Jamestown Reapportionment Commission holds organizational meeting (April 27, 2022)

The City of Jamestown Reapportionment Commission held its organizational meeting Wednesday evening.

Commission member and City Council President Tony Dolce said the Commission is waiting on the Census Tract data to start their work, “Each ward has to be within a certain percentage of the ‘One Man, One Vote’ policy that we have in the Constitution. And so our job is really to even out the wards. And every ten years we have to go through this process after the national census is taken, it trickles down, it goes through the states, and then the counties, and down to the cities, towns, and villages. So our job, we have six wards in the city of Jamestown and we have to look at the population in each ward and even them out.”

Dolce doesn’t anticipate the redrawing of the lines to be too difficult.

The Commission did elect Pete Johnson as its Chairperson and Mike Panebianco as its Vice-Chair.

It also set meeting dates for 5:00 p.m. the second and fourth Tuesday of the month. The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 10th. The Commission must submit a map to City Council to vote on by September 1.

Jamestown City Council

The appointments for the City’s Reapportionment Commission have been set.

Jamestown City Council approved the mayoral appointments of Ellen Ditonto, Alyssa Porter, and Billy Torres to the commission. Jim Walton will represent the Democratic Party, Peter Johnson will represent the City Republican Party, and Steve Muscarella will represent the Conservative Party. Attorney Michael Panebianco will represent the Jamestown BAR Association. Council President Tony Dolce and Council member Brent Sheldon will be the council appointments.

Mayor Eddie Sundquist said there isn’t a set schedule yet for when the Reapportionment Commission will meet to start the process of redrawing Ward District lines in the city.

He said with the Census count being ended early including people not wanting to answer their doors during a Pandemic in addition to not as many Census workers, he is concerned about an undercount, “Whether you are living in some type of transitional housing or whether you’re living in a permanent structure, those are very important to get, and we’re very concerned that is the case. But we are hearing some news reports that the Census Division is starting to look at those things again. I don’t know that we’ll see any changes, but we’ll take that into account as we go into this reapportionment.”

Sundquist said with the population loss, it’s up to the Reapportionment Commission to decide if the number of Wards or number of At-Large members is changed.

The new district lines would go into effect for the 2023 City Council election.