The Kalispell City Council will seek a ballot initiative to remove residency requirements for first responders following a work session on Monday.

Residency requirements for the city’s emergency responders were first instituted for fire personnel in 1981.

The requirements stipulate emergency responders must reside within three air miles of the city or a 15-minute response time from their residences to the city.

But since the requirements went into place, some city officials believe circumstances have changed such that these requirements no longer guarantee speedy response times. Instead, some see the requirements as a deterrent to hiring potential candidates who live outside the current boundaries.

“Probably 30, 40 years ago, residency requirements were kind of the norm in municipal government,” said City Manager Doug Russell on Monday, “…under the belief that to provide services you had to live in that municipality, otherwise you weren’t good stewards of the tax dollars.”

“Over time, residency requirements were challenged and deemed to limit freedom of movement for the majority of municipal personnel, so residency requirements went by the wayside outside of those that needed to respond in a specific timeframe for emergency services,” Russell explained.

Kalispell Fire Chief Dan Pearce called the requirements “outdated” and “restrictive.”

Both Pearce and Russell pointed to examples of potential hires who turned down positions with the city, in part based on residency conflicts.

“Anything we can do to make sure there isn’t an obstacle there [to hiring] is probably a good thing,” said Russell.

Most of the council seemed to agree with Russell’s assessment during the work session Monday.

City council members, including new additions Jessica Dahlman and Jed Fisher, analyzed the specific details that would go into effect if the requirements were repealed. They looked at eliminating all of the components of the current requirements, including a preference for hiring candidates based in Kalispell and an age maximum of 34 years for new hires.

“If they can do the job, they can do the job,” said Russell, pointing to the physical exam candidates must undergo to qualify for these positions.

Council member Kari Gabriel was the most hesitant of the group because she remembered a previous issue with an emergency responder who moved outside the city limits and became hard to reach as a result of the relocation.

However, the city doesn’t make any formal decisions during work sessions, so the issue will have to come before the city council at a regular meeting before it can be put to a vote and then considered for a ballot initiative.