The City of Troy is moving forward with a plan to redraw city council districts.
The last time Troy updated its city council districts was 20 years ago.
After the most recent U.S. census, city officials agreed it was time for an update.
An Independent Redistricting Commission was created through legislation passed by the city council last December. Now, draft maps have been released by the appointed commission and city officials are mostly supportive of the plans.
District 3 City Councilor and Council Democratic Leader Sue Steele said she wouldn’t change a thing about the commission’s proposed maps.
“They kept to their work and they produced an excellent piece of work that is not partisan and that’s what redistricting is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be based on the numbers and it’s not supposed to be politically drawn,” said Steele.
Democrats took control of the city council in July after the appointment of Steve Figueroa to the District 2 seat previously held by Republican Kim Ashe-McPherson, who resigned in June. Ashe-McPherson pleaded guilty to fraudulently submitting absentee ballots in 2021.
Steele told WAMC in July that moving the redistricting process forward was a primary goal of the new Democratic majority.
Though Council President Carmella Mantello had previously said it was “unfortunate” that the Democratic-led city council would “not support” appointments of individuals from Lansingburgh and the city’s downtown neighborhoods,” the Republican told WAMC she was happy with the commission’s work – but did suggest a few changes.
“I’m very pleased,” said Mantello. “There does need to be a couple tweaks because some of the neighborhoods were broken up, more in District 3 up by RPI [Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute], Tibbits Avenue area. There were a couple of blocks that were put into District 5 and need to be back into District 3 because the cemetery breaks them up. So, I’m getting in the weeds, but there does need to be a couple tweaks and the redistricting commission is looking at those tweaks.”
Mayor Patrick Madden, a Democrat, is also supportive of the commission’s work. Like Mantello and Steele, he is pleased the new districts follow more closely to neighborhood boundaries.
“I think this is a vast improvement and I hope that it goes through the council quickly. There was a delay for reasons that I’m not aware of, of a couple of months, but I haven’t really heard of opposition to this plan. So I think everybody is in agreement that they did a good job,” said Madden.
Ahead of the August 18th Finance Committee meeting, Mantello released a statement pointing out an error in the proposed redistricting legislation. She accused the council’s Democratic majority of attempting to “sneak” in an implementation date of “immediately” ahead of a special election this fall in the city’s current District 2.
Mantello said in the release that the proposal would be amended after speaking with the Democratic Majority Leader and city Corporation Counsel.
Steele denied council Democrats had attempted to move up the time of the redistricting change.
“The corporation counsel admitted that he had made an error in drafting the legislation in saying it should take effect immediately,” said Steele. “That would cause total chaos on the council because with lines being different, that would mean we would be potentially representing people who had not elected us. So that has been resolved. It will take place at the next regular city council election.”
The next regular council election will be in November 2023. The next regular council meeting is set for September 8th.
