Patricia Doxsey is reporting for the Daily Freeman a map creating new legislative districts in Ulster County violates a state law that specifies how much each of the county’s 23 legislative districts can vary in population. However, the independent Ulster County Reapportionment Commission that created the new map will not fix their mistake, Chairman Regis Obijiski said. Even if the commission took action, Republican Elections Commissioner John Quigley said he is unsure if the board can legally accept a new map. The independent commission created the new map over the course of 29 meetings held between January 2021, and July 2022, and submitted a final plan to the Ulster County Board of Elections in mid-July. Obijiski said County Attorney Clinton Johnson recently told the commission the map was illegal because it did not conform with the size parameters required under a 2021 law requiring that district populations vary by only 5 percent overall. According to a memo to legislative leaders from Johnson, the difference between the most populous district in the city of Kingston and the least populous district in the eastern part of Lloyd is more than the 5 percent difference required by the law. Obijiski this week admitted commission members discussed the issue in a series of emails — not in an open meeting as required under the law — and the majority of the seven-member board decided it would not be willing to reconvene to redo the map. Legislature Chairman Tracey Bartels called the commission’s refusal to reconvene “a serious shirking of their duties,” and said, “the idea that the default is waiting to be sued and to force the county to spend money on a lawsuit that it can’t defend, I don’t understand.” Minority Leader Ken Ronk said, “The commission could reconvene, it doesn’t seem like they’re going to,. The independent redistricting commission is just that, independent. If they want to reconvene that’s up to them. I can’t make them.” County Democrats have suggested they would file a lawsuit to force the creation of a new map. However, nothing has been filed to date, Johnson said. The deadline to file is November 13. Read the full story in the Daily Freeman.