Request By:
Mr. John L. Cessna
The Leader
P.O. Box 498
Beaver Dam, Kentucky 42320
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your letter points up a matter which you believe may present a conflict of interest in county government. The issue involves the Ohio County Judge/Executive and his participation on several county boards, including the County Hospital Board. He is also an Editor and Controller of a weekly newspaper in that county.
You cite specifically a closed meeting of the County Hospital Board to discuss hospital personnel matters on January 9, 1984. Representatives of the Leader, Beaver Dam, the Times-News and the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer were not permitted to cover that meeting. However, you say that the Ohio County Messenger was represented at the meeting, since the County Judge/Executive is Editor and Controller of that newspaper.
We have been informed that the Ohio County Hospital was created around 1955 by the Fiscal Court pursuant to KRS 216.010 and 216.040. Those sections were repealed in 1978. However, see KRS 67.083(3)(d), a general power statute, that provides that a Fiscal Court may make provisions for hospitals. Under those facts, the Hospital Board is a "public agency," as defined in KRS 61.805(2). We are further informed that the closed meeting involved a substantial discussion of the suspension of a county hospital employee. Under those circumstances, such discussions brought it under the personnel discussion exception to open meetings stated in KRS 61.810(6). We have been informed that the County Judge/Executive's newspaper has carried no mention of the discussions of the closed meeting of January 9. Under the factual circumstances, we are not aware of any impropriety on the part of the County Judge/Executive in that connection.
As relates to the general matter of the County Judge/Executive's serving on county boards, there is no incompatibility under KRS 61.080, especially since the statute does not prohibit holding at the same time two county offices. The County Judge/Executive is a member of various county boards as prescribed by statute. We see no problem with that.