Pittsfield Council To Discuss Police Chief Residency, Eliminating Charter Objection
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Ward 1 Councilor Kenneth Warren wants to ask residents, "Should public safety leaders be required to reside in Pittsfield?"
Included on the Tuesday, July 11, council agenda is a petition for a ballot question to ask voters if the restriction that requires such management positions to live in the city should be eliminated.
This is a continuation of a conversation that began last month in the Ordinances and Rules subcommittee meeting. The panel tabled a request to remove the management residency requirement and replace it with a 20-mile radius requirement.
This and a voted-down salary increase for the police chief were directed related to Pittsfield's upcoming search for a permanent police chief, which Michael Wynn retired from this month.
Capt. Thomas Dawley is the interim chief and a search for a permanent chief will occur next year after the mayoral election.
During the subcommittee meeting, Human Resources Director Michael Taylor explained that there are several staff within the Pittsfield Police Department that may want to apply for the position but would not be eligible because of the requirement.
"The conversations that we've had with the police department and our management team, we know that this language somehow needs to change. It's far too restrictive. It does in fact, broaden our talent pool," he said.
"We have plenty of employees that work for the City of Pittsfield, who do not live in Pittsfield and are amazing employees who contribute plenty to this community. I don't feel strongly that someone needs to live in Pittsfield to be an outstanding employee and get back to this to this community."
Councilors expressed concern for the chief's reachability in the case of an emergency if they were to live outside of the area, pointing to some surrounding communities' lack of cell service.
Warren pointed out that the requirement has been around for decades and pointed to the possible reasoning for its existence.
"There are two schools of thought: One school is that you want your important department heads like your police chief like your fire chief to be in the city and back in the day, it wasn't worrying about response and we didn't have the cell phones and all the other stuff that allows us to be on top of things but the fact of the matter was, people wanted an investment by their top officials in the city both financially by owning a home and paying taxes, etc. and personally because it's their community," he said.
"I know that doesn't mean that you can't get good people that live outside that jurisdiction but if you check other communities, some will have this restriction, some won't."
He added that it would have been thoughtful to look at this ahead of time, as Wynn announced his retirement late last year, and to look at what other communities are doing.
Other councilors were torn on the topic and there was a suggestion to shorten the radius.
Also on the agenda to be referred to the Charter Review Committee is a petition from Councilor At Large Pete White asking to consider eliminating or amending the charter objection from the city charter.
Ward 2 Councilor Charles Kronick has caused a stir with this move for the last two budget seasons.
He charter objected to the fiscal 2023 budget, causing a budget to be adopted by default and Mayor Linda Tyer adopting the council's recommendations after the matter. Recently, Kronick charter objected to wave a finance committee review of three end-of-the-year financial appropriations and caused an emergency meeting on the last day of the fiscal year so that the monetary burdens did not fall on the taxpayer.
At the 11th-hour meeting White pointed out that, for the second year in a row, there has been a charter objection in June that has "basically screwed up the process of government" and taken away the councilors' choices to make changes to the items.
If not for the "waste of time" charter objection, he said that he would have entertained suggestions on how else to approach the deficits.
"Really the point we're at tonight, I don't want to see any of these items changed. I don't want to see any of these items for risk of being charter objected to again when the burden would go on the taxpayer because if we make any amendments to these, that's what could happen so we have to understand the parliamentary procedure of this, that if we change any of these items, they can be re-charter objected," he said.
"Tuesday night was the time to bring up concerns, to have discussion when we still had time. To act, instead of pushing it to the very last hour so we don't have time to suggest anything to the mayor, nor give the mayor time to think about something for a day or two because, through the charter objection, we've pushed ourselves against the wall," he said.
"The charter objection is irresponsible and if it's not taken out, it should be not allowed in the month of June so I will not entertain any changes to any of this but I do look forward to debate and questions that counselors may have had from Tuesday night."
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