YOUNGSTOWN — A map that almost perfectly divides the city’s population among its seven wards received positive feedback from council members though there were objections to having some existing areas moved.

Council met virtually Friday for about an hour and 45 minutes to discuss four proposed maps presented by John Bralich, program director of Youngstown State University’s Center for Applied GIS.

Council has until Tuesday to approve a new map with no more than a 10 percent population difference between the most-populous and least-populous ward in accordance with its city charter.

Without redistricting, there’s a 16 percent population discrepancy between the 6th and 7th Wards because the city lost almost 7,000 residents in the latest census compared to the previous one with a higher than average decline in the 6th, which takes in the South Side.

Of the four maps Bralich offered, council quickly settled on one that had a population difference of 0.44 of 1 percent among the wards.

It includes about 2,000 combined prisoners in the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center, a private prison, and the Ohio State Penitentiary, a state-run supermax prison, putting both into the 2nd Ward on the city’s East Side.

More than one in every five residents in that ward would be incarcerated felons or undocumented citizens and not allowed to vote.

Most municipalities that redistrict wards include prisoners in their counts. But when Youngstown council last approved a ward map in 2015, it didn’t.

The new proposed map uses the Mahoning River as a natural boundary to separate the 4th Ward, which takes in the city’s upper West Side, and the 3rd Ward, which represents the North Side.

That’s different than the current map and resulted in the 3rd Ward having to grow by taking areas near Wick Park and Youngstown State University’s student housing that are currently in the 1st Ward.

Councilman Julius Oliver, D-1st Ward, objected to that and asked that those areas be restored to his ward. To balance the population increase by reclaiming that area, the 1st Ward would lose a section of Fifth Avenue that includes the Mahoning County jail and the city’s main fire station.

Also, Councilwoman Basia Adamczak, D-7th Ward, who represents the southeast section of the city, wanted to have her part of South Avenue restored.

Because of a population loss, that area was moved from the 7th to the 6th Ward.

Councilman Jimmy Hughes, D-2nd, asked that an area that includes the stalled Chill-Can plant remain in his ward. The map had given that to the 1st Ward.

Bralich was reworking the map and determining if the changes would keep the wards within that 10 percent population limit.

Council will meet again virtually Monday to discuss the new map and will finalize it by Tuesday’s deadline.

City council gets 180 days after the publication of the U.S. Census to draw new lines if the difference in population between the least-populous and most-populous wards is at least 10 percent, according to a charter amendment overwhelmingly approved in the Nov. 8, 2016, general election.

The census was announced Aug. 12, 2021, giving council until Tuesday to come up with new boundaries.

If council fails to act in time, the law director has 30 days after the deadline to create new ward lines, according to the charter.

Councilman Mike Ray, D-4th Ward, who ran Friday’s meeting, said he was confident the legislative body would have a map in time for a Tuesday vote.

The last time council drew new ward lines in July 2015, its members took more than a year to come to an agreement on a map.

Council members became aware of the impending Tuesday deadline just a few days ago and had three proposed maps from YSU this past Wednesday. The fourth map, which will largely be the basis for a fifth map to be considered Monday, was provided Thursday to council by Bralich.

Ray, the only council member who served in 2015, said this process is a lot easier than the last one because there are fewer changes to be done.

When the new maps were finally approved in July 2015, the populations in the ward ranged from 7,227 to 12,130, a difference of more than 40 percent, using 2010 census numbers. It was the first time the wards were redrawn in about 30 years.

After the new lines were drawn, the difference between the most-populous and least-populous wards was down to 8.8 percent.