The Cayuga County Legislature is considering two competing redistricting proposals.
County legislative districts must be redrawn, along with Congressional districts every ten years, following the federal census. The Citizen reports one plan calls for reducing the number of legislators from 15 to 11, while reducing the size of most districts. The other would keep the number of county lawmakers at 15, but would modify district boundaries.
The plans were formulated by Election Commissioners Cherl Heary and Katie Lacey and were submitted to the legislature’s Government Operations Committee. The chair of that committee, Legislator Chris Petrus of Brutus favors the plan to reduce the legislative membership to 11.
Under the plan, the city of Auburn would go from six seats on the legislature to four. The county’s towns would comprise the remaining seven districts as follows:
The new District 1 would be comprised of Ira, Sterling and Victory. District 2 would consist of Conquest, Mentz, Montezuma and Throop. District 3 would include the towns of Brutus and Cato. District 4 would have the towns of Aurelius, Fleming and Springport. Owasco and Sennett would be in District 5, while the towns of Genoa, Ledyard, Locke and Scipio would be part of a C-shaped district in the southern part of the county. District 7 would have five towns — Moravia, Niles, Sempronius, Summerhill and Venice.
Lawmakers say one of the obstacles to drawing districts that meet state law is the narrowness of the county. The legislature’s Ways and Means Committee is set to vote on the plan Thursday. If approved, the proposal would be considered by the full legislature April 26. If the full legislature approves, voters will get their say in November.
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