Request By:
Honorable Daniel N. Thomas
Attorney at Law
315 West Ninth Street
Hopkinsville, Kentucky 42240
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of September 23, in which you request an opinion on behalf of the Hopkinsville-Christian County Airport Board as to what constitutes proper terms of appointment to the board pursuant to KRS 183.132(4). With respect to your question, you relate the following facts:
"In the past, the Mayor of the City of Hopkinsville and the Judge/Executive of Christian County have appointed members of the Board, on the assumption that they would serve the remaining portion of previous members' terms who resigned before serving their full four (4) year term. It is my opinion from a review of KRS 183.132 (4) that the statute only makes provision for terms of membership on an airport board such would mandate that each appointee have a four (4) year term regardless of the fact that a previous appointee resigned prior to fulfilling a full term (a copy of a certification of the present terms is attached hereto)."
KRS 183.132(4) reads as follows:
"Members of the board shall serve for a term of four (4) years each, and until their successors are appointed and qualified, provided, however, that initial appointments shall be made so that two (2) members are appointed for two (2) years, two (2) members for three (3) years and two (2) members for four (4) years. Upon expiration of these staggered terms, successor shall be appointed for a term of four (4) years."
The joint air board is composed of six (6) members appointed jointly for four-year terms after the initial staggered appointments for two, three and four-year terms. The term of each office begins on the date of the initial appointment and ends initially two, three and four years thereafter. Following such initial terms all appointees serve four-year terms thereafter. Any vacancy that occurs during either the initial or subsequent terms of office is to be filled for the remainder of such term and no longer.
We are enclosing a copy of OAG 74-377 dealing with the terms of members of the Legislative Board of Ethics, which is similar in makeup to the air board. You will note in this opinion our reference to 64 Am.Jur., Public Officers and Employees, § 151, from which we quoted the following:
". . . Where no time is fixed by law for the commencement of an official term, the general rule is that it begins to run from the date of the appointment, . . ."
"Where the law prescribes the length of the term and designates the person in whom is vested the power to fill a public office by appointment, but no date is fixed for the beginning or ending of the term, it has been held that the appointive power has the right to fix the commencement of the term; and when the same is fixed by the appointment first made, all subsequent terms of office necessarily have reference to such initial period, and each term commences at the end of the preceding term." (Emphasis added.)
See also McQuillin, Municipal Corporations, Vol. 3, § 12.109, from which we quote as follows:
"The appointee to a vacancy may succeed, as to tenure, to the right of his predecessor and hold until the expiration of the term, or for the balance of the term and until a successor qualifies, . . ."
Thus, appointees to fill vacancies on the air board will serve only throughout the remainder of the unexpired term of their predecessors and would under no circumstances serve full four-year terms from the date of their appointment.