Request By:
Mr. Bill Mardis
Assistant Managing Editor
The Commonwealth Journal
Somerset, Kentucky 42501
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of March 28, 1978 in which you refer to the fact that Somerset is a city of the third-class. Under the circumstances you raise the following question:
"Can the city council give the first reading of an ordinance at a regular meeting and then give the second reading of the ordinance at an 'adjourned' session the following day?"
Our response to your question would be in the affirmative. KRS 85.110(1) reads as follows:
"No ordinance shall take effect until it has been twice publ icly read and passed by the common council at two sessions, held on different days, a majority of those present voting for it on each passage, and the yeas and nays being called and entered upon the journal."
We refer you to the case of Town of Hodgenville v. Kentucky Utilities Company, 250 Ky. 195, 61 S.W.2d 1047 (1933). This case in turn refers to the case of Tandy & Farleigh Tobacco Co., v. City of Hopkinsville, 174 Ky. 189, 192 S.W. 46 (1917) relating to cities of the third-class from which we quote the following:
"In this City of Hopkinsville Case, the court had before it the construction of the charter of cities of the third class. Section 3279 [KRS 85.110] of the Statutes, being part of such charter, in part provides:
'No ordinance shall take effect and be binding until the same shall have been twice publicly read and passed by the common council at two sessions, held on different days.
In that case, the ordinance involved was introduced at a regular meeting on December 4th. This meeting was adjourned to December 7th, at which time the ordinance was passed. In upholding its validity, this court said:
'The statute (section 3279, Ky. Stats.) requires that the ordinance shall be passed 'at two sessions held on different days.' It does not require that the sessions shall be regular or special sessions or meetings. The argument, therefore, that the adjourned meeting was only a continuation of the original meeting of December 4, 1941, and not a separate and distinct session, cannot prevail.'
It is thus obvious that this court, in construing the word "sessions" in this section of the statutes, made a distinction between that word and the word 'meeting.'"
You will note that the court in the above referred to cases makes a clear distinction between the word "sessions" and the word "meetings." As a consequence KRS 85.110(1) would permit an ordinance to be enacted where it was given its initial reading at regular or special meeting and a second reading at an adjourned session of such a meeting occuring on a different day.