Request By:
Hon. Lloyd K. Rogers
Judge/Executive
Campbell County
24 W. 4th Street
Newport, Kentucky 41072
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Walter C. Herdman, Asst. Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your recent letter in which you request an opinion concerning the following:
"If a majority of voters in a referendum held under KRS 147.620 favor the dissolution of an area planning commission in their county, would any assets of the commission be assumed by the county's fiscal court upon the planning commission's dissolution? "
"If the answer is yes, what form would those assets take and what procedure would be followed in assuming those assets?"
Our response to your initial question would be in the affirmative. Area planning commissions are established by any two adjacent counties having the population factor mentioned in KRS 147.610. KRS 147.620 provides the procedure for dissolving the planning commission and sets forth three methods whereby such dissolutionment may be accomplished pursuant to subsections (3), (4), and (5). Subsection (3), for example, authorizes the dissolutionment by order of the fiscal court following an appropriate petition by citizens of the area followed by a hearing, and specifically requires that those citizens be responsible for assuming any obligation that may develop as a result of the dissolutionment. It also provides that any assets that may develop shall be assumed by the county.
Subsection (4) provides an alternative procedure for dissolving the commission by referendum which involves your particular question. Here again the citizens petitioning for such referendum must assume any resulting obligations but the statute fails to indicate the disposition of any possible assets.
The third method under subsection (5) simply provides that a county may withdraw from the commission by satisfying subsections (3) or (4) as previously mentioned.
Though the referendum procedure is silent as to the disposition of any assets following the dissolutionment of the commission, we believe that such assets are to be assumed by the county as authorized under the initial method of dissolving the commission because such dissolutionment is basically initiated by the citizens involved and it would appear that in reading the statute as a whole, such conclusion is inescapable irrespective of the fact that one method calls for the dissolutionment by order of the fiscal court and the second by referendum. We believe this omission with respect to the disposition of the assets with respect to the referendum method was simply an oversight and that the statute must be read and construed as a whole under the terms of KRS 446.080. The case law under this statute clearly provides that in ascertaining the legislative intent it must be read as a whole and any ambiguity and confusion may be corrected. May v. Clay-Gentry-Graves TW, 284 Ky. 502, 145 S.W.2d 84 (1940). The courts have further said that the language of a statute may be modified to make it consistent and words may be applied in order to effectuate the legislature's intent. Green v. Moore, 281 Ky. 305, 135 S.W.2d 682 (1941). Neutzel v. Ryan, 184 Ky. 292, 211 S.W. 852 (1919).
In response to your ancillary question as to the form and procedure to be followed in assuming such assets, we can only suggest in the absence of any statutory procedure that an action be filed in circuit court following the approval of the referendum setting forth the assets and proposed procedure and request the court's approval.