Shifting the Ward Boundaries

At the Common Council meeting on Tuesday, two local laws were introduced having to do adjusting ward boundaries in Hudson in response to population changes reported in the 2020 census. Those laws can be found here and here. In order to maintain five wards of equal population, the First Ward needs to lose some people and the Fourth Ward needs to gain some people. According to the proposed ward boundary adjustments, 75 people (not necessarily voters) move from the First Ward to the Third Ward, and 40 people (not necessarily voters) move from the Third Ward to the Fourth Ward.

Also presented at the Common Council meeting was a chart analyzing the racial and ethnic makeup of the wards and the impact the proposed changes would have, prepared by Councilmember Margaret Morris (First Ward), who chairs the Legal Committee. That chart appears below and can also be found here.

Council president Tom DePietro said he wanted to know the actual addresses that would shift from one ward to another, later commenting, "The map doesn't really tell you much." Verity Smith, who is the first vice chair of the Hudson City Democratic Committee, said she wanted to see the raw data from the census numbers in order to reproduce the calculations made by Morris.

The Council has scheduled a special meeting on Tuesday, May 31, to consider further the proposed changes. To meet the requirements of the City's own law, the deadline for amending the boundaries to achieve wards of equal population is July 1. Because ward changes also affect county supervisors, there is a mandatory referendum in November. The new ward boundaries would take effect on January 1, 2023.

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