Mississippi Advisory Opinions October 31, 1990: AGO 000010540 (October 31, 1990)

AGO 000010540.

Dear Mr. Harper:

Attorney General Mike Moore has received your letter of request and has assigned it to me for research and reply.

Your letter states:

"The Warren county Board of Supervisors has requested that I seek an opinion from your office regarding certain provisions of House Bill No. 2 of the First Exraordinary Session of 1990 which deals with the referendum provisions contained in the aforesaid Legislation. Subsection 2 of Section 145 of the aforesaid legislation provides as follows:

'If no petition as prescribed in subsection (3) of this section is filed with the board of supervisors of the applicable county within thirty (30) days after the dated of the last publication, the board of supervisors of such county shall adopt a resolution stating that no petition was timely filed and that legal gaming may henceforth be conducted aboard cruise vessels or vessels, as the case may be, in such county.'

Subsection (3) which is referred to in the aforesaid language provides that if a petition signed by 20% or 1500 registered voters in a county is filed with the Circuit Clerk of the county within thirty (30) days of the date of the last publication, then the Board of Supervisors shall authorize the Circuit Clerk to conduct an election on the proposition of allowing legal gaming aboard vessels in the county.

The Circuit Clerk of Warren County received such a petition prior to the expiration of the aforementioned thirty (30) day period. The Petition was not filed with the Board of Supervisors.

The question which has been raised is whether or not filing of the Petition with the Circuit Clerk satisfies the requirements of Section 145 of House Bill 2 or whether the Petition should have been filed both with the Circuit Clerk and the Board of Supervisors. I would appreciate an opinion from your office regarding this matter as soon as possible due to the time limits we are facing."

As pointed out in your letter there appears to be conflicting statutory provisions regarding the filing of the petition in question. This requires that we resort to the general rules of statutory construction to resolve the conflict in such a way as will give effect to the intent or purpose of the Legislature. Thornhill v. Ford, 213 Miss. 49, 56 So.2d 23 (1952). We must also attempt to resolve the conflict in a manner which will give effect to each of the statutory provisions in question so as to make a consistent whole. Atwood Chevrolet-Olds., Inc. v. Aberdeen Municipal School District, 431 So.2d 926 (Miss. 1983); Clarksdale Building and Loan Association v. Board of Levee Commissioners, 168 Miss. 326, 150 So. 783 (1933).

In reading the two provisions in pari materia and applying the above stated rules of construction, we conclude that in accepting the filing of the required petition the Warren County Circuit Clerk acted not only in his own official capacity but also on behalf of the Board of Supervisors.

Therefore, in our opinion, there is no requirement that the petition be formally filed separately with the Circuit Clerk and the Board of Supervisors.

Sincerely,

MIKE MOORE, ATTORNEY GENERAL

BY: Phil Carter Special Assistant Attorney General

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