Eliminating residency rule important for St. Louis, mayor says

[TexasTowelie]

Eliminating the police residency requirement in St. Louis would be one of the most effective outcomes of the special session on violent crime, according to St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson.

“I think these tools will absolutely help us recruit police officers,” Krewson said. “We’re the only municipality on the area that has a residency requirement for police officers, and for us to just be able to recruit from 62 square miles was a big impediment. Lifting that residency requirement would make a big impact on our recruitment, as we’re 143 officers short of our authorized strength.”

The residency requirement for St. Louis safety officers is one of the five provisions being considered in the Capitol as part of the special session on violent crime. The other bills cover witness intimidation, a witness protection fund, and the offenses of unlawful transfer of a weapon to a minor and endangering the welfare of a child. The bills are up for consideration in the Senate after passing through the lower chamber.

St. Louis County Executive Dr. Sam Page, St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann, and Jefferson County Executive Dennis Gannon joined Krewson on Sunday’s episode of “This Week in Missouri Politics” to discuss the violent crime provisions.

Read more: https://themissouritimes.com/eliminating-residency-rule-important-for-st-louis-mayor-says/

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. I do not know enough to offer an informed opinion here, but I have long thought that residency

requirements were essentially a good thing.

I don't know if it's still true, but a couple of decades ago Kansas City, MO, required that anyone working for the city live within the city limits.

I currently live in Santa Fe, NM. There is not a requirement that police officers (don't know about any other job areas) live within the city limits. Which means that a significant number of our police live elsewhere, mainly in the northern suburbs of Albuquerque. Here, the essential problem is that Santa Fe is relatively expensive to live in, especially as compared to ABQ. Clearly people in this state haven't a clue about cost of living in other parts of the country, but that's probably a separate discussion. Anyway, too many of our police do not live inside the city they are sworn to protect. So yeah, I say that a residency rule is actually a good one. It may well be that for that residency rule to be workable, salaries need to be raised. I'm sure that's true here in Santa Fe.

I used to live in Overland Park, KS, which is a suburb of Kansas City, MO (and please note the different states) and the second most populous city in Kansas. You've probably never heard of it, in no small part because people from there tend to say they're from Kansas City. Which is in Missouri. I've NEVER been willing to say that, partly because KCMO residents tend to disparage Kansas and Overland Park in particular, specifically pointing out our higher taxes. When I point out our vastly better schools they get defensive. I wonder why. My years in OPKS fed into very strong opinions about a lot of things, including where you live vs where you work. There is not one simple answer, and of course people cross city, county, and state boundaries for jobs, compared to where they live.

This is a complex and complicated issue. But I will suggest that if St. Louis is having trouble hiring people who live within the city to be police officers, they need to take a long and hard look at why that is the case, and try to solve those problems, rather than having outsiders become police officers.

[MichMan]

2. Many residency rules were eliminated as they kept minorities from getting jobs in suburbs

Many white suburbs had residency rules in the past that were eliminated as they discriminated against minority job seekers.