Ricardo Arroyo

With several outbursts and more than an hour and a half spent in recess, city councilors voted on redistricting last Wednesday, passing newly drawn district lines based on the so-called unity map advanced by the NAACP, Mijente, Chinese Progressive Association and other groups representing communities of color.

A longstanding racial divide on the City Council has moved to center stage as the 13 members of the body debate the redrawing of the city’s nine council districts.

A redistricting map supported by voting rights advocates sparked fierce pushback from white City Councilors Monday during a heated hearing in City Hall’s Iannella Chamber.

District 5 City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo and District 7 Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson released a redistricting map that they say keeps most of the city’s neighborhoods whole and increase opportunities for Black Latino and Asian candidates to win seats on the council.

Councilor Ricardo Arroyo last week pressed to be reinstated to his committee leadership positions of which he was stripped temporarily.

In the wake of sexual assault allegations against the former chair of the Boston City Council Redistricting Committee coming to light, questions and concerns have arisen over the fate of the city’s redistricting process, which aims to redraw Boston’s political map for the first time in a decade.

Interim District Attorney Kevin Hayden declared victory Tuesday evening after the Associated Press projected a win for his campaign with more than 15,000 mail-in votes yet to be counted.

After securing a judgement last Thursday ordering the release of redacted documents for a 2005 sexual assault case in which he was accused, City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo is claiming he’s been vindicated, citing a Boston Police Department finding that the allegations were, in an officer’s words, “unfounded.”

Amid political controversy, Boston City Council President Ed Flynn Monday suspended councilor and Suffolk County District Attorney candidate Ricardo Arroyo for two months from his chairmanship of two of the council’s powerful committees.

A woman whom the Boston Globe alleged suspected Ricardo Arroyo of sexually assaulting her after she blacked out at a party in 2007 hit back at the weekly newspaper in a statement released Wednesday stating that Arroyo was never a suspect in her assault and charging that an investigator hired by District Attorney Kevin Hayden’s campaign told her she would be part of a political scandal.

In the wake of a Boston Globe investigation that suggested that interim District Attorney Kevin Hayden’s office declined to prosecute an MBTA police officer accused of misconduct, then received donations from the officer and his attorney, several local elected officials are calling on him to resign.

The next Suffolk County district attorney will face a challenging question: Is Boston equipped to handle a rising tide of hate crimes and white supremacist activity?