The Vallejo City Council may have taken a U-turn, but it eventually decided which direction it wanted to go with when deciding on a new district map.

After originally choosing what was labeled as the Draft B map after a presentation by Ken Chawkins, the council voted 7-0 to reconsider in a rare move Tuesday night. The move to reconsider and eventually choose the Draft A map instead came due to false information and statistics given during the presentation.

Originally the council voted 7-0 for the Draft B map largely because of the belief that it had fewer people disenfranchised, with 26 people. It turns out that was Draft A's map.

A motion was then made and the council voted 7-0 to use Draft A map instead.

The California Elections Code requires that every 10 years, cities with by-district election systems use new census data to review and, if needed, redraw the district lines to reflect how local populations have changed.

This process ensures all districts have nearly equal populations. This was be the fourth and final hearing that was required by law. The redistricting process for the City must be completed by April 17.

Draft Map A was originally published on the dedicated redistricting webpage on Jan. 3 of this year and presented by NDC to the council for its consideration at its Jan. 11 public hearing.

This map is based on existing districts that keeps the current districts largely intact but corrects the contiguity problem by connecting the top portion of District 6 to the bottom portion of District 6 by moving census blocks from District 5 to District 6 along the most westerly edge of the unincorporated areas.

Moving forward the council decided to move back to in-person meetings starting on March 8, although an option of watching the meetings virtually will still be available. Vallejo Interim City Manager Mike Malone said that 70 people on city staff have come up with a positive COVID-19 test. Interim Assistant City Manager Terrance Davis also acknowledged that in order to make the transition back to in-person meetings, March 8 is what the staff recommends for the earliest return date.

Mayor Robert McConnell then asked the question if people attending the meetings in person would have to show proof of vaccination. McConnell also asked if the main meeting room would be disinfected each day like it is down on commercial airplanes between flights.

Davis said that the room does not use the same process, but did say they "use a variety of chemicals to wipe down the area and that that has been the protocol since the beginning of the pandemic."

Councilmember Katy Miessner brought up the issue of how they would find out who was vaccinated without asking for a card. Vallejo city attorney Veronica Webb also spoke on the issue.

"In terms of the question of masking vs. unmasking, yes, the state and the CDC is looking at removing mask mandates and we're following that closely and HR is following that closely," Webb said. "But we also have to wait for CAL/OSHA (California Occupational Safety & Health Act of 1973) to catch up. They historically lag usually a little bit behind.

"Finally I am concerned about saying you would have to showing a vaccination card to come in, we had adopted some provisions dealing with masks and vaccinations and prove relative to those who are unvaccinated. You can come in, it's just whether or not you have to wear a mask once that is lifted for indoor assembly."

With Webb not knowing what CAL/OSHA  would do she requested that the council move toward having in person meetings, but request people wear masks once coming in until learning the requirements of CAL/OSHA.

Councilmember Mina Loera-Diaz spoke about wanting to return to in-person meetings.

"We have to return to some kind of normalcy," Loera-Diaz said. "I'm concerned about my grandkids, and this is a lot more convenient for us, I like sitting here and not having to go down to city hall. But we have a job to do and I think we do a better job when we do it as it was intended to be done. Which is to go down there and let everyone who wants to go down and see us and applaud what we're doing or complain about what we're doing but have them do it to our face."

Later in the night the council adopted Ensenada, Mexico is the seventh sister city of Vallejo. It was the first time a city was approved as a Sister City since Jincheon, South Korea was in 2003.

Some public speakers like Anne Carr asked for future sister cities to be more spread out and have a population closer to what Vallejo has (approximately 126,000) but overall everyone on the council was happy about it and the vote to adopt it was 7-0.

"I look forward to this relationship. It's (Ensenada) is very interesting," McConnell said. "The two cities are very similar. The people are very similar to us in their background. They are both blue collar. Both have naval bases. Both have shipyards. Both have art centers."

Earlier in the night a proclamation was made to make February Black History Month.

Also, a moment of silence of 25 seconds was held during public speakers David Maldane's time for Willie McCoy, who was shot and killed on Feb. 9, 2019 by the Vallejo Police Department in a Taco Bell drive-through. Vallejo police said McCoy had a gun in his lap.