Request By:
Mr. Stockton B. Wood
Attorney at Law
State National Bank Building
Maysville, Kentucky 41056
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of December 16 in which you raise the question as to whether or not a person can serve as Assistant Commonwealth Attorney and at the same time hold membership in a local industrial development authority established pursuant to KRS 152.810 to 152.930.
Our response to your question would be in the affirmative. The office of Commonwealth Attorney is a state office, as held in the case of
Miller v. Robinson, 306 Ky. 653, 208 S.W.2d 977 which would include an Assistant Commonwealth Attorney. On the other hand, a local industrial development authority established pursuant to the above statute would, we believe, constitute an independent political subdivision by virtue of KRS 152.830(2), which reads as follows: by virtue of KRS 152.830(2), which reads as folloes:
"The authority shall be a body politic and corporate with the usual corporate attributes, and in its corporate name may sue and be sued, contract and be contracted with and do all things reasonable or necessary to effectively carry out the duties prescribed by KRS 152.810 to 152.930."
The above statute clearly places the local development authority in the category of an independent corporate body similar to a municipal housing authority concerning which the Court of Appeals, in the case of
City of Louisville v. Louisville Municipal Housing Commission, Ky., 261 S.W.2d 286 (1953), held that such a commission, established under Chapter 80 KRS, is a political entity and an incorporated body which has some of the attributes of a state agency but is not a county or subdivision of a county, a city or a town. The Court further indicated that it was neither fish nor fowl but a hybrid agency conceived for a purpose that was never contemplated by the framers of our Constitution under the terms of Sections 177 and 179 of the Constitution.
As you know, incompatible offices are dealt with under the terms of Section 165 of the Constitution and KRS 61.080, neither of which contemplate such a hybrid agency. These sections deal solely with state, county and city officers. Consequently, we are of the opinion that insofar as the Constitution and statutes are concerned, the office of Assistant Commonwealth Attorney is compatible with membership on a local industrial development authority.