Redistricting group presents finalized map to Oneonta council

Aug. 1—The city of Oneonta's Redistricting Commission presented a finalized redistricted map of the city's eight electoral wards to the Common Council Tuesday.

The map is a recommendation from the commission. The council has the chance to amend or adopt the map. Mayor Mark Drnek said during the meeting the council is slated to take up that discussion in the early part of September.

The city's ward boundaries won't change before the fall election and no ward boundaries will change while the council members elected in the fall are in office.

Redistricting of the city's eight wards, or voting districts, happens every 10 years following the U.S. Census to ensure that each vote counts equally.

The council approved the appointment of commission members in November 2022 and charged the group with submitting a proposed plan to the council by May 15. The commission met that deadline and the proposed map was introduced in March.

The members represented each of Oneonta's wards: commission chairperson Gary Herzig, Fourth Ward; David Hayes, First Ward; Susan Lettis, Second Ward; Laurie Zimniewicz, Third Ward; James Foote, Fifth Ward; William Shue, Sixth Ward; Glenn Pichardo, Seventh Ward; and Sean Brunswick and Johnathan Visnosky, Eighth Ward.

Population changes

According to state law, the difference in population between the most and least populous city wards cannot exceed 5% of the average population of all wards, or 81 people.

The 2020 census count reported a reduction of 822 city residents since the 2010 census — a loss of 6% — according to the commission's presentation.

Under the proposed redistricting plan, each ward would lose residents, with some losing more than others.

The census blocks, however, don't line up with the city's ward boundaries, and the census blocks' boundaries changed from 2010 to 2020.

The proposed redistricting plan shows that the Fourth Ward would have a decrease in population from 2010 of 9.9%. The Third Ward would have the next highest drop at 8.5% and the Fifth Ward would have an 8.3% decrease.

The Second Ward population would decrease by 7.7%, the Sixth Ward by 4.8%, the Seventh Ward by 3.4%, the First Ward by 2.9% and the Eighth Ward 1.1%.

Herzig said that the proposed plan meets all six of the standards established by the New York State Home Rule Law.

"I think that's an excellent contribution," he said.

According to the commission's presentation, the six standards included:

* The difference in population between the most and least populous district does not exceed 5% of the mean population of all districts.

* The equal opportunity of racial or language minority groups to participate in the political process or their ability to elect representatives of their choice was not diminished.

* All districts consist of contiguous territory.

* All districts are as compact in form as is practicable.

* No districts were drawn to favor any political party or candidate.

* Districts were formed so as to promote the orderly and efficient administration of elections.

The Sixth Ward and the campuses of SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College were declared to be communities of interest, Herzig said, which he defined as a group of people geographically or demographically related.

He said that nothing the commission does should disempower communities of interests and make it harder for them to be represented and elect someone who represent their interests.

Shue said the neighborhood heritage of the Sixth Ward has been known for decades.

"Many of the founding people who came to rise in the city came from the Sixth Ward," he said. "I went through the list of businesses and organizations in the Sixth Ward that could be impacted by any legislation ... That was one of the criteria in a community of interest: would certain legislation impact the community?"

The college campuses are the other communities of interest.

The census put all of Hartwick College in one block and all of SUNY Oneonta in another block.

Since a ward could only have about 1,635 residents, and the SUNY Oneonta census block had 2,069, the commission had to break the blocks up. Since the city knew how many students lived in each residence hall, the block could be broken, according to Daily Star archives.

Hayes, reading from a statement from Pichardo, said that college students expressed concerns that splitting up the student voting bloc "would diminish the political power of on-campus Hartwick and SUNY Oneonta students."

"The change was not practicable," according to the commission's report, "and ... the proposed ward configuration did not diminish the ability of the student population to elect representatives of their choice deemed consistent with their interests."

Herzig said that the COVID-19 pandemic affected the 2020 census numbers, since college students were not living on campus when the census began on April 1, 2020.

Despite this setback, every student was counted, Herzig said, since Hartwick and SUNY Oneonta provided to the Census Bureau the enrollment of all of the students for each dorm on campus for the spring 2020 semester.

"That saved us from having a very significant undercount," Herzig said.

SUNY and Hartwick didn't provide info on students living off-campus — Hartwick doesn't have that many living off-campus and SUNY doesn't require students to report if they're living off campus, he added.