Request By:
Honorable Charles C. Boggs
Mayor
P.O. Box 127
Loyall, Kentucky 40854
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of March 8, in which you raise the question as to the mayor's power to hire and fire city employees.
KRS 83A.130(9), as amended at the 1982 session of the General Assembly, effective July 15, 1982, reads as follows:
"(9) The mayor shall be the appointing authority with power to appoint and remove all city employes, including police officers, except as tenure and terms of employment are protected by statute, ordinance or contract and except for employes of the council."
The change brought about by the 1982 amendment to the above statute is the underlined phrase "including police officers, " which means that as of the effective date of the amendment the mayor will have the power to appoint and remove police officers as well as all other city employees which he had under the original statute, effective July 15, 1980. The power to remove under the above referred to statute is modified, of course, by the exceptions where the employee is under some form of tenure or is protected by statute, ordinance or contract, and of course except those employees of the city council.
Your second question concerns the conduct of special meetings and involves the following:
". . . the owner of one of our local radio stations says we (the city council) cannot have a special called meeting for any reason without giving 24 hour notice before the meeting, and he insists he must be notified in writing ONLY of such a meeting, i.e., he does not accept a phone call to his radio station as legal notice. "
The open meetings act, particularly KRS 61.825, sets forth the requirements for holding a special meeting and reads as follows:
"(1) A special meeting may be called at any time by the presiding officer of the public agency or by a majority of the members of the governing body of the public agency by delivering personally or by mail written notice to each member of the public agency and to each local newspaper of general circulation, each news service and each local radio or television station which has on file with the public agency a written request to be notified of special meetings. Said notice of a special meeting must be delivered personally or by mail at least twenty-four (24) hours prior to the time of such meeting as specified in the notice. If time does not permit giving twenty-four (24) hour notice, then notice that is reasonable under existing circumstances and is calculated to inform the public shall be given to the news media and the public.
(2) The notice provided for in subsection (1) of this section is not required in the event that a special meeting is called to deal with an emergency involving injury or damage to personal property or financial loss to a public agency or the likelihood of such injury or damage or financial loss, when the time requirements of such notice of such special meeting would make such notice impractical and increase the likelihood of injury or damage or financial loss.
(3) With the exception of special meetings called pursuant to subsection (2) of this section no special meeting shall be held except in full compliance with provisions of subsection (1) of this section."
The above statute clearly requires that written notice be given, either personally or by mail, to each local radio station, among others listed to be notified, at least twentyfour hours prior to the time specified for the meeting unless time does not permit compliance, in which case reasonable notice will be acceptable. There is also the exception in the case of emergencies listed under subsection (2). In addition, we call your attention to subsection (3) which provides that no special meeting can be held except in compliance with the requirements of subsection (1) except in case of emergencies.