The Buffalo Common Council’s redistricting has proceeded more smoothly than the Eie County Legislature’s, though it, too, has produced some comic results: Ellicott District Councilman Darius Pridgen could hit a baseball from the yard of his waterfront home in the Ellicott District over an outcropping of the Fillmore District and have it fielded on the bike path that runs along a slender peninsula of Ellicott; if the fielder came up short, the ball might roll back into Fillmore. Likewise, a Fillmore District resident standing on the corner of Arlington and North, with the right wind, could toss a frisbee over the Ellicott District and into Niagara.

The pattern of Buffalo’s population loss makes anachronisms of its historic district lines, but politics and neighborhood identity prevail. This week Delaware District Councilman Mike LoCurto introduced a resolution asking city attorneys to consider a major restructuring the Common Council, as was achieved after the last Census by revision of the city’s charter to eliminate three at-large seats and a citywide-elected council president. LoCurto proposes eight districts, with the a council president once again elected citywide. Returning the council presidency to an at-large seat, LoCurto says, would “return an important check and balance to city government.”

—geoff kelly