Council likely to toss city manager residency requirement

Garrett Toy’s commute to Sonoma City Hall from his home in Terra Linda is about 40 minutes.

But, according to a City bylaw that dictates how far from town a city manager can reside, that commute is about 20 minutes too long for Sonoma.

An amendment to that bylaw — the City’s so-called “residency requirement,” which holds that a city manager must live within the boundaries of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District — will come to the Sonoma City council for consideration on Sept. 20.

The City Council on June 7 approved the hiring of Toy as its new city manager. But later that month, prior to Toy’s July 7 start date, Interim City Manager David Kiff brought a little-known section of city code to the attention of the council members – it states that a city manager must live within the school district within 180 days of appointment.

If City officials were to hold firm on the requirement, Toy would be expected to relocate nearly 20 miles north – an issue that never came up during negotiations for the position.

City Attorney Jeff Walter at the June 7 meeting described it as “very problematic” if the City were to enforce the provision after Toy had already resigned his job as Town Manager of Fairfax without having been informed of the residency requirement.

What’s more, Kiff questioned whether the residency requirement was in violation of state law. According to Article 11 of the California Constitution, a city or county “may not require that its employees be residents of such city, county or district.”

The revelation of a requirement for a city manager to live within the school district boundaries was news to anyone who had followed City Hall over the past decade. While the town’s former City Manager Cathy Capriola, who retired last December, is a longtime Sonoma resident, its two managers before that – Carol Giovanatto and Linda Kelly – lived in Cloverdale and Santa Rosa, respectively. (Like Toy, Kelly had also been Town Manager of Fairfax prior to her 2012 hiring in Sonoma.)

“How did that happen?” City Councilmember Kelso Barnett asked Walter regarding Giovanatto and Kelly bucking the residency requirement.

“The provision was ignored,” Walter responded.

Lucky for Toy, and presumably city managers of the future, few council members at the June meeting expressed much interest in upholding the residency requirement.

“To ask somebody to sell their house, incur capital gains tax on that sale, and then purchase a new home in the town of Sonoma where the value has gone up by 13% in one year is asking a lot of a person who’s taken a hard job,” said former City Councilmember Amy Harrington, who stepped down from her seat in July.

Mayor Madolyn Agrimonti described it at the meeting as “draconian.”

“We’ve had city managers that lived far, we’ve had city managers that live right here,” said Agrimonti. “For me, it no longer makes a difference … I don’t think it applies anymore.”

Not everyone on the council was against the idea of ensuring the person who manages city government has a greater stake in the community. Barnett said, in a perfect world, he’d like to keep the requirement.

“I think it’s important that our city manager is part of our community and lives as closely as possible,” said Barnett.

But given that Toy had already accepted the position without knowledge of the residency requirement, Barnett joined the other council members in a 5-0 vote to direct staff to revise the language in the requirement and return with an amended ordinance at an upcoming council meeting.

Agrimonti told the Index-Tribune this week she is confident the council will follow through on amending the ordinance to avoid complications around Toy’s hiring.

“The residency requirement was overruled because Mr. Toy previously worked in a small town, smaller than Sonoma and has the good judgment and acumen to make quick decisions,” said Agrimonti. “Always a must in a small city.”

City staff is expected to bring the ordinance back to the council with corrected language at its Sept. 20 meeting at Council Chambers, 177 First St. W. Visit sonomacity.org for information.

Email Jason at Jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.