After a months-long process that started with the release of census data in March and continued with a citizens advisory committee holding public hearings on the pros and cons of 37 maps submitted by the public, the Sacramento City Council threw a wrench into the works.

Four wrenches, to be exact.

The first two were thrown during a heated city council meeting July 26 when council members Sandy Sheedy and Steve Cohn each submitted new maps of their own making to compete with the “top four” maps that the citizens advisory committee selected.

In the middle of that, one advisory committee member admitted to submitting a map of his own anonymously – a map that wound up in the final four.

Next, a Cohn/Sheedy hybrid map was introduced on Aug. 5.

Finally, just when Sacramentans thought the long process was over, yet another map emerged to trump them all on Tuesday afternoon – and the City Council immediately approved it on a 6-3 vote.

For some citizens advisory committee members, the new maps drawn by council members came as no real surprise.

Maya Wallace, a state worker who served on the advisory committee, said after the council meeting Tuesday that none of the committee members had been “naive” about the work they were doing.

“We all went into it knowing that the council was going to draw the lines the way they saw fit,” Wallace said. “It’s just disappointing that what they’ve come up with may not serve some of the communities (of interest) that (the committee) had really tried to consider.”

According to a statement from Sacramento spokeswoman Amy Williams, the committee was designed to “review, organize, analyze, and refine” redistricting proposals submitted to the city, and to “recommend preferred redistricting proposals.”

The 14-member advisory committee took up that charge as members listened to nearly 40 hours of community input on submitted maps and the impact of any changes that would come from redrawing the district lines.

Still, the City Council had final approval authority for new adopted boundaries.

Council members made the most of that authority on Tuesday by passing an intent motion to accept the newest map submitted by Cohn and accepted with minor opposition from other council members.

Community leaders who found their neighborhoods being reshaped by the new map were not as receptive.

Mike Boyd, president of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association, said he was “as shocked as (Councilman Jay) Schenirer looked” when the newest map was unveiled.

Neither Boyd nor Schenirer had seen the newest map incarnation until Cohn presented it from the dais Tuesday.

Boyd said the Oak Park Neighborhood Association had three guiding principles in mind when it submitted a map to the advisory committee: Keep Oak Park together, keep it in District 5 and keep it together with neighboring Curtis Park.

“This new map does none of that,” Boyd said.

Boyd said residents of the Med Center neighborhood don’t see themselves as separate from Oak Park, but as an important and historically valuable part of it.

“We’ve been Oak Park for many years,” Boyd said. “Some Realtor decided Oak Park doesn’t bring real home value, so they renamed it to separate it from Oak Park.”

But that doesn’t change the reality of the neighborhood, Boyd added.

“It’s quite upsetting that they think they can pick on Oak Park like this,” Boyd said. “(Neighbors) are really upset, and we’ll be there at the next council meeting to say so.”

In the north Natomas neighborhood of Valleyview Acres – which was shifted out of District 1 with the merged Cohn/Sheedy map and then returned to District 1 with Cohn’s newest map – residents are not holding their breath that they will get what they want.

“In any democratic system, the decisionmaking process can be a bit messy,” said Nick Avdis, president of Valleyview Acres Community Association.

“I don’t think anyone was under the illusion that what was recommended by the advisory committee would actually be approved by the Council,” Avdis said. “It’s just part of the process.”

Avdis said that, although he was initially surprised that the newest map was in his neighborhood’s favor, redistricting is driven by “political underpinnings that not all of us may know about,” and more changes to the map are theoretically possible before the final vote.

Avdis, who attended advisory committee meetings and lobbied on his neighborhood’s behalf throughout the process, said he isn’t taking any chances.

“I will be (at the council meeting) on the 23rd,” Avdis said. “I’m not going to risk getting blindsided.”

According to Scot Mende, the city’s new growth and infill manager, the newest map will be on the council agenda to pass for publication on Aug. 23. That means the public can still voice their opinions about the new map – but time is running out.

“It’s a little harder to make big changes when the ink is dry,” Mende said.

A final vote on the map is expected at the Aug. 30 council meeting.

Here is the most recent redistricting map.

Melissa Corker is a Staff Reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @MelissaCorker.