Residency Proposal
Council: New Staff Live Here 2 Years

By RICHARD STEIER

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn told District Council 37 officials Feb. 27 that she was prepared to pass a bill that would ease residency standards for incumbent union members but require new city employees to serve for two years before they could live outside the five boroughs.

JOSEPH P. ADDABBO: A more-optimistic tone.

Her pledge drew little visible response from the 100-plus union officials at DC 37's annual legislative breakfast, according to Council Member Joseph P. Addabbo Jr., who chairs that body's Civil Service and Labor Committee.

No Longer Unyielding

He said he sensed, however, that the union had softened its previous stance that the residency change had to apply immediately for all DC 37 members, as the union's executive director, Lillian Roberts, had insisted last year.

"There had been a time when Lillian had said 'we have a bill and we're not negotiating,''' Mr. Addabbo said during a phone interview two days after the breakfast. "Thankfully, that seems to have changed."

A spokeswoman for Ms. Roberts, Zita Allen, was noncommittal, saying only, "We're talking. The Council submitted a proposal, we reviewed it, and we submitted a counterproposal. It's still in the negotiations stage."

LILLIAN ROBERTS: 'Still negotiating.'

It was not clear whether the Council proposal she referred to was the one Ms. Quinn enunciated at the breakfast, or an earlier version of the proposed bill. Several days prior to the event, Council Member Robert Jackson, who co-chairs its Black, Latino and Asian Caucus, had told this newspaper he would support a measure that would require new employees to live in the city for their first three years on the job before leaving.

Ms. Quinn's spokesman, Jamie McShane, declined to elaborate, saying just, "The Council is engaged in good-faith negotiations and we are hopeful that we can reach a compromise."

Council's Objections

Under a July 2006 contract deal, the Bloomberg administration agreed to lift the residency requirement for DC 37 members, allowing them to live in six state counties surrounding the city, as uniformed employees and Teachers are already permitted to do.

But numerous Council Members, led by those who represent minority districts, objected that this would open positions to those who live in the suburbs and make it more difficult for city residents to get municipal jobs. Their opposition has kept the measure in limbo.

The current city residency law was enacted in 1986 with the intent of improving job opportunities for minority residents. DC 37 - a majority of whose members are black and Latino - has argued that the urgency of doing that has lessened at the same time that rising housing prices have made it more difficult for its members to afford houses or apartments within the five boroughs.

If DC 37 agreed to the new Council proposal, Mr. Addabbo predicted its path to passage would be swift. "We can hold a hearing whenever we get a green light," he said.

Other Union Goals

A union press release outlined DC 37's other legislative priorities, some of which - including a fairer distribution formula for money bet at city Off-Track Betting parlors that is needed to avert a shutdown of operations and improved state and Federal revenue-sharing formulas - are outside the Council's jurisdiction, although it approved a resolution on OTB that will be submitted to the State Legislature.

DC 37 also urged the Council to increase funding for the union's child-care initiative studying how such care affects working families. It also called for support of affordable-housing projects, which Ms. Quinn has made a priority.