Request By:
Mr. W. P. Morton
Box 1037
Hazard, Kentucky 41701
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of May 22 in which you seek an opinion as to whether or not a conflict of interest or incompatibility situation would exist where a named individual may at the same time serve on the Environmental Quality Commission and as mayor of the city of Hazard.
Our response to your question would be in the affirmative. The state Environmental Quality Commission is a state agency created pursuant to KRS 224.041 and KRS 224.045, setting forth the terms and powers of the commission. The fact that the commission is created by statute whose members have definite terms and independent powers expressed therein would make the members thereof state officers. We might add that the Environmental Quality Commission is also designated as an agency of state government under KRS 12.020. On the other hand, the office of mayor of the city of Hazard is an elected municipal officer under the Constitution and laws relating to the city manager form of government, Ch. 89 KRS.
Section 165 of the Constitution and KRS 61.080 prohibit any person from holding a state office and a municipal office at the same time as they are incompatible, one with the other. Therefore, the individual in question could not serve on the Environmental Quality Commission and at the same time serve as mayor of the city of Hazard.
Please give my best regards to Mr. Faulkner.