Request By:
Mr. Bert Workum
The Kentucky Post Newspaper
Newport, Kentucky
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your recent inquiry in which you relate that in the city of Newport, a city of the second class under the city manager-commission form of government, there are now two petition drives going on with the express intent of either forcing the city commission to accept certain proposed ordinances or place them on the November ballot in compliance with KRS 89.610 which requires the commission to either adopt a proposed ordinance within ten (10) days after a petition is filed or place the question on the November ballot.
Senate Bill 26 repeals KRS 89.610, effective July 15, 1980, thereby eliminating the initiative procedure as pointed out in OAG 80-329, copy attached.
Under the circumstances, your question is to the effect that if the referred to petitions are filed with the commission under the terms of KRS 89.610 before the 15th of July, would the commission nevertheless be required to either pass the proposed legislation within ten (10) days or place the question on the ballot irrespective of the fact that during the intervening ten (10) days the provisions of KRS 89.610 cease to exist by reason of its repeal.
The answer to your question hinges on whether or not the filing of the petition or petitions before the July 15 dead-line created an accrued right on behalf of the petitions under the terms of KRS 446.110, and we believe that such would be the case. This statute provides, in effect, that no new law shall be construed to repeal a former law as to any act done or right accruing under the former law before the new law takes effect.
The fact that KRS 89.610 provides that once an initiative petition is filed, the commission must act to either pass it or place the question on the ballot would appear to us to create a situation whereby the provisions of the statute are activated to the point of establishing an accrued right on behalf of the petitioners to have the subsequent statutory procedures followed irrespective of the fact that prior to the end of the 10-day grace period given the commission to act, the statute becomes ineffective by repeal. See Boone County v. Snyder, 9 Ky. Opinions 918 (1878); and