Request By:
Mr. Robert L. Caummisar
City Attorney
302 East Main Street
Grayson, Kentucky 41143
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 31, 1980, in which you relate that a member of the city council in the city of Grayson is actively engaged in the mobile home business as owner/operator of a retail sales company.
The city of Grayson has by ordinance established an urban renewal and community development agency pursuant to KRS 99.350 and the question is raised as to whether or not the councilman in question may sell mobile homes to the urban renewal agency without violating KRS 61.270. Also you ask as an alternative whether or not the councilman may sell mobile homes directly to displacees caused by urban renewal agency's actions, if funds for the purchase of such mobile homes come from money provided the displacee for relocation or upon purchase of the displacee's property by the agency.
KRS 61.270 prohibits members of the city council in cities of the fourth class from becoming directly or indirectly interested in any contract with the city. The urban renewal agency to which you refer is an independent agency and a separate corporate body from that of the city, as we have held in a number of previous opinions among them being OAG 80-169, [copy attached], as well as OAG 65-634, 70-587 and 72-589. We might point out here that the city itself could operate the agency or place such operation in the hands of the Municipal Housing Commission but it is apparent from your letter that neither of these procedures have been utilized and that the city has, in fact, created an independent agency as it is authorized to do under KRS 99.350.
Since the urban renewal agency is an independent agency disassociated from the city, any sales of mobile homes by a member of the city council either to the agency or to displaced individuals, resulting from some action taken by the agency, would in no way constitute a contract with the city thereby causing the councilman in question to be in violation of KRS 61.270.