Town of Ramapo residents go to the polls on Tuesday to vote on referendums that may change the electoral dynamics of a town that is increasingly divided east and west. The long-fought effort to get a ward referendum on the Ramapo town ballot has certainly been a clarifying process.

Sloatsburg voters can cast ballots at the Village Hall Tuesday from 6am to 9pm.

The referendums on the September 30 ballot ask whether voters want (1) a ward system of representation and (2) six council members to represent the six wards, with ward districts, if chosen, to be drawn by the Rockland County Board of Elections — amid much likely arm-wrestling and advisement by the Town of Ramapo and its residents.

Many in Western Ramapo advocate for the ward system because the western parts of the town feel under represented in Town Hall and see the ward system as a solution to Ramapo’s diverse and distinct demographic mix. The more dense eastern Ramapo hamlets and villages have marked growing populations that require housing. East Ramapo currently controls the town’s Planning and Zoning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals.

The proposed Woodmont Properties 384 apartment complex on a strip of Rt. 17 land just south of Sloatsburg is an example of this dichotomy — most on the town’s planning board appeared to have no real understanding of development issues related to the western corridor that runs through Suffern, Hillburn and Sloatsburg. While an apartment complex the size of Ramapo Woodmont might fit in east Ramapo, there is no precedent for such housing in west Ramapo and to date there’s been no data presented that the complex will thrive and succeed.

The members of the Planning and Zoning Board listened politely during Public Hearings — then voted unanimously in favor of the development.

Ramapo Central School District defines the communities of western Ramapo. Blue flags represent public elementary schools, red flags are middle schools and the green flags are high schools. The light green section east of RCSD is part of the East Ramapo School District.

The town’s cultural divide is most clearly evident on the particular issue of growth, with a much denser, sprawling population in one part of the town versus the more rural western Ramapo communities. Among other things, western Ramapo villages are more deliberative about development and change, value low growth, access to park lands and green space, and the particular quality of life these things confer.

A ward system would carve up the town into six districts, with representatives vested in the neighborhood issues and concerns of his or her ward as they relate to those of the overall ward and town.

The western Ramapo ethos is village-centric, rooted in rural community life and traditions that celebrate local history and self-governance that go back to John Suffern, the Piersons and Sloats and back more to before the pre-Revoutionary War era. There’s also a Tallman from Nyack and parts of Airmont that connect up down Rt. 59.

The Ramapo Mountains are themselves thought to be the foothill remains of the great Rodinian super-continent mountain range that peaked at some 32,000 feet.

As the gateway to the Ramapo Highlands, Suffern serves as western Ramapo’s seat and center, with Sloatsburg, Hillburn, Montebello, and even parts of Airmont, historically, commercially and demographically related. The Ramapo Central School District essentially defines the boundaries of western Ramapo and it is where residents in this part of the town have collectively debated and agreed upon the educational and community-value issues that mark the region.

An argument can certainly be made that western Ramapo is more than a state of mind. It’s an intentional way of life that residents value — rooted in tradition and shared history of community life, surrounded by open space, parkland, and the Ramapo Mountains. With ongoing demographic shifts taking place in the Town of Ramapo, and Rockland County in general, many western Ramapo voters see Tuesday’s vote as a way to declare political independence.

Whether a yes/yes vote will succeed in establishing appropriate representation for the region can be debated. But the process itself has galvanized and unified western Ramapo residents in an important way that could and should be sustained as the Highlands region gives voice to its concerns about life in the Town of Ramapo.

This article has been updated.