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The new district maps of Westchester County will remain in effect until the next Federal Census in 2020 after the county's Board of Legislators voted Monday night to override County Executive Robert P. Astorino's veto of the redistricting plan.
The legislative committee, chaired by Mt. Pleasant Democrat John Nonna, unanimously approved the redistricting plan on May 2. The legislature then held two public meetings, during which a total of eight people complained about the plan, according to a press release from the BOL office.
The Board again approved the plan the following week with a 12 to 5 partisan vote in favor of the Democrats. The Board voted with the same result Monday night.
Chairman Ken Jenkins saw little reason to uphold the veto if the public did not raise strong objections to the plan.
"After all the hard work that has been put into this, why spend another dollar and start the project from scratch when these new maps have raised so few objections," Jenkins said. "If the County Executive really thinks the re-districting is flawed, then he should step forward and explain to the taxpayers what he would do otherwise. As is, this is a fair plan for all of Westchester's residents."
The county must redistrict every ten years following the Federal Census in order to comply with the United States Constitution and New York States "one person, one vote" law. Each district must have relatively equal population.
The typical standard for compliance is to ensure that no district contains five percent more or less than the average district population of approximately 55,000.
When the Board received the Federal Census data in March, it discovered that District One, which contains Peekskill and parts of Yorktown and Cortlandt, and District Six, which contains part of Harrison and the villages of Rye Brook and Port Chester, did not comply with the law. Each district contained more than five percent more than the average population.
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