Is There a Connection Between Country-wide Population and the Desirability of Eliminating Smaller Fire Protection Districts Within a Municipality ?

In In re Petition of the Village of Vernon Hills, 168 Ill. 2d 117, 122, 212 Ill. Dec. 883, 658 N.E.2d 365 (1995), the section of the Act in question allowed non-home-rule-municipalities receiving services from multiple fire protection districts to disconnect territory from one district and transfer it to another district that provided services to the area comprising more than 80% of the municipality's assessed valuation; however, this only applied in counties having a population of between 500,000 and 750,000, which, at the time, only included Lake County. Again, our supreme court found that there was no rational difference of situation or condition that existed among non-home-rule-municipalities served by multiple fire protection districts based on the population of the county in which they are located. The court could find no connection between the county-wide population and the desirability of eliminating smaller fire protection districts within a given municipality. See Vernon Hills, 168 Ill. 2d at 126.