A public water district organized under this Act with a board of trustees consisting of 7 members may have the size of its board reduced to 5 or 3 members in accordance with this Section.
The board of trustees of any such district may adopt a resolution stating that the size and scope of operations of the district justifies a board of fewer than 7 members and that, in the judgment of the board, the size of the board should be reduced to 5 or 3 members, as the case may be.
Upon the adoption of such a resolution, the board shall petition the circuit court for the county in which the district, or the major portion thereof, is located for a reduction in the number of members of the board of trustees of the district to 5 or 3, as the case may be. In conjunction with the petition, the board may submit to the court a suggested transitional schedule designed to effectuate the transition from a 7 member to a 5 member or 3 member board, as the case may be, with a minimum disruption of existing terms of office.
Upon the filing of such petition in the office of the clerk of the circuit court, the court shall set a date for hearing on the petition and shall give notice of the time and place of the hearing in the same manner as is provided in Section 2 for notice of a hearing on a petition relating to the creation of a district.
If upon the hearing, the court finds that the size, number of members, and scale of operations of the water district justifies a board of trustees of less than 7 members, it shall enter an order reducing the size of the board to 5 or 3 members, as the case may be. The order shall include a transitional schedule governing the transition to a smaller board, which shall be so arranged that at the conclusion of the transition the term of office of no more than one trustee shall expire in any one calendar year.
70 ILCS 3705/4.1