The Republican majority in the Nassau County Legislature has brought forth a redistricting plan that splits the Great Neck peninsula into two separate election districts, meaning that two legislators will have responsibility for our collective interests instead of one.
The new redistricting plan has been introduced hurriedly and without the deliberative process required in the county’s charter. The outlines of the proposed new map of the 19 legislative districts has aroused storms of protests among village officials and residents of the peninsula.
Republican leadership has argued the changes are needed to correct actual or potential disenfranchisement of voters and to align district boundaries to reflect current population density patterns as revealed in the 2010 U.S. Census.
No evidence, however, has been presented to support these assertions. Nor is there any evidence to suggest that alternative plans were considered to meet the desired objectives without splitting up cohesive community groupings.
Without a careful deliberative process and convincing evidence to support the proposed new district boundaries, the new maps look suspiciously like an elaborate gerrymandering scheme designed to ensure Republican victories in this year’s election of county legislators in November.
The folly of such an approach comes clearly into focus when one considers that the current Republican county executive took office in 2009 with less than a 500-vote margin of victory.
That slim push over the top came with the help of many peninsula Democrats who became fed up with incompetence and over stimulated political ambition.
In my view, Mr. Mangano, our new county executive (who I believe is making an honest effort to deal with county problems) would be smart to declare his opposition to the plan, as presently constituted, before the Legislature votes on it on May 16, 2011.
Leon Korobow
Great Neck
