URBANA – Champaign County's redistricting commission has given a less than hearty endorsement to a new county board district map.

Now it's up to the county board to accept it or reject it and ask for another map. It is expected to be discussed by the county board on April 26 and voted on May 3.

The groundbreaking redistricting commission – believed to be the first of its kind in the country – recommended what is known as Map 1E.

It was approved on a 7-4 vote, with "yes" votes from chair Rick Winkel and members Anthony Ackerman, Terrance Archibald, Ron Bensyl, Wendy Harris, Diana Herriott and Jon Schroeder.

"No" votes came from Augustus Hallmon, Alan Kurtz, Esther Patt and Michael Richards.

The map was criticized for a lack of contiguity, particularly in its proposed District 5 which would take up large suburban sections both north and west of Champaign. It also was derided for dividing Urbana into five county board districts.

The proposed map also splits 16 existing precincts, four townships and three municipalities. (An earlier version of this story erred in these numbers.)

But other commissioners noted it did a good job of maintaining communities of interest and offering a so-called "majority minority' district that would be more than 60 percent minority (African-American and Hispanic).

Although commission members were told that they could recommend more than one map, every other proposal was voted down.

The commission voted to reject a map offered by Michael Richards of Champaign, who is not only a member of the commission but of the county board. In the 8-3 vote against Richards' proposal, all three of the minority votes came from known Democrats on the commission.

During the discussion of Richards' map, debate got testy when commission chair Winkel, a former Republican state legislator and now a University of Illinois professor, suggested that the notion of an independent commission would be undermined by the adoption of a map drawn by an incumbent county board member.

Kurtz, another Champaign Democrat who also is on the commission and the county board, then charged that Winkel's criticism of Richards' map was "the most partisan statement I've heard to date" on the commission.

A map submitted by former Democratic county board candidate Eric Thorsland also was rejected, 8-3.

A map drawn by commission member Augustus Hallmon (who is not on the county board) was voted down, 7-4. Commission members complained that it split 28 precincts, nine townships and five municipalities. Urbana, noted commision member Esther Patt, would have been divided among six of the 11 county board districts.