MAYVILLE – An independent commission charged with redrawing the county legislature’s district lines will continue the process next week in Mayville. The commission, which includes Legislators Larry Barmore (R-Gerry) and Tom DeJoe (D-Brocton), held its first meeting at the end of last month. DeJoe says he’s optimistic the panel will be able to complete the task of creating 19 legislative districts with little partisanship.
“Everybody walked away smiling,” DeJoe says. “Some other ideas were thrown out there by the board of elections about some other possibilities that people didn’t think of and everybody walked away very open minded. Nobody had any agenda that I could see and we’re ready to work together in a positive matter, and that was impressive.”
As far as the first meeting went, Barmore says the commission members basically got an update on how the reapportionment process works and were then asked to develop their own redistricting plan and bring it to the next meeting.
“We basically went over the work that we had done last year and explained to the new people why we had done what we did,” Barmore explains. “Basically the concept was fairly acceptable to everybody I think. At the end of the day we just decided we all had the numbers now and we all had an idea of what redistricting could look like. We challenged everybody to go home, start putting numbers together, come up with a plan and see if they can look at it with new eyes and make something better than we already have. We’ll come back together on April 10 and everybody’s going to bring what they came up with and we’ll bring it all together and see how it looks.”
The independent panel is charged with redrawing county lines that are not only reflective of the 2010 Census, but also reflect just 19 legislative districts. There are currently 25 legislative districts, but a public referendum last November called for that number to be reduced. The commission has until the spring of next year to finalize a plan and have it approved by the legislature, although Barmore and DeJoe both agree they’d like to see it completed sooner.
The other members of the panel are Fredonia’s Minda Rae Amiran from the League of Woman Voters; Fredonia’s Kevin Sanvich – selected as a representative of the County Chamber of Commerce; and citizens Michael Haddad and David Sheppard of Jamestown, Sharon Kaminski of Fredonia, and Ray Rusboldt of Dunkirk.
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