It’s decision time for Warren County to choose one of two favored plans to redraw its five political districts.

A second public hearing Monday evening lasted barely 11 minutes as supervisors gathered final public comments. Both maps show predominately black sections of Vicksburg and Warren County moving into adjacent districts from which supervisors, school board members and election commissioners are elected.

A single hearing on the new justice court maps is set for 10 a.m. May 23. Once a map is chosen by the board, the Justice Department has 60 days to approve it.

Population losses inside the city in the 2010 census prompted the redraw of district lines to be submitted to the Department of Justice to comply with the federal voting rights law.

Districts 2 and 3 gain population on both proposals for supervisor and school board. Land along U.S. 80 between the city limits and Buck Drive, extending north to Culkin Road and south along Mississippi 27 to Stenson Road, would move to District 2 in the first plan. The second version excludes the city limits-to-Buck Drive strip of territory, currently in District 1.

District 3 would gain in two spots in the first plan — along U.S. 61 South to the city limits, bounded to the south by Grange Hall Road, and a piece south of East Clay Street between rail tracks north of Old Highway 27 and Mississippi 27. In the second version, the central city-based district gains neighborhoods between Halls Ferry Road and Wisconsin Avenue.

Monday’s lone comment was from John Strong, a self-described “tourist from Alaska” who has visited Vicksburg “for 40 years.” Strong was wearing a T-shirt bearing support for District 2 supervisor candidate De Reul, who spoke at the first redistricting hearing, on April 26.

“With all the stuff you’ve said, is there going to be a supervisors’ election this year or are they going put it off till next year,” Strong asked after board attorney Randy Sherard recited general procedures and guidelines sought by the Department of Justice.

“You’ll have to wait and ask the federal court that,” Sherard said. “We don’t know.”

In March, a suit filed by the Vicksburg Chapter of the NAACP against the county and both major parties’ executive committees was combined along with similar cases against nine other Mississippi counties into a single case before Gulfport-based U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr.

A third map presented April 26 by local NAACP chairman John Shorter on behalf of the organization was not displayed. The board’s two chosen alternatives were mapped with the help of Central Mississippi Planning and Development District. Shorter told the board April 26 consultation on the NAACP’s map was by Jackson State University.

The justice court’s central district gains voters from the northern district in both maps, which use the same census blocks that determine the supervisor districts and mirror much of the same movement likely on the supervisor maps.

In the first alternative, the central district expands eastward to take in everything between Culkin and Stenson roads except for a strip of U.S. 80 between the city limits and Buck Drive. It also gains territory south of East Clay and U.S. 80, including a chunk east of Mississippi 27 bounded by Stenson and Mount Alban roads.

The second alternative shows the northern district retaining the east side of Mississippi 27 and the central district keeping the expanded borders from the first proposal.

Primary and general elections for countywide and district-level positions are still set for this year despite qualifying deadlines having passed and those for state legislators moved to June 1. A three-judge panel ruled Friday they were inclined to make legislators run in districts each house approved unless the state Legislature adopts a new plan and obtains DOJ approval before June 1.