Mississippi Advisory Opinions February 04, 2005: AGO 000016480 (February 4, 2005)

AGO 000016480.

Dear Mayor Stratton:

Attorney General Jim Hood has received your letter of request and assigned it to me for research and reply. Your letter states:

I am writing this letter to request an opinion regarding moving our Town Board meeting from the above referenced first Tuesday in June 2005 to the second Tuesday in June 2005 due to the General Elections for our municipality. Our polling place is our Town Hall Board Room.

Mississippi Code Annotated Section 21-3-19 (Revised 2001) requires code charter municipal governing authorities to hold their regular meetings on the first Tuesday of each month. It further authorizes the mayor and board of aldermen to set a day other than Tuesday for the holding of their regular monthly meeting in accordance with Section 21-17-17 which requires that such change be made by the adoption of an ordinance and three weeks publication of said ordinance prior to implementing the change. This necessarily means that, in order to revert back to the current meeting date, the same procedure would have to be repeated.

Section 21-3-19 does authorize the mayor and board to meet on the regular day and then recess to a date fixed by an order entered on the municipal minutes. Section 25-41-13 requires that notice of the place, date, hour and subject matter of any recess meeting, adjourned meeting, interim meeting or any called special meeting shall be posted in a prominent place available to examination and inspection by the general public in the building in which the public body normally meets.

Sincerely,

JIM HOOD, ATTORNEY GENERAL

By:

Phil Carter

Special Assistant Attorney General