Cortland County Redistricting Commission discusses number of legislators, communities of interest

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Local officials and community members discussed reducing the number of county legislators at Wednesday’s Cortland County Redistricting Commission meeting, which drew significant opposition to a potential reduction to legislative seats.

The commission reviewed four proposals. Two of them would maintain a 17-seat County Legislature, while the other two would reduce that number to 15. Because of a state statute, for every district there must be a 5 percent increase or decrease from a proportional number of residents per district. In the county’s case, if they were to uphold the current 17 legislature seats, it would mean the district must stay within 5 percent more or less than approximately 2,753 residents. If the number of legislators were to be reduced by two, the proportional number of constituents per district increases to 3,121.

Legislative Minority Leader Beau Harbin (D-LD-2) said the proposals have a “lot of straight-forward lines.”

Trisha Jesset, the county’s director of planning, said part of her department’s approach to redistricting is trying to keep municipalities together.

“Where we found some difficulties is that several of the legislative districts in the city of Cortland stretch out beyond those city boundaries to reach that 5 percent,” she said. “We tried to extend those districts to where they could be areas where locations and neighbors feel like a community.”

Jesset said another challenge is the concept of census blocks, which are zones created by the federal government that cannot be altered by the county. 

“Census blocks are pre-designed. Within more urban areas, those blocks are defined by city streets, but the more rural you get, the larger those blocks are,” she said. “These are challenging. They could have 400 people in a block or two people in a block. Some of the maps proposed are a function of those challenges.” 

If the county keeps 17 seats, that proposal would have to be approved by the legislature, according to Legislature Clerk Savannah Hempstead. Residents could file petitions to trigger a permissive referendum for the proposal. If the Commission decides to change the number of legislators, that proposal is automatically subject to a popular referendum.

Harbin said there are 23 counties with a population under 125,000 residents, which resemble Cortland County’s system of government. He listed the counties of Cayuga and Allegany as examples.

“The average number of legislators for those counties is 11. The average population per district is (roughly) 4,448,” Harbin said. He noted he doesn’t believe the county should reduce the number of legislators to 11. “There is quite a range in that example as to how other legislatures choose to manage themselves and the number of people they represent.” 

County legislative chair Kevin Fitch (R-LD8) spoke against reducing the number of legislators.

“I just don’t understand why we would say ‘let’s go down two more,’” Fitch said. “What it does is (discourage) the working person from running. That is a lot of the public that we have who are working and whom you would now be stifling from (becoming a representative).”

Legislative Majority Leader George Wagner (R-LD-15) also opposed a reduction to the number of seats. He said legislators have other obligations outside attending committee meetings and are already having to stretch their time. 

“You cut the number of people, they are going to have to do more,” Wagner said.

Harbin said it is possible to tweak aspects of being a legislator in Cortland, including meeting schedules, the number of standing committees, and the number of members per committee.

“There are choices we can make outside of redistricting, and we can have that discussion. We can come to terms about the right legislature size, then we can talk about how we are running ourselves,” he said.

The commission also discussed communities of interest.

“The legal definition of communities of interest is vague,” Assistant county attorney Jeri DuVall said. “It says a district should not be drawn with the intent or result to deny or abridge the equal opportunity of racial or language minority groups to participate in the political process or diminish their ability to elect the representatives of their choice.”

Former village of Marathon mayor Bill McGovern, who is serving the commission in an advisory role, said he does not think there are communities of interest in the county.

“We are unique in that we have a unified approach to our community,” he said. “Our community is unique in that the line between the city of Cortland and Cortlandville is imaginary on some level.”

McGovern said trying to seek out these communities “adds another layer of difficulty to the redistricting process.” SUNY Cortland has been used as an example of a community of interest at past meetings. McGovern said he would rather spread the college population into different districts rather than concentrate it all in one single legislative district.

“I agree (SUNY Cortland) could be its own community, but I don’t know that for the election process it should be separated,” he said. “The population can be very high, but the election turnout could be very low based on the number of months these students are here.” 

The commission is slated to meet again at 4 p.m. March 9.