Thomas MacMillan Photo
Heights Alderwoman Brenda Jones-Barnes shows off her new ward.
As lawmakers signed off on a new citywide ward-boundary map, members of a tight-knit East Rock neighborhood found themselves politically exiled from East Rock — but still together.
That happened as the Board of Aldermen Monday night officially concluded its once-a-decade redistricting process with a unanimous vote to approve a new map. The decennial process is a legal obligation that keeps the city’s 30 wards relatively equal in terms of number of voters.
Remaking wards traditionally brings some give-and-take and Spirograph-style shapes. After weeks of work, aldermen found a satisfactory way to redraw the boundaries of each ward. The map will go into effect Jan. 1, 2013.
Click here to see the final map.
The task of cartography fell to a special committee of aldermen, who held a number of public hearings. The most forceful public testimony at those events came from member of the SoHu Neighborhood Association, which comprises several blocks of homes south of Humphrey Street, between Orange and State Streets within the broader East Rock neighborhood. SoHu members had pleaded with aldermen to consolidate their group into one ward, to place it entirely within East Rock’s Ward 9 instead of being divided between Ward 9 and Wooster Square’s Ward 8.
In the draft of the map that originally cleared the committee, SoHu was splintered even further, between Wards 7, 9, and 22.
Thanks to some 11th-hour negotiations by Ward 9’s Alderwoman Jessica Holmes (pictured) and others, SoHu got its wish — mostly — in the map that was finally approved Monday.
SoHu will now be all in one ward. But it’s Alderman Doug Hausladen’s downtown Ward 7, not East Rock’s Ward 9.
Alderwoman Holmes said she worked with her neighboring aldermen to make that happen. She also ensured that the Lincoln-Bradley area was joined with SoHu rather than split off into Dixwell’s Ward 22, as the committee draft called for.
“I am rather happy with tonight’s results,” said SoHu head Lisa Siedlarz, who had put together a petition to lobby for SoHu consolidation. “The map that passed tonight puts all of SoHu in one ward, ward 7, with over 1,000 votes in that mix. That means SoHu will have a strong voice at the poll.”
“We have excellent alder representation in Doug Hausladen. On top of that, we have developed excellent relationships with ward 9 alder Jessica Holmes, and ward 10 alder Justin Elicker. These three alders heard our concerns about the impact of ‘notching’ neighborhoods and worked very hard to make sure this didn’t happen again. I know they worked long and hard, speaking with other alders through out the city to redraw the ward lines while keeping their constituents best interests at heart. We applaud their hard work.”
Next Stop Oshkosh
Not everyone was pleased with the map. Rae Tramontano, the Republican registrar of voters, showed up at a public information meeting before the full board meeting Monday to sound a note of caution. The new map does not consolidate wards within state assembly districts, she told aldermen. That could mean added complications for voters on federal and state election days, she said.
Ward 1, for instance, will have pieces of two different state Senate districts and two different General Assembly districts. That could mean the ward would have to open several different polling places when there is a Senate and a House race in one year.
“We’re not in compliance with the state statute” on redistricting, Tramontano told aldermen.
Board President Jorge Perez disagreed. He said the statute just requires people to do the best they can to consolidate wards within assembly districts. It’s impossible to do that perfectly in a city with 30 wards, he said.
Hill Alderwoman Dolores Colon (pictured), head of the redistricting committee, said people in her ward are used to having multiple polling places.
“It’s a necessary evil due to the lines this time around,” she said, referring to the assembly district lines that were recently redrawn. “We didn’t make the state rep. lines.”
At any rate, wards that straddle district lines are not new. The current map has many of them — a total of 52 different polling place configurations, Tramontano said. She counted 55 configurations under the new map. (That’s a higher number than she told aldermen during the public information hearing, when she hadn’t yet counted them all.)
In the past, the state has given the city permission to consolidate some of those polling places even if that means people traveling to another ward to vote for their state senator or representative. Tramontano said she hopes to do that again.
Reducing the number of polling places saves the city money by reducing the number of poll workers it needs to hire. But it also makes voters travel farther to fill out their ballots, Tramontano said. “I don’t want them to have to go to Oshkosh to vote.”
"Board President Jorge Perez disagreed. He said the statute just requires people to do the best they can to consolidate wards within assembly districts. It's impossible to do that perfectly in a city with 30 wards, he said."
It is impossible to manage anything with 30 wards--this is one of the best arguments for reducing the number of Wards I've ever seen.
The board needs to be professionalized and empowered if it is going to be meaningful in the lives of the people it represents.