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New York Times
As Districts Are Redrawn, Wary
Neighbors See Odd Bedfellows
January 26, 2003
Fights often break out when borders are contested. And there
are many borders- political, ethnic, geographic - that are involved
in the city's proposal to redraw the two City Council districts that
meet in Bushwick and Ridgewood at the Brooklyn-Queens border.
Other redistricting disputes have
erupted around the city, notably one that centers on whether to
include Chinatown in the district that covers the Lower East Side,
and the city's Redistricting Commission, which is to hold additional
public hearings on its plan next month, will continue to grapple
with them.
But the case in Ridgewood,
Queens, has been particularly bruising. Opponents of the plan, most
of whom live in Ridgewood, say it is wrong to take a 20,000-person
slice of their 30th District and drop it into the 34th, centered in
Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Bushwick is largely Latino.
Ridgewood has a more mixed population of ethnic whites and Latinos,
many of whom moved there recently.
"They moved from Bushwick to get
away from the politics of Bushwick, which doesn't work very well,"
said Paul Kerzner, a lifelong Ridgewood resident and a leader in a
local campaign against the redistricting plan. "They resent the fact
that they're being pulled back."
Consuelo Vuolo is one. In 1991,
she left Bushwick, where she had lived for 14 years and taught
English as a second language at Intermediate School 291, and settled
in Ridgewood. "Most of my dealings with doctors and schools for my
two children were in Ridgewood," she said. "I like the area."
She and others worry that
creating a council district that merges eastern Ridgewood with
western Bushwick will cause their new neighborhood to turn into
their old one, which they say has more crime and fewer city
services.
Others opponents see dark
maneuverings by Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, who is taken to be the
political lord of Bushwick. Msgr. Edward B. Scharfenberger, the
pastor of Saint Matthias Catholic Church in Ridgewood, said Mr.
Lopez and his allies wanted to add his neighborhood to their
fief.
"It is the Bushwick apparatus expanding their power by expanding
into Ridgewood," he said.
Mr. Lopez countered: "I don't
draw the lines. I only wish I had that type of input."
When the city redraws its lines
after every census, it must ensure that all districts contains
roughly the same number of people. The 34th District has grown more
slowly than others in the city in the last 10 years. Therefore, Mr.
Lopez said, "the city needed to find 20,000 people" for the district, and nearby Ridgewood was
the natural place to get them.
He accused his opponents of
race-baiting on the issue. "They say, 'We don't want the Latinos to
come in, crime to come in, our insurance rates to go up,' " Mr.
Lopez said. "They're trying to make it a
battle." |
