So far, the mayor's losing.

The latest blow is double-barreled, with two court rulings that reinstated city workers accused of living illegally outside the city.

The rulings, both by the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court, are viewed as yet another setback in the city's on-again, off-again crackdown on residency violators.

"It raises the bar for the city," said Robert G. Walsh, a lawyer for one of the two reinstated city employees. "It really puts a hole in what they say they want to do."

At this point, what the city wants to do differs greatly from what it can do.

In both decisions, the judges drew a legal distinction between a "residence" and a "domicile." They made it clear a city employee can legally have several residences but only one domicile.

At City Hall, the distinction is important because most union contracts refer to residence, not domicile.

"One of the judges asked, "What about people with summer cottages? Would you try to fire them?' " said John Collins, a lawyer for the other reinstated employee.

The Masiello administration acknowledges the significance of the two court cases and is working with the Common Council to try to tighten residency requirements.

One of the problems facing the city is the inconsistency in the residency language used in the City Charter compared with the city code, civil service law and union contracts.

"There seems to be a disconnect between the city's intent and the actual language used to codify that intent," said Leonard A. Matarese, the city's human resources commissioner.

City union leaders view the court rulings as a huge victory. The decisions give them what they always wanted - a legal standard that requires employees to maintain a permanent address in the city but doesn't prevent them from having another residence outside the city.

"How do you determine whether a guy lives there seven days a week or two days a week?" said William Travis, president of the city's blue-collar union. "I would expect all unions to use that defense. I also expect the city will rethink its approach to residency."

The two court rulings are not the first residency-related cases to go against the city, but, unlike previous cases, at least one of these decisions caught city lawyers by surprise.

In 2002, the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority fired one of its employees after accusing him of living in West Seneca. The authority presented what it considered conclusive evidence, including testimony from a private investigator who monitored the employee's trips to and from West Seneca.

The authority's lawyer viewed the case as a sure winner, an open and shut case. Or so he thought.

"The guy doesn't live in Buffalo," said Gillian Brown, the authority's chief counsel. "Every time we followed him, he emerged from a house in West Seneca with his wife."

Collins argued that his client was residing temporarily in West Seneca to care for his sick son while maintaining a permanent home in Buffalo.

"The most the BMHA ever established was that he sometimes resided in West Seneca," said Collins. "The fact is he has a house in the city and always returns to it."

In the end, the courts sided with Collins.

In the other case, a Water Department employee was fired in 1999 because officials suspected he lived outside the city. The city won in lower court, but the appeals court ruled he met the legal standard for residency and awarded him his job back. He also plans to seek more than four years of back pay.

The two court rulings are the latest and, perhaps, most significant blows to Masiello's much ballyhooed campaign against employees who work for the city but live in the suburbs. In 1997, he fired two employees as part of a crackdown on residency violators.

"We mean business," he said at the time.

Since then, the city has run into a series of legal challenges that have made Masiello's pledge an uphill struggle.

Making matters even worse is the loss of the city's full-time residency investigator. The job was eliminated as part of last year's budget cuts.

And even before the job was cut, there were problems with high turnover. Four people held the post in five years.

The city also had to deal with the embarrassment of having its last investigator resign after federal officials accused him of defrauding investors in a $13 million scheme not connected to his city job.

On top of that, the city has repeatedly come under criticism for what some view as "selective enforcement." Union leaders, for example, have accused officials of targeting rank-and-file employees while allowing "politically connected" managers to live outside the city.

Despite all that, city officials are moving ahead on other fronts.

"We're not going to relent," said Matarese.

Just last year, Matarese ordered signed residency verification forms from about 1,000 city employees. The only exceptions were employees exempt from the residency requirement under state law, most notably firefighters and police.

City unions challenged the effort, but a state labor relations board upheld the administration's right to use the forms to ferret out violators.

"We know some of these forms are not accurate, and we're investigating," Matarese said. "And it's more than just a few."

e-mail: pfairbanks@buffnews.com