To the Editor:

As someone who once chaired a City Council Redistricting Committee and continues to maintain a deep interest in the politics and vitality of the entire city – with a particular investment in Dorchester, District 3, – I appreciate your observations in last week’s editorial on the role of parish cohesion in this process. However, your total dismissal of the role of parish dynamics is too broad and eliminates one potential part of a well-drawn cohesive map aligning common interests. Such oversight produces the kind of proposal you referred to as “unwieldy and unsatisfactory.” Parishes play a role, villages play a role, and other neighborhood institutions play a role, each contributing to a more viable community in District 3.

I do not believe any proposed map thus seen meets this challenge. Encompassing all the elements of a neighborhood, not eliminating some, is the route to a successful redistricting process. In much of our testimony before the members of the City Council’s Redistricting Committee on Oct. 11, there were several references made by community and civic leaders about the historic presence of various churches, Catholic, Episcopalian, and Unitarian to name a few, who supported the many civic associations of Dorchester by allowing the community meetings to be held in their church halls. I would suggest this collaboration strengthened those villages and neighborhoods that we are trying to protect.

I would like to close with a simple anecdote. A little over a week ago I attended the Boston College-Clemson game. As we were tailgating, I started chatting with a very interesting young woman from Connecticut. After a few minutes she told me she recognized my Dorchester accent and then said,” So what parish are you from”? Such a remark may surprise you, but not me.

Maureen Feeney
Dorchester