Chicago aldermen essentially gave themselves a do-over on the ward remap saga Wednesday, sailing past an arbitrary deadline and setting a series of meetings stretching into January to let Chicago residents provide input into the new boundaries.

       Black and Latino aldermen had ramped up their angry rhetoric toward one another as Wednesday approached, treating it as an important day in the once-a-decade fight to redraw the 50 ward boundaries based on new U.S. Census figures.

       But state statute allows aldermen to keep negotiating the details, particularly how many Black- and Latino-majority wards are included in the new map as the groups jockey to maintain and expand their political power.

       Faced with the certainty that neither a map favored by Black aldermen nor a Latino-designed plan would get the 41 council votes necessary to forestall a costly ballot referendum to let the public pick, the council seemed to agree Wednesday to an armistice.

       Ald. Michelle Harris, chair of the Rules Committee, unveiled a map that creates 16 Black-majority wards and an additional ward with a Black plurality. That map includes 14 Latino wards, 18 white-majority wards and Chicago’s first Asian-majority ward.

       Chicago Ald. Michelle Harris, chair of the Rules Committee, decided not to call a vote on a proposed ward map presented at a special City Council meeting Wednesday. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

       But rather than forcing a vote on the issue, Harris declared that “over the next weeks and months,” she will host meetings to “promote transparency and make sure everyone has access to the redistricting process.”

       Two meetings will be held next week, Harris said, before they break for the holidays and come back in January for more meetings.

       The Latino Caucus has brought forward its own map with 16 Black-majority wards and 15 Latino-majority wards, and supporters of that one reiterated before the Wednesday meeting that their version best reflects the city after the Census showed Latino population gains and Black losses.

       At any point starting Thursday, they could file for the Latino Caucus plan to appear on a referendum in June so voters can select the map.

       But after Wednesday’s meeting, Latino Caucus Chair Ald. Gilbert Villegas sounded prepared to continue negotiating.

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       “Those meetings should have happened way before Dec. 1, but (Harris) has put out the timeline, so we’ll take a look at it,” Villegas said, noting that he saw the map proposed by the Rules Committee for the first time Wednesday.

       As expected, the map Harris unveiled moves the 34th Ward from the overwhelmingly African American far South Side West Pullman, Roseland and Morgan Park neighborhoods to an area just west and south of downtown. That would create a new white-majority ward in the booming West Loop area.

       Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th), and members of the Chicago City Council Latino Caucus, hold a press conference calling for transparency in the redistricting map process at City Hall, Dec. 1, 2021. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

       It also pushes indicted Ald. Ed Burke’s 14th Ward entirely east of Midway International Airport, taking away majority-white parts of the Garfield Ridge neighborhood that are currently in his ward.

       An earlier version of the Rules Committee map aldermen saw this week had given Burke’s ward larger parts of Garfield Ridge at the expense of Latina Ald. Silvana Tabares, 23rd.

       But Mayor Lori Lightfoot criticized that design for seemingly helping Burke, who she has frequently blasted since her mayoral run in 2019, and changes were made before copies of the map were handed to aldermen Wednesday.

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       The chances of a decision by Wednesday have appeared slim for weeks, with Black and Latino aldermen at loggerheads over the final apportionment of wards between the two caucuses.

       The full City Council met for just minutes before adjourning Wednesday without voting on a map or holding debate.

       Despite her behind-the-scenes input, Lightfoot told reporters Wednesday she sees the remap as “primarily” a City Council function — publicly distancing herself from the messy process.

       She also dismissed criticism that she should’ve been in the city working on a deal, sarcastically saying, “Let me see. I could come to Washington, D.C., and advocate on behalf of the city about getting hundreds of millions of dollars to support residents’ recovery from COVID or I could preside over a City Council meeting … that ended up with just the filing of a map.”

       The mayor, who as a candidate supported a map drawn by an independent panel, also rebutted criticism from reform group Change Illinois that she went back on her campaign pledge.

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       “Governance is different than running a campaign and this issue of remap and City Council is complicated,” Lightfoot said.

       jebyrne@chicagotribune.com

       gpratt@chicagotribune.com

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