YOUNGSTOWN — A week after most of its members learned a new ward map had to be approved by today, city council agreed to one that makes minor changes to balance the population and comply with the city charter.

“This is a success story,” Councilman Mike Ray, D-4th Ward, said Monday. “We did the maintenance that was required and remedied the problem. This is government working well.”

Council met virtually for about 45 minutes Monday to iron out the final map changes, requested by Councilman Julius Oliver, D-1st Ward, and plan to have a brief meeting today to adopt it.

John Bralich, program director of Youngstown State University’s Center for Applied GIS, provided council with four proposed maps last Wednesday that were discussed at a meeting two days later.

After changes were suggested by some council members, Bralich designed a fifth map, but he said that was out of compliance with the charter’s population requirement so he made a sixth map. From that map, changes were suggested by Oliver and an agreement reached Monday on the seventh proposal.

There can be no more than a 10 percent population difference between the most-populous and least-populous wards under a city charter amendment overwhelmingly approved Nov. 8, 2016, by city voters.

Oliver wanted sections of Fifth Avenue — including by the Youngstown State University and the downtown main fire station — kept in his ward. He received them in exchange for giving the 3rd Ward an area southeast of Wick Park.

Oliver’s 1st Ward also picked up an area south of Gibson Field that was in the 7th Ward, which takes in the southeast part of the city.

The 1st Ward includes downtown — and the city’s two largest employers: YSU and St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital — as well as pieces of all of the other sides of Youngstown except the West.

While Oliver kept the downtown fire station, he lost the nearby Mahoning County jail, which was moved to the 3rd Ward. The 3rd consists of most of the North Side.

Councilwoman Samantha Turner, D-3rd Ward, said: “I’m completely fine with the changes here. No one is losing anything. No one is giving away anything. We have seven people working together to make our city better. I am completely happy with this.”

Oliver said: “I lost a lot, just for the record.”

Council has until today to approve a new map with no more than a 10 percent population difference between the wards.

The map that council will approve today has an 8.4 percent population difference between the 2nd Ward, which includes most of the East Side, with 8,856 residents and the 6th Ward, which takes in much of the South Side, with 8,197 residents.

Without redistricting, there’s a 16 percent population difference between the 6th and 7th Wards after Youngstown lost almost 7,000 people in the latest census compared to the previous one.

City council had 180 days after the publication of the U.S. Census to draw new lines because of the population difference. The census was announced Aug. 17, 2021, giving council until today to come up with a new map.

Most of council learned Jan. 31 from Tom Hetrick, its new president, that the deadline was quickly approaching. Hetrick said he discovered the issue a few days prior when reading the city charter.

If council had failed to act in time, the law director had 30 days after today to create new ward lines under the charter.

The new map makes the 2nd Ward the most-populous and the largest in size. 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.

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. When Youngstown council last approved a ward map in July 2015, it didn’t.

When the map was finally approved in 2015, more than a year after council first discussed doing so, 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 city’s first ward redistricting 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.

By the numbers

These are the new population breakdowns by ward for Youngstown:

1st Ward: 8,684

2nd Ward: 8,856

3rd Ward: 8,770

4th Ward: 8,826

5th Ward: 8,335

6th Ward: 8,197

7th Ward: 8,400