News roundup: Council waives residency requirement—Updated

Posted by Philip Anselmo on January 13, 2009 - 8:20am
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Batavia's City Council last night waived the residency requirement for 14 city employees, according to WBTA's Dan Fischer. Councilman Bob Bialkowski was the sole dissenter in the 6-to-1 vote. Assistant City Manager Sally Kuzon and recently appointed Code Enforcement Officer Ronald Panek were among those relieved of the requirement.

No one has yet explained exactly what such a decision means for the city. If the residency requirement was in place: How did the city hire 14 people in violation of the requirement? We put the question to Council President Charlie Mallow this morning, and we're waiting for his response. We'll be sure to get it up when he responds, if he doesn't just beat us to the punch and post a comment before then.

Update: Mallow has responded to our inquiry from earlier this morning.

"The City has a residency requirement for all employees to live within the boundaries of the County," he said. "These employees were identified as living outside the County, some who have worked for the City for over 10 years, and it has been determined that it is in the best interest of the City to waive this requirement  for these people."

Posted by Timothy Paine on January 13, 2009 - 8:47am
I might be able to see certain circumstances for recent hires to be given extra time. But do these waivers have a time frame or are they permanant? Also, 14 seems like a big number to me. I'm note sure how many total City employees there are but that seems to be a high number. I also agree with the notion of what good is a requirement if it doesn't seem to matter. If it's not going to be enforced then just go ahead and remove it. I'll pose that to John Roach. What does the Charter say about residency and issuing waivers? Is it a time frame or complete waiver? What does the Charter provide?