It is fitting and maybe a little ironic that Lynn’s new mayor and new City Council president selected the antiquated and largely ignored city-residency requirement as the focus of their first joint-policy initiative.
Mayor Jared Nicholson and City Council President Jay Walsh have asked the council to approve a home-rule petition to eliminate the City Charter language outlining the live-where-you-work rule for city employees, and send it onto the state Legislature for approval and Gov. Charlie Baker’s signature.
The residency requirement has survived in spite of itself for decades, at various times becoming a xenophobic rallying point for supporters and the animus for a witch hunt, driving capable employees out of city service.
And yet, it has survived. Just think back to last November’s mayoral election when mayoral contender Darren Cyr paid homage to residency by pointing to Nicholson as an outsider from Sudbury.
Economics is the reason Nicholson and Walsh want to scrap residency. They say (Item, Jan. 21) the charter language impedes efforts to hire people with specialized skills to work for the city. “When we can’t find these high-demand skills in a Lynn resident, we are forced to make do without or to contract with vendors. This ultimately drives up costs.”
Most of the arguments put forth by ardent residency advocates across the decades ran counter to the one made by Nicholson and Walsh. Residency supporters insisted that good-paying city jobs shouldn’t go to “outsiders” when there were plenty of locals qualified to do the work.
Advocates typically expanded this argument by stating: “If you’re getting your city salary paid by local property taxpayers, then you should be a local taxpayer.” By extension, they argued that teachers teach with more passion and cops and firefighters are more invested in their work if they own a house in a Lynn neighborhood.
The reality is that the residency rule was the Swiss Army knife of exclusionary tools for municipal hiring decision-makers intent on ensuring cronyism and patronage thrived.
A guy from out of town is better qualified for a city job than your nephew? Invoke the residency rule.
How else can you explain residency surviving in Lynn in spite of itself? Late Mayor Antonio J. Marino declared himself a residency champion in 1976 and councilors rushed to dust off an unused 1939 residency ordinance and set a July 1, 1977 date for its enforcement.
Anyone who bothered to read the rule’s fine print realized it only applied to the relatively few employees under the council’s jurisdiction. Marino tried to enforce the rule by telling non-resident firefighters they had to live in Lynn and the city ended up in court. Residency largely disappeared from public view until 1999 when it reemerged with enforcement powers and a public mandate.
A Residency Commission set up by the council to enforce the charter language wasted no time ordering city workers to provide written proof of residency. The Lynn Police Association refused the directive and the council upped the ante and placed a nonbinding referendum on live-where-you-work on the November 1999 city ballot.
“Yes” votes overwhelmed “no” votes (9,178-5,998) and set the tone for commission investigations, hearings, and the exodus of some good cops from the Lynn Police Department during the late Mayor Edward J. “Chip” Clancy Jr.’s administration.
Police officers and firefighters saw residency as reason enough to make sure their support didn’t go to Clancy in his razor-thin 2009 loss to Judith Flanagan Kennedy.
Kennedy returned the favor and bargained residency out of the city’s big municipal union contracts and I’m willing to bet most city workers — certainly all teachers — under the age of 40 never heard of residency.
I’ve worked in Lynn for almost 34 years and lived in the city for 24 years. On balance, I’d say I am more invested in my job because I live here and love the city.
Nicholson and Walsh said, “We could still give a preference to Lynn residents in hiring.” But I’ll believe that one when I see it. Residency is drawing its last breaths and the mayor and council president are ready to put it out of its misery.
