Request By:
Honorable David G. Mason
Henry County Attorney
Main Street
New Castle, Kentucky 40050
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of March 15 in which you seek an opinion concerning the following:
"(1) In a 6th class city where a new town board of four members have just taken office for new terms at the beginning of this year and one of the same resigns how does the town board or the city select a new board member to take his place? May the town board appoint someone to fill this position or is a new election required?
"(2) Can such a city expend state and county road funds received by the city on things other than roads such as city garbage collection and street lights?"
In response to your initial question, when a vacancy is created on the town board of a sixth class city, the county judge/executive [pursuant to KRS 88.230] is authorized to fill the vacancy, subject of course to an election for the unexpired term as required by § 152 of the Constitution.
If the vacancy occurs more than three (3) months prior to the 1978 general election, § 152 of the Constitution would require the vacancy to be filled at that time, provided there is a regular election embracing the city. The only regular elections in Henry County this fall are school board elections which do not embrace the entire county. However, if the school board election this November embraces the entire city, then the vacancy on the town board would have to be filled at that time for the unexpired term, otherwise the appointee will serve out the remainder of the unexpired term which ends January, 1980 since the next regular election will be in November, 1979.
Our response to your second question would be in the negative. Road funds can only be expended for road purposes pursuant to § 230 of the Kentucky Constitution. For your information, we are enclosing a copy of a recent opinion touching on this question, namely OAG 78-144.