Request By:
Honorable Robert W. Carran
City Attorney
City of Elsmere
318 Garvey Avenue
Elsmere, Kentucky 41018
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of January 9 in which you raise the following question:
"The City of Elsmere, a Kentucky municipality of the Fourth Class, has created an Urban Development Commission, pursuant to K.R.S. Chapter 99. Said Commission owns land, located within the city limits, which it is going to sell. May the City's Building Inspector bid on said lots?"
Our response to your question would be in the affirmative. We assume that your reference to the Urban Development Commission, established pursuant to Ch. 99, refers to membership on the urban renewal agency created pursuant to KRS 99.350 with the powers enumerated in KRS 99.360. If this is the case, membership on such an agency would not be considered a municipal office.
We have previously pointed out that under the terms of KRS 99.360 an urban renewal and community development agency is a separate corporate body exercising governmental functions, which means that it is neither a state, city or county agency in the sense referred to in § 165 of the Constitution and KRS 61.080 relating to incompatible offices. Reference OAG's 72-589 and 75-87. This being the case, the provision of KRS 61.270 prohibiting city officers of a fourth class city from being directly or indirectly interested in contracts with the city, would not be applicable even if the city building inspector's position is considered a municipal office, which we doubt to be the case though it is of no significance in this instance.