Lynn residency board to hear 6 cases

LYNN – The city’s Residency Compliance Commission will hear six cases of alleged violations Thursday.The hearing in Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy’s office at 10 a.m. is to examine whether six individuals employed by the city are living outside its borders.Under the residency ordinance, with the exception of schoolteachers, municipal employees must live in Lynn.James Lamanna, an assistant city attorney and the commission’s compliance officer, said the secretary of state’s office ruled that the names of the six individuals are exempt from the public record. “The commission may go into executive session or they may release the names,” the attorney said.The five-member commission is comprised of the mayor, City Clerk Mary Audley, City Solicitor Michael Barry, City Personnel Director Joseph Driscoll and former City Councilor James Cowdell, the council’s representative to the commission, since appointed executive director of the Lynn Economic Development and Industrial Corp.Lamanna said anonymous tips led to the employees not living in Lynn as required by the city’s charter. “All of these cases are under investigation,” he said.Anyone municipally employed hired on or after May 14, 1999 is required to live in Lynn. Not every mayor since has enforced the law. As a city councilor prior to her being elected mayor, Kennedy said she did not support the law in principle, but would abide by whatever the city charter decreed. Since her election, several city employees had flaunted the fact that they live out of town in an apparent challenge to the ordinance.The commission in 2005 ordered city workers to submit proof of local residency by February 2006.