 is the farthest below the population level it should be. But those numbers will come back up once the Brookside and Rockview housing projects are rebuilt, Ahern said.
Reconnecting Bradley Street (which was severed by I-91) would help make the neighborhood feel more connected.