Heads up, people. There's political change in the wind and it could happen without anyone even realizing what's going on.
That's a message to you from North Fork elected officials, who gathered on the steps of Southold Town Hall Wednesday afternoon to sound an alarm on the impending legislative redistricting that will split Riverhead from Southold and the rest of the East End.
As reported Jan. 26 (see prior story) the state task force charged with redrawing state legislative districts boundaries so that each has a roughly equal population — ad mandated by the state and federal constitutions — recommended creating a new First Assembly District that would take in Southold, Shelter Island and the South Fork. Riverhead would become part of a new Second Assembly District that would include Riverhead and northeastern Brookhaven.
Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter, Southold Supervisor Scott Russell, County Legislator Ed Romaine, Riverhead Councilwoman Jodi Giglio and Southold Trustees Jill Doherty, Bob Ghosio and Mike Domino joined Assemblyman Dan Losquadro outside Southold Town Hall Wednesday to decry the proposed changes and urge local residents to speak out in opposition to the plan.
"We need to speak with one voice in order to be heard," Russell said. "The East End has had two representatives in the Assembly. This will leave us with one."
Losquadro said he was shocked when the maps were published showing the new districts. "Never in my wildest dreams did I think they'd split the North Fork in half," Losquadro said.
The new configuration will leave the East End with just one voice out of 150 members, he said. "It's just not right."
Walter said he believes the new boundaries, like all reapportionments, had politics at heart. He said he didn't think the new districts would hurt necessarily hurt Riverhead. "But it just doesn't make sense. We are here to ask them to restore the First Assembly District and restore unity to the North Fork," Walter said.
Romaine said the two North Fork towns belong in the same assembly district because they share a "commonality of interests" that includes agriculture, wineries, demographics and geography.
"We do have interests that sometimes contradict each other," Russell added. "Two words: ferries and helicopters."
Russell said the Democratic assembly majority tried to do the same thing once before, in 1992. But there was a lot of push-back and the change didn't happen.
Dominique Mendez and Linda Nemeth of the Riverhead Neighborhood Preservation Coalition were on hand to support the protest. Nemeth said the group was asking all the civics in Riverhead to sign an RNPC letter objecting to the proposal.
The First Assembly District — which until the reapportionment following the 1980 decennial census actually included both forks — has always been a Republican stronghold. It has only once in history elected a Democrat: Marc Alessi, who won the seat in a hard-fought special election in 2005. He was turned out of office by Losquadro in a tight race in 2010.
The reapportionment task force is holding a series of public hearings throughout the state. A hearing will be held in Suffolk tomorrow, Feb. 9, beginning at 11 a.m. in the William H.Rogers Legislative Building in Smithtown.Losquadro said people who can't make it to Smithtown for the meeting can email their comments to the task force: info@latfor.state.ny.us