City Council Approves New Ward Map

Here's your new ward map, Chicago. It was approved by City Council today by a 41-8 vote. The number of votes is notable as it means the map will not go to residents to a vote.

That doesn't mean the map is exempt from a challenge. Mayor Emanuel's City Council floor leader, 40th Ward Ald. Patrick O'Connor, said "People file lawsuits all the time. All we could do is strive to have the largest number of City Council members available so that we would not have a referendum — and that’s what we’ve achieved."

The eight alderman who voted against the new map were Bob Fioretti (2nd); Roderick Sawyer (6th); Michael Zalewski (23rd); Michael Chandler (24th); Scott Waguespack (32nd); Nick Sposato (36th); Rey Colon (35th) and John Arena (45th). Firoetti, Sposato and Zalewski are among aldermen whose seats could be endangered by the new map. Fioretti and Sposato tried to use a routine delay to prevent the vote, in part to give the public time to review the map. But a rarely used parliamentary maneuver that rules matters directly introduced to the City Council can’t be postponed was used to trump the block.

One of the main issues with the map is a population disparity between South and North Side wards. Some wards out South have more than 4,000 fewer residents than North Side wards. 33rd Ward Ald. Dick Mell, who headed up the contentious remapping effort, said the new map could withstand a legal challenge.

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By Chuck Sudo in News on January 19, 2012 4:00 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

JoeChicago

The tribune has posted a nice side by side map comparison that is zoomable:
http://media.apps.chicagotribu...

StefanieA

WBEZ has a much better map: http://www.wbez.org/no-sidebar...

BlueFairlane

That map's awesome. And now I know I've been gerrymandered out of my ward.

Tafter

My eyes just glaze over when this type of thing comes up. Good? Bad? Ihavenofreakingclue.

Though I agree with D's odds, I still second the notion of a much smaller city council.

Petruce_Carrier

How about they just cut the number of
alderman in half and save us some dough.

ChicagoD

I'm pretty sure that has to come from Springfield. So, yeah. Even less of a chance than half of the them voting themselves back into the workforce.

JoeChicago

Does anyone have a link to the new map that is decent. The map the tribune article links to does a piss poor job when to try to zoom in.

ChicagoD

They are all terrible trying to zoom in, but the original document the (click original pdf on the Trib page) has descriptions and some ability to zoom.

JoeChicago

Sun-times actually has a map that you can zoom in on:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/c...

Frank Grimes

Thanks for posting that interactive map! WTF were the city council thinking, by drawing those ward boundaries? This map completely demonstrates that a city or state law should pass, prohibiting alderman from coming up with maps that use odd zig-zag shapes(i.e. the new 2nd Ward, or the new 36th Ward).

It's beyond time to term-limit all elected aldermen, city elected positions(i.e. city clerk), and the mayor, and to cut back the number of aldermen to 25. Of course, as long as neither term-limits or cutting the number of aldermen is not implemented, the infamous saying 'Chicago ain't ready for reform' will continually remain true.