The task of carving up the city of Sacramento into eight new council districts is now in the hands of the City Council.

A redistricting advisory committee made up of council appointees presented its recommendations Tuesday night. The four maps would create eight districts of roughly the same population. Redistricting takes place every 10 years with the release of census data.

The City Council will digest the maps over the next two weeks and is scheduled to provide city staff members with detailed feedback at its July 26 meeting. The maps will then be debated and tweaked over several weeks. The council is scheduled to adopt new district boundaries by Sept. 6.

All four of the advisory committee's plans would reunite most, if not all, of the downtown/midtown core into a single council district. Three districts currently slice into the central city grid, and downtown interests have lobbied hard for a single representative.

The plans also call for North Natomas to break off from South Natomas and anchor its own district, the result of massive development over the past decade in North Natomas. More than 100,000 people live in the district covering North and South Natomas – nearly double the population of most other districts.

And in a recommendation with political impact, the committee presented two maps that would combine some council members into the same districts, essentially forcing members out of office. It is unlikely the council will vote out one of its own.

Earlier Tuesday, Mayor Kevin Johnson applauded the committee's work, saying it presented "four really good proposals for us to consider." He added that he was glad the panel seemed more concerned with keeping neighborhoods together than protecting political turf.

"We wanted them to be blind," the mayor said. "This shouldn't be about incumbents, and it shouldn't be about elected officials. If you leave it to incumbents and elected officials, we're all going to make decisions that are in our interests."

In one map, Councilmen Rob Fong and Jay Schenirer would be combined into a district covering Land Park, Curtis Park and a handful of other neighborhoods south of downtown.

Another map would place Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy and Councilman Steve Cohn into a district representing North Sacramento neighborhoods and parts of east Sacramento.

The African American Leadership Coalition presented the map that would combine Sheedy and Cohn.

North Sacramento activist Derrell Roberts, who represented the coalition at Tuesday's meeting, said the group's priority was to keep African American neighborhoods such as Oak Park and Meadowview unified – not drawing council members out of office.

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