Mayor Menino to veto a second City Council redistricting plan

By Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff

Mayor Thomas M. Menino on Monday said he would again veto a redistricting proposal passed by the City Council, rejecting the second map to reach his desk.

The measure narrowly passed the City Council last week after a surprise, parliamentary maneuver forced a vote on a proposal that had languished for months. The new map included just a handful of changes from the first proposal Menino rejected, and it did not address the mayor’s paramount concern.

“The last plan concentrated too many citizens of color into too few districts, and doing so may limit their equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice,” Menino said Monday in an interview. “This plan is basically the same we had before, just [with] different names on it.”

Although the latest map did not differ significantly from the version the Council originally passed in August, it garnered a very different lineup of supporters and opponents.

The first map passed 7 to 6 -- over the objections of the City Council’s four minority members. But the plan that passed last week won the support of three of the four councilors of color.

The issue will now be sent back to the City Council.