Districts 3 & 4 cannot be left with no land use representation

A curious thing happened during the recent re-districting and re-naming of town council districts. The new town council districts 3 and 4, which formerly were (essentially) council districts 2 and 4, are left with absolutely no representation on the Zoning Commission, Planning Commission, or Board of Zoning Appeals (land use boards). What happened is that when the re-districting committee created the new map, it drew new district boundaries and re-named the districts-- essentially switching the titles of districts 2 and 3 (“2” became “3” and “3” became “2”). The result of the redistricting and renaming is that two districts are left with no representation because the homes of some elected officials were put into different districts. For example, the home I share with my husband, Zoning Commissioner Tony Smith, was formerly in the 3rd council district. It is now in the 1st council district. Each land use board has five elected commissioners drawn from collapsing the 10 town council into 5 larger districts. That is, one land use commissioner represents council districts 1 and 2 combined, another represents districts 3 and 4 combined, etc. Four-year terms are staggered so that half of the board comes up for election in one even-numbered year, and the other half in the next even-numbered year. In Tony Smith’s case, he was elected to represent town council districts 3 and 4 on the Zoning Commission. He now represents council districts 1 and 2. However, Zoning Commissioner Linda Manos also lives in council district 1 and represents zoning districts 1 and 2. So now districts 3 and 4 are left with no representation and districts 1 and 2 have double representation. Both Tony and Linda serve until January 1, 2016. The vote for the re-districting and re-naming in the 10-member town council was 6 (for) to 4 (against), with Republicans constituting all of those in favor and 2 Republicans and both Democrats voting against. The districts that lost their representation on the Land Use Boards, currently represented in the town council by Democrats Stephanie Phillips and Jason Santi, are two of Stratford’s most racially diverse districts and tend to elect Democrats. I believe that we need to revisit the re-districting and re-naming of districts to assure that in Stratford, all districts are fully represented and no voter becomes disenfranchised.