1. 1. When it has been determined by the voters of a county to establish a county public hospital, the board shall appoint five or seven trustees chosen from among the resident citizens of the county with reference to their fitness for office. The appointed trustees shall hold office until the following general election, at which time their successors shall be elected, three for a term of four years and the remainder for a term of two years, and they shall determine by lot their respective terms, and thereafter their successors shall be elected for regular terms of four years each, except as provided in subsection 3.
2. 2. Upon approval of a majority of the current board of trustees, the board may reduce an existing seven-member board to a five-member board. The board shall establish how to reduce the number of trustees on the board and shall provide for a staggered election cycle for election to the five-member board, which election shall be for a term of four years. However, the manner of reducing the number of trustees shall ensure that the current trustees on the seven-member board may continue to hold office through the end of their respective terms.
3. 3. Trustees in a county with a population of at least four hundred thousand shall serve for a term of six years. A trustee elected to a term of four years in or after January 2018 shall instead serve a term of six years.

For special provisions relating to elections held in 2022 in which more than seventy percent of trustee positions on a board are on the ballot, see 2019 Acts, ch 148, §4 Subsection 1 amended NEW subsection 3

[S13, §409-c; C24, 27, 31, 35, 39, §5355; C46, 50, 54, 58, 62, 66, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, §347.9] 86 Acts, ch 1200, §3; 99 Acts, ch 36, §3; 2001 Acts, ch 65, §1; 2009 Acts, ch 110, §6; 2018 Acts, ch 1033, §2; 2019 Acts, ch 148, §1, 2

Referred to in §331.321