 
Huggybear
Member
Username: Huggybear
Post Number: 223
Registered: 08-2005
Posted From: 70.236.166.150
| | Posted on Saturday, June 10, 2006 - 1:27 pm: |    |
I seem to recall the outstate Republicans pushing to eliminate residency requirements for police, fire and other city employees - and succeeding.
One stated reason would be that it would give access to better personnel - and the excuse was that lots of people were maintaining "city" residences and actually living elsewhere.
But doesn't the same argument apply to residency requirements to elected officials? I can think of plenty of people smarter, harder working, and more personable than a lot of our incumbent elected officials. Allowing people living outside the districts to run would allow us to eliminate some of the shortsighted people who just have no competent opponents year after year. Moreover, don't a lot of our lawmakers live in other places anyway? |
Mcp001
Member
Username: Mcp001
Post Number: 2214
Registered: 11-2003
Posted From: 69.14.135.95
| | Posted on Saturday, June 10, 2006 - 1:42 pm: | |
MT did a piece on this a while back.
It seems that only democrats were the ones cited in the story for not living where they were suppossed to be serving (although I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone did some digging and found out that republicans were just a guilty). |
Bvos
Member
Username: Bvos
Post Number: 1503
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 70.228.2.1
| | Posted on Saturday, June 10, 2006 - 8:40 pm: | |
City employees living outside the city limits is one thing.
Elected officials living outside of their district? Then what's the purpose of having districts then? |
321brian
Member
Username: 321brian
Post Number: 154
Registered: 02-2006
Posted From: 68.62.6.147
| | Posted on Sunday, June 11, 2006 - 10:41 am: | |
Come on Huggy thats cheap.
So what you are saying is that a bunch of people living outside of Detroit should be able to run for office in the city?
If that happens then who would be voting for these positions? Everyone in Detroit? Everyone in SE Michigan? Everyone in Michigan?
Elected officals must AT LEAST maintain a residence in the district they are representing.
To go further I think city employees should have a residency requirement. People who live outisde of the city should be allowed to apply and be hired but they should be given a reasonable time period after their hire to move in to the city. ( any city. not just Detroit.)
I think residence requirements create and workforce with an interest in the product they are helping to create.
Everyone in this town (I work for Ford I drive a Ford) should be able to relate on some level. |
Huggybear
Member
Username: Huggybear
Post Number: 225
Registered: 08-2005
Posted From: 68.79.113.90
| | Posted on Sunday, June 11, 2006 - 11:07 am: | |
321brian, I think it's perfectly fine for municipalities to have residency requirements for their workers - and if that takes too much of a toll on quality or ends up costing too much, then municipalities will adjust their policies on their own.
What's cheap is the state legislature telling municipalities what to do with their hiring practices, when those practices don't pose a threat to anyone's constitutional rights. Residency requirements stretch back two millennia - if you retired from the Roman army, you were given a farm - on the frontier, where you would be the front line against an invading army.
The point of my post was that within the context of rejecting residency for workers, there does not appear to be any principled reason to have residency for lawmakers. Lawmakers are hired to represent, advocate and to some degree administrate. If workers don't need a connection to the community to provide services, I would submit that you don't need that connection to represent, advocate or administrate. After all, lawyers, community groups, CDCs and nonprofits routinely represent and advocate for groups for which they are not socioeconomic, ethnic or geographic matches. And the administrator function is conceptually similar to a city employee. |