Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey today signed into law legislation that re-shapes the Birmingham Water Works Board and takes it out of majority control of the City of Birmingham.

The new law regionalizes the Birmingham Water Works Board and would give more power to suburban areas.

Under the new law the structure of the Birmingham Water Works Board will change, creating a seven-member authority dominated by appointees from outside the city of Birmingham and reducing the city’s seats to two.

Birmingham had controlled six of the nine seats on the current board.

“No doubt, this is an important issue to all those residents served by this utility board,” Ivey said today. “The Alabama Legislature overwhelmingly passed SB330, and I was pleased to sign it into law.”

New board members will now be appointed within 20 days of Ivey signing the law.

Ivey signed the law despite a late effort by the City of Birmingham, announced Tuesday morning, to file a federal lawsuit asking for a restraining order to keep her from signing it.

Chief U.S. District Judge Emily C. Marks denied the City of Birmingham’s request Tuesday on the emergency motion for a temporary restraining order to stop Ivey from signing the recently passed bill to change the utility board’s make-up.

Marks set a hearing for May 15 on the request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, but did not order Ivey not to sign the law.

Ivey’s office called the lawsuit a “highly unusual attempt to stop the governor from signing a bill passed by the Legislature.”