Court OKs new Nassau district boundaries

An appellate judge Thursday gave Nassau officials the go-ahead to use new boundaries for county legislative districts for the November election, as he blocked a lower court order that had halted election planning for those races.

But Thursday's ruling is in effect only until Wednesday, when the case is due to be heard by a four-member Appellate Division panel in Brooklyn.

The new district boundaries were approved by the county legislature's Republican majority last week over strenuous objections from Democrats, who already had gone to court to argue that the map had been drawn too hastily, a violation of the deliberative process called for by the county charter.

A series of court rulings led to a court order Tuesday by an acting State Supreme Court justice that stopped election commissioners from using the new map. Thursday's ruling imposed a "stay" on that order until the Wednesday appellate court hearing.

Next Tuesday is the first day candidates can begin collecting signatures in their effort to get on to the November ballot. "The GOP will continue with the process," said Peter Schmitt (R-Massapequa), the legislature's presiding officer who sponsored the redistricting plan.

Hale Yazicioglu, a lawyer working on the case for the Democrats, said Thursday's ruling gives the Republicans only a temporary reprieve from having to draw up a new redistricting plan "properly and accurately.""Plus, when the merits of the case are finally heard, we will prevail," said Yazicioglu, a lawyer at the Garden City firm Jaspan Schlesinger LLC

Frederick Brewington, a Hempstead lawyer and outspoken opponent of the GOP redistricting plan, said, "A court might be reluctant to intervene at this point." But he said it is "crucial that voters and candidates know exactly what districts they are petitioning for and what the boundaries of those districts are."