Middlefield to Share Meriden Representative in Redistricting Plan

Middlefield would move into the 82nd District with Meriden under a new reapportionment plan unanimously approved Wednesday by the General Assembly’s Reapportionment Commission.

The plan approved by the commission late in the afternoon saw few other dramatic changes for Meriden's three state House districts – but would alter representation significantly for some towns in Central Connecticut.

"Hopefully it'll be like an old family reunion," said the current 82nd District State Rep. Emil "Buddy" Altobello (D) Wednesday evening. In addition to Meriden, Altobello represented the Western half of Middlefield from his 1995 election until the state's last reapportionment 10 years ago.

Since then, Altobello, the Deputy Speaker of the House, has solely represented a portion of Meriden. With the new district set to be in place in 2013, if he is re-elected in Nov. 2012, he will represent all of Middlefield – about 4,425 people according to the 2010 census – in addition to parts of Meriden. Middlefield is currently part of the 100th House District, which currently includes Durham and a portion of Middletown.

Altobello said that when he represented Middlefield, some of the issues he worked on included securing funding for sewers around Lake Besek and issues surrounding Peckham Park.

"It's a wonderful small community," Altobello said of Middlefield, and if he's re-elected in 2012, he would work to help the 82nd district's new constitutents with their current needs – which will likely differ from those of its larger urban neighbor, Meriden.

Otherwise, the new plan will shift districts in Meriden minimally, Altobello said. His district will swap some voters with that of the city's other two districts, the 83rd and the 84th. Currently state Rep. Catherine Abercrombie (D) represents the 83rd and House Speaker Chris Donovan (D) represents the 84th.

In the state senate, Meriden's District 13 Senator Len Suzio (R) said Wednesday night that his district would be only slightly affected by the redistricting. He said that he would lose about 3,200 of his Middletown constitutents. The freshman senator was elected in early 2011 to represent Meriden and Middlefield, and parts of Cheshire and Middletown.

"I've been working very, very hard..." Suzio said. "It's nice to know that I'll be serving the same people."

The Reapportionment Commission unanimously approved both redistricting proposals, which now must go to the Secretary of the State for her approval before they go into effect. The new districts, if approved by the secretary, would be in place for the 2012 General Assembly election cycle.

The commission, which was facing a deadline today to approve the redistricting proposals, was unable to reach consensus on a plan to redraw Connecticut’s congressional district lines. Under state law, the panel must now ask the Connecticut Supreme Court to give it a 30-day extension to draft and approve a plan.

The 9-member commission began work on redrawing the House and Senate districts in April after it was appointed by the legislature. Connecticut law requires that the districts be studied and, if necessary, their lines be redrawn if necessary, following each federal census. The most recent census was conducted in 2010 and showed that Connecticut’s population grew by nearly 5 percent to about 3.6 million people.

Commission leaders said the redistricting effort was a daunting task, but a fair and open process devoid of the political shenanigans that often accompany such efforts in other states.

“We didn’t always agree and sometimes things got hot in the room, but this was a fundamentally bipartisan process,” said Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams, a Brooklyn Democrat.

Maps and reports of the commission’s redistricting plans will be available on the panel’s website sometime Thursday, commission staffers said.

As for the rest of Central Connecticut, Middletown’s four state House districts would be consolidated into two districts. Durham, all of which is currently part of the 100th House District along with all of Middlefield, is now evenly split into two different districts, the 101st, which would also include Madison, and the 86th House District, which would also include the towns of North Branford and Wallingford.

The changes for Middlefield and Durham are sure to cause waves in that part of the central Connecticut region as offiicials and residents from those towns had argued against the move and for a plan that would keep the two rural communities in districts with their neighbors.

Under the reapportionment changes, East Hampton and East Haddam would now also be in the same the district, the 34th. Currently East Hampton is part of the 34th, which also encompasses part of Middletown. East Haddam is currently part of the 48th House District, which also includes Colchester. Under the plan approved Wednesday by the special legislative commission, Colchester will now largely be part of the 48th District with Lebanon, though a small portion of Colchester along its western boundary with East Hampton will remain in the 34th District.

Aside from moving Middlefield, the reapportionment commission made no changes in the legislative district lines for Rocky Hill, Portland, Berlin or Haddam, the latter of which remains in the 36th District with Chester, Deep River and Essex.

In Middletown, the reapportionment changes will see the town now divided between the 33rd and 100th House districts. Currently, Middletown’s legislative district lines places it in four House districts,  the 33rd, 100th, 34th and 32nd. Some officials from the town had argued that the those district lines made elections confusing and expensive in Middletown and they had argued for a more simplified division of districts.