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.TASK FORCE MEMBERS:

ASSEMBLYMAN WILLIAM L. PARMENT,
Co-Chairman

ASSEMBLYMAN CHRIS ORTLOFF

SENATOR DEAN G. SKELOS,
Co-Chairman

SENATOR RICHARD A. DOLLINGER

ROMAN B. HEDGES,
Member

DEBRA A. LEVINE,
Co-Executive Director

LEWIS M. HOPPE,
Co-Executive Director

ASSEMBLYMAN FELIX W. ORTIZ

LIST OF SPEAKERS PAGE

Christopher Strunk

The purpose of all of these hearings is to obtain input from the general public on the wide range of issues impacting our State's process in drawing Congressional State Senate and State Assembly District boundaries. In doing so, the Task Force must meet requirements of Federal and State laws and regulations, as well as numerous court decisions. The goal of this reapportionment process is to provide fair and effective representation for all of our citizens of the great State.

These hearings are an important step towards providing such representation. I wish to point out that as of now we have 47 witnesses who have asked to speak. We are requesting that you keep your testimony under five minutes. We are going to go by order of people contacting the district office, and if you have testimony that you would like to submit, let me assure you that it will be read by the Task Force members and will be a part of the record.

Bill?

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Thank you, Senator. I'm Bill Parment, a member of the Task Force, and without further ado I'll just say why don't we start and take hearing from those of you who are here to give that hearing.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you, Bill. Richard?

ASSEMBLYMAN DOLLINGER: Thank you, Senator, as well as Assemblyman Parment. I have a couple of opening comments that I'd like to take four or five minutes just to lay out. First of all, this is our first hearing in New York City. We've had two previous ones in Syracuse and Binghamton. And what I'm going to say in part is resolved from those first two hearings. And what I'd like to do is just talk to the Commission about two broad categories, setting certain short- and long-term goals for the operation of the Task Force, and a series of steps to increase public awareness and participation in the process that will deeply affect the lives of all of us.

In the first category, setting guidelines to enable the Task Force itself to meet responsibilities, I would suggest the following:

First. I think we need to schedule a meeting, apart from these hearings and as soon as possible, to discuss and establish overall procedures we will follow in discharging our duties.

Second. We should establish and announce a long-term agenda for our proceedings. As many of us familiar with reapportionment know, the last two reapportionments concluded with a chaotic disruption of the election calendar. In both 1982 and 1992 legislative and congressional district lines were not definitively established until early July, requiring last-minute revisions in the election calendar and procedures to qualify candidates for the ballot.

In each of the last three decades, the districts needed to be revised following the Department of Justice's review under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, and all three redistricting plans became the subject of litigation. By setting a long-term agenda for our work and recognizing the possibility -- I think a distinct one -- that history may well repeat itself, we would be in a better position to complete the redistricting process in a timely fashion.

Third. As part of this agenda, we should adopt and publish at an early date a statement of the legal principles derived from the United States Constitution, Federal Laws, and the New York State Constitution, which will govern legislative and congressional redistricting. As we all know, the law on reapportionment and redistricting is undeniably complex, but we cannot draw districts or, for that matter, have anyone in the community attempt to draw them without knowing what the rules will apply.

If we make this statement public we will aid ourselves in the process of achieving that goal, and we may insulate ourselves from charges that we developed a legal basis for our redistricting plans only after they were completed.

Fourth. I would strongly urge the Task Force to address both the legislative and congressional redistricting at the same time. We've had testimony about that in the prior hearings. The unintended result, and our prior experience, when we decided to work on the legislative plan first and then the congressional plan, was that the congressional redistricting was left to a team of court-appointed referees, which then ultimately left the Legislature to ratify a plan that the court would ultimately have imposed on us anyway.

In the end, no congressional redistricting plan was developed by the Task Force and, as a result, there were never any plans and there were never any public hearings on when the plan was finally adopted.

Fifth. I would suggest that the Task Force commission a study to conduct -- by a respected expert -- to analyze the racial voting block patterns within New York State. This information is essential to determining how the Voting Rights Act applies to redistricting in certain localities, and in assessing what racial considerations may appropriately be taken into account in light of the SHAW V. RENO and other court rulings that have followed from this case.

I point out that in 1992 the Legislature's submission to the Justice Department under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act included such an analysis. We should commission such a study and it should be made public well before the State's submission under Section 5, in good time for all of us to evaluate its findings and to use it in evaluating and developing redistricting proposals. The findings, I believe, should be subject to a public hearing to allow us to ask questions on the methods and results and help the public learn more about these recommendations.

I believe these five recommendations will help the operation of this task force achieve its goal, and I believe could be vitally important to the work before us.

I would like to address the other side of the coin, helping the public to fully understand and participate in the redistricting process. To begin with, I would suggest that all future public hearings held by this task force be scheduled in evening hours. We could begin in the late afternoon, break for dinner, and then reconvene in the evening. We could accommodate interested members of the public who would not otherwise be able to leave their jobs during the day. And I would suggest that it would be convenient for those who have to travel significant distances to attend the meetings, as well, such as our witnesses -- and I note some today in the audience who traveled all the way to Binghamton from Jamestown and further parts of the 31st Congressional District.

I also think we need to undertake an extensive outreach effort to New Yorkers to keep then informed about the process, to reach out in as many ways as possible, including the development of a mailing list of interested persons and organizations, creating an e-mail list, which is similarly fast and convenient and an inexpensive way to spread details, advertising public hearings in the press, and developing a comprehensive redistricting website.

In that regard, I know that a number of states across the nation have established excellent redistricting websites, providing the public with a wealth of useful information. This website could include a statement of relevant legal principles, links to important court decisions, district maps with current demographic and political data, proposed maps -- demographic, geographic -- and political databases for developing the redistricting process. New York should follow the leads of these other states.

The last thing I would do is to maximize public participation is develop guidelines for this participation. These guidelines should include deadlines for submissions of proposed redistricting plans, formats for submissions, and other relevant details. I have made most of these suggestions in a letter which I have forwarded to the Commission members, but I wanted to articulate them again this morning, because I believe that this is the -- we need to have a framework so we make sure that we do the job the public requires consistent with our obligations under State and Federal Law.

Thank you, Chairman.

SENATOR SKELOS: Assemblyman Ortloff?

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: I'll try to be brief and state that I would hope that the Task Force will have a meeting in due course before we begin to draw lines, and I believe that we've already discussed that, and I have every faith that we'll come together and do that. It is important that we and the public know the rules. This is not a game; it's a serious public purpose. But, like a game, it has rules, and if some don't know the rules they cannot participate. So it is important for the public to understand the steps by which the Task Force draws the lines.

We're talking about a process that is necessarily political, a process that establishes districts for the purposes of holding elections, which are political activities. But we're not talking so much about candidates and office holders, as we are about people, and neighborhoods, and communities, who have a right under our Constitution, as we have a duty to affirm that right, to elect representatives of their choice from those communities, in ways that are not impeded by artificial barriers in the drawing of lines.

This is a political process, but it need not disserve the people. And if we hear from members of the public today, I would simply ask each and every person who comes before us to address your concerns in terms of your community, your interest, and how you believe the drawing of legislative and congressional lines can best serve the ability of your communities to be represented. There are, of course, concerns about incumbents and candidates. This is a process that inevitably results in people being elected to serve, but it is first and foremost a process of defining the communities which make up the tapestry of this state and, in course, in the nation. So I welcome the opportunity to hear the people of Manhattan today, and thank you, my colleagues, for the opportunity to say something.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you. Roman?

MR. HEDGES: Just one observation. There are a goodly number of people that I see in the audience already that we've known for 10 and 20 years, who have been involved in this process, and it's good to see them back, and it's good to see a lot of new faces, as well. We look forward to the day.

SENATOR SKELOS: I would agree with you. Having been the Co-Chair 10 years ago, a lot of familiar names and some great stories from back then. You'll enjoy it.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: One additional comment that I did want to make is that this task force is a task force created by State legislation, and the members are appointed by, on one hand the Majority Leader of the State Senate, and the other the Speaker of the State Assembly. And State law does charge us with the task of recommending to the State Legislature a plan for the redistricting of the State Assembly, the State Senate, and New York's Congressional District lines. And I just wanted, for those of you who may wonder who we are and how we happen to be up here, that's how that came to be.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you. Actually, it starts with the State Constitution.

Chris Strunk.

MR. STRUNK: Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this morning. My name is Christopher Earl Strunk. I'm here representing myself as an eligible voter. I'm a resident of New York City and a citizen of New York since '74, born in New York. I'm going to limit my comments to give minutes. There is a three-page summary of my testimony and Exhibits A through F associated with that.

I should say that my presence here is also related to Senate Bill 773. I've read that, I have disagreements with it, and those will be sorted out over the next couple of months.

I am here to give notice to prevent a repeat of what the State Legislature did in conspiracy with the Democratic and Republican State Committees with the 1990 Census apportionment by gerrymandering, using an egregious practice of invidious economic discrimination against minorities by segregation of minorities done in the 6th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 15th, 16th and 17th Congressional Districts.

The Legislature then had gerrymandered by drawing major majority CDs with significantly less eligible voters than the mean state average of eligible voters per CD, without exception, when compared to the major caucasian CDs, as a copy of the accompanying table depicts -- Exhibit D.

New York legislative gerrymander of CDs with less eligible voters in each minority CD has resulted in less total mean income per minority CD when compared significantly with caucasian CDs, with more eligible voters, thereby with more mean income per caucasian CD. Why? Because those ineligible to vote, i.e. minors under 18, aliens, prisoners, essentially those in custody of the State, essentially have no income compared with eligible voter citizens. Less eligible voters per CD causes more distress to real property ownership when arbitrarily included within established or redrawn CDs, relates directly to competition for Federal subsidy over time and, as such, has allowed for special interest interlopers from outside such minority CDs to acquire such distressed property over the interest of minority individuals and community interests within each such CD, and has been done by conspiratorial gerrymandering designed for less minority mean total income than caucasian communities. And this is without exception and it's significant.

I deplore such discriminatory practice and implore the Legislature, or the so-called non-partisan Commission, as referenced in Senate Bill 773, to get a backbone. Fight to recover the eligible voter right to no less than 45 CDs for the State of New York, as is proscribed by the U.S. Constitution, which everybody seems to forget, and proscribed by Senate Bill 773.

I fight for -- and you should fight for -- an equal voice in the Electoral College, as we just experienced over the last few months, and it's been a nightmare. And as per my argument shown in Exhibit E, I demand -- and you should demand -- due process before any CDs are eliminated for just cause, as required under the 14th Amendment, Section 2. And, moreover, I want you to fight to prevent disproportionate dilution and diminishment of each eligible voter's right to representation in the House, and that is so proscribed -- and whether it's followed or not -- and it has been followed in Senate Bill 773.

I demand that there be no less than equal totals of eligible voters in each resultant CD, which also means equal number of those ineligible to vote in each redrawn CD. Eligible voters and every citizen of the State of New York is entitled to a level economic playing field to prevent any basis for unequal treatment under color of law and/or deprivation of property, economic rights, protected against under the 5th, 9th, 10th, and especially the 14th Amendment's Instruction to Congress by the several states.

Now, I'm going to skip over this just to fit within my five minutes, but the whereases here are for you gentlemen. And if anybody would like to have a copy of this it's three bucks. Pursuant to above wrongs in search of available remedy, I filed a Civil Rights case in the Eastern District of New York against Federal defendants, the Speaker of the New York State Assembly, Mr. Silver, President Pro Temp of the Senate, Mr. Bruno, the Governor, Secretary of State, along with defendants the Republican and Democratic Committees for their refusal to defend New York State eligible voters' right to equal representation in U.S. House of Representatives, and as reflected in the right to an Electoral College vote.

Now, I find my defendants' egregious practice of gerrymandering has been done against the interest of eligible voters and all the persons of New York since no later than 1950 apportionment. I attach a copy of my latest correspondence to the Federal Court as Exhibit F. And I'm open for questions.

SENATOR SKELOS: Questions? Thank you.

The next speaker is Michael Landau.

MR. LANDAU: Good morning, members of the Task Force. My name is Michael Landau, and I'm the Chairman of the Council of Orthodox Jewish Organizations of the West Side, also known as the West Side COJO. We are an umbrella organization representing the interests of over 20 local schools, synagogues, and social service groups. Amongst its various activities, the West Side COJO represents the interests of our members with regards to issues that relate to the many administrative, legislative, and executive agencies that affect the well-being of our constituents.

The overwhelming majority of our members are located between the upper 60s to the low 100s, and from Central Park West to Riverside Drive. The West Side COJO is very unique, in that we've been able to create and maintain a coalition of almost all the Orthodox Jews in our neighborhood ranging from the Hasidim and ultra orthodox to the very modern orthodox.

One of the reasons for our success is the very nature and historical social fabric that has given the West Side such a venerable and envied reputation as one of the most desirable places to live in New York. I believe that one of the key ingredients that has created and sustained such a cohesive community has been the consistent and clear political representation that has always defined our neighborhood.

In this generation The Honorable Jerry Nadler has clearly been the West Side's most eloquent and forceful leader, who has demonstrated that he clearly understands the intricacies and subtleties that affect our district. The Congressman has demonstrated time and again his local knowledge and community skills by reestablishing equilibrium when heated issues are raging. This ability would clearly be lost if our community was represented by an East Side politician, or one from lower in Manhattan.

Senator Eric Schneiderman has also demonstrated similar characteristics, as well as the ability to understand the special and complicated makeup of the Upper West Side. Any attempt to amend the boundaries of our Senatorial District could have a devastating and longlasting detrimental effect to the political and social stability of our community. The ability for any community to continue to grow and flourish is undoubtedly a function of its leadership. The Upper West Side's unique, complicated, and sometimes fragile social and economic fabric requires the dedicated attention of people whose past, present and future are as intertwined, as involved, as that of the people who reside within.

In conclusion, I would like the Committee to understand that we would recommend no changes to the existing boundaries as they relate to the Upper West Side districts, and if changes do need to be made, then I would recommend that the various confusing and illogical slivers of neighboring districts that encroach the Upper West Side be reallocated to the natural West Side legislators, Congressman Jerry Nadler and Senator Eric Schneiderman. Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much. Any questions?

The next witness is Luther Blake.

MR. BLAKE: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

SENATOR SKELOS: Luther, let me just say it's been 10 years but it's good to see you again.

MR. BLAKE: Once again I see the same faces. My name is Luther Blake. I've been involved in districting. This is my third go-round. I was a member of the New York City Districting Commission, which redrew the City Council Districts. I was also the lead consultant for the Nassau County Commission on Government Revisions, which created a Nassau County District. Recently -- this is a couple of years ago -- when Congresswoman Nidia Valesquez's seat was declared unconstitutional I was given the task of redrawing the districts to bring them into conformity with the law.

One of the things that we badly need -- and I find myself in agreement with Senator Skelos -- public access to the data. There should be public access to the data that's being used by LAD 4 in terms of TIGA (phonetic) files. I remember 10 years ago LAD 4 had BTD maps available for the public. There has to be a way for the public to understand the data. Redistricting is an extremely complicated matter and a political matter, and it's not just simply moving people around. It will be one of the greatest things in the world if we had an access terminal for the public to be able to use, which we had in the City Council. The access terminal would have the data loaded into it and have someone there to operate it, and in terms of being able to come up with an idea.

There must be published redistricting criteria. How many districts have to be drawn in order for you to look at it? Obviously, a district by itself is much like a jigsaw puzzle; it has to be fitted in to that particular area. How you submit alternative plans, that has to be published. Most public organizations have no idea how you submit redistricting plans. And, again, a comprehensive public hearing scheduled, a meeting at 11 o'clock on a Thursday is sort of ridiculous, if you're truly talking about getting public participation.

Most people didn't hear about this until Saturday, when it was published in the paper. What role is the Governor going to play? This is the first time I have heard of the Governor taking a position in districting, aside from signing the bill. There's a rumor going around -- a large rumor -- that says that the Senate is going to increase its number. I don't know whether that's true or false. The Senate has a formula that is based on Article 3, Section 4, Paragraph 4 of the New York State Constitution, adopted in 1894. The ratio for the Senate shall always be obtained by dividing the number of inhabitants by 50, and the Senate shall always be composed of 50 members, except of any county having three or more senators at the time of any apportionment shall be entitled on such ratio to an additional senator. Such additional senator or senators shall be given to such counties in addition to the 50 senators as the whole number of senators shall be increased to that extent. And if you understand that, what you have -- and this is based on 1894, where counties that existed are no longer there. It seems somewhat absurd.

On another issue, this is the first time in 30 years there's not been a person of color on the Task Force. As we all know, New York City -- New York -- is governed by the Voting Rights Act and, you know, many of you have been through this before, and one of the things that we all look at -- the Justice Department looks at -- is the extent of minority group participation in the process. And I'm not blaming you members of the Task Force because you are appointed by the leadership in your various parties. How is congressional districting going to be accomplished?

In the past what has happened when New Yorkers lost two seats there's been one district upstate and one district downstate. I don't know, are they still going to do the same thing? The numbers in New York City have increased dramatically. Mathematically, it would seem that New York would not lose a congressional district downstate. I have to amend that, because I understand downstate starts at Albany, politically. But I also understand that this is the ultimate political process, and it's the ultimate negotiating process. So I would think that at the end of this there will be one upstate and one downstate.

And, furthermore, I would like to see, as I said earlier, the public hearings in the afternoon and in the evening. Many of us, we have a group that's called the Coalition of Redistricting Professionals. These are people who have long been involved in districting. We have the capacity to draw our own plans. We will be submitting plans to the Task Force at the appropriate time. Thank you, and are there any questions?

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you, Luther. It's good to see you.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Just one. Luther, with respect to access to the data, would it be your intention, or do you know of any groups that would draw a plan and submit it to this commission if they had access to all the data that you talked about?

MR. BLAKE: Absolutely.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: I have a followup to that. Luther, could I ask you one followup?

MR. BLAKE: Sure.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: The question that you were just asked really has to be asked in a more technical way. Access to the data in terms of being able to look at sheets of paper with the numbers on it, as I'm sure you know, is hardly usable. Would you recommend that access to the data be by electronic interface with compatible software so that computers can talk to one another?

MR. BLAKE: What I would recommend, Lou, is that similar to what the City Council had 10 years ago, a public access terminal where the data -- you can set it up anywhere -- a standalone public access terminal where, let's say, my community organization comes in and we have an idea for a plan. We don't have the -- given the fact that software runs $5,000, we don't have access to the software -- where a plan can be derived. Let's say a congressional seat is like 54,000 now. I want to draw a congressional district. I draw that district. It's within the zero deviation that's required, and I will have a plan of that district where I can get a map and perhaps an assignment list on a disk to be able to submit to the Task Force. That's what I had in mind.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: Thank you.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Just one other followup, just one quick one. I guess I would have to be convinced that we don't have the technology that would allow you to download all the software necessary. After all, to the extent that it's in the hands of anybody sitting on this side of the table, the taxpayers have paid for it. I mean, it's owned by the government. It could easily be downloaded. You could go to a website, download the computer software, download everything you need, and then draw the plan on your own computer and submit it back to us.

And my one question to you is, there's been a suggestion that by doing it that way we would not meet our full goal of maximizing participation because not everybody has access to a computer that's fast enough or has enough memory or enough speed to be able to download. These are massive files. These are files with huge databases.

MR. BLAKE: I understand that, but the problem is not the computer. The problem is the redistricting program.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Right.

MR. BLAKE: Redistricting programs are quite expensive. It's not just data so much.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Right, but we could -- There's no reason, at least that I know, why you couldn't dial it up -- download the expensive software. I mean, maybe there's a legal requirement or some restriction on it, but it seems to me we bought and paid for that with your tax dollars and we should make it available to everybody.

MR. BLAKE: I would have absolutely -- I would welcome the idea. All right? Most computers today have 10 gigabytes or more that you buy off the shelf. So I don't see where that would truly be a problem. A computer program, most of them run somewhere around 1 gigabyte on the hard drive. It would be quite possible.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you.

The next witness is Frank Lewis.

MR. LEWIS: Good morning, everyone. It's good to see you again. You'll have to bear with me a little bit. I am currently dealing with some impaired vision problems from diabetes, and I actually took the liberty of making a large font statement to read from. I'm going to have surgery next week to correct it, but just bear with me.

As I'm sure some of you know, my name is Frank Lewis, and I was raised -- born and raised and still live in Brooklyn, New York. Currently I work as a software training manager during the day and instructor in mathematics, economics, and information systems at New York University in the evenings. My experience in legislative redistricting includes way back in 1981 and '82 I worked on the staff of New York State Assemblyman Woodrow Lewis as a Research Analyst, and in 1990 and '91 I worked on the staff of the New York City Redistricting Commission as a Research Systems Analyst. And in '91-'92 I worked on the State Senate Minority Leader's Office as a Research Analyst and, also, the State Supreme Court Referee Team back in '92 on the U.S. Congressional districting for New York State. And in 1994 I worked as a consultant for Nassau County Legislative Districting Project.

Now, I'm just going to bypass some segments in the interests of time in my statement, but I think everyone has a copy on the Task Force of my statement.

Today we're still living in a transition period, which is characterized by an uneven distribution of availability throughout society of the very computing resources that we talk about so much. Like other technologies before it, home computers are making their way down the economic ladder as costs decline.

Now, in addition to this problem, the knowledge distribution of redistricting and GIS amongst the public at large has not kept pace with the availability of hardware technology. As a result, there is currently a gap between the level of public knowledge and the power of tools available. The potential availability of GIS to the masses, so to speak, gives us the opportunity to adapt our living, breathing democracy to the Information Age by allowing the average citizen to give meaningful and pragmatic input into the redistricting process. This is where government comes in as a facilitator to making this technology a tool available to all who want to practice the art of democracy.

To that end, the 1990 to 1991 New York City Council Districting Project evolved on one level into a pioneering public input initiative that had a significant positive impact. This initiative consisted of the following elements in chronological order. First, there was an education and outreach element. Then there was initial public hearings, public access programs and public feedback hearings. Now, the education and outlook efforts consisted of a team of community liaisons going out to meet with several organizations that spanned the spectrum of diversity on many dimensions. The objective of these meetings were to simultaneously educate and encourage the organizations to participate in the redistricting process. Occasionally, the technical staff participated in each of these endeavors, as well.

We were also encouraged to visit and tour certain neighborhoods and perform research from geographic, historical, economic, as well as political and demographic perspectives. The initial public hearings was just one channel of public input to the commissioners. These hearings were conducted in the evening hours to allow for access by the majority of voters who work during the day, without having to sacrifice work time to exercise a civic duty, an accommodation akin to that made for voting.

Through the public access program, anyone, or organization, could sit down with a GIS user terminal -- I'm sorry, GIS user-trained staff person and outline a proposed district or group of districts. The client would get a copy of the map, along with a demographic breakdown of the proposal. The proposal was submitted to the Commission, as well. The ideas represented by proposed maps, as well as verbal suggestions from the initial public hearings, were consolidated into a set of scenarios for each borough, and presented to the Commission for review, analysis, and discussion.

The two rounds of public feedback hearings were held to get a sense of public opinion on the different scenarios presented to the Commission by the staff, and the first draft of the districting plan. Additional proposals were still looked at as they were presented during these hearings, even right up to the last weekend. There were specific tactics employed which, in retrospect, were critical to the success of this entire initiative. First, a comprehensive, prudently-targeted and economical public relations campaign was held to ensure a healthy public turnout level. Second, the Commission made available all of the census political data that was used by the Commission on 12 1.2 megabyte 5-1/4 diskettes to anyone who requested it and paid $50 to cover production costs.

In order to consolidate the publicly-submitted maps and descriptive commentary of proposed districts in a presentable fashion, I used an approach I've called the "conflict focus matrix." The Research System staff was assigned one borough per person. I was assigned my home borough of Brooklyn. By far, Brooklyn received the highest number of publicly-submitted plans and proposals, approximately 40. These plans varied from single districts to comprehensive borough-wide plans.

Now, I created a matrix on paper with the 40 rows and 40 columns to correspond with each of the 40 plans submitted. Any plan that was in conflict with any other plan got a "C" placed in the box, representing the row-column intersection of those two plans. By eyeballing I could see which plans were compatible on a large-group scale. This approach does not in theory guarantee an absolutely minimum number of scenarios, but I found it to be what we call in my trade a good working heuristic.

This approach also allows the flexibility of a specific districting plan to be included in more than one scenario, if one decided and if feasible. This approach allows one to focus on where the conflicts among public preferences exist. The end product of this process was the creation of five borough-wide scenarios that included all of the ideas and proposals submitted by the public. This served as an invaluable framework for discussion by the commissioners. The steps for the creation of a conflict matrix -- Well, I won't go into that, but I've outlined five steps that I think could be geared more towards the LAD 4 Task Force and the task of Congressional and Assembly and Senate Districts, and you'll see in the handout I have an hypothetical example of a conflict focus matrix.

Let me just say in closing, one additional technology advantage that exists today, that we did not have back in 1991, is availability of the internet. It is perfectly feasible to post publicly-submitted maps onto the web to solicit and encourage public dialogue. I believe that some states already have plans to do this. Obviously, New York State covers more geographic area than New York City. Also, the criteria involved for the State -- Senate, Assembly and U.S. Congressional redistricting -- is different than that of the New York City Council. It would probably be prudent to set up a taxonomy for collecting publicly-submitted plans by region. A few regions may even necessitate a smaller breakdown to counties, like New York City. Much of this depends on how many plans are received. In turn, the number of submissions, to a great extent, is dependent on the education outreach effort.

I believe that in the long run on all levels of government, there will be more and more proposed plans submitted by the public within the districting process. The initial effort of the New York City Districting Commission brought out almost 100 individuals and organizations to the first public process terminal meetings. Also, thanks to the availability of GIS technology, particularly to public interest groups, a consensus of what's feasible and infeasible is reached in the arena of public discourse that never existed before.

A good example of this is the versions of the 12th Congressional District, Nidia Valesquez's district, that were floating around during the 1992 process. No longer can elected officials withhold knowledge exclusively from the public about the geographic, demographic dynamics of redistricting exercises. Frankly, some -- not all -- elected officials may be uncomfortable with this. Rather than resist they should embrace it or, as my generation likes to say, roll with it. Like it or not, there is no turning back the clock. If the value of public input process is questioned, one should ask the members of the New York City Districting Commission. Personally, I can say that many ideas were incorporated from the public, some obvious and some not so obvious. In fact, in one particular case the public turned out to be a little bit ahead of the Commission. When the Commission finally finalized their plan on June 30th, 1991 it was immediately submitted to the Justice Department as part of the routine process all districting plans from New York State go through.

Not surprisingly, since no plan has ever surpassed this obstacle on the first try, a list of three objections were returned. In retrospect, the remedy for one of the objections resembled quite closely one of the publicly-submitted plans. The ultimate value of a comprehensive and thorough public input process is to allow for more creative sources of ideas for making the representative apparatus of our government more efficient and effective. Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much.

The next witness is Wilbur Weder.

MR. WEDER: Good morning and thank you for this opportunity to testify on this important matter. My name is Wilbur A. Weder. I am a resident of the East Side, on East 24th Street in the 14th Congressional District, and I am Chairman of the Bellevue Hospital Center's Community Advisory Board. I believe you should have a copy of my statement that I submitted, but I'd like to give it to you now orally.

Our Community Advisory Board consists of community activists appointed by groups such as the local community boards of Manhattan. We are from the local community and communicate community needs to the hospital administration in the Health and Hospitals Corporation. I am here to urge the inclusion of all East Side hospitals in the 14th Congressional District. The concentration of these facilities in one congressional district is fully justified on important economic and medical grounds.

The 14th Congressional District contains an extremely high concentration of hospitals, perhaps more than any other congressional district in the country. For many years these hospitals have benefitted from this concentration of medical facilities in Representative Carol Maloney's district. Representative Maloney has a full understanding of the research and medical needs of our hospitals. More important, she knows how to bring the necessary Federal funds from Washington, D.C. to us.

A split would mean that the different hospitals would be forced to negotiate for Federal aid with different congressional representatives. This process would lead to redundancy and perhaps even a lessening of Federal aid to the hospitals in our city, as the hospitals would unnecessarily compete amongst themselves.

A division of the hospitals into two or more districts would change the hospitals from being the major employer in the 14th Congressional District to just one of several large employers in a number of congressional districts. Since hospitals would no longer be the major employer in the 14th District, the representative in that district -- and we may not always be as fortunate as we are now with Representative Maloney -- may not push as hard to address the needs of our hospitals and their patients.

Any reduction in Federal assistance to the hospitals that comprise the system would have an adverse impact on employment and the City's economy. Further, inappropriate district lines will result in setbacks for medical research because of the possible duplication and division of efforts. This duplication of effort may cost lives.

The 14th Congressional District is known as the "silk stocking district." The relative affluence of this district allows our legislative leaders to devote themselves to long-term problems. In less-affluent areas leaders must devote a tremendous amount of time to meeting the short-term immediate needs of their constituents. As individuals, we do not have the resources to spend on health needs because we have more pressing needs, such as paying the rent, buying food, and paying for the increasing costs of utilities.

Economic security would allow us to devote more time and attention to our health needs. Similarly, as a society meeting essential needs of shelter and food are attended to before we care for the sick and infirm. Because of the relative influence of the 14th Congressional District, Representative Maloney is able to devote considerable attention to assuring that the medical research and health care needs of our patients are met. We fear that if some hospitals are included in districts with more pressing needs, then the needs of the hospitals and their patients may be neglected.

Representative Maloney has helped assure the Federal Government is paying its fair share of the costs of all the hospitals in the district -- public and private, sectarian and non-sectarian. She has developed a system that balances the needs of the hospitals and facilitates cooperation. Let us not destroy a system that works for all. I urge you to maintain the current district as it exists now. Thank you very much.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Would you submit to us a list of the addresses of the important health care facilities that you feel should be contained in one congressional district?

MR. WEDER: Yes, I will. Can I submit that later for the record?

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Yes.

MR. WEDER: I don't have it with me.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: If you could send that to the Task Force.

MR. WEDER: I certainly will.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Thank you.

MR. WEDER: You're welcome.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Just a couple of other questions. I agree with Assemblyman Parment, if you could get those addresses to us. This district, the 14th District, includes part of what I think is Queens and maybe part of Brooklyn. I'm not a New York City resident. My question is, are there similar hospitals located in the other boroughs that are included in this district, or are these simply Manhattan-based hospitals?

MR. WEDER: There is other hospitals that are a part of the Health and Hospitals Corporation. There are the private hospitals, as you know, that run along the East Side of Manhattan.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Right. My question is, are there hospitals in the Queens and Brooklyn portions of this district that would be included?

MR. WEDER: Yes. There is no -- I don't believe Brooklyn is a part of the district, sir.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: It's just Queens then.

MR. WEDER: Just Queens, yes, and there are some facilities. But I can give the list of all of the hospitals that are in that congressional district and their addresses, where they're located. I just am not familiar with all of them.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Okay. And the only other thing I want to say, and I don't know if we've said it this morning but we certainly said it throughout upstate New York. I think everybody should recognize that in addition to the task of directly changing the configuration of these districts, which is the option of this commission to make a recommendation to the Legislature. Please understand that given the changes in demographics we have to find -- maybe the Chair knows better -- but in the 14th Congressional District we've got to come up with 47,000 more people in order to meet our obligation to directly apportion the congressional district. So, I just -- We heard in Syracuse and in Binghamton a lot of discussion about the importance of incumbents, which I think is -- since you're looking at least at four legislators who are incumbents, we understand the importance of that. But our duties go beyond that, and given changes in population, we will change the configuration of this district. We're going to have to find more people, for starters, and I just want you to be aware that this district will look different than it does today, simply because we have to add more people to it. The discretion that we have, the authority that we have and that the Legislature has, is to find those people and put them in those districts. And we appreciate those comments, but just Assemblyman Parment is correct, if you could give us the addresses of all the hospitals, including those in Queens, it could be helpful.

MR. WEDER: Yes. I'd be happy to do that, and I just want to urge you, though, when you do redraw the lines -- and you're adding, you say, 47,000 more voters to the district -- I hope you will --

SENATOR DOLLINGER: People, not voters.

MR. WEDER: Or people. I do hope that you will keep the hospitals together in the same district, because I think that enables us to then have a good representation in terms of our presence in Washington, D.C.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Just one other question. We heard some testimony up in Binghamton from people from Cornell, who expressed a preference -- and, again, Commission members, correct me if I'm wrong, but as I recall it, they expressed a preference to be at the juncture of three congressional districts so that Cornell could get the benefit of three advocates on their behalf. And, frankly, it was a bipartisan activism. It included two members of the Republican majority in the House -- as you know, the House is very closely divided -- and one Democratic member. The fact that there might be this district would have a couple of representatives advocating for us, would that change your view if it was divided in such a way that maybe all the hospitals weren't together? Would you rather have one or two?

MR. WEDER: I think at this point we would prefer to have one. When we do ask for support from our congressional representatives, we do reach out to others besides just Congresswoman Maloney. We reach out to Congresswoman Valesquez and others, so that, you know, we're looking at it really from the point of view of how we can best benefit the whole system, not just public hospitals, but public and private.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: The answer is to keep the hospital district, the "silk stocking district," together.

MR. WEDER: We would like to see that happen, sir.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Thank you. Thank you very much.

SENATOR SKELOS: Any other questions? Thank you. Carol Rinzler.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: I would like to recognize that we've been joined by for the Assembly Felix Ortiz.

MS. RINZLER: Good morning. I was delighted to hear you say that you wanted to hear about communities, because I live on the East Side, and what I want to say is not just about a community but a very personal community, and that's my family, and our experience on the East Side.

If you don't live on the East Side of Manhattan it is sometimes a surprise to hear that people who live at the lower part of the district have much in common with the people who live at the upper part of the district. But I would submit to you my grandmother, whom we call "Gussie" -- her name was Gloria and we fought about that for 50 years -- my grandmother liked to say that she went from Essex Street to the Essex House -- Essex Street on the Lower East Side, the Essex House on Central Park South.

The route she traveled was three miles, it took her 30 years, and people still make the same journey. They go up Allen Street, they go up First Avenue, they go across at 57th Street, they get off the bus, and they walk one block up to Central Park South. Newcomers of all races and all religions make this trip. They have the same hospitals, they have the same transportation, they share a school district, they share judicial districts, and somehow it manages -- I'm sorry, this is not what I wrote -- somehow it manages to come together in a kind of American soup that is possibly not visible to people who don't live here.

Carolyn Maloney represents this, and in watching Carolyn move up and down the East Side, it is watching a representative most among groups and among ages and among different kinds of people, and bringing together the same kind of experience that my grandmother had. So I would like very much to keep this district together.

And as for Queens, a lot of people went into Queens from the Lower East Side and, again, with the hospitals, they share the same hospitals. The bus route goes over the bridge, and all the infrastructure is there for a cohesive and coherent district. I understand the necessity of bringing people into it, and just as I'm always in favor of immigration because it improves the menu at every country that you bring new people into -- I'm a nutrition writer and I love new food, and in my books I always say how grateful we should be for the mix of people because the table is so much more interesting. I like the East Side because the table is very interesting, and I would like to keep it the same and keep the same representative, and bring more people in to enjoy it. And I thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: One question. Carol, if you could stay there. If I said to you we needed 50,000 more people, how far west on the East Side would you go to get them?

MS. RINZLER: On the East Side?

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Well, this is an --

MS. RINZLER: For me the East Sides goes from the river to Central Park and into Central Park. I mean, the police precincts work together, too. It's interesting because this is obviously redistricting redux, and in 1990 I was fascinated by in the City the discussion of voting for green people and blue people, because I wanted yellow, and if I couldn't get yellow I wanted pink. And when we ran the numbers at the end, two reporters, Dick Oliver and Mickey Carroll, were kind enough to use my numbers in their columns. I am an amateur, but I can add. And what happened was that 86 or 87 people in Queens, and 88 people in Brooklyn got the representation of 100 people in Manhattan. And Manhattan, which is so important not only to the State but to the country -- I mean, Will was talking about the hospitals. We bring people here from all over the world. We don't just have good hospitals, we have world class hospitals and they work together because of the mix on the East Side.

Manhattan needs the representation it has. Everybody benefits from it, and I think what I am most interested in making clear is that despite its public image, the East Side of Manhattan is a mix. It is not a uniform district, it is an extraordinary mix, and it is, as I said before, it is American soup, and it is still that today, so I would like to keep it the same.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Just one other question. We've used these terms in Syracuse and Binghamton before. Would you make it fatter? Would you bring it further west or would you extend it further north and south if we needed to add people. Again, given your experience as someone who has lived in the district and moved through it, is there more attachment to moving south or north, or moving west?

MS. RINZLER: I want north and south, and I want east and west. I mean, you're asking me to decide to make Solomonic decision between children. What I am most interested in is keeping the integrity of the district which is an extraordinary part of the country, and keeping a representative, who is an extraordinary part of the country, and keeping representation for Manhattan. I understand the upstate-downstate fight, and I'm not stupid, but I also understand that we have gained population here, that the representation is important, and I will also take diagonally. So, whichever way --

SENATOR DOLLINGER: You would continue to prefer north-south of Manhattan, cutting it north and south.

MS. RINZLER: I don't think that I would want to be put in a box that way. I like the north-south because it's my experience of the district. But -- but west is okay, too.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Thanks.

SENATOR SKELOS: One question. Is the East Side Congressional District with the West Side, is that compatible?

MR. RINZLER: He's asking me. Sure. Of course it's compatible. Look, the broad outline of the West Side of New York and the East Side of New York are clear. There are interests which unite the part of the district that belongs to the East Side. I really don't think that we should be put into -- I'm trying to think of polite terms for the contract -- I don't think that we should be put into that kind of situation. I think we should have contiguous districts. I think we are well-served, and I think that we are a -- there's a term I use sometimes in writing, which everybody else has used, which is multicultural. You know, we are, and I like it tremendously. I was out of Manhattan for a couple of years when I lived in Long Island. I think that Mr. Skelos is my mother's State Senator right now. But I came back, and what I came back for was the diversity I find here. And I think that sometimes the actual diversity of the East Side of New York is subsumed into a vision of people who look the same, talk the same, walk the same, and act the same, and they don't. And what makes it so wonderful is the fact that they have this connection.

It would be losing something to separate this incredible part of the country. And I think by now I'm boring you so I thank you very much.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you.

Perry Luntz. Is Perry Luntz here?

MR. LUNTZ: My name is Perry Luntz. I am representing nobody. I'm a community activist. Presently I am on the Borough President's Transportation Task Force battling for the Second Avenue subway. I have lived on the East Side of Manhattan for a mere 23 years, but I figured it out the other day that I've worked every year of my adult life, except for two years in the service, within one square mile of where I currently live. The point I'm making is that the East Side of Manhattan has often been called the engine that drives, New York, which is true because of our commercial interests. But there are thousands of us who live and work in the 14th Congressional District and we call this home.

Home is important. It is a complex area, a north-south community. I'm going to take exception with the previous speaker, who happens to be related to me by marriage. The north-south access is an essential element of the 14th Congressional District, and it provides us an easy unification, an easy method of getting around. We have only one subway, unfortunately. We need a second. We have a multitude of bus lines, including one which is the most widely-traveled bus line, the Third Avenue bus line, most heavily-utilized bus line in the United States, if not the world. We are overburdened with people. Whether we can find 47,000 more or not is a question. I think we should be able to, because if we make the transportation more accessible to people in the outer boroughs, they will come to us -- we won't go to them, they will come to us -- because we have the amenities that they do not have. We have the feeling that they do not have.

It's a multicultural community, which my wife said, and she brought in the immigration point of view. And, believe me, I agree completely with the assessment that this is not -- not, not, not -- a silk stocking district. We have a multitude of people on Medicare, a multitude on Medicaid. We have up in the north end of it public housing, in the south end of it public housing. We manage to live in comparative harmony because we are, after all, New Yorkers and New Yorkers are never completely harmonious.

We send people to and from the Long Island suburbs. They come to us, or they leave us, and go out to Long Island. We will be the home of the Long Island Rail Road, assuming the funding is available for the Grand Central access, where the Long Island will run trains into Grand Central, which will bring in an additional 13,000 or 14,000 people everyday into the 14th Congressional District. And we can absorb them, because we benefit from their being there. It's a drag sometimes, but we benefit from their being there. We benefit from them. We welcome them into our homes.

I think that to break this up in any form, shape, or manner, does a disservice to the people who have lived here and worked here to make it a place in which they want to live. It's like any other community, any city upstate New York. It's like Binghamton or Syracuse. We are a community of neighborhoods. Each neighborhood has its own personality, but we live together, we harmonize together, we work together in many instances, as I do. And the objective of a single leadership -- because I think you raised a question as to whether you would have several representatives or one representative on a hospital. I might add to that the fact that Cornell is the wrong hospital to raise the question because they are now a conglomerate and they share Columbia Presbyterian, which is way up on the West Side in the north. Most of the hospitals today have divisions all over. St. Vincent's, which has been in Greenwich Village since the beginning of time, is now represented by a Staten Island representative. So that that question, I think, is kind of moot because the hospitals are merging and they will continue to merge. I really don't expect that to be a problem.

The reason for unification is that to serve this polyglot community correctly, to provide the kind of representation that it needs because of its diversity, requires an unusual individual. We have one in Congress right now. To lose her and to lose the sense of community in general that has kept the thousands of us here, despite the seeming chaos around us, would be to sever the aorta of this magnificent city, and I'm serious in that. It is the people who live here who make this commercial engine function. The people, the changing of this community by redistricting and adding or subtracting any part of this massive East Side area would result in changing what has taken 200 years to create and to build, because, don't forget, the East Side was first settled by the British back in the 1600s and the Dutch even before them, and some of the land around here is still owned by Dutch and the British House of Lords, whatever they call themselves.

Let's consider the people who created this district. Let's consider those legislators who fight to protect it and keep it going in the face of odds only truly New Yorkers would be willing to take on. Don't change our community. Don't lose our superior leaders. Let us remain the fuel for that engine. And I thank you and will accept any questions.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much. Questions?

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Just one. You focused most intently on the Congressional District, the 14th Congressional District, which runs from about 14th Street up into --

MR. LUNTZ: No, lower.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Lower? Well, vicinity. Let's just say vicinity. I'm a country guy from Rochester, New York, so close enough.

MR. LUNTZ: I wouldn't hold that against you.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Well, most people don't. My question is does the same analysis apply with respect to the Senate District? As you know, Senator Goodman has represented this district for a long time.

MR. LUNTZ: Absolutely. I mean, I have been associated with the Democratic Party for all my life, actually, and certainly in New York have been active for the last 20 years. Senator Goodman, we may disagree -- and we do very often, and he has called me all kinds of names; I never called him any names -- but -- he's older than I am -- but we work together -- we work together -- because they have the same goals that we have. I think that if you talk to him you would find him in complete agreement with what I say.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: But your comments about the identity of the East Side apply both to the Congressional District, the 14th Congressional District, would apply to the 26th Senate District, as well.

MR. LUNTZ: Absolutely.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: All right.

MR. LUNTZ: And to the Assembly Districts.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Thank you.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Excuse me. One question. Could you give me some indication of where you feel the East Side runs from and to along the East Side?

MR. LUNTZ: Well, the community I'm talking about -- and I may disagree with some others -- but the community I'm talking about runs along the Lexington Avenue subway, which goes from the Upper East Side -- way up -- and from the Bronx, actually, and goes all the way down to Brooklyn. But I'm not including Brooklyn in the East Side of New York, but I'm including downtown.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: How far west does the neighborhood continue?

MR. LUNTZ: Central Park acts as a barrier, it really does.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Well, above Central Park do you think the neighborhood changes?

MR. LUNTZ: Above Central Park the neighborhood changes? Not necessarily. I said west.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: I'm sorry, I have dyslexia on directions. I'm talking about uptown from where the district now ends.

MR. LUNTZ: No, I think that Stanley Isaacs Houses and I think that East Harlem lend a certain yeastiness to the whole East Side, and they are on the east side of the uptown part. I'm saying that Central Park acts as an east-west barrier because it's pretty wide, and if you want to get across from east to west -- going to Lincoln Center from the East Side can be an all-night adventure sometimes.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Let me just ask again. Is the East Side neighborhood that you speak of continue above 99th Street?

MR. LUNTZ: Absolutely.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: How far?

MR. LUNTZ: I would say right up to the end. I would consider East Harlem part of the East Side. I would consider the entire East Side. I have been in East Harlem, I have spoken to people from East Harlem, I know a lot of people in East Harlem. We get along fine. I consider them my neighbors.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much.

Margaret Fong, Asian American Legal Defense Fund.

MS. FONG: Good morning. My name is Margaret Fong. I am Executive Director of the Asian American Legal Defense Fund. AALDF is a 27-year-old non-partisan, non-profit organization based in New York City that promotes and protects the civil rights of Asian Americans through litigation, advocacy, and community education.

In the area of voting rights we have challenged previous redistricting plans that diluted minority voting strength. We commented on state redistricting plans from 1982 by filing objections with the Justice Department under Section V and, also, in the 1991 City Council redistricting and the '92 State plans.

In 1996 we represented Asian American voters as defendant intervenors in Diaz v. Silver, the Constitutional challenge to New York's 12th Congressional District, and we successfully argued that Asian Americans in Manhattan's Chinatown and Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighborhoods constituted a community of interest that should be kept together within a single district. And we've also documented Asian American voting patterns by conducting the largest multilingual exit polls of Asian American voters on the East Coast, polling over 5,000 Asian New Yorkers in the November 2000 elections.

As you know, Asian Americans nationwide have grown rapidly in every decade since the elimination of the discriminatory immigration quotas in 1965, and Census 2000 revealed a tremendous surge in the numbers of Asian New Yorkers. According to the Census there are over one million Asian Americans in New York State. Our numbers have increased 54 percent over the past decade, and we are now over 10 percent of the City's population, numbering over 780,000.

Seven out of 10 Asian New Yorkers reside in three New York City boroughs -- Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn -- and our populations have increased faster than the overall rate of growth in the boroughs in which they reside. In Queens Asian Americans have grown four times faster than the overall rate of the borough, and in Manhattan and Brooklyn 10 times faster.

As many speakers have said before, New York City is a collection of neighborhoods, and Asian Americans have clustered in many of the immigrant neighborhoods, experiencing the fastest growth. As an initial point, the U.S. Census Monitoring Board has estimated that the net undercount from New York State was 1.09 percent, or over 200,000 people. Based on the extensive outreach campaign that we did during Census 2000 in Asian American communities, we believe that much of that undercount occurred in New York City's immigrant non-English speaking neighborhoods, and that the Asian American population growth has not been fully reflected in Census 2000.

This fall, when the Census Bureau expects to complete its statistical studies, and the Commerce Secretary decides whether to release these adjusted census figures, we hope that this task force will use the most accurate census numbers available for redistricting purposes.

Right now we're at a historic moment for the Asian American community. No Asian American has ever been elected to the New York State Legislature or to the New York City Council, even though the municipality now with the nation's largest Asian American population is New York City. In previous redistricting efforts Asian Americans have been disenfranchised because our communities have been divided by unfair legislative districts. This has discouraged many Asian Americans from becoming more politically active as voters and as candidates, and we have been denied a voice in government.

The stark absence of any Asian American elected officials makes it imperative that this task force take seriously its obligation to comply fully with the Voting Rights Act and ensure that racial minorities have a full and fair opportunity to elect candidates of their choice in newly-drawn districts. So, a few more points. We think that the Task Force should provide more advance notice of its hearings. We only learned about the hearings by fax last Thursday, May 10th, and by mail on May 14th. Most people didn't know anything about it until it was advertised in the newspapers this past weekend. The public hearing schedules with the advance information about the items under consideration should be posted online, and we hope that you will schedule hearings, also, after work hours so that more people can participate.

Second. We hope that you'll provide greater public access to all aspects of the redistricting process, and that would include posting online all relevant information about the process in downloadable formats. Such information should include proposed districting plans, the political and demographic data sets that you used to create these plans, the analyses of voter registration, election data, and racial block voting that are done by your experts, the procedures for public submission of alternative plans and, also, hearing transcripts.

In addition, we support the notion that public access terminals with the census and other political data be established at the Task Force office and made accessible throughout the State.

California and Texas, and several other states, have provided extensive public access to such data, and we think that New York should follow their example. As you well know, much of this information will be required as part of any submission that you make for clearance to the Justice Department under Section V of the Voting Rights Act, so we hope that you'll make that information and those documents available to the public, as well.

Finally, we urge the Task Force to keep Asian American communities together. The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that race can be one of several factors considered in the drawing of district lines, together with other traditional districting criteria. Here in New York, as the Federal Court has said in Diaz v. Silver, there are several factors and shared community concerns which led the court to understand that Manhattan's Chinatown and Brooklyn's Sunset Park should be kept together, and those factors included cultural background, economic status, common media markets, shared community services and organizations, including health clinics, stores, public transportation, and workplaces, voting patterns, common languages and dialects, as well as common countries of origin.

Several Asian American communities throughout New York City share such concerns and socio-economic characteristics, but they have been divided between two or more districts. So we urge this task force to take a closer look at these neighborhoods to ensure that Asian American communities are kept together and not splintered arbitrarily among newly-drawn districts.

In my written testimony I've specified the specific districts at issue, but the neighborhoods that we hope that you'll take a close look at are Chinatown and the Lower East Side of Manhattan, which, although is substantially contained in one Assembly District, it's split between two Senate Districts. In Flushing, Queens, which has large Chinese and Korean American populations, that Asian American community is divided among four Senate Districts. In Elmhurst Districts, a Pan Asian neighborhood with Chinese, South Asian, Korean and Filipino residents, this neighborhood is split among three Assembly Districts.

Richmond Hill and South Ozone Park includes a growing Indo Caribbean community, with many residents identifying themselves as Asian, Indian, Guyanese, and Trinidadian, this community is split among four State Assembly Districts and, also, divided between two Senate Districts. Likewise, South Asians residing in growing numbers in Floral Park, Bellerose and Queens Village, but this community is split between two Assembly Districts, with Floral Park in one AD and Bellerose and Queens Village in another. And, finally, Sunset Park, an emerging Chinese American community is also divided among three Assembly Districts and split between two Senate Districts.

AALDF in conjunction with a Queens College Professor Terry Hum -- also a demographer -- has undertaken a year-long community survey project in which we have interviewed 458 New Yorkers in areas with large Asian American populations, to define their concerns and neighborhood boundaries. We literally gave them maps and told them to help us to define their neighborhoods. These findings will be released soon and we'll be using them to supplement census and political data to define communities of interest and help to develop plans.

The right to vote is fundamental, and we must ensure that this Constitutional right is protected for Asian Americans and all New Yorkers. The Task Force should abide by the Voting Rights Act and ensure that racial minorities are given a full and fair opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. Thank you.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: I would like to just ask you a couple of questions about the community that you speak for. Do you have data that would support the idea that the Asian American community is politically cohesive?

MS. FONG: We have done a number of exit polls. A new exit poll has also been done by the New York Immigration Coalition, and we will be forwarding that data to you.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: We would appreciate that. Is there other indications of political cohesion in the voting patterns that you mention in your testimony?

MS. FONG: There's been very little data that's been developed on this issue. As you know, the numbers of Asian American voters has been small, but it's rapidly growing, and especially in the last number of years with high naturalization rates. Asian American voter registration, as well as turnout, has been increasing, so we will give you that information, and we hope you'll also make available, to the extent that you're analyzing such data, that you make that data known to us, as well.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Is there a sense in the Asian American community that non-Asian Americans vote in a manner to defeat the choices that would be associated with the Asian American community?

MS. FONG: There's been a history of white majority within districts voting against Asian American candidates, and that began, actually -- well, I won't say it began, but it occurred in the 1991 City Council Districts. In District 1 in Lower Manhattan, which was created as an Asian district, but which, in fact, has been represented by a white elected City Council Member, who is supported by the white majority of registered voters in that district, defeating Asian candidates in every race.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: And could you send that information on to us, along with the other information you've indicated that you had on polling, or exit polling?

MS. FONG: Yes.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Thank you.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Can I follow up just with Assemblyman Parment's question. Was the answer to the first question yes or no?

MS. FONG: Are Asian Americans politically cohesive? Is that the question?

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Yes. I mean, do you have evidence that would support that? I mean, you can understand how critically important that is, as we evaluate our obligations under Federal Law, under State Law. Anything that you had that would suggest the answer to that is either yes or no, or even maybe, would be critically important to us. That's why I've sort of asked the question again. I don't want to steal your thunder from releasing your study, but is your general conclusion yes or no?

MS. FONG: I think in general the conclusion is yes, in part because if you look especially at the population of unenrolled voters -- and the party enrollment has been steadily increasing. It's actually been increasingly Democratic. And in the Presidential elections, where there is the largest voter turnout, Asian Americans have voted cohesively.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Okay. Secondly, I've done just some quick math here in trying to figure out. I'm a Senator so I'm most familiar with the configuration of the Senate District. I count something like 193,000 people divided between four Senate Districts -- 11, 13, 14 and 16. I think -- again, I'm much better on geography north of Poughkeepsie, but my guess is that that's eastern Queens and the areas that you talked about. Would it be the intention of the Asian American Legal Defense Fund to prepare a plan that would, in your judgment, accommodate the community of interest or the voting interests of Asian Americans in Eastern Queens as part of this process, if you had access to the data to be able to do it consistent with Constitutional and State requirements?

MS. FONG: It's our intention to submit to you our recommendations. But what we are also doing is soliciting the information and advice from different Asian American community groups and individuals who reside in various neighborhoods. We want to hear what people have to say about how they perceive their own community and their neighborhood boundaries, and we hope to incorporate that information into any plans that we submit to you.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: The only other thing I would ask for, if you have any evidence from other necks of the woods -- other places, other states -- that evidence the kind of -- and, again, I'm not sure this is the right term, but I'll use the short form of it -- anti-Asian voting patterns among constituencies, that I would be interested in seeing that, as well. I think that's at least something we have to work in to this massive equation. If there is evidence of a lack or an inability of Asian American candidates to win in certain races given configurations of districts, I think that's something that we should be aware of. So, if you have any evidence of that from other places, such as California, or Florida, or any other places where there are large concentrations of Asian American voters, that could be helpful, as well, and I'd ask you to submit it.

MS. FONG: There are several examples of that, but we don't even have to look that far. If we look in Queens, in Flushing, where in a City Council District when Asian American candidates were running along a long-time white incumbent, that incumbent called the community a community of colonizers, people who were buying up the neighborhood. There are a lot of anti-immigrant remarks that were being made and continue to be made as recently as this year in the discussion on term limits in the City Council. That City Council District encompasses a large part of Flushing, and I think those kinds of anti-Asian sentiments have been expressed in various races. We'll be, of course, providing you that information, as well.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Thank you very much.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: There are Assembly Districts that went from 30 something to 49 percent. That 25th, that's the area you were just talking about.

MS. FONG: Yes.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: As you look at the map and the distribution of ethnic minorities, what, if anything, can the Task Force do to make, hypothetically, the 25th more able to elect an Asian? It seems to me it's pretty well maxed out now.

MS. FONG: Well, I guess the only thing I would say is that obviously this is one piece in a larger puzzle, and all of these factors need to be looked at. But where there are commonly-perceived boundaries by neighborhood residents, or where there are particular services, those things that are the element of building a community of interest, we will try to articulate those factors for you so that you will take them into consideration when you do the final plans.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: I suppose it would be your recommendation that the 25th not be divided so as to dilute the voting strength.

MS. FONG: Right. The Assembly District obviously should not divided, and to the extent that one is looking at the outer boundaries, just to be sure that it encompasses all residents who share common interests, that would be important to do. The big problem is, frankly, with the division of Flushing among four Senate Districts.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much.

The next witness is Adam Silvera. Is Adam here? Next is Ruby Sills Miller. Following Mrs. Miller will be Anne Emerman. Good morning.

MS. MILLER: Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I am Ruby Sills Miller, having lived at 165 East 32nd Street, Manhattan since 1964. I've been many years an active person, serving as President one time of the Bellevue Day Care Center, and was State President of New York State-Wide Senior Action Council in 1976 and '78.

I'm here to tell you that I feel that it's most important that we keep Honorable Carolyn Maloney as our Congressional Representative to help senior citizens and child care programs in the community to move ahead. In fact, she was helpful for senior citizens when she was on the City Council. She was not in my district, but my neighbors, my friends, who live in that district were so pleased with what she did with rent stabilization and rent controls, and some of them were able to stay t here because of her help. We certainly have appreciated that.

She became our Federal representative in 1992 and has worked closely with seniors and working parents and child care programs. I appreciate Representative Carolyn Maloney's assistance to help both seniors and child care programs while parents are working.

First, I want to speak about Medicare and Medicaid, that are most important to seniors, disabled people, and long-term care residents. Our New York State-Wide Senior Action Council is thankful for her support of HR 1400, Fair Prices for Prescription Drugs, by co-sponsoring with 105 other representatives. Last Friday I, along with four other advocates, talked with her about HR 1512, known as the Meds Bill, and to consider supporting it. She is studying that now. She knows about the Federal Senate bill, the Breaux-Frist bill, that was introduced just yesterday in the Senate. We're counting on her to oppose the bill when it comes to the House of Representatives.

She was able to get them to change the law so that Medicare was able to provide annual mammograms for women on Medicare. And may I say she did a lot of work for women, and this is very important when you stop to realize how many women are alone and need the real help, and we appreciate that.

She also was instrumental in better access to screening tests for osteoporosis and prostate cancer. She has done three studies in Congressional District 14, and she has helped us by speaking at various rallies on prescription drugs, and we appreciate that, too. I've also been in her discussion groups, which she has helped people to know more about Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. We thank her for helping these uninformed people to know more to understand that we do not want privatization of either Social Security or Medicare for our children, our grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and future generations.

Secondly, I am delighted that she has had two bills in the House of Representatives that can make the difference for working parents being poor, or being well off. These are tax credits that she's working on. The other is that she's introduced a bill in Congress for tax credits to parents for child care and, also, another bill that is called Kitty Mae, similar to Fannie Mae, to provide child care facilities in the communities. She can count on me to encourage parents in Bellevue Day Care Center -- Educare -- to support the bills in the Federal legislative bodies, and to press President George W. Bush to sign the bills. That would be a real victory. Let's hope.

I do want you to know that if you are considering any changes in redistricting in the State that my husband and I do not want you to change us out of Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried. We feel he has a great deal to offer, and we want to keep both Ms. Maloney and Mr. Gottfried, so we don't have to get acquainted with other people. We think it's very important because we know what happens to people who do not know who is representing them, and we know that many of these people do not have a chance to know the needs of their communities as well as they should before they're elected.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much. Any questions?

Anne Emerman, are you here? Alice Gordon, are you here? Meryl Brodsky, Jackson Leeds, Esq., Annette Johnson.

MS. JOHNSON: Thank you for the opportunity to be here. I am Annette Johnson. I am the Vice-Dean and Senior Counsel for Medical School Affairs at the NYU School of Medicine. I'm here to testify on behalf of Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney's district, the 14th Congressional District. On behalf of the New York University School of Medicine and the NYU hospitals, I urge you to keep the current 14th Congressional District intact. Congresswoman Maloney's district includes many -- in fact, 15 -- of America's best academic medical centers, teaching hospitals, and biomedical research institutions. In fact, Manhattan's East Side is often known inelegantly as "bedpan alley," and includes, in addition to NYU such public and private institutions as the Veteran's Administration Hospital, Bellevue Hospital Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering, the New York Hospital and Weil Cornell Medical School, Lenox Hill Hospital, Mt. Sinai Hospital, Beth Israel Hospital, Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital, the Hospital for Special Surgery, the Hospital for Joint Diseases, and Rockefeller University in Manhattan, Goldwater and Coler Hospitals on Roosevelt Island, and Western Queens in Queens, and this hospital is now owned by Mt. Sinai.

While New York is a leader in medical care education and research, Manhattan's East Side is at the epicenter of this phenomena. With all of these medical institutions clustered together, our representative in Congress has become extremely familiar with health care concerns, as well as those of biomedicine. Those of us who work in hospitals, medical schools, and academic research institutions benefit from having one representative who truly understands these interests and needs. Our hospitals and academic medical centers attract talented doctors and scientists, many of whom reside in the district. It makes sense to keep these premier hospitals together in one Congressional District.

Many members of Congress have an industry that dominates their community. It may be agriculture, oil, or defense, and an informed member is an important partner. New York's 14th Congressional District has many industries. However, the concentration of hospitals, doctors, and scientists in our area ensures that medicine is a primary concern in this district. It's crucial for us to have a member of Congress who is familiar with these issues.

Many of our academic medical centers have teaching hospitals and are in need of funding for graduate medical education. Our research institutions have needs related to indirect costs. We need a member of Congress who understands these complex and important Federal funding formulas that protect the extraordinary programs provided by the hospitals and research institutions. We need someone who is concerned about such research needs as women's cancer, neuro-oncology -- brain tumors -- Parkinson's Disease, and we urge you to maintain the 14th Congressional District intact. Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: One question, Dean, if I could. We've heard a prior speaker talk about this transformation from silk stocking to bedpan congressional district, but I'd just like to go back to the question that I asked the prior speaker. The notion is at least expressed in other parts of the State that an academic institution like Cornell and Ithica is politically better off with three congressional members whose districts are in the vicinity of Cornell, that from their point of view gives them three voices in the congressional delegation, and in the particular circumstances in that neck of the woods gives them both Democratic and Republican representation in this closely-divided House. Is it your sense that given the needs of this district as described by others, and as currently configured, that it's better off with one strong voice?

MS. JOHNSON: That is exactly the import of our testimony today, and we worked both with Democratic and Republican members of Congress and members of the Assembly and Senate. We think that it's important that the District be kept intact.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Is it the case that most of the employees in the hospital district actually live in the district? Do you have any evidence that not only are these important because of the health care they provide, but they're community centers, they're employment locus for the community that surrounds it? Do you have any evidence of that or demonstration of who works for what hospitals and where they live? What I'm trying to get at, is this a community in which the people live, work, perform their services in the same general area?

MS. JOHNSON: It is indeed because of the high cost of living in Manhattan. Many of these institutions provide housing for their employees, so they tend to have a large concentration of employees who are within the district. We've also done a study of the chairmen of our medical departments, and have found that approximately half of them live within the district. We could certainly provide statistics on that.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: If you could that, again, would be helpful for us to try to resolve the questions of which communities we tie together both in the Senate, Assembly and Congressional reapportionment, so I would encourage you to submit that to the Commission.

MS. JOHNSON: We would be glad to do that.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much. Mrs. Johnson was Witness No. 15. And just to show that there's no preference in the order of speakers, the next witness on the schedule is the Comptroller Alan Hevesi.

MR. HEVESI: Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify. This is Cathy Levine, Director of Communications for the Office of the Comptroller, and she is going to read our prepared statement. I have laryngitis. The laryngitis has been received with great acclaim throughout the City of New York, and to your benefit, my instinct as an academician would have been to review Baker v. Carr and Colgrove v. Green and Reynolds v. Simms and Westbury v. Sanders. You will be spared all of that. We have a brief statement.

SENATOR SKELOS: We are deeply disappointed now.

MR. HEVESI: Roman Hedges is about to burst into tears now. But I thank you very much for the opportunity and this is very important work that you're doing. It will define the politics of the next decade and, therefore, the governance of New York State, so I appreciate the time and effort you've put into this effort. So let me introduce Cathy Levine to you.

MS. LEVINE: Thank you. I'd like to thank the members of the Legislative Task Force for coming to New York City and for providing me with the opportunity to testify on behalf of the City's more than eight million residents. The 2000 Census contains some very good news for New York City. With more than eight million people, its population as the highest ever recorded, having grown by 9.4 percent since the previous census was taken in 1990. Over 685,000 more people live here now than were here 10 years ago, representing the single largest population increase of any city in the country.

New York City is booming, thanks to a vibrant economy, safer streets, and an improved quality of life. More people are coming here and fewer people are leaving. They're coming from overseas, from across the region, and across the country. More children are being born here and, more importantly, more children are being raised here. New York City is experiencing a renaissance. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the rest of New York State. The population of upstate New York's 53 counties grew by only 1 percent in the 1990s, although even that number understates the extent to which Central and Western New York have stagnated, since a disproportionate amount of that growth occurred in mid-Hudson Valley counties like Putnum, which are, in reality, suburbs of New York City now, and should, therefore, more properly be thought of as the downstate region.

Eighteen counties, all upstate, suffered from population declines during the past decade, as did all the major upstate cities. Albany, Troy, Schenectady, Utica, Rome, Syracuse, Rochester, Binghamton, and Buffalo all lost population, many of them by double-digit percentages. The upstate economy has been under-performing and, as a consequence, many of the people who were living there have left in order to pursue better opportunities elsewhere. The loss of population in upstate areas has had the effect of slowing the rate of New York State's overall population growth. As a result, the State is losing two of its seats in Congress. This Legislative Task Force has a difficult job ahead of it.

As I know firsthand from having served in the Assembly for 22 years, the redrawing of legislative boundary lines is never easy and almost always contentious. But in this particular case, one thing should be very clear to all concerned -- New York City shouldn't lose any of its representation in Congress.

Over the past 10 years all five boroughs experienced significant population growth, with Staten Island and Queens being the fastest and second fastest-growing counties in New York State. Nearly 70 percent of New York State's total population growth in the 1990s occurred in New York City. The numbers speak for themselves. New York State's population is shifting from upstate to downstate and, in particular, to New York City. Fundamental democratic principles, as well as Federal Law, dictate that the two seats in Congress that New York State is losing must come from upstate regions. Any other result would be unfair and unlawful. Thank you.

MR. HEVESI: Well, that was a non-contentious commentary. So I thank you for the opportunity. I'll be glad to answer any questions that you have, but I thank you for your hard work and difficult task that you have.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much. Thanks for taking the time.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: May I just ask one question? Mr. Comptroller, you're running for Mayor and I would ask this question of anybody who was sitting in the chair there, because one of the options that we have, given the increase in population of the City of New York, both with respect to Congressional Districts, Senate Districts and Assembly Districts, is that we can break the boundaries of the City of New York and go into the suburbs and create suburban-urban districts. My question to you, given your position as Comptroller, just tell me what extra political leverage, if any, the City of New York gets by preserving those Congressional Districts, keeping them here and keeping that. I mean, can you forecast for me? You talked about the politics of the next decade. Whether you're Mayor or not, what's your sense, given your history, of the importance of those districts staying in the City of New York?

MR. HEVESI: Well, first of all, the crossing of the borders is something that probably is inevitable depending on how you distribute the population, because the court orders have been very clear that every district has to be as close as every other district in population and, therefore, the boundaries that now exist sometimes have to be breached.

I think New York City's clout is enhanced even where it shares population with neighboring counties, because I think we become increasingly sophisticated about dealing with problems on a regional basis, and understanding that Nassau County's growth is our growth, that Westchester's growth is our growth. And so I'm not frightened by the crossing of the lines. But as a regional approach, holding onto those Congressional Districts increases not only the number of members of Congress who represent us directly and have a stake in what our agenda is, but positions them on subcommittees and full committees in the Congress, increases their ability to enter the debate about the distribution of formulas for transportation aid and school aid, and a variety of other subject areas. So, holding onto those districts, even if shared with the suburbs, would be enormously important for the City.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Just one other question. We've heard prior speakers talk about the new voices of New York -- Asian Americans and others. One of the things that we could do is, if we kept those districts completely inside the City of New York, to the best extent possible, we could give those new voices a chance at the table. Is it your sense that that's something that we ought to do?

MR. HEVESI: I think you ought to do it, and I think the Justice Department might be very helpful in prodding you to move in that direction under the Civil Rights Act. But it's right on the merits to reflect the constituencies that historically have been less empowered and are now finding a level of involvement and sophistication that they will insist on being empowered, and your deliberations can smooth that process. It's an absolutely appropriate way to go.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Save your voice. Thanks.

MR. HEVESI: Thank you very much.

SENATOR SKELOS: Just one question, following up on Senator Dollinger's question. I know that he's deeply concerned about the representation within New York City. And if I take conversely, the loss of population, for example, in the Rochester area and the upstate area, does that mean perhaps a loss of strength for that region if they lose congressional people?

MR. HEVESI: The answer is yes, and that's the sad tradeoff. If it was up to me the population of the State would have gone up dramatically higher than any other state and we would have increased our representation. But the number of representatives representing a state or a region is crucially important not only to our voice in the Congress and decision making, but, also, to how the formulas are driven and how the details of legislation which impact on people's lives are developed.

I have one other formulation that you have no control over. We should elect Charlie Rangel Chair of the Ways and Means Committee in the next election. You don't have to respond to that. That's totally partisan, but it would really be great for New York City. Thank you very much.

SENATOR SKELOS: The next witness is Anne Emerman. I'm sorry. Alice Gordon.

MS. GORDON: I'm going to speak to you more from my personal vantage point. I live in the West Side in a senior residence run by the Salvation Army in the 14th Congressional District.

We had formed a committee devoted to senior issue, and it was in this connection that we established an ongoing relationship with our Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. We discussed legislation mainly on health. Lately it was on the need for prescription drug coverage under Medicare. One issue Congresswoman Maloney fought for, which was especially important to me, is for better access to screening tests for osteoporosis, also for prostate cancer. She made several studies on the high cost of prescription drugs in the 14th Congressional District, comparing prices charged to seniors with prices for preferred customers, like HMOs.

Another of her studies compared prices in the U.S. with those in Mexico and Canada. She even studied prices charges to seniors as compared to their pets. All evidence sharply demonstrated that legislation making prescription drugs affordable to all seniors could not be more urgent. In addition to Representative Maloney's responsiveness to our issues, we were impressed by her accessibility. When we visited our office we saw one group of her constituents leaving as we entered. When we left there were others waiting to be admitted. We were amazed that she could maintain that pace and also keep her vast store of knowledge at the ready to discuss all the intricate problems of her diverse electorate.

Congresswoman Maloney has championed affordable housing and rent regulation, renewal of Sections 202 and 8 for low-income seniors and the disabled. This is vital to meet at least some of the desperate needs where so many thousands pay half or more of their income in rent.

Carolyn Maloney has thrown her weight behind legislation for mandatory adequate staffing for nursing homes. I haven't time to indicate the breadth of her concerns. She is much involved with the preservation of historic districts and landmarks. She's fighting now on the question of Gouvener's Island, as you heard probably over the air during the last few days.

Representative Maloney learned sometime back that the longhorned beetles have invaded Central Park from Asia. She obtained Federal funding to fight the beetles, and we can now enjoy Central Park beetle-free. Congresswoman Maloney has visited our senior residence a number of times. She visits senior centers annually, as a matter of course. What we have gained from her shows the need of the representation that we have at present. When we have an issue, Carolyn Maloney's door is open. She acts on our behalf. She is an outstanding representative. The West Side benefits greatly by having three members of Congress in the 8th, 14th and 15th Congressional Districts to speak for all of us, and magnify our joint impact in Congress. Our effectiveness would be gravely diminished if redistricting ever threatened this representation of our diverse, complex, extended and growing, expanding community. It must not happen.

I would like to introduce as part of our panel Ms. Lorraine Johnson, and thank you very much for listening to me.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you, ma'am. We do have an order. We'll make the exception here, but we do have an order of speakers that registered, and I would just ask if we could speak about the district as against incumbents because we all feel very strongly about our incumbent representatives one way or the other. I know I feel very strongly about myself as an incumbent, and we all do here. But, really, what we're looking to do is get information concerning the makeup of the district and helping us, to the extent you can, on what you feel the composition of the district should be, as against necessarily the incumbent, although I do not want to diminish at all the strong feelings that people do have, and I appreciate that, for many of their elected representatives.

MS. GORDON: I thank you for allowing us to go out of order, as you will see.

SENATOR SKELOS: That's okay, ma'am. Not a problem at all.

MS. JOHNSON: Good afternoon. Thank you. My name is Lorraine Johnson, and I am a resident of Stanley Isaacs, located on First Avenue and FDR Drive, between 93rd and 96th Streets. Stanley Isaacs is a natural part of the Upper East Side and should be represented by a member of Congress who represents the rest of the East Side.

Stanley Isaacs provides services to the Upper East Side community, include the senior center and youth activities. Residents of the East Side come to Stanley Isaacs for lunch and other activities. For many Upper East Side seniors, Stanley Isaacs Center is a focal point of their social lives. They eat here, meet friends here, and participate in senior center activities. It makes sense for us to have the same congressional representative.

The issues that impact the rest of the East Side affect us, as well. We experience some problems with congestion, traffic problems, and over-development. We want better mass transportation, affordable housing, high-quality education, and good programs for seniors. Congresswoman Maloney has worked on these issues we care about. Located as far as we are, we are far from the Lexington Avenue Line. My neighbors want a Second Avenue subway. For 35 years this has been an urgent need for our community, yet somehow it has not been built. We have elected officials that have paid lip service to the need for Second Avenue service. Carol Maloney has succeeded in obtaining funding.

We are concerned about the quality of high schools in our area. Unlike East Siders, most of us send our children to public school. Carol Maloney co-chairs the Task Force for Academically Excellent East Side High Schools, so our children can receive the best possible education for a neighborhood public school. Carol Maloney sits on the Banking and Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over housing. Much of the New York City Housing Authority comes from the Federal Government. Since she has influence over an issue that is absolutely vital to us, we want to maintain the district that she represents. An East Side representative will be responsive to our needs. Congresswoman Maloney comes to our senior center several times a year. We know her, we know that if we call upon her she will help us with any problem. Thank you very much.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you, ma'am. Thanks for taking the time today. Any questions?

Thank you.

Sharon Silberfarb, welcome.

MS. SILBERFARB: I live in the protuberance. You haven't heard much about it, but that's the West Side district. My husband has another name for it which, of course, I'm much too polite to use.

Once upon a time, before I was married, before I was a mother, before I was a ward heeler, I lived for two years on East 74th Street. What a change from West 76th Street, where I had spent most of my life. No newspapers for blocks, no oregano in the supermarket, and that is if the supermarket was open, which, of course, it usually wasn't -- it closed at 6 o'clock. It was like living in foreign exile for someone who had been brought up on the West Side of Manhattan.

The people on the Second Avenue bus looked like they came from the American Heartland, not New York City, my place of birth. I had attended grade school at P.S. 9 on West End Avenue, and my children attended grade school at P.S. 75 on West End Avenue, so I really defy anybody here to be a longer-term resident of the West Side of Manhattan than I.

What a shock -- what a shock -- it was when my building and all others between West 89th Street -- and not all of us, but many others -- and 101st Street were drawn out of the West Side and sent to the other side of the park. To this day some people still think Jerry Nadler is their Congressman. It's really quite interesting. They come out of the voting booth and they say where is Jerry Nadler, he's not on the ballot. Why? Why? Why am I and my neighbors punished for voting in greater numbers than any other Assembly District in the State of New York? Do you hear that, all of you? We come out and we vote, and I'm serious. We really vote. It's an extraordinary turnout. Why are we represented by the East Side, a place none of us want to be? Please cut out the protuberance and put us back into our community.

This is light, and I hope it cheered everybody up here, but drawing lines that look as absurd as these do seem to me -- I mean, if I were looking at this from upstate or any place, they are absurd. One block here, one block there, we have little circles and you jump around. And, people, you can live across the street from somebody who has the same Congressman, a different Assemblyperson and a different State Senator. I mean, all on one corner you have people who are represented by different people. And getting out this vote and talking to people about it, nobody knows -- they certainly don't know who their state legislators are, because there isn't that community cohesion there the way lines are drawn. But, I know, it's difficult.

But the Congressional District is much simpler. I know you people don't think it's much simpler, but it is. If you look at a map, Central Park divides the City. The way the original mapmakers of New York City drew the map, 5th Avenue divided the City from east to west. So everything west of 5th Avenue should be in one district and everything east of 5th Avenue should be in another. It's very simple. You can get your numbers by stretching north and south on both sides. I think you would find that most people would be quite happy with that, not that you're not going to have trouble with anybody whatever you do, but most people really would be.

SENATOR SKELOS: We just want to point out, in tongue-in-cheek, that 10 years ago when that was done it was so you could energize the East Side folks.

MS. SILBERFARB: It's true. Carolyn Maloney would not have been elected. You know what happened is that she would not have been elected without us. I mean, our 30,000 votes -- and 30,000 people vote in this protuberance -- and that made the difference in the election. But that's not the point. The community should remain together. It is a cohesive community. It is very cohesive. I mean, everybody knows the West Side, I don't have to tell anybody here, and even if you live in Rochester you know about the West Side.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: The west side of the Genesee.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: But my question is east side, west side, all around the town, are you telling me that that song doesn't ring true anymore, right?

MS. SILBERFARB: Yes, east side, west side, all around the town makes New York what it is, but it is different. East Side is different from the West Side, and here is a case where you can draw your lines and still maintain community for both constituencies.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: But is it your suggestion that the pattern of carving New York north and south, that the allegiance is more north and south than it is east and west?

MS. SILBERFARB: Yes, absolutely. That's the point.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Does that apply across Manhattan?

MS. SILBERFARB: Well, it depends on where you're starting from the bottom, but if you look at the old grid pattern, if you're working north of 14th Street, because Lower Manhattan has other situations, and I personally can't address that. I can only address the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side, and they are different constituencies which have been traditionally represented by different Congresspeople, and I think that any redrawing of those districts, certainly the West Side should be integrated.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Does your analysis apply not only to the Congressional Districts but the Senate Districts and the Assembly Districts, as well? We should continue to look north-south in Manhattan to put those districts together?

MS. SILBERFARB: Yes, I think that that works much better because, again, you have that. But I said when you get further south on Manhattan you have different -- the communities are not as clear as far as the north-south, so I can only speak about the area north of 14th Street.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: But if we were to start at 14th Street and redistrict north the Congressional seats, the Senate seats and the Assembly seats, your suggestion would be to tie people with common interests together would be to redistrict them vertically north-south.

MS. SILBERFARB: Yes, yes, I would. I know you asked that question and that's what I think.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Thank you.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: One question. Just for the record, you're talking of the protuberance being the area above 89th Street on the West Side that's currently represented in the 14th District?

MS. SILBERFARB: Yes, yes. And if you look at it, it's not even -- it's all gerrymandered around and -- Look, I know, I know why it was done. There was more to it than that, you know. There were personal vendettas and so on involved in the way it was done, which really does affect those of us who live there. So, please, thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you.

Barbara Bartoletti.

MS. BARTOLETTI: I'm glad I'm going to get to follow her. She makes my point. Good afternoon, Assemblyman Parment, Senator Skelos, Senator Dollinger, and other members of the Task Force. My name is Barbara Bartoletti and I am Legislative Director of the New York State League of Women Voters. The League is not a newcomer to this subject. Since 1966 we have proposed guidelines for redistricting. In the 1970s we organized the Committee for Fair Representation, and in 1982 we wrote model legislation that was introduced in both the Assembly and the Senate.

The League is pleased to be here today to share with the Task Force our position in redistricting, and to once again submit to you our recommendations for that process. I am going to shorten my remarks to keep within the time frame, but you do have the full testimony in front of you.

Apart from the one man/one vote requirement and the requirements of the Federal Voting Rights Act, there is little in either our State or Federal Constitutions, and nothing in our State laws to prevent those drawing district lines from creating "safe districts" for friends and "unsafe districts" for enemies. While the one man/one vote requirement ensures that districts will composed of an equal number of bodies, it does not guarantee that they will be represented fairly. It does not prevent the drawing of lines to fracture, isolate, or dilute communities of interest -- political, economic, racial and so forth. It does not prevent the splintering of communities to achieve political advantage.

The League's redistricting guidelines are based on four principles -- equal population, contiguity, integrity of existing political subdivisions, and, finally, geographic compactness. We wish to emphasize that adherence to the guidelines in their proscribed order would inhibit the temptation to indulge in the practice of equal population gerrymandering.

Population equality. In compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court's one man/one vote requirement, population must be apportioned equally among districts. Deviations from this ideal were sharply limited by the Supreme Court in the case of congressional districts. However, the court found deviations of 10 percent or less in the overall range to be acceptable for legislative districts, if based on legitimate state policy. The court found maintaining the integrity of political subdivisions such a policy.

Contiguity. Districts should be of contiguous territory with the smallest parameter possible. They should consist of land parcels adjacent to one another. Areas divided by water shall not be included in the same district unless connected by means of a bridge or tunnel, with both termini in the district. This provision assures that the land parcels in a district have some physical relationship to each other.

City blocks. No city blocks should be subdivided since a city block is the smallest parcel for which census data are available.

Integrity of political subdivisions. The guidelines are designed to minimize the fractionalization of political subdivisions where fragmentation is necessary to comply with the equal population requirement. Maintaining counties, towns, cities, and villages intact is an important element of redistricting because these subdivisions have reasonably permanent boundaries, which are more unlikely to be tampered with for political advantage, i.e. gerrymandering. And their populations often have commonality of interests that merit representation by the same member of Congress or a legislator.

Political party machinery is structured along county, town and city lines, and its functioning is impaired when these units are periodically divided and then recombined. The following guidelines delineate which counties, cities and towns should be divided first when choices must be made and in what manner. I'm going to just allow you to read those at your leisure since they are rather lengthy.

The fourth guideline would be compactness. Compactness is achieved by comparing the aggregate length of all district lines in the plan with those of any other proposed plan which complies, as well, with the other guidelines. Districts will not be exactly regular in shape because of the requirements for population equality for preserving counties, et cetera. But the compactness rule would prevent the arbitrary pushing of a particular boundary line a few blocks in one direction or another to achieve political advantage. Finally, the League of Women Voters of New York State believe that the following recommendations would ensure a process that better allows for citizen input and for legislative districts that give all voters a fair and equal voice in our representative democracy.

The first one is transparency, and I think that is the one common theme that you have heard throughout this morning's and early afternoon's testimony, and I would just reiterate what you have heard before. Transparency is absolutely essential. Allowing the public to participate in this process, given the increased technology that we have today, would ensure for adequate public scrutiny and public input, and that is essential to make this process legitimate. We would echo the use of public access terminals. We would echo the use of putting information up on the web so that people could really take a look at these lines, look at their communities of interest. We also would encourage you, once these lines have been drawn in their draft form, to get them out as soon as possible after that and give the public time to really have an opportunity, through public hearings, through other means the Legislature might deem necessary, so that the public has adequate notice and adequate opportunity for input once they have had a chance to look at these draft lines.

And then, nonpartisan redistricting system for drawing lines, we firmly believe that lines should be drawn by utilizing the criteria previously outlined. The use of an incumbent's home address or party affiliation of voters should not, in fact, be factors in this process.

We, in fact, believe that the lines should be drawn -- and have said this on numerous occasions -- by a nonpartisan advisory commission and then submitted to the Legislature for its vote. We believe that the New York State Constitution would permit such a body to be appointed to oversee the process. The League has looked to other states for examples and found that Iowa has utilized such a plan since 1980 and Arizona has recently voted to adopt this method.

Just a word now about the politics of redistricting. Competitive elections are the lifeblood of democracy. Only through the clash of ideas can voters intelligently understand complex public policies and think through the implications of policy alternatives. Competitive elections stimulate voter interest in elections and increased voter turnout. Historically, New York's redistricting process has been extremely partisan. The Democrats in the State Assembly and the Republicans in the State Senate each control the district lines in their respective houses. Both houses agree to the other's plans and the legislation is then sent to the Governor for his signature. By using techniques like packing, whereby lines are drawn to concentrate many supporters of political opponents into a few districts; or cracking, whereby opponent supporters are split among several districts, they dramatically increase their party's chances of incumbency for the next decade. These "designer" districts literally allow for legislators to choose the voters before the voters have a chance to choose them.

In all of the 81 years of history, the League has stood for fair and equitable representation for the people of our state. We believe that the overriding concern in drawing new districts is to be assured that all New York residents have fair representation in Congress and the Legislature. Therefore, we believe it imperative that our guidelines be applied so that people, not parties, are protected.

Thank you for this opportunity to share our views with you and we look forward to continuing this dialogue as the process moves forward.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: We've heard this testimony, obviously, and I'd be curious if the League has developed a list of current districts which they believe are reflective of the gerrymander that you indicated?

MS. BARTOLETTI: I think that's something that we are going to undertake to do. I think as you heard our President, Elsie Wager, talk about the perhaps inability of our organization due to resources, to actually draw our own nonpartisan lines. She is responsible for the overall health of our organization and I am an advocate, so I wish we could go out there and draw our own district lines, but I will bow to her needs. However, I think we will take a look at what district lines are currently gerrymandered and then look to see how it might play out if they were done along our guidelines.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Well, your statement would suggest that you must have already looked in that direction because you quite strongly stated that we in the past have used other-than-contiguous and compactness and other requirements to come to the districts that are currently in existence. So I would just wonder which ones you really thought were --

MS. BARTOLETTI: Yes, we have. We have looked at some.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: -- done in a way other than along the lines that they should have been done.

MS. BARTOLETTI: Well, the easiest example for me to jump right out at, because Mr. Fazo, Minority Leader of the State Assembly, represents me. And his district represents two very rural communities -- Green and Columbia County on one side of the Hudson River, and then at a point where -- and I think it was you, Mr. Parment, who commented he might be a very good swimmer because he jumps across the Hudson River where there isn't a bridge, and comes up and represents my community, which is a suburban community, which have very few commonalities with the rural communities that he represents. So, I mean, that's the first one I can think of right off the top of my head, and there are other such examples. Oh, we can probably -- I think the example on the other side of that, that is rather -- follows existing political subdivisions and contiguous territory, is Senator Neil Breslin's district, which represents Albany County. Now, I understand that Albany has lost population and that this is going to be more difficult to keep the equal population within that area. So that may become -- because, after all, equal population must be the standard that you start with, so that is going to be a little bit more difficult. But within as practicable as possible, we believe that in communities of interest with compact areas, contiguous territory, need to be looked at as primary guidelines.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Well, and I don't know that anyone disagrees with that. I guess I'm just trying to be a little argumentative here because you made such a sweeping indictment of the previous process, and I would just hope that you could give us specific examples of where you felt that the previous process had been a deliberately distorted for purposes other than those of equal population, minority representation, preservation of municipalities, and so forth, so that we better understand why we are hearing from your group and others this sweeping condemnation of the previous practices.

MS. BARTOLETTI: Well, I think the previous speaker talked about the -- she used a much better word than I could think of at the moment -- but the protuberance, I think she called it, and I think if we actually sat down -- and we're perfectly happy to do that with you and, actually, I am not a cartographer, and would really need to sit down -- and we will -- with some of these maps, and I would be happy to get that. We could pick out probably several. And I would be happy to get you that information and we could argue about it some more.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Well, you know I love to discuss these things.

MS. BARTOLETTI: I know you do. I know you do.

MR. HEDGES: For the record, the congressional plan that is being discussed was not drawn by the State Legislature, it was drawn by a court.

MS. BARTOLETTI: Yes, yes, I understand it was, in the last decade, yes.

MR. HEDGES: So, insofar as partisan motivation as being provided, I think it's perhaps erroneous.

MS. BARTOLETTI: Well, I think that what actually happened was, as you know, the Legislature must vote it, and I think with this back in 1991, where --

MR. HEDGES: In 1992 the court ordered the plan into effect.

MS. BARTOLETTI: 1992, yes, court ordered. But, there is also a very -- The court, unlike Iowa, for instance, where the court can intervene and actually impose lines, the court in this state -- I understand, at least, under our Constitution --

MR. HEDGES: That's exactly what it did.

MS. BARTOLETTI: But the Legislature had to give the final vote.

MR. HEDGES: The court ordered the Legislature to adopt the plan.

MS. BARTOLETTI: To adopt, with no variations.

MR. HEDGES: With no variations.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Is my impression correct that the plan then was declared unconstitutional?

MR. HEDGES: A portion of it was and the court imposed a second variation.

MS. BARTOLETTI: Yes. And I guess at least enough people have commented that hopefully it won't happen this year, but that we may go through a similar process.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Just one question. I'm always fascinated by the discussion of sort of non-partisan redistricting, something that I've talked about a lot, but I would just encourage the League, if we make the data available and the files, and all the stuff that's necessary on a website to do it, I would just encourage the League to grab a group of people that it considers nonpartisan and have them start drawing lines.

One of the things that I think might be instructive both to the League and to the drawers of the lines and to us, is whether that political dimension can be wiped out of a plan. I'm not convinced it can, because I think it will have at some point, given the way we do things -- it has to have 31 votes in the Senate and 76 votes in the Assembly -- there is no other means, other than a court imposing a plan for Constitutional difficulty, because -- I would say insurmountable Constitutional difficulties, that is, if the Legislature has been unable to create a Constitutionally-acceptable plan, we have an absolute requirement that this gets 76 votes from 76 members in the Assembly and 31 in the Senate, and that means -- and the signature of a governor -- which means that these are all people elected, these are all people with political or governmental instruments -- there are a panoply of interests out there. But I would just strongly recommend to the League that if, as I hope we will, we make all that data available, that you give us a chance to see what a "nonpartisan" plan might look like.

MS. BARTOLETTI: Well, we do know that the software is considerably cheaper with the technology we have today to actually do that. Someone said -- it may have been Mr. Parment -- that said it's about $300. There is fairly inexpensive software out there. And I think certainly those of us who have been in and around the Legislature for the past 20 years recognize what you're talking about, Senator Dollinger.

We, also, however, think it's important that under the Voting Rights Act and the fact that we need to be very aware of the communities of interest. You heard this morning from the Asian American Defense Fund. There are communities of interest that we need to be sensitive to in their representation. So, the League would like to certainly bring together these communities of interest and be sensitive to their representation needs, as well as drawing as nonpartisan -- under our guidelines -- as is possible. And that will be a task. And we certainly would hope that we're up to that task.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: I just would love to see what it looks like. Thanks.

MS. BARTOLETTI: Thank you.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: Can I ask you a couple of questions?

MS. BARTOLETTI: Sure.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: Last week when your president testified -- two weeks ago -- in Binghamton --

MS. BARTOLETTI: Yes, we figured we'd do one upstate and one downstate.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: In the same room were, interestingly enough, a member of the Green Party and a committee woman in the Working Families Party, and they had very strong concerns, as well, many of which mirrored yours. And we had a little colloquy among them, and each of them, about whether they would support your proposal for a plan in which they were prohibited by law from having any part in it, and they both said absolutely not.

Senator Dollinger and I, I think, would also hold out the hypothetical challenge to find a group of people who were nonpartisan, meaning had never run for office, never won an election, never lost an election, or never participated in the political process that the very people who know the most about this would be cut out of the process, and I think a lot of folks are skeptical as to whether that could achieve a desirable result. And I would pose this question to you.

There are people in the room from the 31st District, and we've heard a number of people here from the 14th Congressional District. And we heard last time from people in the 26th. That's Mr. Hinchey's district? I wonder what you would say if you had a nonpartisan group of line drawers who were prohibited from knowing where the incumbents live, and these folks from the 31st, or Mr. Hinchey's constituents or Ms. Maloney's constituents were to wake up and find a plan that had inadvertently taken their favorite congressperson out of their district, don't you think would be a huge hue and cry from those people?

MS. BARTOLETTI: Well, I can only tell you, since it's never happened here in this state, occasionally you get -- like we may have -- we lost congressional seats and we have to pit maybe two incumbents against one another. But when Iowa drew this plan back in -- it started in 1980, they've been doing it now since 1980 -- they did this. They took away all the voters' enrollment and the names and addresses and party affiliation of all elected officials. They ended up out of -- and they have a senate of 50 members and an assembly of about 100 members. And what they found is that they actually out of those 100 assembly members, I believe there were 40 of them that ended up in competitive races and needed to get out there and put forward their ideas, their campaigns, et cetera, and then the people got an opportunity and went out and voted for who they thought would represent their interests. In the State Senate I believe it was about 20 out of the 50 that that same thing happened. Their government did not fall apart, people didn't riot in the streets, and what they ended up with were very competitive districts and races where there was a real exchange of ideas. And that's what the League thinks makes a healthy democracy.

So, whether you wake up and lose your -- I mean, that happens now in some of the cases here in New York State that you wake up and you find out that the guy you thought was your elected representative isn't any longer -- or woman -- isn't any longer. However, what I think in the League's view what overrides that is what makes democracy move forward and not become very stagnant -- move in a dynamic way -- is for that exchange of ideas and then let people decide who might best represent them. We understand that might happen.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: I understand that. We're trying to weigh all these interests, and it almost seems like if we follow the League's view, then all of these people who spoke about the virtues of Congresswoman Maloney should leave the room because their arguments would have no bearing. I think you're saying, in effect, that we shouldn't consider those, and I disagree with that. I think they have a very legitimate view to express.

MS. BARTOLETTI: Oh, I wouldn't disagree with that. But the process itself should be about more than one, or two, or three, or several incumbents. It should be about a process of healthy exchange in a democracy. Look at it from our point of view. In the last I don't know how many elections -- I could go back and look at the report we endorsed put out by the New York Public Interest Research Group -- how many incumbents have not been elected. I can tell you in the 2000 election we had one incumbent that didn't come back and that was out in the Buffalo area. Other than that, decades go by. I mean, I won't ask each of you to tell me how long you've been in the Assembly or the Senate, but we do not have competitive races in the State of New York. We have an incumbency protection plan, and if you overlay that with campaign finance laws that we currently have in this state, you certainly get incumbents returned year after year after year after year. Now, that's -- And you can say, well, the voters elected us. You're absolutely right. But many of them are in districts that are so locked down with voter enrollment, and given the campaign finance laws, that you get a war chest and then you have the enrollment in a safe district and you're not going to have competitive races. And we're hoping to some extent that this process would go a great distance to remedying that.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: I would like to throw out again a question about taking political affiliation out of it, and I'm going to surprise my colleague over here, because a district was drawn, which I represent today, that actually created a Democratic district in the north country. And the result was very competitive elections. And, frankly, because I represent those people I would have to argue with the League's position that you shouldn't put that together, notwithstanding the fact that my life as a Republican might be easier in a district that were more Republican. I would have to say after 15 years representing that district that I believe there is a legitimate interest in the fact that there are a number of people who are Democrats in an area that's predominantly Republican that what they did in creating that district served the interests of about 30,000 people who otherwise had felt disenfranchised over the years, and the thing that they had in common was that they were Democrats. I think you have to consider that the person's political affiliation is a part of them. It's not something that was imposed on them. It was freely chosen.

MS. BARTOLETTI: That's true.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: And the people in part of Manhattan are Republicans and want to be, if there are sufficient numbers of them, have a district where they can elect a Republican, I wonder if you really feel that that is an illegitimate consideration.

MS. BARTOLETTI: And if they felt that that Republican represented their views, then certainly, whether they're Democrats or Republicans -- but let's consider that they're Republicans -- then, obviously, they have that opportunity through the ballot box to elect that --

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: Not if you crack them. You could design a district -- I don't want to continue a colloquy.

MS. BARTOLETTI: We should do this in Albany.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: Do you see my point?

MS. BARTOLETTI: Yes, I do see your point. And that's what makes this a very political process and we understand that. But we also feel the need to have our democracy more dynamic than it appears to be, given the process we currently function under.

SENATOR SKELOS: I want to thank you for attending. I have a question for you. Just for somebody who actually lost to an incumbent senator and then defeated the incumbent senator, I feel very close affinity to my colleague here. You mentioned Arizona. In congressional redistricting, how many congressional districts are there in Arizona?

MS. BARTOLETTI: I don't know that, Senator. This was the first -- They just elected to do this and I haven't really taken a look at it.

SENATOR SKELOS: And Iowa you're not sure, either.

MS. BARTOLETTI: Actually, I could go back and look. We have the entire Iowa plan, and I could certainly -- including the maps -- I could go back and look at that for you. I don't have it with me.

SENATOR SKELOS: And I really don't know the answer to this. Are either Iowa or Arizona covered jurisdictions under the Voting Rights Act?

MS. BARTOLETTI: No, they are not.

SENATOR SKELOS: They are not.

MS. BARTOLETTI: Iowa assures me that they function as if they could be, is the way the young man I spoke with, who is part of their what we would equate here in New York to be the Bill Drafting Commission. What they do in Iowa is the Bill Drafting Commission is nonpartisan, much as ours is. They draft bills for both sides in the legislature. However, this Advisory Commission is two members are appointed by the majority and minority in both houses, so you have four, and then that four bring in a completely unaffiliated person.

SENATOR SKELOS: We appreciate that, and I don't mean to cut you off, because we're in the process now.

MS. BARTOLETTI: That's right. That's right. It's not going to happen here and we understand that. That's why I did not bring up Iowa.

SENATOR SKELOS: The question really is -- and I guess what I'm trying to point out -- there's a uniqueness to New York State --

MS. BARTOLETTI: Yes, there is.

SENATOR SKELOS: -- that does not exist in Iowa or Arizona.

MS. BARTOLETTI: You're very correct.

SENATOR SKELOS: I dare say that Arizona doesn't have more than two congressional people.

MS. BARTOLETTI: And it's a very homogeneous population.

SENATOR SKELOS: But when you start, in New York City, in particular, with the number of congressional people and assembly and senate, and you're dealing with the Voting Rights Act, and communities of interest, and East Side, West Side, and north-south, as against east-west, and all different factors, I think the line drawing for us is a lot different than what it is in Arizona, quite frankly, or Iowa.

MS. BARTOLETTI: I would agree with you, and that's why when I was talking to Senator Dollinger, we are very sensitive to the Voting Rights Act. Obviously, we have supported and lobbied extensively for that in Washington and want to see it protected, and we are also sensitive to the communities of interest and how the lines would represent an increased representation of their communities. So that's why it does make New York a very unique place. We are aware of that.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you. Any other questions?

MR. HEDGES: Just a couple of pieces of information for you. Iowa has just rejected their staff plan.

MS. BARTOLETTI: The first time around, we know.

MR. HEDGES: And when you talk about the power of incumbency in the State Legislature, I haven't looked at the numbers in the Senate, but I have in the Assembly, less than half of the members in the Assembly have been in office for 10 years.

MS. BARTOLETTI: Well, then it was not from the fact that they were unelected. It was the fact that they either went on to higher office, became judges.

MR. HEDGES: The point is there's a great deal of mobility and a great deal of change.

MS. BARTOLETTI: But not through the competitiveness of election districts. It's from other -- and we could have this debate -- it's from other factors. I mean, there's an old saying in Albany among the lobbyists, you either die or are indicted, and other than that, you know, you don't lose your seat unless you voluntarily want to lose it.

MR. HEDGES: Very, very few people have left office for either reason.

MS. BARTOLETTI: Well --

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much. Any other questions?

MS. BARTOLETTI: You're very welcome.

SENATOR SKELOS: Estelle Rubin. You have been very patient.

MS. RUBIN: Yes. I was going to ask you how much longer, because --

SENATOR SKELOS: I'm sorry. You wanted to take a quick break. Okay. We're going to take -- Go ahead.

MS. RUBIN: Firstly, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to as a private citizen to come and to give my testimony for redistricting. Previously I couldn't do it because I was a working member of the New York City Board of Education. But now that I'm retired I have this option.

I've lived on the Lower East Side for 45 years. During that time five different people represented me in Washington. But from Leonard Fobstein to Bill Green we did not have our geographic entity respected. The Lower East Side has one community board, 3. I've served on that. It has mainly one and a piece of another school districts, 1 and 2. Its citizenry go to the hospitals on the East Side -- I personally do. We were attached at one time to Greenwich Village with Bella Abzug, and then to Brooklyn and Staten Island for Mr. Murphy.

The Lower East Side is technically and geographically a part of the East Side of Manhattan, both by transportation, by geography, by sharing the same river, namely the East River, which then turns around. So that it has more in common with the rest of the East Side. It shares the same concerns in reference to Con Ed, with their waterside plant and their 14th Street plant. Currently, we have that attachment to the rest of the East Side, which we are geographically connected, through the able representation of Representative Carolyn Maloney. We would like to include the whole Lower East Side into that contiguous geography and in that representation. This then strengthens our voice in Washington. Remember, we are the Lower East Side, we are not the lesser East Side.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much. Questions?

We'll take a short break. We're going to take a three- or four-minute break.

(Recess: 12:50 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.)

SENATOR SKELOS: We are ready to resume. The next speaker is Parag Khandhar. Ethel Sheffer. I would just like to point out again to the witnesses about the five-minute period of time. We have a number of people that have asked to testify and we're scheduled to close at about 3 o'clock. So, if we could keep our comments within that framework, plus if we could comment more on the districts again as against the incumbent. We know how strongly you feel, but it's more important for us to talk about communities of interests than incumbents.

MS. SHEFFER: Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Ethel Sheffer. I live at 194 Riverside Drive at 92nd Street, which is in the 14th Congressional District. Almost all of this district, probably 95 percent, covers a significant portion of the East Side of Manhattan and then crosses the East River to meander and snake through diverse neighborhoods in Queens. But this district's lines also protrude west to encompass a few blocks from West 89th Street to the high 90s along the West Side of Broadway to Riverside Drive. I live in this West Side fragment, or panhandle, of the 14th District. That panhandle, as can be seen clearly from the map, which I just printed out myself from the computer today just to be sure of what I was talking about and brought here today, extends -- and there have been a lot of images used today -- but it extends like a finger or a narrow promontory into the West Side district, which is the 8th Congressional.

I've lived at 194 for almost three decades. During that time I've been active in working for the interests of this densely-populated West Side neighborhood, serving as Chair of the Community Board, of many committees, President of West Side Crime Prevention, and leader of a number of neighborhood groups concerned with parks and open space, decent housing for lower income and special needs persons, and SRO hotels, and for effective planning for the preservation and growth of this vital Manhattan community.

It's clear that this piece of the 14th District, that panhandle, is an anomaly. In a district that was clearly drawn to represent two communities -- Manhattan's East Side and Queens. These few West Side blocks where I live are an integral part of the Upper West Side's character, history, demographics, and physical structure. Yet this handful of blocks has been peculiarly tacked on to the 14th District. This is plainly not a district that was drawn to be compact and contiguous.

I vote in every election, I work with and try to follow closely the work of my elected representatives. I have the greatest respect and admiration for my distinguished congressional representative. But I must tell you that I have received only one or two mailings a year from her office in the last years, that any notice of a meeting sponsored by her office that does come in the mail to me takes place on the Upper East Side and that, to my knowledge, neither she nor her staff have ever attended community board or neighborhood meetings.

That's not because she and her office is not a distinguished and responsible one. It is certainly not the case that the office lacks diligence and responsibility. But when this West Side piece is such a small part of her large and demanding district how much attention can be given to this area? How much has been given? My West Side neighborhood should be part of a political electoral district that represents all the West Side, if it is possible to make this happen, so that we may enjoy fair and effective representation in the next 10 years. The people in those blocks will be very grateful. Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much. Any questions? Thank you, ma'am.

Councilwoman Ronnie Eldridge. Al Doyle? Dr. Traunstein. Welcome, Doctor.

DR. TRAUNSTEIN: Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today. My name is Dr. Donald Traunstein. I live on the Upper West Side on West End Avenue at 95th. I'm a member of the Joint Political Affairs Committee for Older Americans, the Committee for Senior Issues, and the Alliance of Retired Americans. Although I'm in agreement with the values and philosophies of these organizations, I do not speak for them today. I am here to present a petition signed by 126 seniors and other citizens who live in the 8th, 14th and 15th Congressional Districts. Clearly, it's our wish that the current district lines remain as they are currently drawn.

Now, we put together the 126-person petition on only two days' notice. I think we could have tripled that with a little more lead time. I have submitted copies of the petition to the Committee. The petition reads as this: The Legislative Task Force and Demographic Research and Reapportionment. We the undersigned residents of New York City strongly urge this committee to leave intact the 8th, 14th and 15th Congressional voting districts. These are densely-populated areas with, among others, many African-American, Irish, Italian, Polish, Jewish, and Hispanic American voters. That such diversity has been ably represented in Washington is attested to by the repeated reelection of the current incumbents. It's vital, we believe, to the above communities' well-being that the current Congressional District lines remain intact.

Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much, sir. Questions?

Rocky Chin, Esq.? Barbara Beck?

MS. BECK: My name is Barbara Beck. I reside at 780 West End Avenue in Manhattan, where I have been a resident since 1967. My apartment house is located in the area which was anomalously designated at the last redistricting as part of an East Side congressional district. I am not sure which exact street boundaries are included, but I do know that it is a very few blocks which form this weird panhandle. As a result, I am voting in a district which excludes me from casting my vote with the rest of the Upper West Side in congressional elections.

I am here to request that in this new redistricting this convoluted and bewildering situation be corrected. I feel this issue needs to be addressed, as it would be far more appropriate that the Upper West Side be unified and represented by a single congressperson. Since the East Side and Upper West Side concerns are quite disparate, I feel that I am losing my representation in terms of community issues. There are substantial differences between these two neighborhoods when dealing with such issues as school needs, sanitation, and crime control. There simply is no logic, for example, why a wedge of West Side School District 3 is carved out in the middle and made a part of an East Side congressional district.

I strongly believe that congressional districts should be as cohesive as possible and conform to natural boundaries. When this occurs, this congressperson is in the best position to represent undividedly community needs on the Federal level. Cohesive districts also function to ensure the electorate's sense of empowerment. The removal of my building from the West Side congressional district has the effect of making me feel disconnected from my congressperson. This gerrymandering of my West Side district should be corrected.

Thank you for your attention. I appreciate your allowing me to make this presentation.

SENATOR SKELOS: Questions?

Steven Russo, District Leader, 69th Assembly District, Part C. Joseph Haslip, District Leader. C. Virginia Fields, Manhattan Borough President.

MR. GLICKMAN: Good afternoon. My name is Leo Glickman. I am the Deputy General Counsel for the Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, and I'll be presenting testimony on her behalf. The Borough President sends her regards to the Task Force and regrets not being able to appear here personally.

The Borough President wants to take this opportunity to address you on the vital subject of reapportionment as you begin the process of redrawing New York's congressional district boundaries. Because it fundamentally affects the distribution of power in all governmental decisions, legislative apportionment and redistricting have been among the most enduring and controversial issues in American politics. It is essential that the process of redistricting be conducted in an open and transparent manner, with less political horse trading, with all pertinent information made available to the public through the media and the State's website.

In addition, ample time must be allowed for public discussion and review. At present New York is slated to lose two of its 31 congressional seats as a result of the new national census numbers. However, the recently-released preliminary census data show a dramatic growth in our downstate population, especially in New York City. We have gained some 687,000 people, the equivalent population of a full congressional seat. Accordingly, a fair redrawing of congressional districts would take these population shifts into consideration, as well as the Voting Rights Act, which protects representation for minority voters.

I urge you as legislators to make certain that lost seats bear a direct relationship to decreases in population. Simply taking one congressional seat from upstate and one from downstate does not fairly track the recently-released census data. The dramatic population gain in New York City should put an end to talk of our city losing a congressional seat.

In addition, any fair redistricting plan must allocate an increase in the number of New York City Senate and Assembly districts. In the process of reapportionment, every consideration must be given to drawing districts that maintain communities, and it should avoid splitting neighborhoods. When drawing district boundaries, districts should be as compact and contiguous as possible. It is also essential that minority communities be given their full representation to properly reflect the changing demographics of the City and the State. Federal mandate requires that minority communities not have their voting power diluted.

The redistricting decisions to be made over the coming months will have longlasting consequences for all New Yorkers. It's important that the public have a strong voice in determining their own political future.

I want to thank you again. The Borough President thanks you. My office is always available to assist you in the daunting task that lies before you to assure equitable representation throughout the State. Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Any questions?

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Yes. I just wanted to raise a point here. I think the second witness talked about the loss of a seat upstate, downstate -- two seats upstate, whatever. The City's currently represented in the Congress by members who directly represent portions of New York City, or are totally within New York City, starting with the 5th Congressional District and extending to the 18th Congressional District. Are you aware that that area is deficient to make 14 congressional seats? Deficient in population.

MR. GLICKMAN: I'm not sure I really understand the question. I'm sorry.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Well, the question is basically a statement in that you've indicated that there shouldn't be a loss of a New York City seat, but there are currently 14 seats that either are directly or wholly within New York, or partially within New York City. Those 14 seats in their aggregate population are 315,000 residents short of having sufficient population to meet the new requirements of 654,000 residents per seat, and I just wondered if you were aware of that.

MR. GLICKMAN: So you're suggesting that New York City is overrepresented in Congress presently? Is that what you're --

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: No, I'm suggesting to you that the current population of the City of New York does not comprise a sufficient number of people to make 14 seats.

MR. GLICKMAN: Well, I will certainly bring that concern back to the Borough President. But, again, we think that the very strong census data in New York City and, frankly, it was probably still undercounted, but the strong growth that the census showed I think really suggests that New York City should not lose a congressional district. But I will certainly bring your concern back to the Borough President.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much.

Batya Lewton, and forgive me if I pronounce the name wrong.

MS. LEWTON: My name is Batya Lewton. I am representing the 315 West 86th Street Tenants Association. I have lived on the Upper West Side for almost 70 years, and it is still a place where the juices flow. First, let me say that New York City should not lose any representation in either Congress or the New York State Legislature. The recent census shows that we have gained population, while upstate New York has lost population. In fact, I believe that New York City should gain another congressional seat and another seat in the New York State Senate.

Secondly, we Upper West Siders have been superbly represented by our Congressman Jerold Nadler, our State Senator Eric Schneiderman, and our State Assembly Member Scott Stringer. They are true leaders for our community. They serve a distinct and unique community, the Upper West Side. They not only listen to our concerns, they know our needs.

Upper West Siders are not like East Siders. I believe we have a greater commitment to volunteerism and community activism. Our social concerns -- sorry, that's what I feel -- our social concerns and our political ideas differ, I believe, vastly from the majority of East Siders. For example, when the Associated Supermarket on West 109th Street sold its lease to Rite Aid, the community was outraged at a loss of its last reasonably-priced supermarket. A grassroots group organized a rally to oppose Rite Aid coming in. Over 400 West Siders attended this meeting, and it was really a beautiful sight to see. It was a typical West Side meeting, people coming from differing socio-economic backgrounds, young people, senior citizens, and a vibrant mix of ethnic groups that reflect what the West Side always is.

People have said that East Siders like to move to the West Side because the West Side is alive and vibrant. That's very true. You keep coming. Congressman Jerold Nadler and State Senator Eric Schneiderman must not be gerrymandered to exclude them. They must be able to continue to serve all of us on the Upper West Side. Don't dilute us by combining us with the East Side.

In passing, the East Side had a meeting where opponents of Donald Trump's horrendous 90-story building was being discussed, and I want you to know that a very large number of West Siders came to that meeting.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much.

Madeleine Polayes. Welcome.

MS. POLAYES: I can go Batya Lewton one better. I've been there more than 70 years. I was born on 135th Street and Riverside Drive opposite the sewer plant. I went to the Calhoun School, married and lived on the West Side, ran a nursery school, became involved with the West Side Urban Renewal Area by being put on this Mayor's Committee on Urban Renewal, and I also was head of the Parents' Association of P.S. 93 and then the rezoning for the Board of Education of its schools.

I worked very hard in the West Side Urban Renewal Area, which was from 87th to 97th, built two low- and moderate-income co-ops, one under 221(d)(3) for relocating the people being put out, headed the West Side Block Associations, raised two children that went to school on the West Side, et cetera, et cetera. What is a West Sider? I guess I represent it, because a West Sider who has chosen to live here -- not the East Side -- who becomes involved in this community, regardless of the length of time he or she has been there. This involvement consists of being part of a co-op or condo, showing up at community board, joining one's local political club, the local block associations, part of the various religious community, who are also involved in many of the local issues.

A person who is interested in the future of the West Side and sees the problems that we're having by our discovery by the developers whose motto is "bigger is better," and after ruining the East Side has moved to the West.

We are a different breed than the East Side. We do not subscribe to the hoity-toity attitudes of the East Side. We care who are political representatives are and are not afraid to make our opinions known loud and clear. We definitely do not want our community being realigned by outsiders from upstate. We do not forget what is done to us in the name of politics. We are a group who absorbs newcomers -- and we have a lot of them -- and who vote in very large numbers. The Governor and his minions can expect to find us very vindictive if you try to split us apart.

I just wanted to clarify something. When you go below 14th Street, which is still West Side, and you go down into those various communities, you've got to remember below Canal is all our business area, the courts, brokerage houses, Wall Street, et cetera, et cetera. We do have a few communities that are not West Side but they are part The Village, which also really has joined us in many of the issues, so we consider them West Siders. You have Soho and Noho. This is all below 14th. But take 14th Street and come on up, it's East Side and West Side, and the West Side goes all the way up to Spuyten Duyvil, and we'd like to keep it that way. Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Coming from the west side of Nassau County, I appreciate your testimony.

Anne Cunningham.

MS. CUNNINGHAM: Good afternoon. Before I begin my testimony, I received this card from you Tuesday. Not enough time. Okay? I feel that since I received this Tuesday, I'm sure a lot of people received it Tuesday, also, and maybe they didn't even receive it. The Post Office considers mail like this junk mail sometimes. I think you're aware of it. So maybe many of our constituents didn't hear from you at all. I think you may want to consider extending the hearing. I think it's very important. More people will then have a voice.

My name is Anne Cunningham. I am testifying on behalf of 100 SRO tenants residing at the Commander Hotel located at 240 West 73rd Street, New York 10023. As votes and taxpayers, we strongly oppose any legislative redistricting that would dismantle the Upper West Side's 30th Senatorial District, 8th Congressional District, and 67th Assembly District. What the Legislative Task Force and elected officials involved in making reapportionment decisions must consider is that those districts, particularly the 30th Senatorial District, is the home district of the Upper West Side. After 23 years of community activism and involvement in this district, I inform you that the constituents' issues are many -- lack of affordable housing, overdevelopment, transportation, crime, seniors, environment, and quality-of-life issues, to mention a few. In fact, the Upper West Side's Crime Prevention Program is unique in that it differs from those in other communities. It engages the participation of young children and teenagers.

On the Upper West Side we need one senator, one congressman and one assemblyman, not two or three of them in the same capacity. One informed, dedicated legislative person will not only be able to effectively fight for these important issues, they will also retain the wonderful diversity and preserve this vital community, the Upper West Side. I am a member of the 20th Precinct Community Council, the West Side Tenants Union, the West Side Crime Prevention, Community Board 7 public members, SROTU sponsored by Goddard Riverside, the West Side Chamber Music Society, several West Side senior centers, so I do know the community and that's why I'm here today.

Thank you for the pleasure of participation.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you.

MS. CUNNINGHAM: But, please, do not mix us with the East Side.

SENATOR SKELOS: Alan Lawrence. Is Alan here? Angelo Falcon.

MR. FALCON: Hello. First of all, before I begin, I want to say I'm kind of nervous about this East Side-West Side tension. Angelo Falcon. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on the concerns of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund on the current State redistricting process and its impact on the Latino community. My name is Angelo Falcon. I am Senior Policy Executive at the Fund, where I also direct the PRLDEF Institute for Puerto Rican Policy. As you may be aware PRLDEF has been involved in protecting the voting rights of the Latino community since our establishment in the early 1970s. We consider redistricting to be an important civil rights issue for Latinos and other Americans. As such, we will be closely monitoring the work of your task force as it impacts on our community, to assure compliance with the Federal Voting Rights Act and other civil rights laws. This is a process that our organization is undertaking in six other states in the Northeast, and in the State of Florida as part of our nonpartisan Latino Voting Rights Project, and our participation in the Latino Voting Rights Network, which consists of statewide and local Latino Voting Rights committees throughout the East Coast.

With the dramatic growth of New York State's Latino population by close to 700,000 persons in the 1990s, an increase of 30 percent for the decade, Latinos now make up over 15 percent of the State's population, up from 12 percent in 1990. The big question for us is how the redistricting process and the work of your task force will reflect this dramatic growth in the Latino population in terms of our community's ability to elect representatives of their choice.

The challenges before the Latino community in our struggle for social and economic equality in New York State remain formidable in this new century. Unacceptably high poverty rates, high dropout rates from school, being the most underrepresented group in state government employment, and our continued underrepresentation in the State Legislature and in Congress are some of the issues that our community's full participation in the redistricting process can help us address more effectively.

I'm telling you, this East Side-West Side thing has got me really shaken. I'm from Brooklyn so I don't understand it.

SENATOR SKELOS: Your office is on the West Side, though.

MR. FALCON: Well, it's below 14th Street, though.

Within this context, we consider the decision of whether or not New York City will be losing a congressional seat as one that will have an important impact on the voting rights of the Latino community in New York City. Latinos in New York City make up over three-quarters of the State's total Latino population and will be disproportionately affected by the loss of a congressional district, as some advocate. It's clear that with 44.5 percent of the State's total population, New York City should have 12.9 congressional districts fully within its borders, which means that strictly by the numbers it should retain the current 14 seats that are wholly or partly within it. It is clear to us that failing to maintain these seats would result in the dilution of the Latino vote in the State.

As was the case a decade ago when we worked with the Puerto Rican-Latino Voting Rights Network in New York City, Philadelphia and Connecticut, our interest is in assuring that the Latino community can fully participate in the redistricting process. Toward that end we see the need for a process that is open, transparent, and representative to assure fairness. We, therefore, strongly urge the Task Force to consider these recommendations:

1. Develop and publish the criteria you plan to follow in redistricting in terms that are accessible to the general public, and in languages other than English, including informing the public in a timely manner of such relevant things as any decisions to change the number of State Senate districts.
2. To make all the data, software, maps, and map assignments you will be using for redistricting available to the public with appropriate training, including the use of public access terminals in public libraries, and other accessible sites, through the internet and in electronic formats upon request and at little or no cost to the public.
3. Develop and fund a multi-lingual public education campaign on redistricting that would involve nonpartisan civic groups -- the schools, the media, and other sectors of the significant way.
4. Develop a series of public hearings once proposed maps are developed to allow for broad public comment and input, including hearings in accessible sites, such as within the Latino community itself, and providing appropriate language services, such as interpreters and notices in the Spanish language medica.
5. Allow the public to submit their own proposed plans and develop a process for their serious consideration, including for their wide dissemination.
6. And I'm sorry I have to say this in this new century, make diversity a priority in the appointment of task force members and staff to assure that all communities are adequately represented in all aspects of the redistricting process. Currently we understand that the Task Force has no Latinos or other people of color as members or on your staff.

As we move ahead to formally establish a Latino Voting Rights Committee of New York State, we look forward to working with this nonpartisan committee and the Task Force in assuring full Latino participation in the redistricting process. We hope that the Task Force will help make this an open and user-friendly process for all New Yorkers.

Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Questions?

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Just one question. I think I heard you said that the population of the City of New York equates to 12.9 seats in the new congressional plan, correct?

MR. FALCON: Right.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: And then you indicated that that, therefore, requires that they have 14. Could you explain that logic to me?

MR. FALCON: Sure. Well, I don't know its logic, but it's my way of thinking about this. Basically, what you're talking about is you're not talking about 14 seats wholly in the City of New York. There's some that have to be shared with other parts of the State. So, when you do that and you look at 12 seats and then you look at an additional two seats, that .09 being split between different jurisdictions, you come up with the 14, which is basically the current configuration we have.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Would you think that we could go to a conclusion that 15 would be possible?

MR. FALCON: Well, under that, I think you could actually rev it up all the way to make 20-25. I mean, it's possible, but we'll be watching as exactly that. We're watching closely, in fact, how that's going to affect the representation of Latinos. Obviously, as you know, through this process, an infinite number of possibilities are there for you to basically do, so the question is how they impact on the voting strength of the Latino community, from our perspective.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Right. And from that perspective, if we were to spread the voting influence of the City of New York to the northern suburbs, would that increase the opportunity for Latino voters to influence the outcome, or would it decrease the --

MR. FALCON: It would depend on how you'd do it. I don't think you could generalize on that question. We'd have to look exactly at what you're talking about.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Questions?

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Just one. As I'm sure you can understand, Mr. Falcon, one of the things we have to do -- and one of the things we could do -- is we could draw a plan that completely maximizes Latino voting power, and we could draw a plan that completely maximizes the voting power of other minorities. We could draw plans that do nothing but serve identifiable communities of interest, and we could do a plan that serves a strict one man/one vote. The tough part is drawing one that balances all of those factors. And I would simply like to encourage you -- and I clearly understand your organization's interest in maximizing Latino voting strength and in ensuring proper representation at all levels of government -- I would just encourage you and ask you, if you got access to the tools, would you draw a plan that achieves the goal that your organization wants and attempts to balance, as best you can, the other interests that we have to balance as well so that we get a picture of what your plan would look like?

MR. FALCON: Well, our interest is not in maximizing the Latino vote as much as making sure that it doesn't get diluted. That's really our concern. We understand that there are other factors that have to be taken into account in this process, so that we understand that there is no guarantee of proportionality in the Voting Rights Act or in this process. What we're concerned about is that the Latino vote not be diluted, that it basically be respected. We, for example, have developed from the 1990 data an atlas, for example, of Latino neighborhoods, an 800-page atlas that takes into account not just racial data but, also, social and economic data in terms of defining Latino neighborhoods that have commonality of interests. So that's our basic concern at this point. And we understand that race needs to be taken into consideration in terms of other factors, other criteria like, you know, compactness and other criteria. So, that's not a question for us. We understand that process. So our concern is just we're going to be watching to make sure that, you know, our community just doesn't get split and doesn't get diluted, and we want to make sure that the votes of Latinos count as much as everybody else's vote in the State.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Let me just ask you a followup quickly. If you had access to the data that we have -- all the files, all the information that we use -- would it be the intention of your organization to put together a plan, let's say, in the metropolitan New York area to ensure that there is no dilution, as you describe it, of the Latino vote? And I would just encourage you to do that. I would hope your intention would be to do that, because it would give us some guidance as to what in the vision of the community that we're affecting by drawing these lines, what their vision is of a non-dilution plan with respect to the Latino vote.

MR. FALCON: Well, that's exactly what we're doing in eight states. Basically, we're developing the capacity to be able to get all the data. We have our own GIS software to be able to do that, and what we're doing is we're organizing voluntary Latino committees in the community, Latino Voting Rights Committees, that themselves will be drawing the plans and we're providing them with technical assistance.

What we need in terms of the kind of data is data that -- the same data that you're using to draw the plans we need to be able to analyze your plans and to also develop any kind of alternative plans. We want to make sure that the communication doesn't break down around those kinds of questions of people using different data sets and interpreting the data in a different way. So we think it's absolutely essential. We have the capacity. We're developing the capacity to take this data, to do the mapping, to do the data analysis in our communities. That's one of our goals.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Okay. It's fair to say that if you didn't get that data from us, all that technical data, the computer data, that you wouldn't have -- in your judgment you wouldn't be able to fairly participate in the process.

MR. FALCON: Our experience so far, looking at some of the other states, like New Jersey, for example, which we are involved with, is that it's very difficult to be able to comment, to do any kind of analysis of the kinds of plans that are being drawn by the state unless we have the same data set. If we don't have it then it becomes a whole different kind of ballgame.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Could you just get me, as well as the other members of the Commission, an analysis or discussion or a capsulization of the experience in New Jersey, that you had in New Jersey -- that they've just finished that plan? That might be very instructive vis-a-vis the information that we'd give you, the ability to empower you to both watch what we do and perhaps guide it as well. It would just be helpful to know what they did in New Jersey.

MR. FALCON: No problem. I'll have that for you.

SENATOR SKELOS: If I could just ask a question. Ten years ago, if my recollection is correct, I believe PRLDEF submitted a Congressional plan, a Senate plan and Assembly plan. I certainly remember a Congressional plan.

MR. FALCON: Yes.

SENATOR SKELOS: And had the capability of accomplishing this. They did.

MR. FALCON: Yes.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: One more, just a followup. Do you consider the New York Latino vote community to be politically cohesive?

MR. FALCON: Who is saying that?

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: I'm a West Sider.

MR. FALCON: I got scared there for a second. Yes. Yes. In all of the analysis that we've done, we find in terms of voting patterns, the level of racial polarization, especially in the City of New York, that, in fact, there is tremendous cohesiveness between the various communities. We find it also in day-to-day issues that we're involved with, whether it's the Columbian community, the Mexican community, the Dominican community, we find a lot of commonality in terms of the kinds of issues that we address -- common language, common culture, and common sources of discrimination. And if you know anything about the voting patterns of the City of New York, and you just look at it very superficially, the issue of racial polarization is so evident that it's amazing that there isn't more discussion of its consequences.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: You say you do have some data compiled on this?

MR. FALCON: Tons of data, and I think we, also --

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: I don't know that I need tons, but if you could send us maybe a few pounds, it might be --

MR. FALCON: And one of the reasons we'd like to also get access to the political database that you've developed is because that has a certain level of sophistication and detail that we really could use, also, to explore these questions.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Well, I would welcome your submission of that type of data to this task force.

MR. FALCON: So this will be like a swap. Excellent.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Thank you very much.

MR. HEDGES: Angelo, will you share that with us?

MR. FALCON: Sure.

MR. HEDGES: And you mentioned a neighborhood profile that you did?

MR. FALCON: I'll make a copy of our atlas available to each -- It's an 800-pound thing, but we'll make it available to each member of the Commission.

MR. HEDGES: That's great. And, finally, 10 years ago when you, PRLDEF, were doing work, one of the things that you did was work very closely with sitting members of the Legislature and existing Congresspeople from the Latino community. Are you planning to do that this time, also?

MR. FALCON: Yes, we think it's important to have that communication, and we've already been in contact with our elected officials and are working with them closely, yes.

MR. HEDGES: Thank you.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: May I just suggest that it might be constructive if you'd share your resources, or at least the information about your resources, with groups like Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, because I think they really can be persuaded that they do have the resources to help us draw plans. I think, frankly, your approach is going to be very helpful to all of us.

It's the nature of the dialogue. If you can come to us and say, rather than why did you do that, if you can say, we were able to do this, we were able to solve this problem and here's how, don't you agree that's a much more productive kind of dialogue than simply questions from the sidelines?

MR. FALCON: I never turn down a compliment. Yes.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much, sir.

David Kraut? Is David here? Jeffrey Nichols?

DR. NICHOLS: Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Jeffrey Nichols. I'm here testifying both as an individual and as the President of the Board of the New York Service Program for Older People. As an individual I live at 838 West End Avenue in Manhattan County, which is part of that strange piece of the West Side which was tacked onto the East Side district in the last drawing of the lines. And this has been a continuous area of discomfort for myself and my neighbors, who have almost made a fetish out of living on the West Side of Manhattan, which we feel has an entirely different character from the East Side. It's always been a source of pride for us that we were West Siders and not East Siders. West Siders share a great deal of commonality with people to the north and south. You can see that it's really like trying to put jukes and calikaks together, or something, or totally opposite mentalities and attitudes, even though we may appear very similar.

I was born upstate, so I have a sense of how New York City looks from outside and how it feels living inside. And I can assure you that as someone who has now lived on the West Side for more than 30 years, that it is a source of sour-out to be part of an East Side district.

This has nothing to do with the individuals who represent us, who happen to be quite fine and upstanding persons, and I have no desire that anyone be injured if the East Side is welcome to go its own way, simply that we would prefer to have a district in which the West Side maintained its cohesiveness.

As the Board President of the New York Service Program for Older People, we are New York County's oldest and largest mental health program for the elderly. I happen as a physician to be a geriatrician, that is, a specialist in the care of the elderly. And we maintain a large number of different mental health programs on the West Side of Manhattan, including clinic programs, home visiting programs, continuing day treatment programs, cognitive day programs for Alzheimer's patients and support programs for their caregivers, and so on, as well as some Manhattan-wide programs, including our Widowed Persons Program, which on the American Association of Retired Persons National Award for outstanding bereavement services this year.

And one additional program which we maintain is something called a peer advocacy program, which is funded by the City of New York, in which older persons are trained to work with other seniors advocating for them around issues of entitlement. And in the course of that very frequently our seniors, who are out working with other seniors in senior centers, in retirement communities, and so on, deal with issues having to do with Federal entitlements, and it is a source of great confusion to them in trying to advise people how to get access to Federal information and not to be able to figure out whose congressional district so many of our West Siders live in. And it's been a continuous experience that elders on the West Side do not know who their congressperson is and don't know where to turn when they need help on issues like Medicare and Social Security.

And, regardless of what the actual voting politics may be, or ethnic distributions, it has been a pretty universal experience that the division of the West Side into three different districts with strange lines is an effective disenfranchisement for everyone regardless of which district they wind up in because they can't figure out where they belong. And it may be that they can show up on Election Day and vote, but they don't have the appropriate access to their congress people on issues of advocacy, and particularly on the ability to intervene on the very frequent problems that seniors have regarding Federal programs.

So I would really urge you to maintain the integrity of the West Side in your redistricting, and that whatever lines are drawn are drawn in a fashion which is clear enough that seniors are able to understand what congressional district they live in and whose congressional offices they should approach when they need assistance. Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Questions, anybody? Thank you very much, sir.

Therese Revesz, I believe. Tom Allen? Harry Kresky? Glenn VonNostitz? Councilman Gifford Miller? Holly Kay? Council Member Eva Moskowitz? Krystna Piorkowsa? Kathryn Gaffney?

MS. GAFFNEY: Thank you. My name is Kathryn Gaffney and I am here as a representative of the Manhattan Chapter of the Million Mom March. As you know, last year the Million Mom March stunned the country on Mother's Day when more than 750,000 mothers, fathers, children, and other concerned citizens gathered in Washington, D.C. for the most powerful demonstration yet in support of the passage of sensible gun laws. We are citizens of every stripe -- Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. We even include gun owners. It was a grassroots movement. We were heard loud and clear in all corners of the country and throughout our government.

The Million Mom March is now a movement, a national organization of women, men, and children dedicated to a safer future for America through common sense gun laws. The Manhattan Chapter is one of more than 230 chapters that have been established in every state of the Union. We are here in support of maintaining current congressional district lines in Manhattan because of the following:

First. Current districts include a broad variety of neighborhoods -- rich and poor, business, industrial, and residential. This distribution helps each voter to see themselves as part of a greater whole and understand that problems of education and safety, such as gun violence, affect them no matter where they live or work. This diversity also means that the congresspeople representing these districts must address all these issues. This will ensure that strong representation continues for issues like sensible gun laws.

Second. In regards to District 14, we believe that it is important that the district remains intact. We would hate to lose Congresswoman Maloney to redistricting. As a mother and educator, she has been an outstanding advocate for sensible gun laws both in New York and in Washington. Last year she sponsored buses from Manattan to the Mother's Day march in Washington, D.C. She sponsored a Youth Forum on Gun Violence, and this past Sunday, Mother's Day, her support, cooperation, and participation helped us to publicize the importance of passing Federal legislation to close the gun show loophole. This is important to New Yorkers. Even though we already enjoy some of the strongest state gun laws in the country, Federal legislation is necessary because 80 percent of guns used in New York crimes come from states which have not closed their gun show loophole.

Finally, we feel New York City needs District 14 because New York City needs Congresswoman Maloney. She is a senior legislator in her fifth term. This gives her a more powerful position in Congress from which to promote New York City's agenda. She is also one of the few women in Congress, and we need her as a strong voice representing women's issues on the national level.

Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you.

Jonathan Bing. Is Jonathan here? Trudy Mason? Is Trudy here? I'm going to run through the list. Adam Silvera? Anne Emerman? Meryl Brodsky.

MS. BRODSKY: I hope this isn't too longwinded for you, but I'll try to cut some of it. It's a little long.

SENATOR SKELOS: You are a District Leader?

MS. BRODSKY: I'm a District Leader for the 73rd Assembly District, Part A. And I want to thank you today for --

SENATOR SKELOS: Is that Republican or Democrat?

MS. BRODSKY: Do I have to tell you? Democrat. -- giving me the opportunity to speak, as well as many of the others who have spoken so persuasively on behalf of Upper East Side Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. My name is Meryl and I'm a District Leader in Part A of the 73rd, comprising the East 60s, Turtle Bay, Sutton and Beekman Places. On the assumption that we'll all partial to our own neck of the woods, I can say that this area truly represents the best of everything -- health care facilities, shops, restaurants, domiciles, hotels, and firms. But, I'm here today to defend not only my own area but that of Congresswoman Maloney, which is far more extensive. An area that she's represented for 11 years, it encompasses the East Side from 97th to Grand Street and Broadway, a sliver of the West Side in the 90s to Riverside Drive, and Astoria, Queens. Since it's nice to have friends in high places, particularly prominent females, I agree, she's done a formidable job.

There is no dearth of diversity, groups, or opinions on Manhattan's East Side and its contiguous areas. Rather than let a fractious and bloody war break out among every Council Member from Staten Island to Washington Heights wishing a piece of the Upper East Side's humble pie, or East Side zip code 1000-000, why not let us alone? No public purpose can be served by fractionating the Upper East Side and reducing Manhattan's share of congressional block grants for health care, education, police and social services.

The many constituents groups for whom Congresswoman Maloney has worked over the years have a track record of community affairs. They're organized, they're systematic, and they usually win. Would a fractious consortium of intruders emerge, they would likely be massacred.

The United States Supreme Court has recently told us that, yes, a minority district can exist all by itself if it fosters fair and equal political representation. Even the Honorable Rangel, who represents the lion's share of Harlem from Schomburg Library at Lenox Avenue to Central Park West in the 80s, and the Honorable Nadler, who has described his district as running from Zabar's in the West 70s to Nathan's of Coney Island, might agree that a fractionated and disassembled district is no district at all.

The demographic data indicates that the Upper East Side has a character all its own. Fully 20 percent of its residents are seniors, 75 to 90 percent are white with a median income of $50,000 to $70,000 per annum, 30 percent of residents own their own homes, and over 80 percent have some college, at least a B.A., and graduate school. We are all concerned with what we have in common. We share the same underfunded parks, crowded buses and subways, live in overpriced housing built by the same developers, and are burdened by the highest taxes in the region.

Our community affairs and fights are not one-dimensional. When, for example, East Side community board members dumped a Trump luxury high-rise by denying a simple 421(a) tax abatement, it's because no proof has been offered that it is a market-rate project linked to the development of low- and moderate-housing on-site or elsewhere in this city. Particularly unique is the Upper East Side's high proportion of senior citizens on fixed incomes. What a shame if we cut the district into pieces and our joint efforts to promulgate health care legislation, housing, and safe transportation were unilaterally cut back?

Since the U.S. decision in Baker v. Carr in '62, and others, the prospect of gerrymandering a district that would in its extreme form dilute minority voting strength by piling all minorities into one or two districts would probably not have a snowball's change in hell of happening in this area. At least 50 percent of the City's near eight million residents, and equal percent of its workforce, are minorities. The Supreme Court has firmly endorsed the principle of representation on the basis of population of all state legislative bodies and not by a congressional districts we just carved out of far fewer persons.

On this note, the 14th CD overlaps four Assembly Districts, three Councilmanic and two State Senate Districts. At least 20 percent of the elected officials from this area are prominent Republicans. How much more diverse can we get? I'm always reminded of what a former State Committeewoman related to me that her mother told her -- it's all right to marry a Republican but not to vote for one.

Congresswoman Maloney has been a strong ally of females in the whole arena of reproductive rights that runs the gamuts to equal education and employment. She's been involved in the Merit Panel selection of State Judges, as well as the selection of minorities and females to cabinet positions. As our Council Member she fought hard for the best campaign finance reform legislation in the country, and as Congress Member, at all levels of government. She was the strongest proponent for statistical sampling methods to eradicate the adverse effects of reducing funds for health care, education, police, and transportation, due to the census undercount.

Her victories have cut across all partisan, socio-economic, and special interest groups. I want to end this exchange by thanking you for listening, wishing you an auspicious 2001 election year, and a pleasant summer.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Questions?

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: Can I just ask one question?

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: One question.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: My question was you're the District Leader for the 73rd?

MS. BRODSKY: Part A, which is Sutton Place, Beekman Place, the East 60s.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: But would your testimony be that you like the 73rd District just as it is?

MS. BRODSKY: Yes. That about sums it up. We're very happy with it. Typically, I remember 10 years ago when I also testified on behalf of Congresswoman Maloney, it hasn't changed a whole lot. It had been redistricted to extend all the way down to 38th Street. I think something more small and compact would be something that everybody would like, sort of a neat little rectangle.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Thank you. Jackson Leeds? Parag Khandhar? Councilwoman Ronnie Eldridge? Councilwoman, yes, you're up.

COUNCIL MEMBER ELDRIDGE: Thank you. My name is Ronnie Eldridge, and I've represented the 6th City Council District on the Upper West Side for 11-1/2 years. First, I'd like to urge the Task Force to bear in mind -- and I'm sure other people have -- and I'll just repeat it for the record -- that the latest census data reports population shifts from upstate to New York City. And I believe, along with many of the people that I represent, that given these reports that you should not consider diminishing New York City's representation in Congress.

Now for the area that I represent. I've lived on the West Side of Manhattan all of my life. I've lived as far north as 93rd Street and as far south as 67th Street from Columbus Avenue to West End Avenue. I have long been active in local politics. I worked in the Kennedy campaign in 1968, and people would say when I expressed my opinions, well, what do you expect, she's from New York.

Then I went to work years later for Governor Cuomo as a member of his cabinet, and people would say, well, what do you expect, she's from New York City. So, when I finally got elected to the City Council I thought I would be home and guess what they say? Well, what do you expect, she's from the West Side of Manhattan, and that's why I'm here, and that's to tell you that I believe that areas are definite communities, and that the West Side of Manhattan is a unique community, that we have a very strong common purpose. We have one community school board that covers the area that I represent, one primary community board. Actually, though, we have two community boards that are in agreement on all issues that represent from the Village up to 110th Street. We're a catchment area for one hospital that has two centers, St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, that we have do have two police precincts and we do have two Assembly Districts. But elected officials from adjoining areas work as a cohesive group, and we feel we effectively represent our region and our constituents.

When we have meetings, especially in parts of the district, for instance, Columbus Circle, everybody has to deal with two sets of everybody, one member of Congress -- no, we actually have two members of Congress, we have two State Assemblymen, two State Senators, and two Council Members that come together for 59th Street. If we move up a little further we always meet with another Council Member and two Assembly Members. And our groups and institutions in the district think of us as being one group, because we are a definite neighborhood.

Cutting districts in the middle of neighborhoods diminishes the distinctiveness of a community, and we have an example of that. In our district, Upper West Siders living on West 57th Street and further up on West 98th Street are represented by an East Side member of Congress, a member of Congress that represents basically an East Side district, and a Council Member on 57th Street that represents an East Side district. And every election day we get calls from voters who go to their polling places expecting to vote for the people that they read about in the local newspapers, or that they've met on the street, only to find that they have a different set of candidates to vote for and they're very confused. It doesn't make sense for West Siders to be represented by representatives who are not themselves West Siders. And that I don't mean to disparage at all the East Siders that do represent them, they're terrific, but basically there is a difference between the communities, and I think that that should definitely be recognized in the representation that they have.

And I also believe that we have a distinct perspective on the West Side, if any of you have had experience with any of our elected officials. We have a definite perspective that should be included in the formulation of public policy, and that we feel that protecting the qualities of the West Side home that we live in, that we would hope that our perspective is heard when public policies are formulated, and we just think that the Upper West Side is home to thousands of people who would, like me, never call any other place home. So I urge you, when you draw lines, to appreciate our distinct community spirit and feelings, and perspective. Thank you very much.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Questions?

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: First of all, you're absolutely right about the people who have represented the West Side. When Jerry Nadler was in the Assembly with me, I come from way up upstate, and within a month of knowing Jerry I knew more about the West Side than I had ever known in my lifetime, and he did a very good job of representing you.

COUNCIL MEMBER ELDRIDGE: And the freight tunnel.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: My question has to do with, you alluded a minute ago to people who go to the polls expecting to vote for the people they read about in the local papers. I wonder if it would comment on the validity, on the efficacy, on the advisability of our looking at the boundaries -- the circulation areas of weekly newspapers as one definition of communities that we can quantity and put on a map.

COUNCIL MEMBER ELDRIDGE: Well, that's a very interesting question, and I think that there are many communities that may not have that local weekly, but certainly in some communities I think that would be very helpful.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: But if you could expand on that just for a minute, because I think it's a very interesting concept. The people who go to the polls, in other words, they tend to know a lot about these elected officials. They tend to know whether they agree with them or not. So it seems to me you're saying that the news coverage of officials during the course of their and your doing your job gets communicated to your voters in a way through those vehicles, particularly in a city like this. You don't get in The New York Times very often.

COUNCIL MEMBER ELDRIDGE: No.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: But you do get in your weeklies.

COUNCIL MEMBER ELDRIDGE: Right. And we have a street presence. I mean we, especially in the City, do a lot of street campaigning because it's such a dense area, and you can see card tables on the corners, and that's one of the worst parts about campaigning, although it's wonderful to meet everybody. I was thinking this morning, because I had to go to an early morning breakfast and I don't really like that, that at least it was 8 o'clock and not 7 o'clock in the morning when you're racing to the local subway stop so you beat your opponent to that spot. These are all kinds of things we have to do, and you're shaking hands and your names are around. Then you get cross-sections of a couple of blocks that are cut out, or if you've ever contemplated doing districts across the park, it's very difficult because there is a definite difference. Thank you.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Just a comment. Could you describe the boundaries of your Council District? How many people are on it, about 200,000, as I understand that?

COUNCIL MEMBER ELDRIDGE: No, I think it's less. I have, if not the densest Council District in the City, the general line is 152,000 people in a district. That's since the new charter took effect in 1990. Before that we represented -- my district went from 27th Street to 99th Street. Now, because it's so dense it goes from 55th Street to 96th Street and Central Park West, down the middle of 96th Street to Broadway, down the middle of Broadway to 92nd Street, down 92nd Street to Riverside Drive, and then a straight line down to 55th Street. So it's essentially the area between the park, Central Park and the Hudson River.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: I would just add my good friend Franz Leichter, who represented the Upper West Side for 25 years, they couldn't get the West Side out of him after 25 years in Albany, and my new colleague, Eric Schneiderman, despite some opposition -- let's put it that way -- they haven't been able to get the West Side out of him, either. If there's an indelible character to the West Side it's been personified in those two men and their work on behalf of the West Side, in the Senate, anyway.

COUNCIL MEMBER ELDRIDGE: We try to carry on that tradition in all the bodies that we are represented in.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: If there's a character on the West Side it has clearly been present in the State Senate in its last two elected representatives, at least by my view. That character is clearly still there.

COUNCIL MEMBER ELDRIDGE: And we always get reelected by huge votes, so you can see that we actually do represent these districts very well. Thank you very much.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Councilwoman, thank you.

Al Doyle?

MR. DOYLE: Good afternoon. My name is Al Doyle, and my testimony concerns primarily the 14th Congressional District. I am the President of the Stuyvesant Town Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association. Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village were built by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company shortly after World War II and contain a total of 11,250 apartments. We are part of the 14th Congressional District and are proud to be represented by Congress Member Carolyn Maloney.

This district is sometimes referred to as the "silk stocking" district. We have always been a part of the silk stocking district. Over the years, the district number has changed after reapportionment. However, we remain part of a Congressional District that includes communities throughout the East Side of Manhattan and now includes portions of Queens. We are a solid middle class neighborhood with a significant population of senior citizens. We have over the years been represented by John V. Lindsay, from 1959 to 1965, as well as Ed Koch from 1969 to 1977.

I am here to request Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village remain part of the 14th Congressional District. Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village have for 50 years been a stable community of hardworking, tax paying middle-class citizens. We are home not only to senior citizens but, also, to second- and third-generation families, as well as residents new to this area.

As our State Senator Roy M. Goodman stated many years ago, Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village are the anchor of Manhattan. We seek to maintain the prestige of being part of the silk stocking district, and to contribute to making New York City the best city it can be.

I appreciate this opportunity to present my testimony and thank you for your kind attention.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Just one question for myself. What are the cross-street boundaries of this address? I'm not familiar with it.

MR. DOYLE: Stuyvesant Town runs from -- the southern boundary is 14th Street. It runs from First Avenue to the East River Drive. The northern boundary of Stuyvesant Town is 20th Street, and that's the southern boundary of Peter Cooper Village, which runs to 23rd Street. So it's from 14th to 23rd, from First Avenue to the River.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Thank you.

Rocky Chin? I have on the list Steven Russo?

MR. RUSSO: Good afternoon. My name is Steven Russo. I, too, am from the Upper West Side and come to talk a little bit about the Upper West Side. I'm a Democratic District Leader from the 69th Assembly District, Part C.

I also want to weigh in on what I've seen first hand to be sort of a difficult situation in the 69th Assembly District with the Congressional District lines. I'm sure you've heard a lot about the --

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Can I just ask you a question? Again, for a non-New York, where on the West Side do you live? What's the cross-street?

MR. RUSSO: I'm sorry. The 69th Assembly District, Part C, is in the 80s and the West 90s, and I live a little bit north of there.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Great. We now know which part of the West Side.

MR. RUSSO: And in my area, I'm also here to talk about sort of what's been referred to as the panhandle of the 14th Congressional District that comes onto the West Side, and I want to talk about a few of the issues there, because up by us in the 69th Assembly District we actually have three Congressional Districts converging there. We have the 15th Congressional District from the north and then the 8th Congressional District encompassing a large portion of the Upper West Side, and then the 14th Assembly District.

I have to echo Councilwoman Eldridge's comments. The confusion is tremendous in our section of the neighborhood. When I'm out petitioning, it is not uncommon -- in fact, it's very common -- that the people we meet have no idea who their representative is because you have these three lines coming right there, and they're often surprised when they find out that they're in the 14th Congressional District.

Obviously, congressional lines have to be drawn somewhere, they have to fall in somebody's part of an Assembly District or within an Assembly District, but I think here, especially having all three of them come in together, is extraordinarily confusing for the voters and for the members of the Upper West Side community, and I think the logical thing to do there is, given that the 14th Congressional District is essentially -- its Manhattan portion is virtually -- the remainder of it is on the East Side of Manhattan, while the 8th Congressional District runs down the West Side of Manhattan. And that's especially true, again, as Council Member Eldridge commented, relating to the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side. I mean, we certainly travel to the Upper East Side, and I'm sure Upper East Siders come to the Upper West Side, but they are very distinct neighborhoods. They're separated by a very large and beautiful park, and it just doesn't make a lot of sense to have just a small piece of the Upper West Side carved out into what is essentially an East Side district.

And I also want to emphasize that this is not obviously to disparage Congresswoman Maloney, who is an excellent congresswoman and does a great job. It's more just looking at the factors of reapportionment and looking at making the districts more compact and to, as much as possible, keep whole neighborhoods within one Congressional District. And, quite honestly, I just don't see the need for it.

The last point I want to make is also on the point that was discussed before about the weekly newspapers, and I think that point is a critical one. Elected officials, even members of Congress, and certainly in the State level, as well, New York is a very, very competitive media market, and these weeklies is where a lot of people get their news from about who their elected representatives are. There is, in fact, an East Side weekly and a West Side weekly, and run by the same company but they are different weeklies and they cover different stories, and people really rely on those. So I think that is, also, a critical point in considering how you want to draw these districts.

Thank you.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: Can I just follow up on that? In terms of thinking about the weekly newspapers as being worthy or legitimate basis for us to try to draw political district lines, I know a little bit about the business. You mentioned that it's very competitive. A newspaper isn't likely to try to sell a paper in a neighborhood where people aren't going to buy it, and if they are not interested in the content that's in the paper they're not going to buy it there. I just wonder if you could comment -- without putting you on the spot -- about what the pitfalls would be if we were to take those boundaries developed by a private corporation really, usually, and try to incorporate them into our political boundaries. Would we be making a mistake there?

MR. RUSSO: Well, I think you -- I don't know if you have to go for in my own little world of the West and East Side of Manhattan you have to go that far, because in our case they are clearly distinct neighborhoods, and the reason why the publication reports them differently is because they're distinct neighborhoods, and people on the West Side, you know, if they want to read city-wide news they read The Times or the tabloids, they don't need to read, and so I think they've made a decision as a business decision, this is the best way to get them to read it. The weeklies I'm talking about are free weeklies. They're just offered in Manhattan. They're offered free. There are some weeklies, like The New York Observer that you have to subscribe to and pay for, but the weeklies that really cover the hard local news, the kinds of things in other parts of the State that people get in their regular newspaper, are free in Manhattan.

So, in our case I don't think you need to do that because, I agree, there could be some concern about a private corporation creating a neighborhood. In this case the private publications are really just reflecting a neighborhood.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: To follow up Assemblyman Ortloff's question, what are the names of the newspapers?

MR. RUSSO: The Manhattan East Side Resident, West Side Resident are the names of them. Is there another one of them? I'm sorry West Side Spirit and the East Side -- Our Town is on the East Side.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: I have another question. You, as a number of other speakers, have asked us to cut the handle off the 14th Congressional District. Someone suggested there may be as many as 30,000 people living there. Just so you understand, if we cut that handle off we have to find about 80,000 people to add to this Congressional District. It's short by 50,000. It's got about 608,000 people in it right now. It needs to have under the reapportionment -- and Assemblyman Parment knows the exact number -- something like 655,000. So we have to find 47,000 people today, and if we cut the panhandle off and it has 30,000 people in it, we have to find 77,000 people. Now you see the dimension of our problem. We have, of course, neighboring districts, Mr. Nadler and others, who represent neighboring districts. But we cannot keep the 14th District looking the way it looks right now. It has to grow. And every time we cut off a piece of it because of the interests of preserving a West Side community neighborhood, which seems to me what we've heard today in detail, we create a bigger problem because we have to add those 30,000 people some other place just to get back to where we are today, much less find 47,000 more to add to the list.

I tell you that because it's not as simple as cutting off a piece and all of a sudden people reappear elsewhere. We're short with the reapportionment that dropped from 31 to 29 every district in New York State has to grow. I think every single one has to grow. There are three that don't have to grow, but the other 26 we've got to find more people for them and this is one of them. So, while I understand what seems to be the unanimous sentiment expressed today to cut off the panhandle, just understand that if we do that we've got to go find more people.

MR. RUSSO: I do understand that and, of course, it's hard for me to react without seeing the entire puzzle. I do note Professor Hedges here, a former professor of mine -- I was at SUNY Albany, where I first learned about the whole reapportionment puzzle and just how difficult it is. I would just say, you know, when we're reconfiguring and rejiggering all of these districts and then you have so many various concerns, and I really admire the work that the Task Force has to do, to the extent that you can get rid of it or minimize it, I think it will go a long way for our neighborhood, because when you just look at this map, it's so clear that you've got -- on a whole, the reapportionment did try to do things East Side and West Side. And, I think, also in '92 there were some reasons that were probably valid in 1992 to creating that panhandle that may not exist now. I thank you for your time.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: I meant to ask you before and it escaped me. If you look at the 68th Assembly District there is also a panhandle.

MR. RUSSO: That's correct.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: The middle of the 69th Assembly District. Is there any reason why that should be -- that's more valid than the other one?

MR. RUSSO: I don't think so. I came in to talk a little bit because in my section of the 69th Assembly District where I'm the District Leader, I'm confronted with the congressional line issue more when I'm out on the street talking to people. But I know my colleagues -- and I live on 103rd and West End, so do confront, and some of my colleagues up there, who are the district leaders up there, confront that issue, as well, and I think that's a real valid concern, as well. I know there are other competing concerns about why that panhandle was created, as well. But, yes, if you had to ask me, I think that is part of the West Side and it's part of the 69th Assembly District in its essence.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you.

Joseph Haslip? David Kraut?

MR. KRAUT: Good afternoon. Members of the Task Force, I am here to tell you that the community known as Roosevelt Island in zip code 10044, must not be reapportioned away from Manhattan in any way, shape or form. My name is David Kraut. I have lived at 540 Main Street on Roosevelt Island for 22 years. I am a former president of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association, which seeks to represent community views to government at all levels. I'm currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, the State corporation which has specifically the responsibility to operate, manage, and develop the island.

I've been a Director for exactly seven years today. I was appointed to this board by Governor Mario Cuomo, and Governor George Pataki has kindly allowed me to continue to serve my community in this capacity. Roosevelt Island is a separate and distinct community within the bounds of New York City. The island itself sits squarely in the middle of the East River mid-way between Manhattan and Queens. In its long history, the island has been known by many names, most recently as "welfare island," reflecting the many city social service institutions which were located there historically. As these institutions moved elsewhere, the island became available for development in the late 1960s. At that time the Rockefeller Administration conceived of a plan to develop the plan as a new town, a city planning concept which was in vogue at the time. Consequently, the State of New York leased the island from the City for 99 years and proceeded to develop it as a mixed-income, middle-class residential community under a general development plan. Originally the plan called for a population of 20,000 people, but it was modified some years ago to reflect a total buildout in the range of 13,000.

For many years the island community depended on annual State appropriations to complete our annual operating budget and to provide the basis of our capital requirements. A typical year's subsidy was on the order of $6 million. Governor Pataki cut those subsidies to nothing, and he did so in total harmony and agreement with the political views and personal philosophy for which the citizens of the State elected him. This is the status quo, and no member of the current board has any quarrel with it.

On the contrary, we see our responsibility to be the continued and mandated development of the island in line with the amended General Development Plan. By developing the properties still available to us, we will earn through ground rents the monies we need for both our year-to-year operations and our capital requirements.

Prior to this board's accession, there were two previous developmental stages on the island. The original buildings referred to as North Town Stage 1, were built as a mixed-income, middle-class project under the Mitchell-Lama Program. The second phase was the construction of North Town Phase 2, also referred to as Manhattan Park, consisting of one building of apartments subsidized under various programs, and four buildings of fair market housing, all owned, built, and managed by various branches of the Starrett Corporation.

Currently, the Board is developing two further sites. One is the South Town Project, being developed by a coalition of the Hudson Company and a related company. The other is the Octagon Project, a proposal brought to us by another developer, to which the Board has not yet given final approval. We have additional properties available for development at the southern end of the island and in various infill locations.

My argument today is very simple. First, nothing must impact the development of these properties in any way that negatively affects their values. Second, any reapportionment which places us in Queens in any way, shape, or form would negatively impact those values. Roosevelt Island is part of Manhattan and is being developed as such. Our Congressional, State Assembly, and State Senate representation are Manhattan seats. Our zip code begins with 100, and our area code is 212.

This is in line with the original intent behind the project. In my view, Roosevelt Island must be considered part of Manhattan in every way in order to ensure the most valuable possible development. I consider anything else to be fiscally irresponsible and fiduciarily disastrous. To become part of Queens in any way, shape, or form would mitigate towards a drastic lessening in the value of the State's own lease.

Furthermore, it would not only devalue the properties currently under development, or slated for development, it would also downgrade the value of the existing buildings. In the case of the Starrett Company's holdings in North Town Phase 2, such a devaluing might well lead the State open to action, in my personal opinion. In the case of the original Mitchell-Lama project, North Town Phase 1, it would have the effect of decreasing the value of the bonds which originally underwrote the project and, thereby, in my opinion, it would be cheating the State's bondholders.

Therefore, I urge this Task Force to give every possible consideration to keeping Roosevelt Island firmly within Manhattan in every possible way. It protects the value of the State's lease, it protects the value of the existing developments on the island. It protects the value of developments both current and future.

I thank the Task Force for your attention and consideration.

SENATOR SKELOS: Questions?

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Yes, I had a question. Is this island part of New York County?

MR. KRAUT: Yes.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: A couple of quick questions. I understand your interest in having Roosevelt Island attached to Manhattan, but it's now attached to a Congressional District that includes Manhattan and Queens. Is that a problem for you, from the point of view? I mean, the Congressional District has obviously two of the boroughs in it.

MR. KRAUT: The fact that a Congressional District crosses borough lines doesn't bother me in any way, shape, or form. And, in fact, we're represented currently by a congresswoman who has lived in Manhattan and addressed herself as a Manhattanite for many years.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Could you describe, currently it's not attached to the Senate District immediately adjacent to it to the west. It's not part of the 26th Senate District, it's part of the 28th Senate District that runs up through the northern part of Manhattan. What's your sense about that? Is the community of interest where it is now, or should it be attached to what's adjacent to it?

MR. KRAUT: I can't really speak to that. It was attached to the 28th for historical reasons which I have not understood and I don't understand them now. Whether it works to our advantage or not this way I couldn't really address right now.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Let me ask you this. Where is the linkage for commuters? Do they commute directly into the 26th District next door?

MR. KRAUT: Yes. The linkage to commuters by way of the Roosevelt Island tramway and by the Q train line, which takes them directly into the East 60s, and from there on downtown.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Is there a tramway? Again, I apologize for being ignorant of New York geography and facilities, but does the tramway also go to Queens?

MR. KRAUT: No.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: It just goes into Manhattan.

MR. KRAUT: It just goes into Manhattan.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Therese Revesz? Tom Allen? Is Tom here? Harry Kresky? Glenn VonNostitz? Council Member Gifford Miller?

COUNCIL MEMBER MILLER: Thank you. I'm here to testify principally with regard to the 14th Congressional District, which I not only serve as a Council Member entirely within, but at one point I was actually the District Director and New York City Chief of Staff to Congresswoman Maloney. My name is Gifford Miller. I'm a City Council Member. I'm here to testify with regard specifically to the 14th Congressional District, which I currently represent a City Council District that is wholly within, and which previously -- previously to my current position in the City Council I served as the New York City Chief of Staff to Congresswoman Maloney for the 14th Congressional District.

Since 1897 Manhattan's Upper East Side and the whole East Side, really, has been known as the silk stocking district. As Congressional Districts have grown in population the silk stocking district has grown to incorporate new communities, but these communities do form a true organic whole from Mt. Sinai down to Grand Street and really ought to be kept together, and that's what I'm here to testify to the Task Force on.

The neighborhoods of the 14th Congressional District are really quite remarkably similar to one another, in Manhattan, at least. From the Lower East Side all the way up to the Upper East Side, there is a confluence of interest, there's a confluence of concerns, and representation should reflect that and does with the current 14th Congressional District.

Actually, Roosevelt Island is a good example, that draws together the whole 14th Congressional District, not just Manhattan's East Side but, also, the Queens part, because Roosevelt Island, which we were just discussing, is obviously in the East River, it's political jurisdiction is generally Manhattan, or is Manhattan. It's in New York County, as the Assemblyman asked, it's a part of Manhattan, but it receives its police, sanitation and fire services from Queens. So, it actually serves as quite literally a bridge to the entire 14th Congressional District because the areas of the precincts and the fire services come from the part of the 14th Congressional District which is in Astoria and Long Island City.

So Roosevelt Island brings the entire district together. But the East Side of Manhattan has absolutely a unity of concerns, I think, and that is reflected in the local papers that run up and down the East Side, and reflected in the kinds of jobs and the kinds of employment, and the kinds of housing that we have up and down the East Side. The hospitals are an excellent example. Manhattan's 14th Congressional District probably has more hospitals in it than many states in the United States of America. It's way they call "bedpan alley," running up and down the east side of the East Side.

And transportation is another good example of an issue that unites the communities. The Second Avenue subway, which so many of us have fought to see someday become a reality, and if they push for it to be a full-length Second Avenue subway, is a reflection of the needs of the entire district being united with having a lack of access to enough subways and mass transit in that manner. And East Siders all experience the frustration of crosstown bus services and the consequence of trying to get across town regularly without those types of issues. So, transportation is another issue that I think unites the whole district.

The fact that there are such a confluence of issues that unite the district is reflected, I think, in Carolyn Maloney's proven record of winning this district not just overall, but every part of this district, and ever since she unseated a Republican in 1992, where she was outspent 5-to-1, she's really won every single part of this district by similar margins, and that's reflected even in the year 1994, in which Republicans across the country were winning in a big way -- and who could forget that historic year -- Carolyn won almost two-thirds of the vote against a popular City Council Member, and increased her margin by more than any other Democrat in the country. So she has solid bipartisan support, I think, throughout the district, and that is reflected in the fact that she speaks to the issues that concerns all of the residents of the 14th Congressional District. So I think we've benefitted greatly from having her represent the entire community that is represented by the 14th Congressional District. She now chairs -- if anyone knows about this issue, having chaired the Census Committee for the House, co-chaired it, she's very familiar with it, and I think we should -- I hope that the Task Force will recommend keeping the district together as much as is possible.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Can you tell me where your Council District runs?

COUNCIL MEMBER MILLER: My district looks an enormous amount like Pete Grannis' district. It's the East Side of the Upper East Side. It runs from 49th to 92nd Streets and includes Roosevelt Island and generally runs from the River to Second, Third, or Lex, and in one small case Park, but it looks a lot like Pete Grannis'.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: A couple of minutes ago I said if we cut the panhandle off this district up on the West Side we'd have to find 80,000 people to put in this district. If I told you to go find those people, which direction would you go?

COUNCIL MEMBER MILLER: Well, I'm not sure that I would think that it's a good idea to cut the panhandle off the district. I think there are some concerns that unite the West and the East Side, but if you were going to go, you know, the Lower East Side is an area where there are a number of voters. This is a very delicate situation that I know you all are faced with tremendous challenges in doing that. I think that Carolyn has in the past represented parts of East Harlem and, as I said, there's a unity of concerns up and down the East Side, so I think there are places to go there, and I'm sure that efforts can be found in other places, but I wouldn't necessarily say that we have to eliminate the panhandle. I think Carolyn's done a good job of representing those people, and I can understand everybody's concern of trying to make things as compact as possible. But there are lines that have been there and we ought to have respect for those.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much.

Holly Kay?

MS. KAY: We're two community-based not-for-profits. We'd like to address you as a panel, if we might.

SENATOR SKELOS: Five minutes.

MS. KAY: Yes, that's fine. My name is Holly Kay. I'm the Executive Director of the Lower East Side Conservancy, which is an historic preservation and cultural renewal organization on the Lower East Side. My colleague is Gene Golumbek. He's Executive Director of South Manhattan Development Corporation, which is the local economic development corporation on the East Side. Both of ours are community-based not-for-profit organizations engaged in the stabilization, preservation and enhancement of the Lower East Side as an intact community.

I'm here to speak strongly in support of a district which is connected to the rest of the East Side, and I want to do that on two levels -- one, in general in terms of the needs and the connections, and really to reiterate the points made by Councilperson Miller. We see ourselves as connected to north of Houston Street, north of 14th Street. The building types are the same, the communities flow from one to the other. When all of a sudden the northern area of what we consider the Lower East Side, Houston Street, right below Houston Street, started to show signs of really reinvigoration it was because -- the perception was because the East Village had jumped south of Houston Street and that that's where the connection was, much more so than Soho was moving east.

We see ourselves on a north-and-south axis, we function in that way. The Lower East Side was originally historically went to 14th Street and went north of there. From a point of view of transportation, health services, social services, air quality -- all of the things that I think you've heard spoken about here in the course of the day -- we want to reiterate.

We also want to speak strongly in favor of the district being not split into two or three parts, as it presently is. I think that there is a real evisceration of the power of the district by having to try and figure out which Congressperson to go to when you go across the street, basically.

I would also like to speak specifically on behalf of Carolyn Maloney, who has been consistent in her support of the Lower East Side. We know that that's where we can go if we have a problem. We were recently delighted to have the Lower East Side designated as a historic district on the State and National Registers of Historic Places. Commissioner Castro from the State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, came. The one of three congresspeople who represent our district, the only one to show up to send a representative -- and she actually came in person -- was Congresswoman Maloney. So, she has been the person we have turned to in terms of getting things done, for support, for concerns, and we see that as the appropriate continued connection for us.

MR. GOLUMBEK: My name is Gene Golumbek, and I am the Executive Director of the South Manhattan Development Corporation, a non-profit economic development group that serves the whole Lower East Side.

As I sat here listening to earlier speakers I constantly heard a theme of communities that did not want to be broken up but wanted to stay within one Congressional District. The Lower East Side has had a very serious problem in that it is divided into three Congressional Districts. We are a community, a unique community, in some ways very much like the Upper West Side, which I know you're familiar with. We have many, many serious problems, and lacking one congressperson to speak for us has over the last decade hurt us tremendously.

When I need to go to somebody it's, well, which district are they in, and do I go to this one or that one. One of them has Brooklyn as the main part of their district, another the Upper West Side is the main part of their district. We really have nobody that we look to. Now, we are fortunate in Carolyn Maloney in that she is willing to deal with district-wide issues. But the fact of the matter is, sometimes it's not quite in her area. I think that it's very important that a community like the Lower East Side, which has many of the serious urban problems that we're all familiar with, as well as it's now in a stage of dynamic revitalization, have one person that will represent us, that we will be able to talk to, that will be able to talk for us.

As to how that should be decided, I think the point was made earlier -- and I'll just reiterate it briefly -- the Upper East Side, the middle East Side, which is Gramercy Park area, Stuyvesant Town and the Lower East Side share many of the same problems. Our transportation system is the same. You start on the Lexington Avenue up at 96th Street, you go straight down. You have the buses that are coming down. We face many of the same issues in terms of transportation. The school district between the Lower East Side and the upper part of the East Side is also very similar. We have many similar problems that we don't have anything in common with Brooklyn, and we have very little in common with the West Side, but we do have with Gramercy Park, with the East Village, with the Upper East Side.

I would urge you when you're drawing these lines to make sure that the Lower East Side, first of all, has one congressperson representing it, not three, as is currently the case. And, secondly, I would urge you to link it with the rest of the East Side of Manhattan.

Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you.

Council Member Eva Moskowitz? Krystna Piorkowsa? Jonathan Bing? Trudy Mason?

MS. MASON: Good afternoon. My name is Trudy Mason. I am the Democratic State Committeewoman representing the 73rd Assembly District, which is the Upper East Side, and is wholly contained in the 14th Congressional District. I am also the Manhattan representative on the Permanent Citizens Advisory Council, New York City Transit Riders Council to the MTA. It's a long title for a small committee.

And since many of these issues that I was going to speak to in terms of the political exigencies of keeping the 14th Congressional District together, I'd like to wear my transportation hat right now and tell you that it is absolutely necessary for transportation services not only to the East Side of Manhattan and the West Side of Manhattan, but, also, to the City of New York, that the 14th Congressional District represented by Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, be kept as it is.

We have been fighting the fight for the Second Avenue subway, which is absolutely necessary for the economic life not just of the East Side of Manhattan, but for the future of this city, because when the East Side is strangled, when the commercial life of the East Side is strangled, it affects the whole City of New York, and that is what is happening right now.

Congresswoman Maloney has been the person who has helped us get the initial funding for a full-build Second Avenue subway. And by full-build we mean not just the East Side of Manhattan but going all the way from the Bronx all the way down, and then hooking up with Brooklyn, and then going -- and also hooking up with what is now being called the East Side Connection, which will bring in the Long Island Rail Road trains to Grand Central Station, therefore increasing more transit population on the East Side of Manhattan.

Because she represents the district as it is right now, she understands the transportation needs of the City of New York. Also, by having the West Side as part of the 14th Congressional District, what you've been calling the panhandle, we have a very serious problem with crosstown bus service. Many of you have probably heard about the articulated buses and the monsters that they are right now, and the lack of service that their coming in has affected, also the traffic problems that they have brought along. By having the East Side and the West Side linked that way, and through the 14th Congressional District, we're hoping that we're going to be able to do something about these monstrosities. And we need to have the district as it is right now.

I would say, sir, that you don't eliminate the panhandle but, rather, that you add some more West Side districts so that we can have a united Manhattan through the 14th Congressional District, and that you also include, as the previous speaker said, the whole of the Lower East Side. We who are on the Upper East Side are related to the Lower East Side. It's all one East Side, and our problems, our needs, are all the same.

So, I would ask you to keep the 14th Congressional District intact, and not think about eliminating any of the areas in Manhattan, but make it truly a district that includes Astoria in Queens because of the transportation connections, because of everything else that you've heard before, in the political setup and the ethnic setup, et cetera. But, also, that you keep this district as a Manhattan upper-lower, east-west, and the part of Queens that relates so well to this. Thank you very much.

SENATOR SKELOS: Any questions?

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Just one. Because of your familiarity with the MTA, the subway lines through Manhattan in essence run north-south, do they not?

MS. KAY: Well, there are also some -- I used to be Director of Public Affairs and Government and Community Relations for the MTA, so I can tell you that there are lines, especially the BMT lines and some of the IND lines, the E and the F, which run crosstown, across 53rd Street, and we now have the 63rd Street line, which was an abortive line that really ended -- it was called the track to nowhere. They have now made a connection in Queens, so it runs all the way from the West Side, along 63rd Street and through Roosevelt Island, which also must be kept as part of this district because it is part of Manhattan, and goes into Queens. So it really connects the 14th Congressional District.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you very much.

Michael Duran? Is Michael here? Deborah Kaplan?

MS. KAPLAN: Good afternoon. My name is Deborah Kaplan. I'm President of the Women's Bar Association of the State of New York, and I was very pleased to receive an invitation to testify before this important committee, and appreciate, of course, the opportunity to submit written testimony, as well.

Since I embarked upon my term as President of the Women's Bar Association, State of New York, I've testified and spoken before several government groups, bar associations, and legislative bodies. But I would like to take this opportunity to convey to you our Association's views on the importance of having qualified women leaders to serve in Congress.

Just so you know, the Women's Bar Association of the State of New York has a membership of over 3,500 lawyers and judges, both women and men, from all segments of the profession, throughout the State of New York. The Association is one of the largest organizations in the United States which is dedicated to the dual goals of advancing women in the legal profession and advocating women's interests in society and in the legal system.

The population of the State of New York is amazingly diverse. I am here today to convey the views of our Association that a commitment to diversity in our government's leadership is tremendously important, and we believe strongly that having women in Congress achieves much more than mere symbolism. As such, I am pleased to be here today to speak to you about Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and the 14th Congressional District.

Congresswoman Maloney has demonstrated experience, intelligence, and skills that have made a qualitative difference in the justice that our citizens receive. I just want to touch upon a few points in my five minutes for the Committee to consider. We have found that as elected officials women are more likely to raise certain issues and concerns. For example, women have been instrumental in increasing funding for women's health research, and when it comes to diseases that affect both women and men, for decades scientific research omitted women from the clinical trials. However, when women were elected to leadership positions research priorities were reordered, and women's health is first starting to receive the increased funding it deserves. Even so, no research has been done on equipment and products used solely by women.

For example, women suffer terrible injuries because breast pumps do not go through any oversight process. Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney has introduced legislation to require such research. And despite, frankly, being one of the most forward-thinking states, New York has a very poor record of electing women to important leadership positions in government. We have never had a woman governor and New York City has never even had a woman mayor and, frankly, it took until the year 2000 before we got a woman senator. And of the 16 members in the House delegation from New York State, only three are women.

Now, Congresswoman Maloney has a proven record of accomplishment in the 14th Congressional District under the current lines. And I know that Council Member Miller went through all of her many victories and how she receives strong bipartisan support throughout her district, so I am not going to detail that again for you. It is in my written testimony.

But I want you to know that Congresswoman Maloney has strong support not just from the Congressional District but from people throughout New York State. She is now a relatively senior member of Congress, she chairs an important Banking Subcommittee, and lead the Democratic effort for a fair and accurate census, and co-chaired the Women's Caucus in the last Congress.

She has been part of the United States delegation to three United Nation Conferences, including the Bejing Conference on Women's Issues, the Cairo Plus Five Conference on Population Issues at the Hague, and the Bejing Plus Five in New York.

Congresswoman Maloney has, frankly, done an outstanding job of raising the issues that are important to women, and in the 106th Congress she co-chaired the Congressional Caucus on Women's Issues. During her tenure Congress passed important legislation that will make it possible for under-insured and uninsured women to receive treatment for breast and cervical cancer, help protect women who are victims of domestic violence and discrimination, assist young people who have aged out of the foster care system, increase the available credit to women-owned businesses, and establish a pediatric research initiative at the National Institutes of Health, which will conduct research on birth defects, folic acid promotion, safe motherhood, and prenatal care -- issues that are important, I'm sure, to all of us. And nearly half of the Caucus's 78-item legislative agenda was acted upon during the 106th Congress, with 21 bills actually becoming law.

As I've said, Congresswoman Maloney has done a remarkable job of working on legislation that benefits women. Her bill to provide annual mammograms to women on Medicare was incorporated as part of the 1997 balanced budget agreement. And when Republicans eliminated funding for international family planning, Congresswoman Maloney successfully led the fight to restore the funding. She has passed legislation to permit women to breast feed on Federal property, to protect the privacy of military dependents, and to improve child support enforcement. Her bill to protect older Americans from domestic violence passed as part of the Violence Against Women Act.

In closing, Congresswoman Maloney has an exemplary record of leadership and accomplishment. We have found her consistently to be a gifted and responsible legislator. I am delighted, as I said, to be here with you this afternoon to have an opportunity to discuss with you some of her many accomplishments, and I'm sure you'll agree, the importance of diversity in government.

Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Question. What is the name of the organization you represent?

MS. KAPLAN: Women's Bar Association of the State of New York. We have 15 chapters across the State.

SENATOR SKELOS: Does your organization endorse candidates?

MS. KAPLAN: No, we do not.

SENATOR SKELOS: You do not endorse candidates.

MS. KAPLAN: We do not endorse in any rates.

SENATOR SKELOS: Would you endorse Carolyn Maloney?

MS. KAPLAN: If I could I would.

SENATOR SKELOS: Are you representing the organization?

MS. KAPLAN: Yes. I am the President of the organization. I am here to speak on the importance of having women and diversity in government, and to speak to you of the issues that she has recognized.

SENATOR SKELOS: So, whether it's Carolyn Maloney or not, within that district you're saying that there should be a female within that district representing.

MS. KAPLAN: What I'm saying is that Carolyn Maloney is an excellent congresswoman who represents the interest of all of her constituents and brings to the forefront the issues that concern our organization, as well.

SENATOR SKELOS: But your organization, and you as President of the organization, are not endorsing her.

MS. KAPLAN: We cannot by our by-laws endorse any particular individual. Personally I would endorse Congresswoman Maloney without reservation.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: Were you here earlier when the League of Women Voters spoke?

MS. KAPLAN: I was here when the hearing started and was told that I wouldn't get go til 3 o'clock so I left to go back to work, so I did not hear them.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: The League and Common Cause have a position that, number one, this process be done by not a bipartisan but a nonpartisan process, and one of their positions is the Task Force should not even know or take into account the residence of incumbents. Would you disagree with that position by virtue of the fact that you feel so strongly that a particular individual ought to be representing the 14th?

MS. KAPLAN: You didn't ask that question very well.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: Okay. Suppose you woke up the day after our plan came out and we had deliberately blinded our eyes to where incumbents live, and inadvertently, without intending to, left her out of the 14th District, do you think that her constituents would be pleased with that, or would react rather differently?

MS. KAPLAN: I think that anyone who is not represented by the Congresswoman would suffer and would be very upset. And, frankly, I think -- if you're asking me on a personal level -- her district should be expanded because she does such a phenomenal job.

ASSEMBLYMAN ORTLOFF: Then I would invite you, if you're not prepared to answer now, to maybe send us a considered opinion later, whether we should or should not consider where incumbents live as one part of the process here.

MS. KAPLAN: Sure.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: One question, if I could. I'll be real brief. The issue of gender has never really been a part of reapportionment in that we certainly have other criteria under the Voting Rights Act and, Lord knows, we've got a lot of requirements of constitutions. But there's no legal requirement with respect to gender. We leave that up to voters, and we leave that up to action at the ballot box. People take their qualifications, including gender sometimes, to the ballot box and ask people to elect them because they're a woman or because of their understanding of women's issues. I guess my question is, are you aware of legally anything that this -- even assuming we wanted to -- that we could take into account with respect to gender in the reapportionment process?

MS. KAPLAN: I don't know that there's anything the current law as you have, and I'm certainly not a legislator -- I'm a lawyer. But I would say that I would think that we would want to have the most diverse group of people representing us in government, and that would most fairly represent the entire constituency, and she brings to the table a perspective that is very valuable. I would just hope you would consider that in your reapportionment.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Are you aware of any evidence or information in the United States that suggests that women tend to vote as a block, or that there's any pattern to women voting as a group, or an identifiable group in the political process?

MS. KAPLAN: Well, I think, unfortunately that's a little hard to judge because there just aren't enough women who are actually in the political process to see if they vote as a block, and that's one of the problems. I think that women are probably more sensitive to the issues that affect other women and that's clear to see how we've evolved in funding on the Federal and, of course, on the State level, which I'm not discussing today, for women's health care issues.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: I understand that. My only point is that reapportionment, while it has to take lots of considerations into account, generally doesn't take gender into account. We leave that up to the voters once we've drawn districts that meet our constitutional and statutory obligations, and then leave to the political process the issue of whether a man or a woman will represent that district. I understand your sentiments on behalf of Congresswoman Maloney, but that's really -- I think the gender issue is outside the scope of what we can consider. We can, under some circumstances, deal with the incumbency question, but the issue of gender is one that really, unless somebody's got some information to put before me, isn't really here before us. Maybe it is if there's some evidence out there that I've missed, but it's not really the crux of what we do. I understand your concern about it, but it's just not part of what we consider.

MS. KAPLAN: Well, then I hope you will certainly then consider my testimony on the accomplishments of the Congresswoman.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you.

Kenneth Mills? Is Kenneth Mills here? Alan Gautner? Is Alan here? Lorraine Johnson? Alan Flacks?

MR. FLACKS: Good afternoon. My name is Alan Flacks. I'm a resident and voter in Manhattan, and I always like addressing panels of politicians. I'm sorry as, you know, I was bopping around the room, but I was able to listen to a lot of the testimony when I was in the room, just as State Senators stand in the back of the chamber chatting away and whoever is speaking is speaking to four people, three of whom may be asleep, or at least when I've been up in Albany looking at the chamber during non-exciting periods.

I somehow can't take much of this seriously because I see everyone -- some people come here and the agenda is they preserve their district. And, you know, you can cut up or do away with someone else's district but not mine. And, by the way, everyone who speaks has a title. I'm just a voter and I vote. I have a perfect voting record, and I think you know what that means, because I really have a weighted vote of perhaps three votes at least in New York City, in Manhattan, which is under the Voting Rights Act still. So I'll have a title, and the reporter could put it down, as Third Junior Assistant Pencil Sharpener to the Scorekeeper of the Little League.

But I'm just a voter here, and I guess under a recent Supreme Court decision you are going to continue the ethnic gerrymandering that you have. And while you talk about the Senator from Rochester talks about gender, but you do have racial considerations that you're taking into account under the Voting Rights Act, and that's too bad because you've chopped up communities, as you've heard.

Anyway, Jerry Nadler is good for the West Side and Carolyn Maloney is good for the East Side, and Charlie Rangel you won't dare touch, or you'll all be accused of being racists. So, my thrust is basically to tell you that no talk, please, of taking away a congressperson, a representative, from downstate, least of all New York City, and especially Manhattan, because if there's been population loss it's been upstate, as we now see, and not downstate. So we should keep our representatives, all three, in Manhattan. Because you can do a little better on the gerrymander and make things more geographic.

And I will digress to tell you, in 1981 after the '80 census, the black members of my Democratic Club who came from housing projects did not want to be taken out of Assemblyman Sullivan's district and put in over in the East Harlem district because they didn't want to be in an all-black district. They knew what it was to live in segregated areas. They wanted to be part of the West Side and they had no problem with Ruth Messinger representing them and the whites had no problem with Charlie Rangel representing them, just like the late Fred Richman had the blacks loved him. But the point is that we should not lose anyone here, and if there is a population loss, take it from Rochester. They've lost some population there. So, my thrust is that no representative should be taken from downstate and least of all from New York City. Thank you.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Just one point, Mr. Chair. And, again, no matter what we do we have to find more people from Congressman Rangel. Just understand that he's only got 607,000 and he needs 654,000, so he's 48,000 people short. We're going to have to change his district, and while Rochester may be in the ambit of some redistricting plans, we can't quite shift them from Rochester to here. It's a long ways. I think it's beyond even any pencil or line in reapportionment. I understand your point about population shifts and the importance of keeping the delegation in the City of New York, but just understand that given changes we've got to find more people for most of these districts, all but three of them.

MR. FLACKS: If I may, Mr. Skelos, if I may just take 20 seconds to respond. Some census tracts of Congressman Rangel's district perhaps are really undercounted because of the nature and reality of who and what lives there, where people don't want to be counted. And you cannot order the census recount, really, and you're not going to get that necessarily from Republicans, but maybe there are people there. They may not be registered to vote.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you.

Luana Robinson?

MS. ROBINSON: Luana Robinson. I was formerly the Chairperson of the Coalition of Hamilton Heights Tenant Association. We're the organizations that renamed its area and cut the boundaries. The last speaker mentioned Charles Rangel. Well, I wrote him a few years ago, you seem very proud of the fact that you've gotten $10.6 million to take Hamilton Grange out of Hamilton Heights. But what have you done to make Hamilton Heights a better place? And I said, but we're going to give you an opportunity to redeem yourself, and I gave him a list of six things I wanted him to do. Nothing has been done.

Now, a few years back I did speak at a meeting asking that the area not be cut up. I'm asking now that it be cut up, for the simple reason that our Assemblyman does not live in the district. He has a one-room apartment that he says is his residence. I'm asking, also -- I have asked, also -- that elected officials not hold party positions. For instance, we've taken over 80 buildings to court. Judges who visited buildings, or who worked to help the tenants, were transferred, several of them. Some others were given addresses on Hamilton Terrace when they lived in Brooklyn or Queens that became judges. In fact, in '73 we were fighting to get hearing officers made into judges and we were successful in that.

And we've taken six buildings off the order-to-vacate list, and three of those buildings were put on that list by our Assemblyman. Now, in '90 I went to a Town Hall meeting where the Assemblyman opened the meeting talking about his various hairstyles. Then he talked about his different diets, and then something else -- I don't remember. And then he opened the floor to questions. Of course, I was the first one to raise my hand, so he had to call on me -- Could we get your support in getting rid of the abandoned cars in that triangle bounded by 151st Street, St. Nicholas Avenue and Convent Avenue, and putting in a garden to women? Without hesitating he said I don't like the idea, and when on to the next question. I was dumbfounded.

But, fortunately, a woman came to me at the end of the meeting and said we like that idea, what can we do. So I took their names and addresses and sent petitions out, and we got the garden. And that's how I hurt my back, working 8, 10, 12 hours a day. Our district is -- in '68 when I was a volunteer at Lindsay's little city hall, I said to the director when are you going to stop working below 155th Street, because I lived on 149th and Riverside, and she said we're not touching it, the City has given up on that area. I really couldn't figure that out. And I realized later that there are some people who think two, three, five, 20, 30 years ahead. Some people in my area, very naive, think only for the day.

Our area is controlled by a community board, which I call "community board asinine." It's controlled by Columbia University and the Morningside Gang. They have plans for Hamilton Heights. Columbia is the biggest landlord in Morningside Heights and in Washington Heights. We are sandwiched in-between? So what's going to happen? They've taken over Hamilton Heights. But because I'm the big mouth and had a newspaper and a radio program, what not, telling it like it is, because I owe nobody, so, like I told Percy Sutton one time, God gave me a brain to think with and heart to feel with, and two feet to stand on, and a mouth to speak. He didn't tell me to put all that in abeyance. So I am disliked, but by his enemies shall you know a man, and a woman, I guess. But I'm asking that our district, 71st District, which is from 145th Street way up, but Community Board 9 ends at 155th Street. I'd like that below 155th Street taken out of Assemblyman Farrell's district, whose district is from river to river.

When I did some research to find out when we were nameless and then we became Lower Washington Heights, I found out that we were Hamilton Heights many, many years ago, and I attended when boards were still coming into being, community boards, John Zacotti held meetings, and one of the people on the dias said that Hamilton Heights is the most desirable area in New York. It's set high, the streets are like boulevards, it has the most interesting private housing in the City, it has more parklands than most areas, and transportation is excellent. But we were going downhill and downhill and downhill, and we turned it around.

During the Koch Administration I personally wrote 15 budget requests. The only one that was not granted was one asking for a consciousness-raising course for the 30th Precinct.

SENATOR SKELOS: Ma'am, could you summarize because we're trying to have everybody about five minutes?

MS. ROBINSON: Yes. I'm sorry. I didn't make up my mind to come here, although I've testified 60 times or so. So, I want our district cut off at 151st Street and not go from river to river. And I want elected officials not be appointed for party positions. For instance, we had 12 gas tanks in our garden, and I spent a lot of money there, but I wanted the gas tanks taken out. Our Councilman is head of the Environmental Committee. He did nothing until I --

SENATOR SKELOS: If you could wrap it up because we have to move on.

MS. ROBINSON: He did nothing until I wrote about it. That shouldn't be necessary. So I think you should cut up our district and get the people in my area to wake up. Okay? Thank you.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you.

MS. ROBINSON: I'm sorry I really wasn't prepared.

SENATOR SKELOS: That's all right.

Council Member Margarita Lopez.

COUNCIL MEMBER LOPEZ: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be in front of you today. I just came to speak very briefly on two issues that are of concern to me. Number one, I am concerned about the separation that exists for the Chinatown area in two senatorial districts. I believe that the integrity of Chinatown constantly suffers due to this separation that was done when the last lines were cut, in which Chinatown was cut in the middle by the senatorial lines.

That community has everything in common with the rest of the part of the Lower East Side where I am a Council Member. And I come here to advocate for those lines to be clearly cut in a way that doesn't destroy the geopolitical reality of Chinatown together with the Lower East Side where the Latinos and the African-Americans live.

Then I came here to encourage you to look into those lines and maintain the integrity of Chinatown in one of the two senatorial districts. Preferably, I would like to be in the one where Senator Connor is, due to the fact that his lines extend all the way to 14th Street, and that will maintain that unity that right now exists between these two communities, in practical terms, because the Asian American new arrivals, they are moving not in Battery Park. They are moving into the Lower East Side. That's where they are going. Then we are creating an expansion of the Asian communities toward the direction where my City Council seat is, not in the direction where Kathryn Freed's seat is. And I want to encourage you to look into those lines and do the intelligent thing, provide those lines in a way that makes sense in the geopolitical context of it, and in the context of the interests of the communities that I just described to you, because they are also represented by the same community board. Community Board 3 is the one who covers that area. Therefore, it will make sense.

And the last point that I want to make is in regard to the seat of Congresswoman Nidia Valesquez. I am deeply concerned about that seat. I want to be reassured that those lines are going to continue to be in place. The Latino population has increased in the area where I am the Councilwoman, and I am looking at the issues that affect congressional decisions, and I want to make sure that I place my voice here for the lines of Congresswoman Valesquez to be protected in the context of continuing to represent the people of color communities, particularly the Latino community that is across the river and in the area where I am. Beside that, I am very happy with the lines of Assemblyman Steve Sanders, and I am very happy with the lines of Assemblyman Sheldon Silver. I don't see that you need to do anything in there in changing it, touching it, or damage it.

I thank you for you listening to me today, and I hope that you do the right thing in using the accurate numbers that are the justice numbers that reflect the real population of people of color in this State. Thank you very much.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Thank you.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Can I just ask two questions. One, could you tell me from your perspective what the boundaries of Chinatown are?

COUNCIL MEMBER LOPEZ: According to me --

SENATOR DOLLINGER: According to you. I know there may be a dispute about that, but how do you define it?

COUNCIL MEMBER LOPEZ: According to me, I would define it as where the Smith Houses are, and that is Madison Street, all the way down to, I will say Essex Street at this point, because it has expanded from that point to Essex Street to Canal Street into Third Avenue.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: And you said it was represented by two Senate Districts, including Senator Connor. Who is the other senator?

COUNCIL MEMBER LOPEZ: Senator Tom Duane, the 25th and the 27th is my belief that are the numbers in there.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Thank you. Oh, just one final question. Give me the dimensions or the size or shape of your Council District, where does it run from and to?

COUNCIL MEMBER LOPEZ: Very roughly, because if I give you specifically it will be crazy. My district roughly Grand Street all the way to 35th Street, all the way to Fifth Avenue until 23rd Street and 23rd Street come down to Madison Avenue to the East River, but exclude from 14th Street to 34th Street, exclude the entire east side of First Avenue.

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Got it, I think.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Joseph Haslip?

MR. HASLIP: Good morning, Senator Skelos and Assemblyman Parment. I thank you for giving me the opportunity to present testimony before the New York State Legislative Task Force on Reapportionment. My name is Joseph Haslip, and I currently serve as the male District Leader for the 70th Assembly District, Part D. The area encompasses the neighborhoods of West Harlem, Hamilton Heights, and Morningside Heights, a very multi-racial area in Northern Manhattan.

My appearance here today comes out of concern for the plans of the Task Force, as it relates to the drawing of the State Senate Districts of Manhattan. I realize that the New York State Senate will continue to have 61 districts, if the State Constitution's provisions for determining the size of the Senate are interpreted as they were in 1972, 1982 and again in 1992. I understand that the mean population of a Senate District will be 311,089. In 1992 it was 294,925. Using the mean district borough populations, New York City will be entitled to 25.74 Senate Districts in 2002, compared with 24.83 in 1992.

This is as a result of the fact that population in our state rose to 18,976,457 in 2000 from 17,990,455 in 1990, a gain of 986,002 individuals. The population in New York City rose to 8,008,278 in 2000 from 7,332,588 in 990, a gain of 685,690 individuals. My principal concern today is the intended configuration of the 29th Senatorial District, the district which I am a resident of. It is my hope that this district can retain its contiguous formation, which connects the neighborhoods of Washington Heights, Central Harlem, Hamilton Heights, Morningside Heights, and the most northern portion of the Upper West Side. Within these varied communities is a commonality. In many ways there is a natural blend present between the neighborhoods that give a comfortable transition from block to block.

As someone who is active on issues related to historic preservation, there is a natural synergy of interests from a preservation standpoint between the residents of the 29th. Just last year the leadership of Community Planning Boards 9, 10 and 12 joined forces in supporting the expansion of the landmark designation for an array of properties within the 29th District. In addition, on the health care front, these neighborhoods are linked in the battle to preserve the Harlem Hospital Center. This is the case because of the common resource sharing that takes place. The fact is that in Harlem Hospital we enjoy one of the top trauma centers in the world. Clearly, I realize this, but so do the residents of the 29th District.

As I raise these points, I'm very much aware that there is no requirement which binds the decision of this legislative body to the interrelationship between different neighborhoods within a district. That's unfortunate. However, as you struggle with the issue of how to deal with the increased size of districts, which is now allowable due to the population increase in our city and state, might I suggest that the 29th be expanded from its base to include the areas of 125th to 118th Street, with Second Avenue as the eastern boundary? Also, between 114th Street and 103rd Street, extending the western boundary over to Riverside Drive East. Is it my belief that these additions are natural from the standpoint of preserving the essence of the 29th in its current form.

It is my hope that this body does not see the need to draw the 29th substantially further into the Upper West Side. I have real concerns as to how that preserves the voting strength of this historically minority district. The current configuration preserves the integrity of one community. I see no need to tamper with this.

Another concern that I have as someone who represents a large elite minority area myself, is the undercounting of racial and ethnic minorities. Although the 2000 census seemed to have reduced the net undercount of minority groups compared with 1990, the black, Hispanic and Asian American populations continue to be undercounted at far higher rates than non-Hispanic whites. Since New York State's minority populations are all heavily concentrated in New York City, even with its official count of eight million, it's still undercounted by more than the rest of the State. Official Census Bureau estimates of the region, however, are not yet available.

But Professor Eugene Ericksen of Temple University, a statistician and census expert, has estimated that the census has missed 1.7 percent of the actual population of New York City, and 0.1 percent of the suburban population, and 1 percent of the population of the rest of the State. New York City, still disproportionately undercounted in the census, should not be further shortchanged in the reapportionment process.

In closing, I thank you for this opportunity to present testimony before the Task Force here today.

SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Is there an additional witness? Yes, please.

MS. REVESZ: I was No. 37 and my name is Therese Revesz, and I apologize for missing my turn, but my employer had other plans for me this morning. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you.

My name is Therese Revesz. I'm a lifelong resident of the Upper West Side of New York, and that means over half a century at this point, which is painful to contemplate. I wanted to talk to you to urge you to keep the Upper West Side as a solid coherent community. By every measure we are such a community, and I have submitted written testimony on that. It's my understanding that the mission of those charged with setting up our districts, you people who are both our leaders and the servants of the citizens of this state, is having districts that serve the needs of the governed, the residents of those districts and that means creating districts that cover a community of interests.

By any definition, the Upper West Side of Manhattan -- and that's roughly 59th Street to 110th Street, up to Columbia -- is a community of interest. We are very much -- I really emphasize community, perhaps unique in New York. People really know each other on the Upper West Side. I can't go out of my house anywhere in that extended neighborhood, nine times out of ten I run into somebody who knows me, or my sister, or who knew my mother, or my mother taught their kids, or my mother taught them how to read, or I run into somebody I babysat for and now they've got kids. We are multi-generational, we have families who have been there for years and years. There's people who really feel a sense of community.

You might define me as your common garden variety West Side activist. I'm involved in a lot of different community things. I'm on the Board of Coalition for a Livable West Side. I organized Friends of the Green Markets, so that we had a green market at Verdi Square, which both helped our community and upstate farmers. I'm on Citizen Action of New York, which is actually a statewide organization, and we have branches in Rochester, and Buffalo, and Albany. Being a community activist takes a lot of work.

Just a little bit about our basic demographics. We've got over 233,000 residents, 125,000 households, 34 percent of them are families, and we've had a big family resurgence on the Upper West Side. About 14 percent are over 65, 12 percent are under 18, 61 percent of us have attended some college. We've got a pretty standard income distribution. We're 78 percent white, 15 percent black, 6 percent Asian, and 15 percent Hispanic. One of the definitions of a community is clear boundaries. We're bounded by two parks and the 110th to Columbus Circle boundary is pretty clear. We're very involved in our parks in the use, the care, the expansion, the planting, particularly of Riverside Park, and have fought many battles over Riverside Park.

We have a distinct culture. The West Side has always had its own particular culture. It's activist, it's caring, it's very different from the more reserved East Side -- geographically, socially, and culturally. Even the real estate industry recognizes us, and I'll just read a couple of sentences off the Corcoran website:

"The Upper West Side is rich with cultural opportunities, egalitarian pleasures, and people who enjoy being in the mainstream of Manhattan life. The Upper West Side melts families, singles, professionals, even older folk, together. Locals generally care about the condition of their community and they're not afraid to speak up and act, a reassuring blend of old and new. There's wonderful transportation, but with all its appeal and charisma, who would want to leave?"

If you look at any map on any brokerage site, the Upper West Side is always defined the same way. And we have other measures of community of interest. The Upper West Side has historically been heavily Jewish. We have temples and synagogues of all different parts of the Jewish community except the Hasidim. The temples work together and work with community churches in a number of social areas -- care of the homeless, mentoring children in school, teaching reading, food programs. So we have the religious institutions of the West Side who are used to working together, and we do, and that's another definition of community.

We have a lot of neighborhood groups. We've worked together. We also fight each other bitterly, and I've been in many fights, and that's certainly the truth. But we do a lot of work together for causes for the West Side, and they've been everything from the Verdi Square Market to transportation, to parks, to water. We have a history of really involvement in all aspects of the community life. We have a single community board, Community Board 7. They're very knowledgeable about the community. Sometimes they're very implanted in the community, don't agree with everything. But, again, it's very much a distinct community of people who know each other and used to working with each other.

We have a very involved police precinct, and we have really good community police relations, which is something perhaps a little unusual in New York. We have real coherent commercial patterns and coherent commercial districts. Broadway and Columbus Avenues are our major shopping areas, and Amsterdam Avenue is coming on strong. We have our own West Side Chamber of Commerce. We have 6,000 establishments on the West Side employing about 60,000 people. They're most retail, financial institution, and services.

We have a number of chains, but we have a lot of merchants who are local, individual stores that give us a lot of character, and more than that, give us people who live in the community, they're involved in the community.

As I mentioned, we have 14 percent of our residents are over 65. A lot of them are living in something that may be a peculiarly New York institution called a NORC -- naturally occurring retirement community. They moved into buildings when they were in their 20s as young marrieds and young singles and they've never left. Now, you know, as people in their 60s and 70s and 80s they have very special needs. And, in fact, the elected representatives we have are very aware of those needs. But each of these segments of the Upper West Side, they function as communities, and I think we need representatives who are aware of our needs, who become knowledgeable about our needs, who are very responsive to our needs.

I think that's why we need to keep our coherent Senate District. Well, I can't quite call Jerry Nadler's district geographically coherent -- it's a bit weird -- but he has been a superb representative of the Upper West Side. I count on him as a neighbor, he lives around the corner. How many times do you run into your representative just having coffee and you sit down and talk, which still amazes me as long as it's been going on.

So, please leave our district as a district, and thank you for listening.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Thank you. Now, I believe that's all of the people who would like to be heard? I will then before closing this hearing remind any of you that we would be happy to take any written testimony that you may want to submit after we close this hearing by just directing it to the Task Force, which is headquartered in this building on the 23rd Floor -- 21st Floor.

One followup, yes, Senator?

SENATOR DOLLINGER: Just one other thing, and we don't have as many people assembled here, but our intention, I think -- and we haven't made this final decision -- is that once a plan is proposed from the Commission we will come back and again ask you to analyze that plan and see to what extent it meets the criteria that the public has laid before us, and so this isn't the final opportunity, or at least we haven't made a final plan to that, but in past years we have come back. So, get on our mailing list, be aware that we'll try to give as much information about the plan when we have it, and when we come back to talk about it again. It may not be right here, but it will be someplace in Manhattan, if we follow our past practice. This may not be the last time you see us or the last time you get a chance to talk to us.

ASSEMBLYMAN PARMENT: Very good. Thank you. The hearing is adjourned.

(Whereupon, 3:35 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.).

I, NEIL M. SEFF, do hereby state that I attended at the time and place above-mentioned and took a stenographic record of the proceedings in the above-entitled matter, and that the foregoing is a true and correct copy of the same and the whole thereof, according to the best of my ability and belief.

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NEIL M. SEFF - Hearing Reporter

Dated: ____________________________________