Public Hearing on Proposed Local Law No. c of 2001 - A Local Law Amending Sections C-2.09 and C-2.10 of Article 2 of the Tompkins County Charter and Code

Chair Mink called the public hearing to order at 5:30 p.m. and asked if anyone wished to speak. No one wished to speak and the public hearing was declared closed at 5:31 p.m.

Public Hearing on Local Law No. 3 of 2001 - A Local Law Amending Chapter 28 of the Tompkins County Code with Respect to Reapportionment

Chair Mink called the second public hearing to order at 5:31 p.m. and asked if anyone wished to speak.

Fay Gougakis, City of Ithaca, asked that the Board postpone action on this item for another year or until a time when all municipalities and the County are in agreement. She asked that the Board allow time for consideration of various scenarios.

Edward Hershey, City of Ithaca, said last evening at a joint City/Town Fifth District Democratic Committee meeting Pat Leary was officially endorsed as the Party’s candidate to run for election to the Board of Representatives in November. Mr. Hershey urged the Board to adopt Scenario 15D which he believes is in the best interest of all the municipalities and the entire County.

Alan Cohen, City of Ithaca Mayor, said he has concerns about the way the process has unfolded and the impact it has had on intermunicipal relations. He stated that although there are differences of opinion, the City and the Town of Ithaca are not at odds with one another. Mr. Cohen recognized that a tremendous amount of effort has been put into this process; however, he is concerned with the speed of the process and that there are unresolved issues that remain in the community. He would like to see the Board delay this process and spend more time addressing these issues.

Catherine Valentino, Town of Ithaca Supervisor, stated there are serious intermunicipal concerns that have not been addressed. She said if the County wants to works with each community on a fair and equal basis that more time needs to be put into looking into the concerns. Ms. Valentino spoke of Scenario 15D and said she feels the major problem with that is that the five City wards and aligning them with County districts became an overriding issue of how the County was going to be redistricted. She said this is a violation of the County Charter because the boundaries of the towns and City are not being honored. She feels another violation of the County’s Charter is with respecting State legislation and court interpretations and feels the County did not stay near the deviation recommended by the State. Also, she feels the County has been working from census figures that have not been verified from the Census Bureau. Ms. Valentino said she also feels the County has established a deadline that is not practical to meet.

Doria Higgins, Town of Ithaca, urged the Board to take more time on this issue and go with one or two-year terms for County representatives for the time being. She said she does not feel the proposed redistricting plan is in the best interest of West Hill residents.

Patricia Vaughan, City of Ithaca Common Council Member, said at no time during this redistricting process was it the City’s Intent to hurt the Town of Ithaca. In fact, until May 10^th, they felt there was at least a tacit approval of the Town for the various 15-member scenarios that had been proposed by the Charter Review Committee. Ms. Vaughan said the Town is the City’s partner in a variety of civic enterprises: fire service, recreation, waste water treatment, and both have similar interests in many ways. She said relations between the City and the Town of Ithaca have been cordial in the past and they would like to keep them that way. Although this has been an unusual redistricting process, the County has been very accommodating for the requests for consideration of scenarios that preserve City neighborhoods. She said of the scenarios that have been presented, 15D is the City’s clear preference because it achieves the goals the City set as its guidelines for this process – preserving congruence between City and County legislative districts, protecting the integrity of neighborhoods, maintaining five City wards, preserving the connection between the City’s northside and southside neighborhoods, and achieving a reasonable balance in the populations of both County districts and City wards.

Rosalind Grippi, Town of Ithaca, spoke in opposition to the proposed redistricting scenario 15D. She said she feels it is wrong of the County to circumvent the results of the census by including adjacent Town areas to build up the city at the expense of the Town’s entitled representations on the County Board. Ms. Grippi, a West Hill resident, does not want to be relocated to an area that falls into a City district because the problems that exist in the City are much different than those in the Town. She feels this redistricting process is being rushed and believes her views will not be well-represented by the proposed plan.

Mary Russell, Deputy Supervisor for the Town of Ithaca, spoke in opposition to the proposed redistricting scenario 15D because she feels it will severely disadvantage Town of Ithaca residents. She said the Town has gained population and should have 3.2 representatives on a 15-member County Board. In the 15D scenario the Town of Ithaca is assured of only two Town representatives on the Board. The remainder of the Town is carved into small portions that fall into City districts and the Town of Danby district. This would allow the City to maintain two totally-City seats and three mainly-City seats while they have experienced a decrease in population. Ms. Russell said there are great differences in opinions on issues between the City and Town which range from the delivery of youth services to distribution of sales tax money. Ms. Russell said this district scenario continues the current situation of over-representation of the City on the County Board and the under-representation of the Towns. Ms. Russell said the redistricting process has been rushed and does not feel adequate time has been given to allow the Town to participate in finding a solution that is fair to everyone.

William Mather, Town of Enfield, feels the proposed redistricting scenario does not provide equal or adequate representation to him as a result of splitting Enfield in two with half falling into the Newfield district and the other into the Trumansburg district. He said because each of these representatives is of different political party, their vote cancel out, leaving him with no representation. Mr. Mather requested that the Charter Review Committee revisit scenarios that include a 17-member County Board.

Mark Varvayanis, Town of Dryden Supervisor, thanked the County Board for its efforts on the redistricting process. He believes there is a perception that the process is being rushed and encouraged the Board to postpone action this evening and to reconsider scenarios that include a 17-member County Board. He handed out an excerpt from the Town of Dryden Mary 14 minutes at which Representative Lane spoke of redistricting, including the possibility of various numbers of districts and the importance of City representation.

Linda Duttweiler, President of the Tompkins County League of Women Voters, spoke of the principles the League’s districting guidelines are based on: population, equality, contiguity, integrity of political subdivisions, and compactness. She said Scenario 15D attempts to keep County, towns, city, and villages intact in most districts except the Town of Ithaca. She said the compactness rules prevent arbitrary pushing of a boundary line to achieve political advantage, and feels scenario 15D does this in order to maintain five representatives in the City. Ms. Dutwieler asked the Board to take more time to review other scenarios that will better serve the residents of the Town and County over the next ten years.

Martha Robinson, Town of Dryden resident, stated she supports Scenario 15D even though 17 might be appealing. She believes you have to trust the group charged with this job, and the Charter Review Committee and County staff have worked hard and has produced the best choice.

William Lesser, Town of Ithaca , spoke of the proposed redistricting scenario and said because there have been population changes, there will be a substantial greater deviation among the City wards than in the past. Mr. Lesser feels it would be inappropriate to move ahead this evening if there is a possibility of a legal challenge being made because any legal action would impact all the residents of the County.

Pat Leary, City of Ithaca, spoke of the redistricting process and clarified that she isn’t familiar enough with Scenario 15D to endorse it or oppose it.

Eva Hoffman, Town of Ithaca resident, urged the Board to delay action on the redistricting process and does not feel cost should be a consideration in whether or not to act sooner rather than later.

No other member of the public wished to speak and the public hearing was declared closed at 6:07 p.m.

Addition of Resolution(s) to the Agenda

It was MOVED by Mr. Lane, seconded by Mr. Proto, and unanimously adopted by voice vote, to add the following resolutions to the agenda:

Mr. Stein also expressed concern over Section C-2.09 and the proposed language stating "The Board of Representatives shall approve a plan for reapportionment of such Board at least thirty days prior to the first day of circulation of designated petitions". He said if the Board approves the reapportionment plan this evening it would be going against this local law because designating petitions begin in one week. Mr. Lane said this is in the existing Code and said the existing time-frame would not allow them to accomplish this with a full thirty day period unless it were to be compressed further. It was clarified that the changes that are being proposed would apply to the next reapportionment process and not this process. Mr. Wood, Deputy County Attorney, stated adoption of a reapportionment plan this evening would not place the Board in conflict with a time period it is already obligated by.

Ms. Kiefer said she feels the Board would be better served by lowering the number of days to ten or by just stating "prior". She also spoke of Section 2-10 and said she would like to see the words "practical consistency" changed to "practicable consistency".

It was MOVED by Mr. Lalley, seconded by Mr. Stein, to refer this resolution back to Committee. A voice vote resulted as follows: Ayes – 15, Noes – 0. MOTION CARRIED; RESOLUTION REFERRED TO COMMITTEE

Mr. Lane said the Local Law as crafted codifies and adopts as the County redistricting plan the 15D Scenario which is 15 members elected from geographic districts within the County. He said the map has been released to the public for review, a public forum has been held, and prior to this Board meeting the Charter Review Committee looked at more scenarios presented by Representative Kiefer. Mr. Lane said at today’s Charter Review Committee meeting no action was taken any different from the information that has been presented to the Board this evening.

Ms. Kiefer spoke of the resolution that was referred back to Committee earlier in the meeting and said the only reason she had suggested acting on something similar that changed the Code language at the same time as adopting reapportionment is because the Committee gave significant weight to neighborhoods in their considerations this year and that is not reflected in the Code. She said if they had been able to craft language that placed it in there and made it effective at the same time or prior to adoption of a reapportionment scenario it would have been useful.

With respect to option 15D, Ms. Kiefer said she agrees with some of the speakers this evening that the County has put a great amount of effort into accommodating congruence of County district lines with City ward lines and to the best of her knowledge there is no legal requirement to do that. She said the majority seemed to want 15 members on the County Board and to maintain the congruence with ward lines in the City with the result being the Committee not doing as well as had been hoped with one person, one vote. She said she worked with staff on developing a scenario ignoring City ward lines and to trying to achieve one person, one vote around the County and was able to come down to lower than a five percent deviation overall. She said also contained in Scenario 15Y was a lot of attention to neighborhoods and said there are areas where the Board of Elections could make manual adjustments and preserve neighborhoods that are different from census block lines. She said she was also concerned about where growth will occur in the County and tried to stay away from any deviation that gave under-representation to growth areas. Ms. Kiefer said on the basis of one person one vote Scenario 15Y does a much better job than 15D and hopes the Board will not adopt Scenario 15D.

Mr. Lalley said initially he indicated his support for Scenario 15D. He said he has looked into weighted voting and has come to the conclusion that it is not a good idea and something the Board should not try. Mr. Lalley said the Charter Review Committee has conducted a very thoughtful process and has been responsive to a lot of the issues that have been brought forward. He said this has been a bi-partisan effort and the various scenarios presented are representative of the enormous amount of work that has gone into this process.

Ms. Blanchard responded to comments made by citizens under privilege of the floor and said some of the remarks suggested that some residents feel District No. 1 which she represents, has a very convoluted and peculiar configuration and that it had happened with this reapportionment activity. She said she has worked with this district for the past ten years and although it is convoluted and very hard to represent, the thing that makes it possible to be represented in a good way is the congruity with City ward lines because its possible in a district this large to have a collegial relationship with City Council members that allows a representative to cover a great amount of territory in a very efficient way.

Mr. Koplinka-Loehr, spoke of what he considers highly problematic but subtle pressures that happened last evening of the Fifth Ward endorsing one candidate based on one scenario. He said this evening the Board is being asked to delay this process in order to get greater congruence of a lot of different criteria or to move forward with a recommended plan that has received an enormous amount of thought from all parties on all sides. Mr. Koplinka-Loehr said he supports Scenario 15D because every single scenario that minimizes a variance still disrupts other municipal lines and does not achieve agreement.

Mr. Penniman agreed with Ms. Blanchard and part of the reason District No. one is a strange shape is because there is a strong attempt to follow Town of Ithaca lines and not cross over any more than it does. He thinks the Board needs to move forward with Scenario 15D and does not believe weighted voting would be in the best interest of the County. Mr. Penniman expressed concern that there are municipalities who feel they are not being well-represented but feels given the programs the County operates, issues relating to those particular lines would be unlikely to occur.

Mr. Winch said he served on the Reapportionment Committee ten years ago. He said with the assistance of Greg Potter the Committee has been able to review a tremendous amount of variations. He said Mr. Lane has done a great job of keeping the Committee on task and for looking at the entire County and all of the districts. He also said the Committee followed through the process of looking at how the County would be best served without involving politics.

Ms. Davis said she has spent a lot of time looking into the issues surrounding the reapportionment process and feels there are many misunderstandings that exist in the public about the entire process. She said there are many people who do not reside in her district who contact her with concerns and she brings their concerns to this Board as well as the concerns of her constituents. She believes that in a representative democracy it is her job to represent the people in her ward but she also feels comfortable bringing concerns of others to the Board as well. Ms. Davis said the Committee spent a lot of time on this process and is sorry that some people don’t feel well represented but does not feel any other scenario can better represent the County as a whole than the proposed Scenario 15D.

Mr. Proto said the comments that have been made this evening are evidence that each County Board member and potential member have made a commitment to all County residents regardless of where they reside. He commended this Board for working together and seeing that decisions represent what is best for the entire County. He commended Representative Lane for his hard work Chairing the Charter Review Committee.

Mr. Stein said as the longest serving Board member and the former chairman of two Reapportionment Committee, he has found that at the end of the process the Board will be at a point where everyone cannot be accommodated. He said it is important to remember that the reapportionment process that took place in the past resulted in many people being unhappy; however, the Board moved forward in the interest of intermunicipal cooperation and made many important and productive decisions on behalf of the County.

Mr. Joseph said many of the complaints the Board has heard over the last two weeks center around whether towns in general or a particular town is being adequately represented. He said that argument is based on the notion that the County is a federation of towns and that each town must be fairly and adequately represented on the County Board. He said the County is not a federation of towns and the basic building block of County government is the individual citizens and it is not the towns or the City that have representation on the Board, but individuals. He said everyone in Tompkins County has one representative and the Board’s job is to make sure that each individual person in the County has fair and adequate representation on the County Board. He said a tremendous amount of time has been spent on the current redistricting process and feels more time has been spent during this process than in any reapportionment process in the past. He noted there is a remarkable amount of agreement for Scenario 15D by members of this Board. Mr. Joseph spoke of classic gerrymandering and described it as when lines are drawn to disperse the members of another party into districts where they can never get any of their people elected and where one’s own party has the majority in as many districts as possible. He said this is the most powerful complaint that is made in other redistricting processes and noted this has not taken place in any way during this process. Mr. Joseph concluded his comments stating he feels Scenario 15D is an honest and fair attempt to give the best representation to all of the people of Tompkins County.

Mr. Todd said in 1970 after the Supreme Court decision for one person one vote, Tompkins County reapportioned for the first time. He said he served on that Committee and it was a very interesting process and the Committee was made up of non-Board members as well as Board members.

Mr. Totman said although Scenario 15D would place him in the position of representing three towns rather than the two he now represents, he feels it would provide the least disruption to the County as a whole when compared to other scenarios that have been presented.

Ms. Kiefer said during her recent work in preparing new scenarios she did not continue to work on scenarios having a 17-member Board because it was clear to her that a 15-member Board was the preferred choice by members of this Board. She recognizes that a 15-member Board would make it easy for those members who want to run for re-election and would relieve members of exhaustion because it is very difficult to focus on a variety of scenarios in-depth. She said with respect to 17 members on the County Board, she doesn’t feel those two scenarios were developed with the same level of intensity as 15-member scenarios. With respect to scenarios that were discussed by the Committee today the discussion focused on City ward lines and there were GIS tools available to scrutinize them in the same level of detail that was given to 15D. She said under Scenario 15D the lines for District 10 are drawn so that south and west of the school is no longer with the rest of Cayuga Heights and to her that is not respectful of either neighborhoods or municipal boundaries.

Mr. Lane responded to Ms. Kiefer and said the problem with the scenarios that were presented today was the basic premise that they ignored any congruency between County districts and City ward lines. He said from the beginning of the process they have tried to respect the geographic problems that a municipality has because it has election by geographic area as the Board does. Mr. Lane said he feels the process that has been conducted has been bi-partisan and done in a fair and productive manner. Mr. Lane complimented that tremendous amount of staff work that has gone into the process.

A voice vote on the resolution resulted as follows: Ayes – 14, Noes – 1 (Representative Kiefer). RESOLUTION ADOPTED.

WHEREAS, a public hearing has been held before the Board of Representatives on May 31, 2001, to hear all persons interested in proposed Local Law No. 3 of 2001, now therefore be it

RESOLVED, on recommendation of the Charter Review Committee, That proposed Local Law No. 3 of 2001 - A Local Law Amending Chapter 28 of the Tompkins County Code, be and hereby is adopted,

RESOLVED, further, That the Clerk of the Board shall publish in the official newspaper of the County a notice of adoption containing a synopsis of said Local Law, and shall within five (5) days file one certified copy in the Office of the County Clerk, and one copy with the Secretary of State.

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On motion the meeting adjourned at 7:01 p.m.