CHAMPAIGN – Even in a nonpartisan city, adopting a new political map can be difficult.

Such was the case Tuesday night, when the city council adopted, in a 5-3 vote, new district boundaries for the five council members who represent districts. Three council members and the mayor are elected citywide.

The new map became necessary after the city annexed several southwest Champaign subdivisions in 2005 and then conducted a special census last year, which showed the city had gained 7,702 new residents and now has a population of 75,254.

With five districts, each district should be near the average of 15,050 residents. But district populations had become unbalanced.

For example, before Tuesday's remap, council member Ken Pirok's District 5, where most of the annexations took place, had 19,645 residents. That compared to 13,279 residents in Gina Jackson's District 1.

The map adopted was drawn up by council member Vic McIntosh, who said he worked to create a cohesive map that reduced the number of split precincts from four in the old map to just one.

McIntosh, a Republican, said that politics played no role in drawing up the map and that he did not look at voting records of residents in the precincts.

City council members are elected on a nonpartisan basis, though the party affiliation of most council members is generally well known.

"If it's partisan, districts 1, 2 and 4 are Democratic, but that didn't have anything to do with it," McIntosh said.

The new districts are bigger and most of them moved to the west, he said.

Voting against the map were Marci Dodds, who represents District 4, Gina Jackson of District 1, and Ken Pirok, who represents District 5. All are Democrats.

Dodds read a statement saying she wanted a map with "a minimum of change, logically done, since we will probably be doing this again in four years with the regular census." She also said she wanted a map that "kept the council as nonpartisan as possible."

After the meeting, she said she thought her central Champaign district had been changed from a centrist district to one that leaned more heavily Democratic. She said she thought the other districts had also been made more Democratic or Republican than before.

"The thing about District 4 is it's always been the center of the city," she said. "There's Democrats and Republicans. It's always been very balanced. I feel very strongly you have to have a strong middle to have good city government."

Jackson said she was concerned that the neighborhood around Franklin Middle School, which formerly had been split between districts 1 and 3, is now a part of District 4. "I believe we probably could have picked a better solution," she said.

Pirok said he thought McIntosh "railroaded" the map through without sufficient input from council members.

Pirok said his district added territory to the east from Dodd's old district, which was unusual because most districts were growing to the west. Dodds also objected to losing the territory to District 5.

The new map will first come into play during the spring 2009 election.

Also Tuesday, the council approved a $10.5 million contract with English Brothers and A&R Services to build a 600-space parking garage at the southeast corner of Randolph and Hill streets.