To Peter Schmitt,
Nassau County Legislator
I am writing to you to express my very serious concerns with respect to the very recently proposed new legislative districts for Nassau County.
Your plan for redistricting was released on Tuesday, April 25. I understand that it is scheduled to be discussed at a Rules Committee meeting on Monday, May 2 and a public hearing on Monday, May 9, and then voted upon on Monday, May 16. I am concerned with this amazingly short schedule under which the legislature will consider the new districts, the lack of public input – or even knowledge or understanding – and the obvious departure from the extensive and most appropriate process that was employed in 2000 and 2003 to create the current legislative district boundaries.
Redistricting is, of course, an important and required matter and should not be accomplished in a few weeks. It requires serious and careful consideration of the many factors involved and public input.
You said that the proposed map respects town and community lines better than current district boundaries. In the case of the Great Neck peninsula nothing could be farther from the truth. The proposal not only splits the Great Neck peninsula, it splits three of our villages. The Great Neck peninsula – nine villages and a number of unincorporated areas – are a community with one village officials association, one school district, one library association, one park district that serves most of the peninsula, one train station, an intermunicipal agreement to share equipment and personnel in emergencies, and one name – Great Neck – among other things.
It is shocking that a proposal of this magnitude is something that I, as a village mayor, knew nothing about before receiving a telephone call on April 25. It is equally shocking that most people including some mayors, until I spoke with them, knew nothing about it. To this day I have not been able to find a map that clearly displays the newly proposed districts.
Where is the outreach to inform and educate our residents? Where are the recommendations from a bipartisan commission? Where is the time for meaningful public input? Where is the deliberate and thoughtful process that was utilized in 2000 and 2003? How is it possible that the 2010 census discloses shifts in population and demographics for over 40 percent of the County’s residents to be placed in different districts and, otherwise, for such dramatic changes in legislative districts?
The process being attempted and the proposal appear to be a deliberate and extremely poor decision to put politics first and our residents last.
Ralph J. Kreitzman
Village of Great Neck mayor
