Request By:
Honorable Donna H. Terry
City Attorney of Princeton
209 West Main Street
Princeton, Kentucky 42445
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Reshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of December 4 in which you relate tht a present member of the city council of Princeton, a city of the fourth class, was reelected November 6 for a second term, however, on November 19 he resigned from both his current term and the new term to which he had been elected. Under the circumstances, you raise the following questions:
"1. In the case of a vacancy occurring on the City Council of a City of the fourth class after an election but prior to the beginning of in elected term, may the currently sitting council fill the vacancy or must it be filled by the newly elected council after their term has commenced in January, 1980?
"2. What term may the appointee in paragraph (1) serve, i.e., is the appointment for the full two-year term or until the next regular election in May, 1980?"
In response to the above questions, the vacancy in the present term created by the resignation of the councilman may be filled by the other members of the present city council for the remainder of the unexpired term eading the first Monday in January, 1980 under the terms of KRS 86.240. The vacancy that is automatically created on the first Monday in January of 1980 [and not before], the beginning of the new two-year term, may be filled only by the newly elected council under the referred to statute. This appointment, however, will be subject to § 152 of the Constitution. This section requires the vacancy to be filled at the next regular election embracing the area in which the vacancy occurred which would be the November, 1980 election. See