BLOOMFIELD — During its June board meeting, the Utilities District of Western Indiana REMC Board of Directors passed a resolution to redefine districts in its service territory.
The cooperative’s bylaws mandate districts and their associated board seats to give members local representation on the UDWI Board of Directors. The districts and the number of members represented in each are also periodically reviewed to determine if changes are needed.
The last review was conducted in 2018; no changes were made that year. The current bylaws state that this redistricting review should occur every six years and within 90 days of the last annual meeting, which was held in April 2024.
This year’s review found that the number of UDWI members in each district varied greatly and was not evenly distributed. This is due to fluctuations in population and new or changing developments in housing. In addition, the current district boundaries often divide townships, resulting in two directors representing areas traditionally served in whole by other services such as water, sewer, and police and fire departments.
Historically, Districts have been based on UDWI’s internal power map grid, which is not publicly available and can cause confusion on meter locations and the way districts are defined. With updated CIS/GIS technology, more data is available, allowing UDWI to use existing boundaries such as county and township lines.
UDWI serves around 16,000 members across its territory, and the current eight districts range from the least populated district with 1,600 members to the most populated district with nearly 2,400 members. The updated districts will balance the number of members; seven districts will now each represent about 2,300 members, greatly balancing the representation across the service territory.
“Our board studied the data over the past couple of months and have determined that the current distribution of our members supports this redistricting, which hasn’t been updated since 2008,” said Board of Directors President Edward Cullison. “We also know that aligning districts along township lines will help the UDWI staff working with the public and providing service to our members.”
The new boundary lines will allow members to easily identify their board members and help operations and customer service staff easily identify specific areas of each district when working with members requesting information or additional services. This latest redistricting will not affect the election cycle for new directors, and UDWI members will continue to have the opportunity to vote for board member candidates across all districts during the annual meeting process.
The updated Board of Directors and districts are detailed in the table below. Additionally, updated district maps can be found on the cooperative website at udwi.com.
