The Baltimore City Council narrowly voted through Council President Nick Mosby’s redistricting map proposal during a special meeting on Thursday night.

The vote was 8-6 in favor with Councilmember Kristerfer Burnett of District Eight being absent. The council had just four days to consider Mosby’s proposal.

“Based on what my community residents have stated that they have wanted, I feel that the mayor’s administration did a very good job of collaborating throughout the process,” said Danielle McCrae, who represents District Two, and voted against Mosby’s proposal, saying she preferred the proposal put forward by Mayor Brandon Scott on September 18th.

The city’s charter puts the council under a crunch. A map must be passed within 60 days or the mayor’s original proposal automatically becomes law; Mayor Scott introduced his proposal on September 18th which gives the council a November 17th deadline.

When Councilmember Zeke Cohen, District One, voted against Mosby’s proposal on Thursday night, he said that neither the mayor’s nor the council president’s map adequately represented what his constituents need. Instead, he described the speedy process required by city charter as “flawed.”

“There has not been enough time and consideration, communities feel like their voices have not been heard,” said Cohen, who plans to take action on the matter. “I intend to introduce a charter amendment to have a non-political redistricting commission that gets created.”

Cohen is running for City Council President against Mosby in the May 2024 primary.

The map passed by the council is largely similar to the one proposed by Mosby; it keeps districts hovering around an average population size of 42,000. As per state law, districts must be contiguous and compact — essentially they can’t be separated by geographical features like the bay or rivers. Some districts, like nine, twelve and thirteen, have had to grow rather significantly to accommodate for population loss and vacant housing blocks.

The map passed last night would keep neighborhoods like Hoes Heights, Bolton Hill, Morrell Park, Howard Park and Forest Park together in one district; it also keeps Clifton Park in District 14 with the neighborhood of Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello.

“When you look at the map, they don't really seem to be drastic changes. However, they're very substantive based off of the background that the council use to come up with the changes,” Mosby said after the meeting. The council held two town halls and three public hearings on the mayor’s proposal before introducing another map.

Shortly after the mayor’s original proposal on September 18th, Council President Nick Mosby began expressing concerns that community members wouldn’t have time to weigh in on the process and that the council wouldn’t have time to deliberate on potential amendments. Now that the council has passed a final map, the mayor still has the power to veto it — in which case his version would likely pass through.

The council has a regular meeting on October 30th, if the mayor decides to veto the map by then, the council could quickly convene to come up with another counter proposal for their November 6th regular meeting. Mosby explained that based on the city solicitor’s interpretation of the charter the council would not be able to schedule any special meetings between November 6th and November 17, which marks the official 60 days since the mayor’s original map was introduced, in order to come up with yet another alternative.

In the past few weeks, Scott and Mosby have gone back and forth to establish a timeline for getting a map passed that could assuage both parties. In late September, Scott sent Mosby a letter essentially promising not to “run out the clock” with a last minute veto and that he was committed to ensuring “the City Council has an opportunity to act on a potential veto of a map proposed by the City Council.”

“Mayor Scott looks forward to reviewing the proposed map with the city’s legal and planning department to determine if the last minute amendments submitted by several council members meets the criteria set by the charter. Along with the mayor’s own proposal for all council districts to be equitable and have thriving institutions,” wrote Marvin James, chief of staff for the mayor’s office, in a statement sent to WYPR.

The new district boundaries will be in effect for primary elections in May 2024.