43
Court order goes against residency law
Despite the setback, the city will continue the residency fight.
YOUNGSTOWN — A Mahoning County Common Pleas Court magistrate has again ordered Youngstown not to fire a city worker who move to Liberty.
The city has a residency requirement in its charter for all workers hired since 1986. A state law banning residency requirements took effect May 1, 2006, however.
The city claims its residency requirement trumps the state law. But Magistrate Eugene J. Fehr disagrees.
In a Thursday court ruling, the magistrate prohibited the city from firing Terrance M. Marvin, an eight-year water department laborer, who moved to an apartment complex in Liberty Township in December 2007.
The city will appeal the decision, said Anthony J. Farris, the city’s deputy law director.
The magistrate agreed last month to Marvin’s request for a temporary restraining order to keep him employed by Youngstown. On Thursday, the magistrate approved a preliminary injunction allowing Marvin to retain his job.
In a separate case in November 2007 involving a city worker who moved out of the city, Judge John M. Durkin declared the state residency law constitutional and that the city can’t negate that law.
The Ohio Supreme Court will eventually have to rule on the residency issue, Farris said.
The 7th District Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Mahoning County, hasn’t ruled on the residency law.
Two other state courts of appeals, the 3rd and 9th, have ruled that cities, specifically Lima and Akron, can require its city workers to live there as a term of their employment. Those cases were appealed to the state Supreme Court.
Until this is resolved by the high court, the city will continue to fire — or at least attempt to fire — city workers if they move from Youngstown, Farris said.
During a Feb. 29 hearing on Marvin’s request for a temporary restraining order, the city used a report it commissioned that asserts 208 city employees living in “stable” neighborhoods would move out of the city if the residency requirement was removed.
But the magistrate isn’t convinced that the conclusions of the Robert Simmons and Associates Inc. report are accurate. He noted in his decision there have been only four city employees who moved out of Youngstown.
“The facts demonstrate there has not been the mass evacuation of Youngstown city employees as claimed by the defendants,” he wrote. “The facts clearly establish that the speculative ‘doom and gloom’ forecast in the Robert Simmons and Associates Inc. report has not come to fruition.
skolnick@vindy.com