In Amherst, the city’s Fire Department is staffed with part-timers who have to meet one caveat: to live in the city.

Or at least, they used to.

On Wednesday, the Ohio Supreme Court struck down city rules that require employees to live where they work.

Amherst Fire Chief Wayne Northeim is the department’s only full-timer, and he said the residency rule was in effect for the staff because it put them in close proximity to where they were needed.

In the case of a fire, he said he can rely on firefighters who live a few blocks away to take the first truck and succeeding waves of firefighters to take subsequent vehicles.

“Why would I want anybody responding who lives 10 miles away?” Northeim asked. “A fire grows at a decent rate every minute.”

Amherst isn’t alone in such a requirement.

Oberlin, which also relies heavily on part-time firefighters, requires them to live within four miles of City Hall, city Manager Eric Norenberg said.

“The concern is, we do need to respond quickly,” Norenberg said.

The 5-2 ruling struck down residency requirements for employees of political subdivisions including cities, counties, townships and school districts.

The justices provided a watered-down exception for safety employees such as police and firefighters, but it won’t help communities that want their firefighters and police to live close by.

Dennis Whalen, an attorney for the Ohio Supreme Court, said the ruling does allow communities to pass laws requiring public safety officials to live in the county where they work or any other adjoining county.

The decision left many of the communities contacted Wednesday by The Chronicle-Telegram unsure of what steps to take in light of the decision. Most officials said they would wait until their law directors or legal advisers reviewed the decision.

For some, it has no effect at all, such as Elyria, which doesn’t have any residency requirement for employees, said city Law Director Terry “Pete” Shilling.

A proposal to create a residency rule from Councilman Mark Craig, I-4th Ward, was put on hold in the past year or so because of fears the laws would be overturned as it moved through the court system, Shilling said.

Craig said Wednesday he was disappointed in the high court ruling.

“When employees live in a city, they have more of a stake in the services they provide,” Craig said.

Lorain has had a residency requirement since 2005 for employees, such as managers and some secretaries and clerks who are not covered by union contracts, city Law Director Patrick Riley said.

Lorain Mayor Anthony Krasienko said a fair amount of employees live within the city and some even moved into the city limits to comply with the requirement.

However, Lorain hasn’t been enforcing the requirement recently because city officials knew it was being appealed, and Wednesday’s ruling scuttles that part of the city’s contracts, he said.

“The state legislature and the Supreme Court negated part of the collective bargaining agreement unfairly,” Krasienko said. “When Lorain instituted residency rules, we bargained that into our collective bargaining agreements.  We gave things up.”

North Ridgeville used to have a residency requirement, but it was abolished in the early 1990s, Fire Chief Richard Miller said.

The city has a minimum of eight firefighters on duty, allowing those firefighters to respond before mutual aid from nearby cities, Miller said.

“For the volunteer departments, absolutely I can see having a residency requirement,” Miller said.

Many communities such as Sheffield Lake don’t have any sort of residency requirement for city employees except elected officials, said city Law Director David Graves.

“Most of our safety forces live outside the city,” Graves said. “Most of them are fairly close.”

Graves expressed concern about the ruling’s symbolic effect on home rule — the ability of communities to chart their own destinies.

“I think this decision has really undermined the ability of communities to exercise their own power of self government,” Graves said.

That’s the big concern of the Ohio Municipal League, according to its attorney, John Gotherman.

He said the ruling relies on a 1912 law that gave the legislature the ultimate authority over deciding issues regarding “the welfare of employees.” The law was originally passed nearly a century ago because of concerns that small-town judges would overturn laws such as the minimum wage or worker’s compensation.

“It was a noble effort, but they should have been more specific,” Gotherman said. “I would contend if they tried to use that provision to affect freedom of speech, it wouldn’t work.”

Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com.

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