Committee Broadens Proposal To Loosen Residency Requirements

by Thomas Breen

City Human Resources & Benefits Manager Marcella Garcia, and city Personnel Director Susan Baldwin: “It’s never OK to have a position open for three years. It’s not OK to have a position open for three months. Somewhere along the line, you’re always short-staffed.”

Hill North CMT Chair Miguel Pittman: “If you lead here, you should live here.”

The Board of Alders took a key step on Tuesday towards allowing certain city employees, including department heads, to live outside of New Haven — after the Legislation Committee favorably advanced a proposal to create a pathway for bypassing the city’s residency requirements on a case-by-case basis.

The aldermanic committee took that vote at the end of a four-hour meeting at City Hall, thereby sending the amended proposal to the full Board of Alders for review and a final vote.

The proposal that made it out of committee Tuesday was significantly broader in scope than the one under discussion for the bulk of the meeting.

As amended by the committee, the proposal would allow any city employee who is currently subject to a residency requirement — and not just newly appointed department heads — to apply for an exemption, so long as they live in the state of Connecticut and can persuade the alders that moving here would cause them a “substantial hardship.” The alders would then have final say, on a case-by-case basis, to approve or reject the exemption request.

This residency-requirement-waiver program could therefore be open to department heads and coordinators and other mayoral appointees, new and incumbent alike. (A vast majority of the city’s unionized workforce, meanwhile, is already not subject to a New Haven residency requirement thanks to collective bargaining agreements.)

Westville Alder Adam Marchand, who introduced the successful scope-broadening amendment, and committee Chair Richard Furlow made clear that the bill endorsed by the committee on Tuesday could change again before the Board of Alders takes a final vote next month.

The committee asked city staff to provide a full list of all city roles that are currently subject to a New Haven residency requirement. Alders may change who is eligible to request a residency-requirement exemption based on which roles appear on that list.

Nevertheless, at the end of Tuesday’s four-hour meeting, all of the alders on the committee appeared open to allowing city employees like department heads to live outside of New Haven if that meant city government could attract the best candidates for hard-to-fill roles that might otherwise remain vacant for months or years.

“As life changes, as the competition in the workforce becomes even larger, I believe we have a responsibility as a legislative body to provide the city, provide our HR department with the tools necessary” to attract the best talent, said Legislation Committee Vice-Chair and Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison.

Marchand and Furlow, among others, stressed the importance of promoting good, stable jobs for New Haven residents. That’s why the Board of Alders created New Haven Works. That’s why they call on the city’s largest employers, like Yale, to hire New Haveners.

That goal remains true, they said — but that’s not what this residency-requirement-waiver proposal is about. “This is about [the idea that] people should live in the town because there’s been a view that, if they live in the town, they’re going to be better leaders for city departments,” Marchand said. “I’m not 100 percent convinced of that.”

Matteson: “Picking Up & Relocating Is A Significant Burden On A Family”

Chief of Staff Sean Matteson and Asst. Corporation Counsel Earle Giovanniello.

The proposed ordinance amendment as originally submitted by Mayor Justin Elicker and Furlow, a Westville/Amity/Beverly Hills alder and the board’s majority leader, called for allowing the mayor to request and the alders to grant (or reject) residency-requirement exemptions for newly appointed department heads on a case by case basis.

“There is no precedent on this,” city Chief of Staff Sean Matteson stressed on Tuesday. “Granting an exception for one department head does not establish a right” for any other department head, or any successor in that same role, to be allowed to live outside of New Haven.

Under the mayor’s and Furlow’s original proposal, the city’s personnel director would have to affirm that, among other considerations, moving to New Haven would create a “substantial hardship for the appointee,” as Matteson put it, whether for economic, family, medical, or some other reason.

The alders, then, would have the final say over whether or not to grant the exemption.

“If we can enlarge the talent pool by seeking outside of the city boundaries, terrific,” city Personnel Director Susan Baldwin told the committee alders Tuesday night.

City Human Resources & Benefits Manager Marcella Garcia stressed that the city should be focusing on “what services we can provide to the residents,” and not really on where the people who fill those jobs live. At the end of the day, “what we want to do is hire the best talent who has experience” to do the job well.

“It is nothing against the city,” Matteson added. “It’s just, people don’t even want to move across town or down the street. Picking up and relocating is a significant burden on a family and it’s something not done lightly.”

The residency-requirement-exemption proposal builds off of a similar process that the Elicker administration proposed and the alders approved in 2024 for incumbent coordinators, only. Only one person has ever taken advantage of that existing pathway: former Chief Administrative Officer Regina Rush-Kittle, who lived in Rocky Hill. (Rush-Kittle resigned from her city job three months after alders changed the law allowing her to live outside New Haven while remaining in her CAO post.)

The proposal also comes after the mayor tried and failed to include residency- requirement waivers for department heads in the 2023 charter revision process. As part of that process, however, charter revisers — and the voting public — signed off on moving residency requirements from the charter and into city’s code of ordinances, thereby creating a potential pathway for alders to amend local law to allow department heads to live elsewhere.

“We’re in a tough market, in competition with other municipalities, the state, and the private sector,” Matteson said on Tuesday. “Strict residency requirements have often deterred candidates” from applying. “We feel the public interest is best served by the most qualified individual for the job, and not necessarily the zip code they have.”

Current, Former Dept. Heads: Yes, Please

Youth and Rec Director Gwendolyn Busch Williams.

Former Corporation Counsel Pat King.

The public hearing portion of Tuesday’s meeting saw a host of current and former city government leaders testify in support of dropping New Haven residency requirements for new and incumbent department heads alike.

Gwendolyn Busch Williams, a 19-year veteran of city government who worked her way up to become the head of the city’s Youth and Recreation Department, said that she currently splits her time between an apartment in New Haven and a home her family owns in West Haven because of the city’s residency requirement. “What should have been the happiest day of my life actually was bittersweet,” she said about when she was tapped to head the city’s youth-services department — because she knew she would have to pick between her dream job and staying in a home she’s owned since 2004.

“I don’t believe my residency should diminish the work I have done for this city,” she said.

Williams’ YARD deputy, Ronald Huggins, agreed. “What matters most is leadership, accountability, and a genuine commitment to New Haven and its residents,” he said. Not necessarily where someone lives.

City Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Rebecca Bombero spoke about how, in her many years in different leadership roles in city government, she has seen that the residency requirement “drastically limits our applicant pool. People self-select out of applying for those positions.” Dropping the requirement would “reduce the amount of times I have to fill vacancies.”

Having roots in the city is a genuine plus for a candidate for a top city job, recently retired former Corporation Counsel Patricia King said. “But it doesn’t always work out that we have city residents who can fulfill some of those positions.”

“It’s a tough housing market,” she added. This proposal “gives the city the flexibility that it needs in order to hire” the best people for these roles.

City finance staffer Patricia Solomon.

Members of the public who don’t lead city departments were more mixed on the proposal — though most were cautiously favorable.

Pat Solomon, who has worked for the city for 39 years, spoke about mentoring current Acting City Assessor Alex Pullen and Acting City Controller Mike Gormany — neither of whom lives in New Haven — as they worked their way up through the ranks of city government. “They have actually been short-changed by the residency” requirement, she said. “Here are people that are part of the community, raised in the community, and very active in the community.” That said, she expressed concerns with the “pathways” potentially being made available to those department heads who want permission to live outside of New Haven. “I have concerns about who we have as recruiters,” she added.

Lillie Chambers said that the residency requirement is in place “for a reason,” and that any insinuation that city government might have to “lower the bar” to hire New Haveners for top roles is offensive.

“Once you move from rules to discretion, you open the door for inconsistency, pressure, and ultimately erosion of the standards themselves,” said Miguel Pittman, who spoke out against the proposal and read a letter from the Hill North Community Management Team voicing its own collective opposition.

“Today it’s case by case. Tomorrow it’s routine. By that time, the rule is not holding real weight.” Living in the same city you serve, he added, is about “sharing stakes, sharing accountability, and sharing experience.”

“If you lead here,” he concluded, “you should live here.”

Downtown resident David Agosta, meanwhile, urged the committee to drop residency requirements altogether, and not just for newly appointed department heads. “I’m in favor of just getting rid of this stupid requirement,” he said. “I am against doing this on a case-by-case basis because you’re heading down a minefield.” At what point, he asked, “does it become discriminatory” if and when the alders approve one residency-requirement exemption but not another. “The only way to do this is to apply it universally.”

What About The Police Chief?

CAO Justin McCarthy.

Ward 26 Alder Amy Marx.

The ordinance amendment under consideration Tuesday would create a pathway for city department heads, among others, to seek exemptions from the city’s residency requirement. It does not apply to any particular person.

Nevertheless, one particular newly appointed department head — Police Chief David Zannelli, a 19-year New Haven Police Department (NHPD) veteran who lives with his wife and three children in Stonington — was clearly at the top of mind for some alders, city officials, and members of the public who spoke up at Tuesday’s meeting. (Ever since being tapped by the mayor to serve as police chief, Zannelli has said that he will follow whatever rules are set for him — including in regards to where he has to live. The city’s charter states that the police chief has to become an “elector” in New Haven within six months of their appointment.)

Upper Westville Alder Amy Marx asked Matteson on Tuesday about how frequently, in his extensive tenure in City Hall, he has felt the need to have a department head accessible to him “face to face, immediately.”

Matteson replied that “emergencies can happen at any moment. We work very hard to staff up the departments. We also work very hard to have a lot of confidence in our assistant chiefs of police and fire.” He stressed to Marx that New Haven has “a good bench,” and lots of redundancies, “around our public safety leaders. Our public safety leaders don’t work around the clock. They do take downtime. They are off on occasion. We do encourage them to take some vacations so they don’t burn out.”

“I’m not terribly concerned about it,” he continued, while reflecting on the need to have one specific public safety official immediately in person at any given situation. “We’re always going to have someone there in command that’s been trained and that has our confidence.”

CAO Justin McCarthy, a former city assistant fire chief, said the same during the public hearing portion of the meeting.

I’ve never seen it impact operations,” he said about having a specific individual away from the city at the time of an emergency. A chief could be on vacation, or at a conference, even if they do live in New Haven. There’s always a “redundancy” built in to every public-safety shift.

Ultimately, the committee alders landed in support of creating a pathway for case-by-case exemptions from the New Haven residency requirement — not just for new department heads, but, potentially, for all city workers currently subject to it.

Furlow made clear, however, that there is at least one city leader who will always need to live in New Haven. Hill Alder Evelyn Rodriguez asked Matteson to provide a clear explanation for why some city leaders might need to live outside of New Haven. She mentioned the police chief, the fire chief, the schools superintendent, the mayor…

“The mayor has to live in the city, for sure,” Furlow said. “We’re not going to give an exemption for the mayor.”

Alders Jeanette Morrison, Richard Furlow, and Adam Marchand.