Submissions

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• Brittany
  November 17, 2021
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  Thank you for allowing us to testify on behalf of our communities. -- We are of the belief that Richmond Hill, South Ozone Park and Ozone Park be kept together. South Asian communities should have equal and fair representation and not be subjected to cracked gerrymandering --The entire peninsula of Rockaway should not be grouped together either. The Western and Eastern end are not communities of interest and this grouping will not be beneficial for the underserved and overlooked community of Far Rockaway (Arverne, Edgemere, Bayswater, Far Rockaway). We suggest keeping these areas separate.
  
• Miriam
  November 17, 2021
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  Here is my testimony
  
• JAMES
  November 17, 2021
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  I am sharing with you by the annexed document what would have been my testimony at the hearing.
  
• Brooklyn
  November 17, 2021
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• Wah
  November 17, 2021
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  This is the written testimony for the November 16th, 2021 hearing, which I provided remote testimony.
  
• Wai
  November 17, 2021
  For Assembly Districts covering Corona, Elmhurst, Woodside & Jackson Heights, the Letters plan (AI, AM, AH) most accurately reflects how these communities of interest are divided. Keeping Jackson Heights intact in AH, allows heavily Asian and Latino immigrant communities in AI and AM the ability to elect their own representatives, rather than be dominated by Jackson Heights politicians. The Names plan is problematic because it attaches nearly 20 blocks of affluent Jackson Heights co-op owners, in and near the Historic District, to a working-class Corona based district. The professional-managerial class residents of the Jackson Heights blocks have little regular contact with the working class and heavily Latino immigrant residents south of Roosevelt Avenue in Corona and northeastern Elmhurst. The Unity Map Coalition plan proposes harmful lines for the Corona district. The Unity Map Coalition plan for NYC is a partisan gerrymander and incumbent protection map. It retains many of the lines that Assembly Democrats drew in the 2012 redistricting. The Unity Map lines for the Corona based district appear designed to help the current incumbent by attaching large sections of Jackson Heights. It makes no sense as a community of common interest. Jackson Heights is in NYC School District 30, while Corona and Elmhurst are in School District 24. Affluent Jackson Heights co-op apartment owners are often English-speaking professionals and don't shop at the same local stores or attend the same schools & churches as Spanish speaking working class Corona residents. One group can mostly work from home while the other largely can’t. You should discount current and future maps proposed by the Unity Map Coalition. They purport to offer fair maps that further the interest of minority communities, but they really aren’t an improvement on the commission’s draft maps.
  
• Joan
  November 16, 2021
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  Submitted testimony on behalf of my neighbor.
  
• Joan
  November 16, 2021
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• Lita
  November 16, 2021
  I want to thank the commission for giving me the time to testify: My name is Lita Aeder. I am a member of the Jewish community of Central Queens. Currently, under the current maps, our community is divided between the 27th Assembly District and the 25th Assembly District. The neighborhoods of Kew Gardens Hills, Pomonok, Electchester, and Hillcrest are divided. I am asking this commission to take into account the unification of Kew Gardens Hills, Pomonok, Electchester, and Hillcrest so that Jewish representation is not diluted in this redistricting process. When this commission redraws the Assembly district lines, please incorporate all neighborhoods mentioned into one assembly district. The aforementioned neighborhoods in the south should be connected with College Point, Northern Whitestone, and Le Havre Cooperative in the north. Currently, the Jewish Community in Central Queens is split between 4 state senate districts. It does not allow for any conformity to representation in the State Senate. Your drafts have created a central Queens and Eastern Queens plan that incorporates parts of Kew Gardens Hills being split up again in three districts. Again, we need to be in one State Senate district. We are asking when you redraw your drafts that Kew Gardens Hills, Pomonok, Electchester, and Hillcrest be drawn into a Central Queens district with the neighborhoods of Northern Forest Hills, Middle Village, Glendale, Maspeth, and Ridgewood. Also, Please consider the Eastern Queens map as well, where the neighborhoods I mentioned as a block be included with Fresh Meadows, Oakland Gardens, Little Neck Douglaston, Bayside, and Bay Terrace. Consider your guide eastward between the Long Island Expressway and the Grand Central Parkway to the County Line, before heading strictly north. Please make every effort to keep Kew Gardens Hills, Pomonok, Electchester, and Hillcrest together in both an Assembly District as well as one State Senate district.
  
• Irsa
  November 16, 2021
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• Thomas
  November 16, 2021
  Hello, My name is Thomas Whidden, I live in Brooklyn, and I am a volunteer with Represent Us at the local and state level. Represent Us is a non-partisan anticorruption organization that is at the forefront of fighting corruption in American politics. The process of redistricting in this country and in this state is blatantly corrupt. Lines are drawn through established communities instead of around them. The abstract borders of these districts take away the representation and the power of the communities that they divide. Historically, these lines are drawn to zig and zag, block by block, in an effort to rig the results of elections for the next 10 years. Voters are charged with choosing their representatives for their communities. This is impossible when communities are divided and have their voting power diluted. Senate district 18 is divided through the heart of Greenpoint and North Williamsburg. It goes up to a block from the East River before leaving a sliver for another district. District 50’s lines pop out and include several individual blocks while cutting through multiple neighborhoods. Please pay attention: When New Yorkers look at their districts, they are presented with a visual representation of a corrupt government that is rigged against them. I implore you to draw legislative districts that restore New Yorkers faith in a fair system. This is the only way to regain the trust of our voters, increase voter turnout, and ultimately form a more representative government for all New Yorkers. I demand that the commission draw fair districts that encompass our communities instead of dividing them. What New Yorkers need is a visual representation of a system that works for their communities. Thank you
  
• Keiana
  November 16, 2021
  Hello Commission, My name is Keiana Dunn and have been a 10 year resident of Brooklyn. I am a researcher, where I work at Medgar Evers College and have a child that attends Medgar Evers College Preparatory school. I am in support of the Unity Map Coalition. I want to bring your attention to the Crown Heights South district and make a recommendation for making Medgar Evers college along with Medgar Evers College Preparatory school be represented by one assembly district and not split between two assembly representatives as it has been over the last few decades. This makes it difficult for the only predominantly Black college that serves people of African descent in Central Brooklyn and beyond to compete academically with its sister CUNY colleges and other universities in NYC. It has been a challenge to provide needed support to the students who are first generation college students and boast on one of the top high schools in the country. If merged, the institutions can receive ample resources in real time from their public officials.
  
• Wilbur
  November 16, 2021
  My name is Wilbur Weder. As a resident of the East Side of Manhattan and a veteran, I urge you to keep community boards 6 and 8 together in one Congressional district. As a longtime member of the Bellevue Community Advisory Board and current President of the Auxiliary to Bellevue Hospital Center, I know how important it has been for Bellevue to work in partnership with NYU Medical Center and the VA Hospital. Students from NYU are residents at Bellevue and the VA. Doctors from NYU work at Bellevue and the VA. For example, the New York Simulation Center for Health Sciences is a 25,000 square foot NYU Langone Medical Center facility located within Bellevue Hospital, whose mission is to improve skills and provide learners the opportunity to review and reflect on training experiences. Additionally, NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital (formerly known as the Hospital for Joint Diseases) and Bellevue have partnered on a program to provide medical resources for New York City students who are injured during participation in Public School Athletic League games. As a veteran, the VA Hospital is very important to me. I know that its affiliations with NYU and Bellevue are important to ensuring that veterans receive the highest quality health care. I believe that it is important for all three hospitals to be represented by one Congressional representative who will take the time to understand the partnerships and the needs of all three hospitals. During the Bush Administration, there was an effort to close the VA Hospital and I worked closely with my Congressional representative to ensure that it would stay open. I believe that it made a difference to have a representative who understood the relationships among the hospitals and who could articulate what would be lost if the hospital were closed. Veterans would lose the excellent resources available to them because of its partnerships, and they would not transfer to a more remote institution, such as the Brooklyn VA. I believe that a member of Congress who did not represent all three institutions would not have become as familiar with the relationships between them and would not have made as strong an argument for saving the VA. Finally, I just want to mention one specific incident when it was important for Bellevue to be in the same Congressional district as the rest of Community Board 6. When the Health and Hospitals Corporation put out an RFP to dispose of one of the Bellevue buildings but failed to respect Community Board 6's 197-a plan which calls for scientific, medical, and institutional uses at the site, our Congresswoman weighed in and got the City to reopen the RFP and solicit bids from appropriate organizations. I believe that if our area was subdivided, the member of Congress would not be as interested in taking an active role in this type of concern. Accordingly, I urge you to keep my community in a district that will include the entire East Side.
  
• Steven
  November 16, 2021
  Thank you for allowing me to speak yesterday afternoon. I wish to make a minor correction to my testimony: I referenced Mike Kepi when I meant to say elected David Carr as part of the Republican red wave across Staten Island. I also want to thank the committee for selected the CYO center at Mt Loretto on the south shore. It was the first such time a public meeting was held here. It was met with derision by at least two speakers from the north shore. Numerous buses are not required to travel publicly to get there, as was falsely stated; the S78 rides along Hylan Boulevard directly from the SI Ferry in a 45-minute ride. As far as the extension of the 11th Congressional District into Brooklyn to meet the population requirements, my review of street grid and population voter base leads me to suggest total inclusion of Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights neighborhoods, up to but not north of 65th Street/Gowanus Expressway as a natural physical barrier, with one exception. The single exception would be the inclusion of a very large apartment building (Bay Royal Towers at 420 64th Street which houses hundreds of residents). That brings about an additional 150,000 or so people into the 11th Congressional District. That would make the 14th Avenue corridor as the eastern boundary. If added population is required, I suggest moving over that eastern boundary by one avenue at a time. For example, try 15th Avenue (65th Street to the Belt Parkway). This approach would create a natural block of area rather than some gerrymandered oddball shape, as suggested by the Democratic members of this committee, to create a more Democratic/liberal population into the predominantly Republican/conservative Staten Island base. I do not not back at all the suggestion of extending the 11th District into Lower Manhattan. The two islands bear absolutely no resemble me to each other and to include Manhattan would further dilute Staten’s conservative base. Avoid that inclusion. —— As far as the other districting, one suggestion was made to use north/south Richmond Avenue as a boundary. It makes no sense to do as by any account. The current east/west boundaries make the lost sense as they currently lie. Steven Scalici
  
• Patrick
  November 16, 2021
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