Request By:
Hon. William A. Thielen
General Counsel
Kentucky Municipal League
P.O. Box 22736
Lexington, Kentucky 40522-2736
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; Walter C. Herdman, Asst. Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of January 2 in which you request an opinion concerning the publication of legal notices pursuant to KRS Chapter 424 governing cities located in Jefferson County.
It is your understanding that the Louisville Times is the newspaper qualified to publish the city's legal notices under KRS 424.120, and such notices are published at the present time in the legal section of the daily Louisville Times. An alternate publication proposal has been made with regard to the Neighborhoods section which is jointly published by the Louisville Times and the Courier-Journal and which appears in both newspapers once a week. The Neighborhoods section is published in zoned editions which we understand to be five in number, each zone receiving a different edition of the Neighborhoods section tailored to address the issues and events of particular interest in that zone. Under the circumstances a number of the small cities in Jefferson County would like to publish at least a portion of their required notices in the weekly Neighborhoods section as this would significantly reduce the publication cost. You raise the following question:
"May the cities of Jefferson County, consistent with the requirements of KRS Chapter 424, publish legal notices of interest primarily to the citizens of their jurisdiction in the weekly Neighborhood Section which appears in both the Times and the Courier-Journal."
Our response to your question would be in the negative. The Publication Act, KRS Chapter 424 and particularly KRS 424.120, does not in defining what newspapers qualify to publish advertisements required to be published, recognize what is known as the Neighborhoods sections that may be published by a newspaper to be distributed by districts on a weekly basis but included in the newspaper's regular edition that is, however, published daily.
You will note particularly that subsection (2) of KRS 424.120 provides that in case the publication area is smaller than the county and there is no newspaper published in that area, the publication shall be made in the newspaper published in the county qualified to publish advertisements for the county.
In other words, it would appear from the language used in this statute that it requires the notice to be published in the qualifying newspaper (in this case the Times), representing its daily issue that is distributed uniformly throughout the county and not in one or more Neighborhoods editions published on a weekly basis and involving particular districts or regions in which the city or cities are located.
Under the circumstances and in the absence of any clear language in the statute modifying the present language, we do not believe that the cities of Jefferson County can under the present terms of KRS Chapter 424 and particularly KRS 424.120 have published their legal notices in the weekly Neighborhoods section of the daily Times.