Ridgewood Residents Speak Out Over Redistricting

Consuela Vuolo lived in Bushwick, Brooklyn, for 18 years, but moved her family to Ridgewood because she believes city services such as schools, sanitation and quality of life in general are better there.
"Every time little Michael had to go to school in the morning or came back in the afternoon I was a nervous wreck," the Puerto Rican native recalled of her years in Bushwick. "When I moved my family to Ridgewood, I took into consideration a lot of things I saw. [Here] my children are accepted and I get services."
Vuolo was among the 45 Ridgewood residents who packed a small room at St. Josephs Workshop, at St. Matthias church, last Monday to speak out against the proposed merge of part of their neighborhood into Bushwicks City Council district.
Every 10 years, after the census is taken, a redistricting commission is convened to look for ways to make the Council district lines better reflect the citys ethnic makeup, in order to increase the likelihood that minority groups are represented in government, as mandated by the federal Voting Rights Act.
Under the proposal, a portion of southern Ridgewood would be put into a district with adjacent Bushwick. Both areas are home to growing Hispanic populations, whom the redistricting council believes share common concerns. The area in question is currently part of the Council district of Dennis Gallagher (R-Middle Village), but would become part of an area overseen by Councilwoman Diana Reyna (D-Williamsburg).
Residents of the neighborhoods that could be redistricted convened to explain their strong desire not to be merged with the Brooklyn district to Victoria Schneps, one of the Redistricting Commissions Queens members. The Commission will submit its plan to the City Council on December 18 for comment.
"Hispanics [in Ridgewood] feel they are being targeted by a new form of politically-motivated ethnic profiling," said Msgr. Edward Scharfenberger, pastor of St. Matthias, which serves an ethnically diverse congregation that includes many Hispanics. "This proposal is unnecessary, inappropriate, discriminatory and destructive."
Scharfenberger called neighborhoods that could be redistricted thriving multi-ethnic communities in which people of all backgrounds live harmoniously and share economic and commercial interests. "The Latino residents of Ridgewood are more united with the interests of this community than they are with those of the Latinos of Bushwick," he said.
Nubia Holtzherr, a native of Colombia and longtime Ridgewood resident agreed. "I feel that any American person can represent me as well as any Latino person as long as they are good for the community," she told the group.
Many non-Hispanic Ridgewood residents also stepped up to decry the redistricting proposal.
Paul Kerzner, president of the Ridgewood Property Owners and Civic Association, said he believed Ridgewood Hispanics could be politically empowered through Ridgewoods existing Council district. "District 34 [in Bushwick] has a history of Latino representation," he said. The redistricting program is going to hurt Ridgewood Hispanics from being a potent force in Queens," he said.
Donna Dowd, a 30-year Ridgewood resident passionately defended her multi-ethnic neighborhood, praising its institutions for "integrating people with peace and justice." She closed her remarks with a statement that brought applause from the others in the room: "A house divided falls. Ridgewood is our house."