Request By:
Mr. Drewie Muncy
Martin County Attorney
Courthouse
Box 411
Inez, Kentucky 41224
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your letter raises two questions as follows:
"The Martin County Fiscal Court has been requested to issue bonds in the amount of 1.75 million dollars for a shopping center.
"1. Should the approval be in the form of an ordinance rather than a resolution since the bonds are general and lasting in nature?
"2. Is publication of the ordinance required prior to the first reading or second reading?"
You refer to KRS 103.210 as the fiscal court's directions on the issuance of its industrial revenue bonds. See also KRS 103.200(8), as relates to shopping centers.
In answer to question no.1, the fiscal court may enact an ordinance or a resolution. The pertinent point here is that KRS 103.210(1) must be carefully followed as to the statute's requirements as to what the resolution must provide, publication etc., where the fiscal court decides to authorize the bond issue by resolution. If it decides to pass a resolution, instead of enacting an ordinance, then the formalities of an ordinance, as treated in KRS 67.075, 67.076, and 67.077, would have no application. While an ordinance is partly defined in KRS 67.075(1) as "an official written act of a fiscal court, the effect of which is general and lasting in nature, which is enforceable within the jurisdiction of the county," KRS 103.210(1) explicitly and clearly provides that the fiscal court may issue the subject industrial revenue bonds by "ordinance or resolution". (Emphasis added). We are bound by the plain meaning of language. H.O. Hurley Co. v. Martin, 267 Ky. 182, 101 S.W.2d 657 (1937).
As to question no. 2, the resolution covering the bond issue shall become effective only after publication in the precise manner set out in KRS 103.210. KRS 67.076(1) makes it clear that where the term "county ordinance" is used, a formal county ordinance, as treated in KRS 67.075, 67.076, and 67.077, must be passed. However, KRS 67.076(1) provides that "other official actions" may be taken by "resolution", which clearly suggests that the formalities of a county ordinance do not apply to a resolution of fiscal court. Thus the required two readings of a "county ordinance" , as mentioned in KRS 67.077(1), do not apply to a resolution in this situation.
The final point is that the resolution becomes effective after its passage and after its publication as required by KRS 103.210. Note that the statute does not say that the "proposed resolution" must be published. Cf. KRS 67.077(2) and (3). Thus the literal language of KRS 103.210(1) suggests a resolution as an accomplished fact, i.e., a resolution passed.