Summary
affirming one year residency requirement for common council
Summary of this case from Schiavone v. DestefanoOpinion
August 23, 1990
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Erie County, Sedita, J.
Present — Callahan, J.P., Boomer, Balio, Davis and Lowery, JJ.
Order unanimously reversed on the law without costs, petition dismissed, and designating petition invalidated. Memorandum: Article 2-A of the Charter of the City of Buffalo requires that candidates for seats on the Buffalo Common Council reside in the district in which they run for at least one year prior to the election. Supreme Court erroneously found that the one-year requirement could be satisfied by residency in the district for any one-year period during the candidate's lifetime. We should not attribute to the City Counsel such an absurd intent. It is obvious that the council intended that the one-year period immediately precede the date of the election (see, McKinney's Cons Laws of NY, Book 1, Statutes § 145).
Further, we conclude that the one-year residency requirement is constitutional (see, Joseph v City of Birmingham, 510 F. Supp. 1319; Annotation, Validity of Requirement that Candidate or Public Officer have been Resident of Governmental Unit for Specified Period, 65 ALR3d 1048, § 22, at 1091-1093).