Request By:
Honorable Jonathan A. Mason
Denicola & Mason Co., L.P.A.
901 Fifth & Race Tower
120 West Fifth Street
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Walter C. Herdman, Asst. Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of September 22 in which you as legal representative of the City of Crescent Springs raise the following question:
"Whether Kentucky Revised Statute Section 83A.060(4), in nonemergency situations, requires both an ordinance reading and council vote on the ordinance read on two (2) separate days or merely a reading of the ordinance on two (2) separate days and a council vote on the day of the second reading?"
KRS 83A.060(4) reads as follows:
"Except as provided in subsection (7) of this section, no ordinance shall be enacted until it has been read on two (2) separate days. The reading of an ordinance may be satisfied by stating the title and reading a summary rather than the full text."
The above statute simply requires that the ordinance be read on two separate days before its enactment, or in other words before a vote is taken as to whether or not it will be enacted. The language in no way requires a vote following the initial reading of the ordinance. As an example of a statute requiring otherwise we refer you to KRS 85.110 repealed by the 1980 Code and particularly subsection (1) which provided that no ordinance shall take effect until it had been twice publicly read and passed by the common council at two sessions held on two different days.
Since the language of the statute is clear and must be construed as written, we are of the opinion that the ordinance need only be voted on following its second reading. Clear and unambiguous language in a statute will be held to mean what it plainly expresses.