The state’s Reapportionment Committee last week finally produced the new assembly district map. No surprises where Greenwich’s three districts – 149, 150, 151 – are concerned.
It’s same old, same old.
Last summer the Reapportionment Committee held public hearings throughout the state seeking input on a new districting plan. Greenwich attorney Edward Krumeich, who is a Democratic State Central Committee member, presented a plan for Greenwich at the public hearing in Norwalk.
The plan, drawn up by Krumeich and Democratic Town Committee member Joe Kantorski, was the only plan presented for Greenwich.There was no competing plan presented as part of the public process.
While both prominent Democrats, Krumeich and Kantorski were not acting in any official Democratic capacity. They were presenting a non-partisan citizens’ plan for a more sensible districting. Much work went into this plan.
The plan, which followed the zoning map and RTM districts, was consistent with the town’s Plan of Conservation and Development that recognizes the importance of town neighborhoods and villages. It sought to keep residents of communities together with the drawing of new lines. Past practice has been to split up neighborhoods.
The plan proposed by Krumeich and Kantorski put forward assembly district boundaries based on three geographic zones that run from border to border: the 150th district in the shore zone; the 151st in the central zone; the 149th in the backcountry zone.
This would have reunited central Greenwich, Chickahominy and Riverside as neighborhoods in the shore zone. The communities of Cos Cob, Glenville and Pemberwick would have been reunited in the central zone. The emphasis was on maintaining the integrity of communities, not party registration. However, by keeping neighborhoods together, the plan would have also allowed for more politically competitive districts.
Predictably, the plan was ignored, as has been the case in past decades. Going back many years, former Democratic Selectman and longtime BET member, Frank Mazza, worked on a plan that brought together neighborhoods, as did Democratic National Committee member, Mary Sullivan. I myself presented such a plan to the state legislature with the redistricting after the 1990 census.
The truth of the matter is that all three Greenwich assembly districts are accepted by Democrats in the state legislature, as well as by Republicans, to be solid Republican districts. Just as other districts in the state are accepted by both parties to be solid Democratic districts. And it is understood that the parties don’t meddle with each other’s districts.
Greenwich hasn’t elected a Democrat to the state house in a century, not since 1912. And it’s likely to stay that way, by design. For another hundred years? Well, at least for the next ten years.
It’s just a shame that the public hearing process seems to count for so little.
