Holyoke adopts residency rule for Fire Department employees, but union says contract blocks that

Employees working for the department before the new ordinance took effect and who live outside the city are considered in compliance.

Holyoke City Councilor Kevin Jourdain

HOLYOKE – An ordinance established last month requires that new employees of the Fire Department be residents of the city.

The City Council’s June 21 adoption of the ordinance updates a residency rule that had gone unenforced for decades.

But it appears the new ordinance won’t settle a debate that has lasted for years about where firefighters and other department employees must live. The firefighters union said it will fight the rule because it violates its contract with the city.

Nevertheless, Councilor Kevin A. Jourdain said Monday, taxpayers and the city in general will benefit from the new residency rule for Fire Department employees.

“Tax dollars will stay here. People whose salaries we’re going to be paying are going to live in Holyoke,” Jourdain said.

“Further, I maintain the more people who live in the city and work in the city have a stronger connection to the city,” he said.

The ordinance requires that all new employees hired after the ordinance takes effect live in Holyoke for their careers, he said.

Department personnel employed before the ordinance took effect were granted compliance status, or “grandfathered,” even if they face a subsequent break in service such as a layoff, he said.

If someone’s spouse has a residency requirement in another city, that individual would be exempt from the new ordinance, he said.

The Fire Commission, a three-member board appointed by the mayor, is responsible for enforcing the residency ordinance. Violators could be fired, he said.

The city actually had an ordinance that was supposed to require that all Fire Department employees live here, but it stopped being enforced nearly 30 years ago, he said.

The union’s position is non-city residency allowed in the collective bargaining agreement supercedes the ordinance, said firefighter Timothy J. Leary, president of Holyoke Fire Fighters Association, Local 1693, International Association of Fire Fighters.

The contract lets employees live outside the city provided they can respond without great delay from their homes to an emergency here, he said. The union has 126 members.

“The union’s position is we will hold the city to its contractual obligation,” Leary said.

The council approved the residency ordinance 9-6.

Voting yes were councilors Brenna E. Murphy, Rebecca Lisi, James M. Leahy, Aaron M. Vega, Diosdado Lopez, Timothy W. Purington, Linda L. Vacon, Todd A. McGee and Jourdain.

Voting no were councilors Joseph M. McGiverin, Patricia C. Devine, Peter R. Tallman, Donald R. Welch, Anthony M. Keane and John J. O’Neill.