East and South Queens redistricting maps leading to wider schisms

Queens Chronicle 

 Update

The Districting Commission voted to send the revised proposal to the City Council Thursday by a vote of 13-1, with one absence. 

ORIGINAL STORY

As the city’s meticulous reapportionment process draws on, the Districting Commission is set to vote on a revised proposal for City Council district lines today, Oct. 6.

Thursday’s meeting comes just two weeks after the commission voted 8-7 against its own proposal. The body spent three hours last Thursday night and four and a half hours last Friday tweaking the map, taking into account 286 items of public testimony that had come in after the rejection two weeks ago.

Among the most significant changes to the Queens lines to come from last week’s discussions is the return of part of Fresh Meadows to District 24. Councilman Jim Gennaro (D-Hillcrest) had taken issue with the previous draft in large part because, in moving that portion of the neighborhood to District 23, members of the area’s Orthodox Jewish community would be separated from the rest of the enclave. Should the commission approve that draft, District 24’s eastern boundary would be 188th Street, as it is now.

Asked for comment on the proposal, Gennaro said, “This community and I, as its representative, made our objections to the first two proposals loud and clear. Last Friday, the Districting Commission did the right thing by completely reuniting the Orthodox Jewish community within the 24th District.”

Later, he added, “We look forward to this plan being passed by both the commission and the City Council.”

THE CITY 

In the hours following the five-alarm Richmond Hill fire in June that ravaged a row of houses, killed three family members, and left more than 40 people homeless, Annetta Seecharran felt abandoned in her efforts to scramble for resources and support for the victims. 

Not one elected official showed up that day, Seecharran told THE CITY.

“I called and I called and I called,” Seecharran, who heads the Indo-Caribbean and South Asian community development organization Chhaya in Queens, told THE CITY. “And there was no response.”

Mayor Eric Adams visited family members the next day and said “the whole city is mourning.” Apart from that, however, Seecharran recalled this week how disheartening it was for her and other community members to have to fight for attention in the aftermath of that tragedy in City Council District 28, represented by Speaker Adrienne Adams. 

Seecharran, along with other locals and activists from Southeast Queens’ majority Indo-Caribbean and South Asian neighborhoods, gathered outside a Sikh temple in Richmond Hill on Tuesday with the fire in mind. 

Their goal: to call attention to the way electorally divided communities like theirs have been historically “underserved by the government” — and how the NYC Districting Commission’s draft map for new City Council districts, released in mid-July, would perpetuate that problem. As THE CITY previously reported, these redistricting efforts are part of a mandatory process to reflect population changes in light of the 2020 census and ahead of off-cycle elections in what will be newly drawn districts next year. Under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the maps must not deny or dilute the voting power of racial and language minorities.

“Ultimately this is about power,” Seecharran told the crowd. “Our power has been limited because we have been divided.”  

But elected officials in other nearby neighborhoods have expressed a similar interest in keeping their predominantly Black communities from being divided between different districts. And they’re not alone: Across the city, various groups are pushing for map changes that would enhance their voting power in what can seem like a zero-sum game. All are racing to have their desires registered before the commission votes on a final map on Sept. 22. 

For example, a related battle is playing out in Brooklyn, as the draft map creates a new majority Asian council district in Brooklyn while splitting up what’s been a majority Latino district covering Sunset Park and Red Hook for the past three decades.

If nine of the 15 districiting commissioners agree on a map, it will then be released to the public and voted on by the City Council. If the draft does not get voted through, the commission would continue revising the map until passing one, though commission spokesperson Eddie Borges told THE CITY “that’s not even a prospect.”  

While eight of the 15 commissioners were appointed by the Council, five were selected by Speaker Adams, leader of the 44-member Democratic caucus. Minority Leader Joe Borelli, one of its seven Republicans, picked the other three, who potentially could join with the mayor’s members to pass a map.

In a letter addressed to the commission’s chairman and obtained by THE CITY, several elected officials in majority Black districts in southeast Queens outlined concerns about numerous ways that the draft map would divide and dilute voting power across their districts. Those officials include Majority Whip Selvena Brooks-Powers of District 31, which currently covers the eastern Rockaways, Laurelton, Rosedale, Brookville and parts of Springfield Gardens, and Councilmember Nantasha Williams of District 27, which currently covers Cambria Heights, Hollis, Jamaica, St. Albans, Queens Village, and Springfield Gardens. 

Among their concerns:

• The removal of downtown Jamaica from District 27, and the inclusion of  parts of Springfield Gardens, which cuts across “the middle of different ethnic communities and neighborhoods,” according to the letter writers;
• The removal of Rochdale Village from District 28, which is home to a minority-owned Mitchell-Lama cooperative: a 20-building complex housing 25,000 working-class residents, most of whom are Black;
• The removal of parts of Springfield Gardens that are mostly Black from District 31, which would “misalign the community’s collective voice,” according to the letter-signers. The district would gain parts of the Rockaway peninsula that have a white plurality and of South Ozone Park that have an Asian plurality, according to an analysis by THE CITY.

Some community members shared similar concerns in a virtual town hall convened by Queens Borough President Donovan Richards on Wednesday night. Community Board 12 Chairperson Rev. Carlene O. Thorbs, for one, was firm that Rochdale should stay whole and intact.

“It doesn’t even make any sense that anybody even entertains that. The historical value in our area needs to stay the same,” Thorbs said. “We are still the largest voting bloc — we can’t even ignore that.”