Request By:
Honorable Philip D. McKenzie
Attorney at Law
P.O. Box 635
Grayson, Kentucky 41143
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of April 20 in which you relate the following facts and question:
"On April 18, 1977, as legal representative of a majority of the registered voters of the Dry Fork Area of Lawrence County, I filed a Petition pursuant to KRS 67.030 to place for election on the proper Lawrence County ballot the proposition of striking the Dry Fork area from Lawrence County and adding it to Carter County.
"Lawrence County Judge Martin and myself request an opinion from you as to the next legal election date on which this proposition could be voted. Would you please so advise?"
KRS 67.030 provides that the proposition for dividing or striking territory from the county may be placed on the ballot at any regular election held in the county for other than the county officers that does not occur within less than ninety (90) days of the filing of a petition for striking said territory from the county.
County officers are elected at the 1977 November election pursuant to Section 99 of the Constitution. This election is for regular four-year terms for all county officers and would prohibit the question from being placed on the ballot this November. There is, however, a general or regular election every year in Kentucky. See Lively v. Brown, 304 Ky. 850, 202 S.W.2d 371 (1947).
Since there is a regular election in November every year and there is such an election for school board members and members of the United States House of Representatives and Senate in November, 1978, the proposed striking of territory from a county authorized by KRS 67.030 may be voted upon at that time or at any subsequent November election other than the one at which county officers are to be elected.