MAYVILLE - Nineteen new districts have been drawn by the legislature's two caucus leaders.
On the heels of the failed reapportionment work done last month, both Majority Leader Larry Barmore, R-Gerry, and Minority Leader Rudy Mueller, D-Lakewood, have come to a compromise.
A meeting of the reapportionment commission will be held Monday night in Mayville. Readers can view an image of the new map and the tentative districts as drawn by Barmore and Mueller in today's paper.
Article Photos
County legislators are pictured here during the April 2 meeting of the reapportionment commission.
P-J photo by Nicholas L. Dean
Detailed drawings of the city of Jamestown and the village of Fredonia were not released as work is still being done on the specifics of those districts' lines.
"All of this is tentative," Mueller said Friday. "There probably still needs to be some work done, but this is the basic compromise."
The work done by the two legislators reflects only their input on the district lines. Monday's meeting will be the first time the rest of the reapportionment commission has met on the new map. Additionally, Mueller said Friday that the plan has not yet gone to either caucus, and is so far at this point just a compromise between himself and Barmore as leaders in the legislature.
Fewer towns are divided in this new map than were segmented in the plan currently in place, Mueller said Friday.
"We think this is a better plan," Mueller said. "It meets the municipal law, but we want the public to weigh in. We want to hear their concerns. That's the purpose of this meeting Monday night. The commission will hear input from the public and may tweak this map some."
Mueller said there may have to be more meetings of the reapportionment commission following this Monday's meeting.
The reapportionment commission last met on April 2, unanimously passing a plan after several hours of discussion and work. That plan was ultimately voted down by the full legislature for a variety of reasons. Barmore and Mueller took it upon themselves to begin work on a compromised map following that plan's defeat.
According to Legislature Chairman Fred Croscut, R-Sherman, who also chairs the reapportionment commission, the intent of the legislature is to hopefully call for a public hearing to be held in June. Doing that could similarly put the issue to vote next month, ideally putting it aside, Croscut said, so that the legislature can focus solely on the 2012 budget.
The commission meeting Monday will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the legislative chambers on the third floor of the Gerace Office Building in Mayville.