Queens-based Guyanese steps up fight for Assembly seat

– to seek Governor’s support

By North American correspondent 

At a meeting on Liberty Avenue on February 13, the group of Guyanese who are advocating for an Assembly seat for the greater Richmond Hill area in Queens, announced plans to seek the intervention of Governor Cuomo and the head of the New York State Assembly Sheldon Silver to get a fair political representation for Guyanese, South Asians and other minorities residing in the neighbourhood.

A court intervention is also not ruled out as time is running out for the final redrawing of districts after the 2010 census in time for the elections. The Guyanese advocates say they recognise there is little or no chance of getting a seat for the minority groups of Richmond Hill unless there is political intervention from the highest offices of the state and that is why they intend to lobby the Governor, the Assembly Speaker, and the heads of the Senate for support in their fight.

The community advocates say the legislators who draw the electoral maps know the factors that produce unfair districts; dividing politically weak ethnic and cultural communities unnecessarily to secure incumbents in office or giving extra seats to dominant powerful ethnic groups.

The advocates want districts compact and contiguous. They also say that political incumbency should not be considered when the boundary lines are drawn. Some of the proposed boundaries are oddly shaped.

After every census, electoral districts must be redrawn to give fair representations to ethnic and cultural interests. Every ethnic community in New York with a significant population has been assigned at least one legislative seat. The Guyanese community in New York has never been assigned a legislative seat in areas where large numbers of them are clustered.

Queens has the largest settlement of Guyanese most of them residing around the greater Richmond Hill area, Jamaica, Queens Village, Hollis, and parts of St. Albans. It requires a population of about 127,000 for a legislative seat. Looking at their numbers and the areas where they cluster, Guyanese should have been assigned at least two seats.

Guyanese community leaders are leaving no stone unturned to get a legislative seat for their community. The State legislators held their final hearing last week on a proposed electoral map that divides the greater Richmond Hill area into five Assembly seats in effect diluting the voting power of Guyanese.

Now that the hearing phase of the reapportionment of legislative seats is over, Guyanese advocates are shifting their struggle into the political phase. Governor Cuomo has threatened a veto unless there is fair representation of minorities. But in recent days he seems to be suggesting that he is willing to cut a deal with legislators because of the limited time available to have the entire process redone.