Request By:
Honorable Sam Boyd Neely
City Attorney
City of Mayfield
Mayfield, Kentucky 42066
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of August 31 in which you relate that a member of the city council elected in November, 1977 from the third ward of the city was at that time and at the time he took office in January, 1978 duly qualified as a legal resident of the ward as required by KRS 85.060(2). This councilman has advised you however that he is building a new home in Ward 2 of the city and plans to move there with his family on or about December 1, 1978. He desires to know whether or not he should resign, presumably at the time he moves.
KRS 85.060(2) requires that where the city is divided into wards, each councilman elected from a ward reside therein. This simply means that if a councilman changes his legal residence from the ward from which he was elected during his term, he becomes disqualified as we have held in OAG 69-466, a copy of which we are enclosing. This opinion dealt with a similar situation that occurred in the city of Hopkinsville and is self-explanatory.
Under the circumstances, if the councilman in question does actually change his legal residence from the ward in which he was elected [Ward 3] to Ward 2, he becomes disqualified and should either resign or be subject to removal. You will note, however, the reference in OAG 69-466 to a possible constitutional question being involved in the statutory requirement that councilmen reside within the ward in which they are elected.