Redistricting committee makes final ward lines proposal

PLATTSBURGH — Members of the City of Plattsburgh's redistricting committee presented councilors with their final proposal of changes to the city's ward district boundary lines last week.

With 19,917 people living in the city according to the 2020 census, the six proposed ward districts will have a population range of 3,237 to 3,402.

As required by New York state redistricting law, the commission's process of preparing their recommendations included making the new lines as close as possible to existing election district lines, not deviate no more than 5% of the average population value for each district, follow clearly identifiable geographic features, convenient and contiguous, and align with municipal boundaries.

Of the six ward districts, Ward 6 is proposed to change the most, Shannon Thayer, Director of Planning for Clinton County, and one of the four redistricting members, said.

"We ended up having to kind of grab the entire center of the city in order to get that to be up too far, in terms of where it needed to be for population," Thayer said.

She said they had to shift the boundary line direction after reviewing previous recommendations that were put forward.

COLLIN CONCERNS

As previously reported by the Press-Republican, early map proposals would have moved Amy Collin, who beat out incumbent Councilor Jeff Moore in the Ward 6 Democratic primary in June, into the Ward 3 district instead.

Another member of the redistricting committee, James Calnon, also a former city mayor, assured the final proposal fixed that issue.

"When last year's committee put their recommendations together, a councilor-elect this year was not running," Calnon said.

"So when we looked at that, we had to modify Ward 6 to be sure that we got West Court Street to remain in Ward 6 going forward so that Amy would not be moved out of her district in the next election."

OTHER ADJUSTMENTS

Wards 1 and 2 boundary lines also saw significant changes. Thayer said this was due to a lot of development in these wards since the last map was drawn.

Thayer said Ward 1 shifted up north a bit, and down to the south of the city a little more than it was, while Ward 2 expanded out a bit to the northeast.

For example, Ward 1's boundary expanded to Green Street and the Plattsburgh Boat Basin area, previously Ward 6. Ward 2 stands to gain a larger geographical size with its lines proposed to include more of the Saranac River area below Broad Street.

Ward 3's proposed boundary will become more continuous. Thayer said they made it so SUNY Plattsburgh is now all in this ward.

"In the past, part of the university was in Ward 2, so all the individuals that live on campus were going to a voting location that was off campus for them, rather than going to the Fieldhouse like half the people that live on campus," she said.

"So we thought in terms of preserving the neighborhood characteristics, it made more sense to create a continuous district that included all of the on-campus students for SUNY."

Wards 4 and 5 had minimal changes to account for slight changes in population.

"Ward 4 was just a little bit under so there really didn't need to be a ton of change in there, and we were able to just borrow some people from Ward 5 essentially," Thayer said.

"Ward 5 again, a little bit over ... so we had to shift down and ... grabbed some blocks on the other side of Oak Street to help bring them up within the range."

Mayor Chris Rosenquest said the next step for the new map is the introduction to a local law to adopt these ward boundaries.