Political Map-Carving Draws Howls

New Haven has a new working map of its political districts — one that’s causing an uproar in East Rock, which could be carved up into six different wards.

A special committee of the Board of Aldermen voted to approve the map Thursday night as part of a once-in-a-decade ward redistricting process.

Now the map goes to the full board for approval. It would take effect at the beginning of 2014. Already, some people are howling about it.

Especially in East Rock. The neighborhood found itself squeezed in the middle of two trends that required a tricky redrawing act: population loss to the west, and population growth to the east of town. Aldermen decided to put slivers and chunks of East Rock into barely connected parts of town stretching from Newhallville and Dixwell to Fair Haven and Bishop Woods.

East Rock would suddenly have lots more aldermen, each of whom would be less answerable to East Rock itself.

Redistricting is an inherently messy process, producing odd-shaped maps. It’s hard to make competing interests happy and still have districts that come out with similar numbers of voters. Sometimes individual officeholders negotiate for prized turf to boost their own power. And unresolved philosophical questions about the broader social good hover over the process: Should a self-contained neighborhood gets its own district? Does that make it stronger? Or does it leave it with just one beholden representative rather than several with whom to exert influence? The same questions hold for racial groups: Do they do better with a guaranteed representative of their own race? Or with having more influence on a number of different representatives, whatever their race? Which scenario gives them more power in the end?

Click here to see the proposed map approved at Thursday night’s redistricting committee meeting at City Hall.

Some highlights (or, depending on your view, lowlights) of the new map:

• The small ​“SoHu” (south of Humphrey Street) enclave of East Rock succeeded in convincing aldermen to remove it from Ward 8, which largely covers Wooster Square. SoHu neighbors argued that they’re part of East Rock instead. But they weren’t happy with the result, because their tightly knit area is carved up again, between downtown’s Ward 7 and East Rock’s Ward 9. SoHu organizer Lisa Siedlarz promptly emailed a petition to neighbors Friday morning. ​“We must show up in numbers at the next board of alderman hearing and make sure they do NOT approve this map!” she wrote. ​“Enough is enough. This is ridiculous jerrymandering (if that’s how you spell it) — and it is clear that this committee does not take into consideration the destruction they cause when chopping up neighborhoods.” The petition had 122 signatures as of Friday afternoon.

• Meanwhile, East Rock’s Ward 9 and the adjoining upper-East Rock Ward 10 would become less and less identified with East Rock. Instead they’d include parts of Fair Haven as far as the Quinnipiac River, on Dover Street, squirming past and practically jumping over Fair Haven Wards like 14 and 15.

• Ward 19, which already bridges Newhallville and East Rock’s Prospect Hill sections, would move east all the way to the doorstep of Livingston Street. Newhallville’s Ward 20 would snag East Rock Road and Ogden Street, right by East Rock Park. Dixwell’s Ward 22 would continue its eastward migration to tony Lincoln Street and to Bradley Street.

• Wooster Square’s Ward 8, losing SoHu, would hop over to the Tomlinson Bridge to Forbes Avenue in the Annex.

• The Hill’s Ward 6 would become partly a downtown ward, picking up portions of the 9th Square.

• And Westville’s Ward 25 returns to including a snippet of a different neighborhood. Ten years ago then-Alderwoman Nancy Ahern succeeded in making the area (known as the ​“flats”) a self-continued ward with coherent boundaries (Fountain Street, Edgewood Park, the Yale fields, Forest Road). The new proposed map has Ward 25 hop over the park again to pick up a sliver of the West River/Edgewood neighborhood to the east.

Expect Amendments

East Rock’s Ward 9 Alderwoman Jessica Holmes said she was one a number of aldermen who voted against sending the plan to the full board Thursday evening. ​“There were some people who thought it could stand some further deliberation,” she said.

Holmes said she’s not happy with what the plan would do to SoHu. Neighbors from south of Humphrey had testified that they wanted to be reconnected with East Rock, Holmes said. ​“And the proposal divides up East Rock into a number of different wards and connects SoHu to downtown.”

East Rock got caught in the middle, Holmes noted. When eastern wards started having to shed population, East Rock’s wards were forced to move east, pulling Newhallville and Dixwell’s Wards 22 and 19 over to cover the west edge of East Rock.

A diverse ward is a good thing, Holmes said. She wants to make sure, however, that ​“there isn’t a group that’s [just] being tacked on to another ward,” she said.

Holmes said she’s planning to get together with some of her neighboring aldermen to come up with an amendment to the proposed map.

Justin Elicker, the other main East Rock representative, said he’ll be working with Holmes on that effort.

Elciker, who’s not a member of the special ward redistricting committee, said aldermen should have approached the process entirely differently. They should have started with a conversation about ​“how many aldermen we need to be an effective body.” Then, ​“how many wards do we need?” Those wards could then be created using natural boundaries in the city.

Instead, the process started from a position of ​“Let’s preserve all the sitting aldermen’s places in the ward,” Elicker said. The process ​“started with self-preservation, not with what’s best for the city.”

As a result, the committee ended up doing exactly what the majority of people testifying at hearings asked it not to do: Crack up East Rock.

“People should be able to walk to their polling places,” Elicker said. Under the proposed map, his Ward 10 would include parts of Middletown Avenue. People would have to take the highway to go vote, he said.

Elicker said it’s too soon to say what effect the new ward lines might have on city governance and on East Rock. ​“In some ways, it might be healthy for the city” to have more people representing East Rock. … In the grand scheme of things, it’s not going to change people’s lives that much.”

Dixwell’s Jeanette Morrison, who stands to pick up a block of Humphrey Street, said she’s fine with the proposed changes. ​“I welcome everyone,” she said. ​“It’s going to be good. A nice mix.”

Hill Alderwoman Jackie James was similarly optimistic. ​“However they move my ward, I’m fine with it. I’m a people person. I’m a community person.”

“In general, I think this was the toughest redistricting I’ve been a part of,” said Board of Aldermen President Jorge Perez, who’s been through two previous rounds. It was made difficult by the humongous growth on the east side of town, where the necessary adjustments sent ripples out across as many as 10 wards.

Alderwoman Dolores Colon, the chair of the redistricting committee, agreed that it was a difficult process. Some aldermen were very concerned about losing constituents to whom they’d grown attached, she said. That’s understandable. ​“However, we’re in the business of serving the city,” she said. ​“Too many people were worried about being re-elected by the people who know and love them.”

Colon said her own ward, Ward 6, now includes part of downtown and Wooster Square, and even extends into Fair Haven. ​“I feel sorry for the voters there,” she said. Instead of walking across the street to their polling place, they will have to schlep all the way over to near the New Haven Register building on Sargent Drive.

“No one is happy, not just the people from East Rock,” she said. ​“We all have issues and crosses we have to carry now.”

While some aldermen just went with the flow and didn’t fuss about the redistricting process, Colon said, ​“some people took it as if you were having them let blood out of their body.”

Ward 29 Avoids Relocation

Aldermen Thursday evening considered another proposed map, one that would have kept East Rock closer to the way it is now. The map, proposed by the consultants working with aldermen on the redistricting process, would have meant big changes for Ward 29, however.

Instead of covering Beaver Hills, Ward 29 would have been shifted across town entirely, to become an entirely new ward on the east side of town. The ward would straddle both sides of the Quinnipiac River, incorporating pieces of Fair Haven, Fair Haven Heights, and the Annex. There, it would have served to take up some of the excess population on that side of town, so that wards elsewhere would have to shift less.

Click here to see the map.

A change like that would have meant Ward 29 Alderman Brian Wingate’s house into Alderwoman Claudette Robinson-Thorpe’s Ward 28. If he would have wanted to run for reelection, he’d had to do so in Ward 28, maybe against Robinson-Thorpe.

But the ward redistricting committee did not approve the map, and chose the other one instead.

Wingate said he’s happy with the map that was chosen. ​“Considering that one of the options was getting rid of Ward 29, I think it’s really good.”