BOSTON, HERE’S YOUR NEW MAP
Mayor Michelle Wu has signed the new redistricting map into law, codifying the new map exactly one year before the next municipal election and putting this hot-button issue to bed for the next decade.
“Mayor Wu has signed the redistricting ordinance approved by the council last week after being advised that it complies with the Voting Rights Act,” her office said on Monday.
So ends a particularly caustic redistricting cycle that further enflamed and highlighted the deep divisions on the council.
Or at least does so for now, as multiple officials have said they expect the map to end up in court in some way or another. Even now, it goes into effect as neighborhood groups challenge the process, suing on open-meeting grounds with a hearing slated for Wednesday.
The map, passed by a 9-4 count in the council, most notably moves some of the southern Dorchester precincts around Cedar Grove and Adams Village from District 3 to District 4 and some of the precincts around the Old Colony and D Street projects in South Boston from District 2 into District 3. These changes infuriated D2 City Councilor Ed Flynn, who’s the council president, and D3 Councilor Frank Baker, as well as some of their allies.
This ultimate version signed into law is a lightly modified iteration of the hotly debated “unity” map first introduced by redistricting chair City Councilor Liz Breadon and City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo along with progressive activist groups.
These changes are slated to go into effect for the next council term, so the councilors running in the Nov. 7, 2023, local election will be doing so to represent these districts. Until then, the current councilors keep representing the districts they were elected to, the ones set last redistricting cycle in 2012.
The next will take place in 2032, two years after the next decennial U.S. Census, as is typical. By then, if all goes according to plan, booming new developments will exist in the likes of East Boston’s Suffolk Downs, Columbia Point’s Dorchester Bay City and the new Harvard-driven redevel