Maybe the end justifies the means. Maybe violation of the residency requirement for New London municipal department heads is an "aww, shucks" kind of no-no. But the City Charter is not a cafeteria menu, and it's time to bring practice into line with provision — or, much better, make the provisions reflect best practice.

Amend the charter to regularize the employment of several industrious, effective employees on whom the mayor wants to continue to rely in spite of the fact that they do not meet the requirement to live in New London.

Mayor Michael Passero started his term by finding capable people whose work he trusted, while opting in some cases to carry over administrators from the prior administration. By and large, these department heads and senior staff seem to be doing a good job for New London. But the mayor can't continue to ignore a situation that the charter says must not exceed one year. If his administration can shrug off one requirement, why not others?

The Day believes the best fix is to amend charter Section 45a(2) to exempt departmental heads, including the specifically named directors of law and finance, from the requirement to maintain primary residence in the city. There may be sufficient reason to require the fire chief, police chief and public works director to live within the city limits, but that also needs a healthy public debate. The requirement would still apply to the office of mayor, which is filled by election of a New London resident; whether it must apply to the city clerk and the assistant city clerk can be debated.

The charter acknowledges, in the negative, that at one time there may not have been enough motivation for qualified upper management to live in New London — by requiring them to do so within a year or forfeit their jobs. Sections 45 and 45a say they must normally eat, sleep and keep their effects in a domicile in the city.

As always in the governance of tiny New London, size matters. It's never far to the city line. One possibility would be to require key personnel to live within a certain travel time or radius of the city if their jobs require them to get here in a hurry. When the current requirements were passed at referendum nearly 40 years ago, there were no cell phones, no voice mail, no texting, no modern digital systems that a public safety official could use to stay on top of emergencies. If a telephone or radio call at home was all they had when emergency struck, home had to be close by.

Another deterrent to getting the best possible employees to live in New London — not always admitted out loud — may be passing away as the school system becomes a magnet for out-of-town students and parents. New hires with school-age children should have less reluctance to move them here. 

Having had the foresight to create a permanent Charter Review Board in 2015, the city is better equipped for charter change. The board holds public meetings year-round with the luxury of time to thoroughly consider every recommendation it makes to a charter review commission when one is activated, as it should be now.

The seven-member board isn't ready with all the changes it might ultimately propose to bring the charter into sync with updated statutes and terminology. But it has been systematically reviewing the charter, starting with Article II, and is about to start on Article VI, Administrative Service, according to its chair, William Giesing, who is also the Democratic registrar of voters. That section includes the residency requirement. The City Council has asked for a progress report at its Feb. 21 meeting.

The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities is lobbying the legislature to change the requirement that all sections of a charter must be open to revision whenever a city or town wants to reopen any section. CCM argues that inertia then prevails, because experience shows the process gets dragged out by multiple proposals. The last New London charter change, in 2010, took eight months to be ready for a referendum vote.

Changing state law might help New London move its charter revision along, but it's not the major stumbling block here. Seat a charter review commission or face facts: Key personnel are working in city government who are supposed to be living here, and they are not.