Request By:
Mr. Edwin Morton White
City Attorney
City of Oak Grove
P.O. Box 217
Oak Grove, Kentucky 42262
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of January 15 in which you raise the question as to whether or not the city of Oak Grove, a city of the fifth class located in Christian County, can legally annex all of the military reservation known as Fort Campbell that is located in Christian County.
The answer to your question would be in the affirmative. The Court of Appeals in the case of Commissioners of the Sinking Fund of the City of Louisville v. Howard, Ky., 248 S.W.2d 340 (1952), held that the city of Louisville had the power to annex adjoining territory which included a naval ordinance plant belonging to the United States though such federal area was under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress. This case went to the Supreme Court of the United States and was affirmed in 344 U.S. 624, 97 L. Ed. 617, 73 S. Ct. 465 (1953). In explaining its decision, the Supreme Court had this to say:
"The appellants first contend that the City could not annex this federal area because it had ceased to be a part of Kentucky when the United States assumed exclusive jurisdiction over it. With this we do not agree. When the United States, with the consent of Kentucky, acquired the property upon which the Ordinance Plant is located, the property did not cease to be a part of Kentucky. The geographical structure of Kentucky remained the same. In rearranging the structural divisions of the Commonwealth, in accordance with state law, the area became a part of the City of Louisville, just as it remained a part of the County of Jefferson and the Commonwealth of Kentucky. A state may conform its municipal structures to its own plan, so long as the state does not interfere with the exercise of jurisdiction within the federal area by the United States. Kentucky's consent to this acquisition gave the United States power to exercise exclusive jurisdiction within the area. A change of municipal boundaries did not interfere in the least with the jurisdiction of the United States within the area or with its use or disposition of the property. The fiction of a state within a state can have no validity to prevent the state from exercising its power over the federal area within its boundaries, so long as there is no interference with the jurisdiction asserted by the Federal Government. The sovereign rights in this dual relationship are not antagonistic. Accommodation and cooperation are their aim. It is friction, not fiction, to which we must give heed.
"This question has been before other state courts, and the right to annex has been upheld. Wichita Falls v. Bowen, 143 Tex 45, 52, 182 S.W.2d 695, 699, 154 ALR 1434; County of Norfolk v. Portsmouth, 186 Va 1032, 1047, 45 SE2d 136, 142, 143. . . ."
See also Brandenburg Telephone Co. v. South Central Bell Co., Ky., 506 S.W.2d 513 (1974); and McQuillin, Municipal Corporations, Vol. 2, § 7.18 (b).
Under the circumstances, the city is authorized to annex that portion of Fort Campbell located within Christian County, assuming the territory lies adjacent to the city.