Request By:
Mr. F. G. Neikirk
Pulaski County Attorney
104 W. Columbia Street
Somerset, Kentucky 42501
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Pulaski County Fiscal Court, by resolution, has approved the alteration of a road. That was the traditional format of such legislation.
You seek an opinion of this office as to whether this road action required the passage of an ordinance.
We assume the road legislation was taken pursuant to KRS 178.080 and 178.115. KRS 178.100 provides that an appeal may be taken, from a "decision" of fiscal court (referring to KRS 178.080) ordering the alteration of an existing road, to the circuit court. KRS 178.115(2) provides that aggrieved parties may take an appeal from an "order or resolution" of fiscal court directing the alteration of an existing road. KRS 178.115(1) specifically provides that such alteration action may be taken in the form of a "resolution". KRS 178.080 and 178.100 do not specify the precise form of the action taken by fiscal court.
Under the doctrine of pari materia, and when reading the above statutes together, it is our opinion that the fiscal court, in taking action authorizing the alteration of an existing county road, could legally take such action by enacting at a properly held meeting of fiscal court a resolution. Statutes dealing with the same subject are to be construed in pari materia (read together) in order to give proper effect to all of them.
Pulaski Fiscal Court v. Floyd, Ky., 374 S.W.2d 863 (1964) 864; and Sands, Sutherland Statutory Construction (4th ed.), Vol. 2A, § 51.02, p.p. 290-297. The court, in
Commonwealth v. Bates, 235 Ky. 763, 32 S.W.2d 334 (1930) 335, applied the rule that similar expressions appearing in legislation and dealing with the same general subject should be given a uniform construction.
While KRS 67.075 so defines a county ordinance to mean a written official act of fiscal court, the effect of which is general and lasting in nature, we do not believe that "ordinance" applies in this situation, since, as you say, it is not general in nature. It relates only to a specific road segment and not the general road system of the county. Even if it did apply (KRS 67.075(1)), the specific statutes in KRS Chapter 178 would govern.
City of Bowling Green v. Board of Education, Ky., 443 S.W.2d 243 (1969) 247.
We will have to decline to deal with the general and hypothetical question as to what other subject matter would require an ordinance.
If you should have a real question as to a particular subject matter, we will be glad to go into it. This is a matter that lends itself to an actual case by case approach.