Ulster reapportionment panel needs a do-over
Dear Editor,
Regis Obijiski, chairman of the Ulster County Commission on Reapportionment, attempts to blame others for the commission’s terrible redistricting. The commission is responsible for its incompetence. Mr. Obijiski discredits himself and the commission by pointing fingers.
Moreover, Obijiski’s bizarre attempt to shirk responsibility for fixing errors made by a commission fully empowered until the end of 2023 is not worthy of response. He should get better legal advice.
There is another story besides the commission’s legal incompetence. The commission was dominated by its first vice chair, a Republican lawyer appointed by
Ken Ronk, who set about and succeeded to shamelessly dismember Gardiner and several other majority-Democratic districts. Indeed, the reason we found and pointed out the legal error was that we were looking for ways to challenge a map that shamelessly dismembered Gardiner for the political benefit of its neighbors: Ronk and the Shawangunk Republicans.
The commission took the section of Gardiner with the most Democrats and put it into an already blue district that contains most of New Paltz. It then combined three-fourths of Gardiner with a huge chunk of red Shawangunk. This “cracking and stacking” is a standard gerrymandering technique and makes it practically impossible for the blue district currently represented by Tracey Bartels (Democrats outnumber Republicans in Gardiner by 2:1) to elect a non-Republican. Who benefits? Shawangunk Republicans do.
Though this politically motivated split was decried by dozens of Gardiner’s citizens at multiple commission meetings, its attorney/first vice chair did verbal and procedural backflips to persuade her fellow commissioners to protect Ronk’s political interests in the final map. The fatal legal error of the commission is a sideshow to this under-covered main event.
The commission has been a train wreck. It should go back and start from scratch to create fair and legal districts. Moreover, the newly empaneled charter revision commission should explore ways to avert a future disaster by coming up with a way to redistrict not subject to such error and abuse. Tom Kruglinski,
Gardiner, N.Y.