Request By:
Mr. Walter W. Turner
Turner & Collins
P.O. Box 187
Salyersville, Kentucky 41465
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your firm represents the Big Sandy Regional Airport Board, a corporate body politic created pursuant to the provisions of KRS 183.132 by a combination of counties, to wit: Floyd, Johnson, Martin and Magoffin.
You have noted that KRS 183.132 was amended by the 1984 Session of the General Assembly, effective July 13, 1984, to apparently permit "any existing six member Board" to expand to ten members.
The Big Sandy Regional Airport Board, through appropriate joint resolution of the counties would like to expand to ten members. The difficulty you observe with the statute as amended is that it does not state the means by which the additional four members would be appointed. Thus, on behalf of the Big Sandy Regional Airport Board, you present the following question to this office:
"May a Regional Airport Board created by four counties acting jointly be expanded from a six member Board to a ten member Board? If so, may the county judge executive of the four participating counties jointly make the necessary appointments? "
Senate Bill 134 in the 1984 Regular Session (Chapter 269) amended KRS 183.132, effective July 13, 1984. Subsection (1), as amended, reads:
"(1) Any city or county, or city and county acting jointly, or any combination of two (2) or more cities and/or counties may establish a nonpartisan air board composed of six (6) members, or any city and county jointly other than an urban-county government established pursuant to KRS Chapter 67A may establish a nonpartisan board composed of ten (10) members, or any existing six (6) member board, except a board established in an urban-county government, may be expanded to ten (10) members by joint action of the county and city."
Thus under the express language of KRS 183.132(1), the joint county air board you mention may be expanded to ten (10) members by joint action of the counties. Here, as the Supreme Court wrote in Bailey v. Reeves, Ky., 662 S.W.2d 832 (1984), the words of the above statute must be given their literal meaning. It is our view that subsection (1) was designed to accommodate not only the combination of a city and county, but a combination of two or more counties as well.
The residual question is who, precisely, makes the appointments to the ten member board. In that connection, KRS 183.132(4) reads:
"(4) The members of an air board composed of ten (10) members shall be appointed as follows:
"(a) Five (5) members shall be appointed by the mayor of the city, without approval of the legislative body;
"(b) Five (5) members shall be appointed by the county judge/executive without approval of the other members of the fiscal court."
Unfortunately, that subsection is couched in language dealing explicitly with the combination of city and county. However, in reading the entire statute for necessary intent or perspective, it is our view that the statute provides in effect that where the board is composed only of two or more counties, as is the case here, the ten members shall be appointed by the joint action of the county judge executives of the participating counties, without the necessity for approval by the respective fiscal courts, as a body, of the member counties. See Budget Marketing, Inc. v. Com. Ex Rel Stephens, Ky., 587 S.W.2d 245 (1979) 246, 247, in which the Supreme Court wrote that "It is the duty of this court to draw all inferences and implications from the act as a whole and thereby, if possible, sustain the validity of the act and expound it." Cf. KRS 67.710(8), dealing with county appointments to boards by the county judge executive, with consent of the fiscal court. A specific statute controls a more general statute. Heady v. Com., Ky., 597 S.W.2d 613 (1980) 614.
It must be borne in mind that the four fiscal courts would first have to vote on the question of expanding the membership to ten. If the majority of the fiscal courts favoring the board of ten so vote, then the board would be expanded, subject to the appointment procedure as above indicated.