1997.081.007

This is a large red binder assembled into a sort of scrapbook, filled with newspaper clippings and letters surrounding the topic of city legislature, primarily the problems surrounding Lawrence’s residency law from 1997 to 1998. The residency law, as is explained by the clippings in the book, was a piece of legislature signed in as part of a city government charter in the late 1980’s. This law stated that all citizens working government jobs in the city of Lawrence would be required to live in the city already or to move to and reside in the city within 2 years of their appointment to a government job, excluding educators. This law was not unpopular and went relatively unnoticed for over 10 years, until the changing landscape of the city caused many of the new government jobs to be forfeited by their appointees due to their living situation, the police chief being one example, as that position was lost and re-appointed twice between 1997 and 1998 due to each individuals problems with the law. This problem, coupled with the relative lack of applicable candidates for many of the government jobs in the city who were also currently residents, caused a full-force political debate between the mayor at the time, Patricia A. Dowling, and the current appointees to the city council. Interspersed between many Rumbo and Eagle Tribune articles on this subject are letters from a community leader in the efforts to amend the residency law, one Anthony Ferrucci. Starting with a letter to the editor in an Eagle Tribune issue surrounding the law, which Ferrucci sent directly to city government, Ferrucci began an ongoing correspondence with the mayor and laid out plans for a petition to get his amended version of the residency law on the next ballot. Mayor Dowling wrote back to Ferrucci in full support of his amendment to the law, but felt that her hands were tied without a petition consisting of 4,500 signatures from Lawrence residents also looking to change the law. Her reasoning for this was that city council was hard-pressed to simply lay down the word of law, and was not budging without hard, factual evidence that a change was desired. Despite Ferruccis efforts, his petition ultimately failed, but through a long, grueling process of debates, editorials and overall chaos eventually Mayor Dowling reached a compromise with city council that very much resembled the wording of Ferruccis proposed amendment to the residency law, giving preference to residing citizens when deciding upon a government employee, but not requiring that they be residents to apply.