Sheri Eubank, a former Glasgow City Councilperson, speaks to a community member during a Strategic Planning meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020. Eubank is set to be appointed to the Glasgow Electric Plant Board on Jan. 25.
(BRENNAN CRAIN/WCLU NEWS)
GLASGOW, Ky. – An upcoming appointment to the Glasgow Electric Plant Board may be illegal.
Harold Armstrong, Glasgow mayor, recommended at the Jan. 11 meeting of the Glasgow City Council that Sheri Eubank replace Tag Taylor on the Glasgow Electric Plant Board of Directors after his term ends Jan. 31. Eubank most recently served on the Glasgow City Council. She lost her reelection bid last November.
Armstrong told WCLU News that he had a series of people who have expressed interest in the last year and a half. But there were only two names that most recently expressed interest.
“There was two phone calls made, and the rest of them wasn’t really people that I thought I ought to try to nominate because they’ve been widespread vocally against the Electric Plant Board,” Armstrong said. “And I didn’t want to put somebody in there that would cause any more problems than what we already had.”
The other person was Armstrong’s original appointment, but he said that person “got cold feet” and backed out. The person’s name was included on a list of seven people, which Armstrong said he keeps to record who has interest in serving on the GEPB.
The mayor ran a staunch campaign in 2018 that was framed around “fixing the EPB,” which references remedying the residential rate structure that the mayor disagrees with.
Eubank apparently told Armstrong she would be willing to serve, even after she lost the council race. The mayor agreed to appoint her if a vacancy appeared.
But the legality of Armstrong’s appointment is in question.
The Little TVA Act, which governs municipally operated utilities such as the GEPB, specifies that a person cannot be appointed to a board if they served on a public board within the last two years of their appointment.
“No person shall be appointed a member of the board who has, within the last two (2) years next before his or her appointment, held any public office, or who is related within the third degree to the mayor or any member of the governing body of the municipality,” according to KRS 96.740 (2).
Armstrong said the city discovered an exception to the statute, thus verifying that Eubank could be appointed to the board.
“We got a legal explanation for that,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong said he received a letter from the Kentucky League of Cities and Glasgow’s attorney Danny Basil regarding the matter. The two legal inputs apparently agree Eubank is eligible to serve.
“She has made no decision that made the operations of that board withhold,” Armstrong said.
WCLU News sought comment on Wednesday from Ron Hampton, GEPB attorney, and Chris Johnson, municipal law attorney with the Kentucky League of Cities, but those calls were not returned at the time of publication.
The statute appears to be conclusive that holding “any public office” within the last two years disqualifies a person from being appointed to a utility board regardless of that office’s dominance.
WCLU News sent a letter to the Office of the Attorney General seeking an opinion on the matter. Receipt of that opinion is pending at this time.