During the March 3 Puyallup City Council meeting the council passed 4-2 to waive the requirement City Manager Gary McLean to establish a residence within the city limits.
“The residency thing is kind of interesting because we don’t require other city employees to live in the city,” said Mayor Don Malloy who supported the waiver.
McLean currently lives in Des Moines and has been a resident there for nearly 20 years.
Councilmembers Rick Hansen and John Knutsen voted against the approval. Deputy Mayor George Dill was excused from the meeting because he was in Washington, D.C. representing the city.
Hansen said he thought living within the city should be a mandate for the city manager.
“They need to be a part of the city so they can feel all the services the city provides,” he said. “You are immersed in your city if you live there. You are not immersed if you don’t.”
McLean knew the rule was in place when he took the job, Hansen said.
“I can’t in good conscience support that,” he said.
What Hansen would have considered was a grace period to wait for the housing market to improve and then revisit the requirement. Malloy did make a motion at the meeting to review the waiver in a year, but it did not pass.
It isn’t the first time a city manager hasn’t been required to live within the city, Malloy said. In the 1990s, City Manager Donna Hansen was not required to establish a Puyallup residence.
There are also many Puyallup residents who live outside of the city for long periods of time, Malloy said, making their winter home in places like Arizona.
Former City Manager Jim Bacon was required to establish a Puyallup residence, but he also had condos in Seattle and Arizona.
“We didn’t measure how much time he spent in the city,” Malloy said.
The requirement was probably enforced for Bacon because he was moving from Michigan to Washington when he was hired and if he was going to live in Washington moving to Puyallup made sense, Malloy said.
There are no time constraints on the waiver, but if it came up again the council would revisit it depending on what the majority of council members desire, Malloy said.
McLean said he was not comfortable asking the city to negotiate moving expenses with the current budget constraints the economy is causing. At another time if it is appropriate he would revisit the issue, but he’d like to keep all his focus on the job.
“My focus is getting the job done and helping this community thrive,” he said. “That’s what the council asked me to do and that’s what I want to do.”
The job is a 60-plus hour a week position that often brings McLean to Puyallup in the evenings and on the weekends. When he’s not in the city the advancement of technology, like the cell phone, keeps him in contact with people he needs to talk to get the job done. During his 20 to 30 minute commute it isn’t uncommon for him to be talking trying to get the next step in a project complete, he said.
“The 3 a.m. calls do happen,” he said. “Right now my focus is getting the job done and I believe that’s where all of us should be focused.”
McLean has a lot of city projects he is working on and is 100 percent knowledgeable and capable of completing them, Malloy said.
“That’s what we’re looking for him to deal with,” Malloy said.
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