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Springfield City Council, Mayor Clash Over Residency Rules For Fire Chiefs

WAMC Northeast Public Radio | By Paul Tuthill
Published April 3, 2016 at 10:27 AM EDT

A long-simmering debate over municipal residency requirements in Massachusetts has flared up in Springfield.

Three city councilors in Springfield claim six deputy or district chiefs in the Springfield Fire Department are in violation of the city’s residency ordinance.

Their public demand for the fire officials to move into the city immediately, or give up their jobs, brought a sharp rebuke from Mayor Domenic Sarno.

" You know they're never asked, when they are in those dangerous situations, ' Where to you live?' They are never asked that question," said Sarno.

The union representing professional firefighters in Massachusetts has asked the state legislature to exempt public safety officers from local residency laws. 

  State law excuses teachers from any local residency requirements.

Copyright 2016 WAMC Northeast Public Radio
Paul Tuthill
Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.
See stories by Paul Tuthill

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