The 33rd Council District. (Photo: Districting Commission/Google Maps)

One of the fiercest disputes over the decennial redistricting process raged on after the final versions of the new City Council district maps were released this week. Councilman Steve Levin insisted the process through which the districts were drawn was focused on substance while his potential rival, Lincoln Restler, repeatedly dismissed the new Council maps as rooted in political concerns.

"There was never a serious discussion," Mr. Restler argued. "This was a political deal made by the Speaker and the local council member and it's clear throughout the entire process that it's nothing more than an incumbent protection program."

Mr. Restler's long-rumored bid to unseat Mr. Levin took a significant hit when the redistricting dust finally settled. In their final lines, the commission tasked with the decennial redrawing of City Council boundaries upheld an alteration to Mr. Levin's 33rd District that added tracts of Hasidic Jewish voters likely to back Mr. Levin and removed parts of Brownstone Brooklyn favorable to Mr. Restler.

Though neighboring Councilwoman Tish James supported Mr. Restler in his ultimately fruitless bid to undo the change, which was unveiled in an earlier draft, the Commission held its ground arguing the boundaries were amended to ensure Ms. James's district kept a black majority in compliance with the Voting Rights Act while also uniting a local community of common interest: Orthodox Jews.

Mr. Levin, in a lengthy explanation, laid out arguments for why the new district, which cuts out Park Slope and includes the neighborhoods of Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Heights and Boerum Hill, is now more logically configured. He agreed with the commission's reasoning, and also pointed out travel from Park Slope to Brooklyn Heights to Greenpoint, via car or public transportation, could be unwieldy if he wanted to conduct multiple meetings in those neighborhoods on a single night, thus justifying the new fourth avenue boundary that shed Park Slope from the district.

"If you see the map of the district, the district as it currently is resembles some type of dinosaur skeleton," Mr. Levin said. "The Districting Commission has a very smart staff and they're balancing a lot of considerations. To me, this is actually above politics. So I think the Commission, if you talk to them, you see they have to specifically address interests in opposition to each other, which is a tough thing to do."

Although he promised in January that he would make an announcement in regards to his possible City Council bid at this week's meeting of his New Kings Democrats club, Mr. Restler didn't end up clarifying his plans and declined to comment on the subject.

Some alterations were made to satisfy the demands of civic groups and minority advocacy organizations, but, at first glance, many were not.

In Bayside, Queens, Asian-American civic groups are likely still upset that a section below the neighborhood home to a growing Asian population was not included in the district represented by Councilman Dan Halloran. In Brooklyn, former district leader Lincoln Restler's chances took a hit when a change to unite Hasidic communities in south Williamsburg and north Bedford-Stuyvesant was included in the final map, giving incumbent Councilman Steve Levin a stronger base of support. And Manhattan Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, a vocal critic of the redistricting process, had Randall's Island and a section of East Harlem restored to her district as she had demanded.

View the maps for yourself below:

Manhattan:

NYC Council Maps February 6 Plan for Manhattan by

Brooklyn:

NYC Council Maps February 6 Plan for Brooklyn by

Bronx:

NYC Council Maps February 6 Plan for the Bronx by

Queens:

NYC Council Maps February 6 Plan for Queens by

Staten Island:

NYC Council Maps February 6 Plan for Staten Island by

(Photo: @LincolnRestler)

“Does he have an office, though? Does he use the computer?”

The crowd jammed into Williamsburg’s Los Sures Museum last night for the New Kings Democrats’s first meeting of the year laughed at what was not necessarily intended to be a joke. Attorney Jason Otaño, an unsuccessful state senate candidate last fall, really wanted to know if Carl Hum, the executive director of the New York City Districting Commission, had an office and a computer.

Mr. Hum does indeed have both, but technology hasn't been his biggest headache during this year's decennial redistricting process where the City Council's lines will be redrawn to reflect the latest Census numbers. After the New York Post reported Councilman Erik Dilan requested his ally, former Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair Vito Lopez, have his residence drawn into term-limited Councilwoman Diana Reyna’s nearby district in anticipation of a potential Lopez Council run—a request that was honored in what was then the latest version of the district lines—Council Speaker Christine Quinn scrambled to push the Commission to move the scandal-scarred Mr. Lopez back and hold another round of public hearings this month.

Instead of Mr. Hum, Jonathan Ettricks, director of community outreach at the commission, spoke in front of what could have been a much more hostile crowd for the commission. NKD’s genesis was partially fueled by an anti-Lopez fervor that has not gone away with Mr. Lopez's fall from his former leadership position. Former district leader Lincoln Restler, mulling a City Council run of his own against Mr. Lopez’s former chief of staff, Stephen Levin, was blunt, characterizing the commission’s redistricting as “not at all an independent process.”

“Carl [Hum] said that he took the interests of incumbents into account and that there’s nothing inappropriate about that and that the relationships they developed with constituents should be a critical factor in determining the lines,” Mr. Restler said to Mr. Ettricks. “That seemed highly unusual to me.”

“I think if Carl made that comment he was being candid. Again, any elected official by virtue of being an elected official is not barred from making their interests known,” Mr. Ettricks replied.

Elected officials, Mr. Ettricks argued, have the same right to voice opinions in this process as they do everywhere else, like in local zoning or transportation issues. NKD President Alex Low and other members wanted to know why meetings between City Council members and commission members were not a part of the readily available public record, like testimonies at public hearings.

“You know something, to be perfectly candid, I don’t know the reason why that process doesn’t exist,” Mr. Ettricks reiterated. “I think that’s an issue that has come up and there are some elected officials who have even raised that issue publicly and perhaps it’s something that should be done going forward but it’s not something that was incorporated into the process.”

Yet when Mr. Restler asked how the public could be confident their voices would be taken into account during the public hearings, Mr. Ettricks nevertheless admitted, “I would be disingenuous if I said politics was completely removed from this process."

Although the commission is technically independent, its lines usually favor the City Council establishment, which appoints many of its members. Accordingly, at an immediate glance, the maps do not appear to be massively different from the draft proposal released earlier this year, which protected most existing legislators, with a couple exceptions.

View below:

Brooklyn: