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Residency Standard Unfair

To the Editor:

It is interesting that the City Council is still wasting time debating residency restrictions for city workers. The residency rule discriminates against minorities. Some 45,000 modestly paid public employees, mostly minorities, must live in the five boroughs, where costs are very high, or lose their jobs.

This restriction does not apply to mostly white occupations like police, firefighters and sanitation workers — who we might want living in the city in case of an emergency.

The civilian workers should have the same equal rights as everyone else to choose where they live.

Do you think Westchester politicians urge the City Council to back the residency requirements to discourage an influx of working-class minorities? Or do Council Members think that if they lift the residency restrictions there will be a barrage of rich boys from Syosset applying for jobs as home health-care workers?

The City Council is using the residency requirement as a bargaining chip against DC 37 when it is obviously in no one's best interest.

EUGENE TOWBA

Editor's note: Mr. Towba is a labor law investigator for the Department of Environmental Protection.