Senate District re-gerrymandered to favor Toby

Proposed Senate District 11 - February 2012
Major changes to already-gerrymandered maps making them MORE gerrymandered (which we thought was impossible) occurred between the initial proposals made in February and those submitted by the Republican State Senate Majority on March 14th.
Proposed Senate District 11 - March 2012
The changes to State Senate District 11 (Tony Avella) and the "Asian" State Senate District 16 are among the most dramatic. These include:

- Bay Terrace and the umbilical cord that is the Cross Island / Whitestone Expressway have been added into District 11, making it much more regular-looking, and removed from District 16. District 15 no longer looks like a lobster. Now it only resembles roadkill afer about five cars have run over some poor animal.

- Much of North Flushing, Kissena Park, East Flushing and parts of Broadway-Flushing and Auburndale have been removed from District 11 and placed in District 16.

- The western half of downtown Flushing (west of Main Street) to the LIRR is in District 11, as is Mitchell Linden/Linden Hill and several public housing projects, including the Bland Houses and Latimer Gardens.

- Near Queens College, Pomonok/Electchester has been moved from District 11 to District 16. Just to the east, large areas of Fresh Meadows, including the almost the entire apartment complex, have been moved from District 16 to District 11. In turn, the area of Bayside around Queensborough Community College has been switched from District 11 to District 16.

- In far eastern Queens (Bellerose and Queens Village), the most interesting map change is the removal of the Creedmoor Campus from District 11, placing it in Malcolm Smith's district. There was no reason to do this, as it is a completely non-residential area.

This was clearly done to stop Avella from blocking the ICCC development, which takes an act of the State Legislature to transfer State-owned land to a private entity. "Home rule" meant that Avella has continuously blocked the bill that was submitted on behalf of ICCC by other elected officials eager to see this development happen - for reasons still under investigation by both the Attorney General and Inpsector General of New York State. This district shift is tantamount to removing the one unmovable obstacle - Avella - in the ICCC's path in building 9-story apartment buildings for their own membership in a single-family neighborhood, aided and abetted by certain elected officials.

Read about the continuing investigation into corruption and giveaways of state land at Creedmoor right here on Queens Crap.